Browse Topics

What In The Name Of God?

We’ve got to appreciate that the “New Age” is not immune to corruption, sophisticated fundamentalism, empire-building, or sincere delusion. In any age, a variety of appealing fads will be taking place alongside genuine spiritual evolution. The decision to surrender to a teaching or teacher is not one to be taken lightly.

Saying No

An Interview With Dirk Spruyt

When we filed our 1981 return, we wrote a letter saying that we had a conscientious objection to the paying of money for the purpose of killing people and asked that portion to be refunded. The IRS audited us.

A Practical Faith

An Interview With Swami Kriyananda

At age fifteen, Ananda cooperative village is a thriving northern California community with more than 150 full-time residents — quite a feat considering that the average life expectancy of such ventures is less than 30 days. While its founder, Swami Kriyananda, credits much of Ananda’s success to the blessing of his guru, Paramahansa Yogananda — around whose vision of a “self-sustaining world brotherhood community” Ananda is built — his own strong leadership and practical know-how have been important guiding factors.

Reluctant Resister

I had finally reached, within the secret recesses and labyrinths of this jail, the silent center and perfect still point of human suffering. Behind those thick steel doors, entombed in concrete, curled in a tight fetal position on a cold metal bed, lies the suffering body of Christ.

Picturing The Earth

An Interview With Stewart Brand

Ivan Illich has said he’s realized that computers are deeply new. Flying was not that new, telephones were not that new, industrialization was not that new, cars were not that new. But computers are really new, so we have no immunity to their virulence. Here I am coining money on their virulence.

The Depths Of A Clown

An Interview With Wavy Gravy

I got spotted by a plainclothes cop, who called the Secret Service and the FBI. He started patting me down and felt this bulge in my pocket. He said, “Is that a gun?” and took it out and these teeth started clicking on his hand. I said, “Quiet, our leader is speaking,” and he gave me back the teeth and said, “Get out of here, you’re too weird to arrest.”

Looking Back

Tuli Kupferberg On The Not-So-Bygone Sixties

In the Thirties a lot of artists were radicalized, the Village was radicalized. The streams were always together, and the Sixties seemed to be a real fruition of this period. It seemed as if it was going into the mainstream. The mistake, of course, was that it was just a youth movement, and it made no contact with anything past student life. And when the main student issue, which was the war, dissolved it was seen to be organizationally and theoretically a weak movement, because it was not able to link up with the rest of the country, the working class, the middle class, and with the older age groups.

Changing Things

An Interview With David Spangler

We are completely and wholly unique and in a very special one-on-one relationship with the divine. If I can recognize that in my life, there may still be things I want to do, changes I want to make, growth I want to achieve, but I can do so companioned by this spirit of playful and compassionate lovingness. If I can find ways of extending that to others as God has offered it to me, then I’ve found a real gift.

Hitchhiking And Other Tales Of The Road

The shade of a lightpole, the glittering goose, Marc Chagal

An Interview With Medicine Story

In the tribal way there is a concern not only with the family and the tribe, but also about a continuum that began with the ancestors, with maintaining a way that has been passed down, a good way, a sacred way, and passing it on to the unborn generations. This is the only major world viewpoint that has such a heavy reliance upon the unborn generations. There is a tradition always to plan for seven generations ahead.