Podcast Episodes

Episode 6

This 6th Legacy Edition of Wise Talkers features a 1979 radio show in which I was interviewed about meditation on KNCO in Grass Valley, California. I was teaching meditation classes at the time. It’s an interesting look back on how meditation was viewed 45 years ago, and how I taught and practiced it in a practical, ‘demystified’ way.

With questions from the host, KNCO’s Mark Johnson, and four callers, we discussed: how meditation compares to day-dreaming; how it can be used for planning and decision-making; group meditation; physical and mental benefits of meditation; children and meditation; and the pros and cons of using a mantra.
The 1979 interview closes with me answering a caller’s question about what I had personally gained from meditating.

In the Epilogue, I discuss future podcast plans, including likely taking a break through the November election to focus on my new political blog, Whole New World.

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Episode 5

This 5th Legacy Edition features an interview I conducted in 1981 with Swami Kriyananda, direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda and founder of Ananda Village, headquartered in Nevada County, California.

Kriyananda was a controversial figure in the world of yoga gurus. He was beloved and even favored by Yogananda, but fell out of favor with the organization Yogananda founded, the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) ten years after Yogananda’s death. Several years after being harshly renounced and ex-communicated from SRF in 1962, which was devastating to Kriyananda, he set out on his own, by founding Ananda, to fulfill what he believed to be Yogananda’s vision.

My interview with Kriyananda in 1981 proved have been conducted at a pivotal point in his journey, as just two years later he let go of his monastic vows, including celibacy, and left Ananda. He married in 1985, divorced in 1994. He took up his vows again in 1995 and spent his years thereafter teaching mostly in Europe and India to devoted audiences until his death at 86 in Assisi, Italy.

In retrospect, this 43-year-old interview provides an intriguing snapshot near the midpoint of a fascinating life and career.

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Episode 4

This 4th “Legacy Edition” of the Wise Talkers podcast features an interview I conducted in 1996 on KMUD radio in southern Humboldt County, California. In conversation with two doctors from the heart of the famed Emerald Triangle, one of the world’s largest marijuana-producing regions, we discussed the long-term health effects of regular marijuana use.

There were very few research studies in the United States on marijuana in 1996, 20 years before it became legal for recreational use in California. We reviewed research conducted in Jamaica and other countries, and also the professional expertise of Dr. Marc Phelps and Dr. Bill Hunter. Four listeners called in, relating their own experience and views on the subject, addressing built-in research bias issues, sacramental used of cannabis, and how usage and health effects vary in different cultures.

Only the first half of the original one-hour interview was available, unfortunately, but it nonetheless covers a variety of views on and experiences with cannabis use. After the truncated interview plays, I close with a suggestion of doing a future live-streamed episode of Wise Talkers with listener call-ins, focusing on the use of marijuana not just for recreational or medical benefits, but as an aid in the exploration and expansion of consciousness.

(I did not create a transcript for this episode, partly because it was difficult to distinguish voices when there was cross-talk. However, Apple Podcast displays its own AI-generated transcript of the episode.)

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Episode 3

This third full episode of Wise Talkers features an interview with psychotherapist Dr. Ron Mann that I conducted in 1981. Dr. Mann’s life and career was greatly influenced by a workshop he took in Hawaii in 1976 with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The immediately preceding episode of Wise Talkers featured my 1981 interview with Kübler-Ross – and this 1981 interview with Ron Mann is a natural sequel.

In our interview, Ron relates some extraordinary mystical experiences he had during his 1976 workshop with Elisabeth, and a number of others as well, including during his therapy sessions with clients. He explains how these phenomena integrate with his spiritual worldview, and he also examines them from a scientific viewpoint.

Dr. Mann describes how he incorporates psychotherapy into his spiritual practice – and vice versa – both with his patients and in his personal life.

Finally, I share some thoughts on the view of life put forth by both Ron Mann and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, provide a quick review of Ron’s activities since our interview, and talk about my evolving vision for this podcast.

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Episode 2

This second full episode features a live radio interview I conducted in 1981 with death and dying pioneer Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The episode begins with an overview of the remarkable life of the late Swiss-American psychiatrist, and the enormous impact her lifework has had on how the medical world and the public at large view and treat the dying process. Hospice, palliative care, end-of-life studies, dying with dignity – we owe a great debt to Kübler-Ross for what we now take for granted as the ideal model.

In our 25-minute conversation, we covered a wide range of subjects related to death and dying: what happens at the moment of death; Elisabeth’s convictions about life after death; children and death; working with parents who have lost children in violent incidents. We also talked about parenting and grandparenting, about unconditional love and child rearing.

After the interview, I offer some personal reflections on my own experience with death, and why we should take Kübler-Ross’ views seriously. I close with an invitation to join in an ongoing conversation centered around viewing the many critical problems we face today, individually and collectively, through the lens of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ “radically enlightened” views on death and dying.

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