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Welcome to episode 32, “The Queen of Number-Vibration” featuring New Jersey author, feminist, and pioneer of American numerology, Sarah Joanna Balliett (1847?-1929)—though she is better known by her husband’s name as Mrs. L. Dow Balliett. Synthesizing occult numerology, Pythagorean and…

Welcome to episode 29, The Magic Rustling, featuring renowned filmmaker, painter, and musician David Lynch (1946-present). From Eraserhead to the latest season of Twin Peaks, Lynch has forged a dream-soaked art so abstractly unique that it spawned the adjective Lynchian…

Welcome to episode 28, A Sound Within, featuring Buddhist musician, poet, translator, and world traveler, Louise Landes Levi. She has translated renowned mystic writers such as Mirabai, René Daumal, and Henri Michaux. She's released over a dozen books of her…

Welcome to episode 27, “Dance of the Seven Rays,” featuring Armenian priest, author, teacher, and composer/performer Torkom Saraydarian (1915-1997). Raised in Turkey, he survived the Armenian genocide to become a minister in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Immigrating to California, Saraydarian…

Welcome to Episode 24, “The Song of the Violet Flame,” featuring harpist, composer, and religious leader, Lotus Ray King, aka Edna Ballard (1886-1971). Raised in Chicago, Ballard got into metaphysical literature and harp playing as a teenager. With her…

Welcome to episode 23, Music of the Gods. Rather than focus on a single artist, this episode explores the role of the Five Percent movement in the origins and development of American hip hop. Founded in 1967 by Clarence 13X…

Welcome to Episode 22, The South Side Shaman, featuring trumpeter, harpist, composer, teacher, community activist, and astronomer Kelan Philip Cohran (1927-2017). Early on, Cohran joined the cosmic discipline of Sun Ra’s Arkestra for two years. Next he worked with Malcolm…

Welcome to Episode 20, The Obeah Man, featuring Bahamian born singer/songwriter, painter, and Obeah practitioner, Tony McKay (1942-1997). Coming to Greenwich Village in the 1960s, McKay took on the identity of Exuma, the Obeah Man. His mystical wardrobe, lyrics, paintings…

Episode 17, the Galaxy of Turiya, focuses on jazz icon, harp pioneer and multi-instrumentalist, and spiritual teacher, Alice Coltrane, aka Turiyasangitananda (1937-2007). Born in Detroit and raised singing in the African-American baptist church, she went on to radicalize jazz music…

Welcome to Episode 16, which focuses on 19th century abolitionist, song-poet, pastor, and herb doctor, Joshua McCarter Simpson (1821-1877). Simpson was born free but an indentured servant until the age of 21, after which he taught himself to read and…

Welcome to Episode 14, “Signing of Sounds.” This episode features the enigmatic Texan composer and occultist, Jerry Hunt (1943-1993). Living in his self-made home in rural Texas most of his life, Hunt became a virtuoso avant-garde pianist, a pioneer of…

Welcome to Part 2 of Episode 13, "The Magic of Tone." This episode focuses on French-American composer, painter, poet, prolific author, and renowned astrologer, Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985). Coming to America from Paris in 1916, Rudhyar’s intuitively dissonant Theosophically inspired music…

Welcome to Part 1 of Episode 13, "The Magic of Tone." This episode focuses on French-American composer, painter, poet, prolific author, and renowned astrologer, Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985). Coming to America from Paris in 1916, Rudhyar’s intuitively dissonant Theosophically inspired music…

Welcome to Episode 12, Marcotone Meditations. This episode features one of the stranger personas in our history, British-American Edward Maryon (1867-1954). He was a Theosophical composer, a mythical Count, a criminal forger of master paintings, and a man of many…

Welcome to Episode 11, The Cradle of Harmony, on the life of painter, composer, fiddler, inventor, and spiritualist William Sidney Mount (1807-1868). Mount, who lived primarily in Stony Brook, Long Island, pioneered genre painting, giving a strong focus upon African-American…

Welcome to Episode 10, “Surrounded By Infinite Space.” With around 500 works to his name, Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) is one of the most prolific American composers of the 20th century. His works are pervaded by an idiosyncratic mysticism and as…

Welcome to Episode 9, “Born With Second Sight.” Through the life of pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, we meet a self-described psychic, a child prodigy pianist, and a renowned composer of zodiac jazz and catholic jazz masses. From her…

Welcome to Episode 8, “An Unconventional Faith,” in which we explore the radical world of Henry Cowell (1897-1965). Cowell was one of the most prolifically experimental composers in American history. He was one of the first composers to incorporate diverse…

Welcome to Episode 7, "A Veil of Sound." Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is a pioneering composer from the early 20th century, and the first female composer to win a Guggenheim fellowship. Her early experimental work was inspired by the esoteric…

Episode 6, the celestial orchestra of new jersey, focuses on a New Jersey-based landscape gardener and visionary instrument maker, Arthur K. Ferris (1871-1943). Inspired by the angelic visitations revered in the Seventh Day Adventist church, in 1924 Ferris…

Welcome to Episode 5, “The Answering Intelligence.” This episode features composer and educator Arthur Farwell. Raised in an esoteric household, Farwell would go on to incorporate Native American religion, New Thought meditation, and Jewish Kabbalah into his life and music…

Welcome to Episode 4, The Wildwood Troubadour. This episode focuses on composer Anthony Philip Heinrich, aka the Wildwood Troubadour. Through Heinrich, born in 1781, we pass through the visionary theology of Emanuel Swedenborg and Native American religion, to meet Heinrich’s…

Welcome to Episode 3, “Music From Summerland.” Here our focus is on the renowned “Dean of African-American composers”, William Grant Still. One of the more well known composers in this history, Still’s spiritual biography has largely remained hidden, as…

Welcome to Episode 2, Her Dreaming Fingers. In this episode we focus on composer, pianist, and author Katherine Ruth Heyman. Through Heyman we explore the esoteric tradition of Theosophy and itsrole in American music. For Heyman musical pitches corresponded…

This first episode, The Illusioned Ear, focuses on 19th century mystic philosopher and psychic pianist, Francis Grierson. Through Grierson we dive deep into spiritualism, séances, and the illusions of sound. Ghosts are everywhere…