Philip Goldberg has been studying the world’s spiritual traditions for more than 50 years, as a practitioner, teacher, and author. He trained as a Transcendental Meditation teacher with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1970 and later became an ordained Interfaith Minister and spiritual counselor. As a public speaker and workshop leader, he has lectured and taught at major venues throughout the U.S. and India. As a professional writer, his articles and blogs have appeared in numerous print and online publications, and he has authored or co-authored more than 25 books, including an upcoming novel and such celebrated nonfiction as:

• The Intuitive Edge: Understanding Intuition and Applying it in Everyday Life;
• Roadsigns: On the Spiritual Path–Living at the Heart of Paradox;
• the award-winning American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation How Indian Spirituality Changed the West;
• the seminal biography The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru;
• and his latest book, the timely Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage.

He has produced e-courses for Spirituality & Practice and has taught many online courses, most recently, The Yoga of Intuition and Creativity, Four Pathways to the Divine, How Hindu Dharma Transformed the West, and the forthcoming An Immersive Exploration of the Iconic “Autobiography of a Yogi.” His special 12-part series, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times, for Unity Online Radio, features interviews with well-known spiritual teachers. He is currently working on two nonfiction books and a sequel to his novel. In addition, he blogs regularly on Elephant Journal and Spirituality & Health, cohosts the popular Spirit Matters podcast and YouTube channel and leads American Veda Tours to India. He serves on the board of the Association for Spiritual Integrity. His website is PhilipGoldberg.com.

Interview recorded November 21, 2021.

First BatGap interview with Phil.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

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Diana Durham is a British/American poet and writer who draws on archetype to explore our identity.

She’s a poet, writer, and documentary film producer who, following a degree in English Literature from University College, London, took the ‘path less traveled’ and became involved in an intentional community in England, the United States, and Canada. In the early 1990’s she was among a grouping who began to explore dialogue and collective intelligence with the late theoretical physicist David Bohm.

Her most recent book Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm’s Implicate Order explores how our thinking becomes coherent when our ‘personality self’ is in a meaningful relationship with a deeper, more intuitive quality of awareness and identity. And it also traces how, when we are disconnected from this intuitive source, our thinking becomes incoherent leading to problematic outcomes.

The work grew out of her deep study of the Arthurian and Grail Myths, explored in her former nonfiction book, The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge, as well as her participation in dialogue with Bohm.

Other works include the novel The Curve of the Land; and three poetry books:

• Sea of Glass,
• To The End Of The Night and
• Between Two Worlds a collection of sonnets (Chrysalis Poetry, UK).

Her poems have also appeared in numerous magazines in the UK and USA, including Orbis, Tears in the Fence, Kindred Spirit, Mankato Review, Northern New England Review, Parabola, and Ecozone@:European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment from Leiden University, The Netherlands,  as well as in twelve anthologies, including Soul of the Earth The Awen Anthology of Eco-Spiritual Poetry edited by Jay Ramsay, published by Awen Press, UK, The 2008 Poets’ Guide to New Hampshire published by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania edited by Andrew Harvey and Jay Ramsay, published by Tayen Lane.

She also wrote, performed, and co-produced a dramatic retelling of the Grail Myth called Perceval & the Grail which is in CD and downloadable form as an audio play as well as a 15-part animated series on YouTube.

She was a Visiting Research Associate at the Women’s Studies Research Centre, Brandeis in 2011, and gave talks and workshops using the grail myth sponsored by the NH Humanities Council (in the US), as well as national and international women’s groups and business executives leadership training courses. In addition to writing books, she collaborates with her husband as writer/producer of documentary films. Their current project is a series of short films, ‘Making Sense’. For their first film, they talked to psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist, author of ‘The Master & His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of Western Culture’.

Website: dianadurham.net

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded August 8, 2020

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

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