Training for Modern Mystics and Prophets – Matthew Fox

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Embody the wisdom of spiritual pioneers to fulfill your soul’s purpose and live a courageous life of integrity, love, and service.

Experience the transformational music, poetry, philosophy, and art of beloved mystics and prophets — to awaken the mystic and prophet within you.

You likely have a deep appreciation for the power of mystics and prophets to shift your mind, open your heart, and inspire meaningful service in the world…

Yet how do you move from reverence to truly following their example into a new kind of life?

How do you enter their innermost depths and embody their insights, practices, and powers to create an unshakeable connection to the Divine — and live a life full of passion?

And how do you address the profound challenges in our world with their great courage and unifying love?

In Training For Modern Mystics & Prophets with renowned spiritual pioneer, bestselling author, theologian, and change-agent Matthew Fox, you’ll discover — and experience — profound answers to these questions.

You’ll “meet” four of the world’s most revered mystics and prophets (Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Merton, and Mary Oliver) through their inspiring stories and an experiential exploration of their rich music, poetry, philosophy, and art…

… while progressing on your spiritual journey and growing as a mystic and prophet yourself — here to express great love and courage.

When you become a courageous mystic and prophet, you fulfill your soul’s purpose and become an inspiration to those around you for how to live a life of integrity, love, passion, and service.

This powerful training builds on Matthew’s lifetime of work at the frontiers of our spiritual evolution. He’s made a life’s study of the great mystics and prophets in history. (He’s published three books on Meister Eckhart, three books on Hildegard of BIngen, and one book on Thomas Merton.)

Matthew goes beyond what these spiritual pioneers said or wrote — he immersed himself in what they actually did to become such blazing lights of love, compassion, healing, and awakening in the world.

During this profound 7-step journey, you’ll discover:

• Your “unborn self” and become new again
• Where wisdom begins — not just knowledge — and where the gifts of reverence, gratitude, and respect are birthed and developed
• Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Merton, and Mary Oliver as archetypes of the mystic and prophet, lover and warrior — and their profound teachings
• The Four Paths of Creation Spirituality: Joy (Via Positiva), Grief (Via Negativa), Creativity (Via Creativa), and Justice (Via Transformativa)
• Meditations that will help you tame your reptilian brain
• The meaning and importance of “nothingness”
• Your creativity as a divine gift and divine experience
• Sustainability as another word for Justice
• How to embody Hildegard of Bingen’s prophetic voice to experience how she criticizes patriarchal power — and find your own prophetic voice
• How to meditate with Mary Oliver through her poetry and spiritual insights
• How to embrace art as meditation that nourishes the prophet in you
• What is possible when East meets West along our spiritual paths
• And much more…

Matthew has walked the paths of the mystic and prophet himself, having been expelled from his religious order for his transformational views after 34 years as one of the most celebrated Catholic theologians of his time.

He’s supported gay rights, women in the church, healing with Indigenous peoples, eco-spirituality — and even the Occupy Movement in his book, Occupy Spirituality.

He’s not an “armchair philosopher” dispensing spiritual platitudes; he’s willing to show up on the front lines, putting his formidable knowledge, wisdom, and passion into action.

What he’ll make clear in this powerful new training is that becoming a mystic and prophet requires more than a sweet, tender, devotional love for God and Creation — although that’s a wonderful start…

It also requires a warrior’s courage to confront the shadows in yourself and in the world. It means developing the capacity to transform grief, summon greater creativity, address injustice, and stand resolute through life’s storms.

As we establish a powerful mystical connection — and then begin living from it — we discover reserves of strength and love we didn’t dare believe we had.

We become modern mystics and prophets — with our feet planted firmly on the ground, our arms outstretched, and our minds open to the sky.

We become a better Mother. Father. Teacher. Healer. Friend. Citizen.

We let the Divine infuse our words, shift our behaviors, and open our hearts… and we become a true conduit for grace.

In this 7-week mystical journey with Matthew, he’ll offer you a spiritual transmission of wisdom and a new template for your life — a life filled with the unmitigated joy of union with the Divine and the resolute power to make a difference in the world.

What better vision for yourself can you hold?

What You’ll Discover in These 7 Modules

In this 7-part transformational intensive, Matthew Fox will guide you through the fundamental spiritual skills and competencies you’ll need to enter the innermost depths of beloved mystics and prophets — so you can embody their insights, practices, and powers to create an unshakeable connection to the Divine and live a life of integrity, love, and service.

This course will feature teachings, training sessions, and experiential practices with Matthew Fox. Each session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones, so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need to open to the mystic and prophet within you.

Module 1: Finding Language for Our Deep Journeys as Mystics & Prophets

What is a mystic? What is a prophet? By very definition, mysticism is not easily defined or talked about. As William James pointed out, “ineffability” is one of the very signs of mysticism! To put it another way, mysticism (or intuition) is the work of our right brain, and the verbal is the accomplishment of our left brain.

This week, you’ll discover the the Four Paths as a means for journeying into your depths — where your inner prophet resides: Joy (a product of the Via Positiva), Grief and Silence (of the Via Negativa), Creativity (from the Via Creativa), and Justice (the end result of the Via Transformativa).

In this module, you’ll:

• Become familiar with the naming of the spiritual journey on the Four Paths
• Discover where wisdom begins (not just knowledge) and where the gifts of reverence, gratitude, and respect are birthed and developed
• Grasp the purpose of the universe (maybe!)
• Become aware of the archetypes for the Sacred — different faith traditions give it different names, but the concept is the same
• Experience a meditation practice in which you’ll view clay tablets depicting archetypes of the Sacred, created by sculptor M.C. Richards and artist Ullrrich Javier Garcia Lemus

Module 2: Meister Eckhart’s Naming of the Mystical Journey (or Inner Journey) — The Via Positiva & The Via Negativa

In this module, you’ll consider Meister Eckhart’s teachings on the mystical journey, including the Via Positiva — awe, wonder, joy, gratitude — and the Via Negativa — silence and stillness, emptying, suffering, loss, and nothingness.

People experience these realities on a daily basis — in fact Eckhart says that “for the person who is awake, breakthrough happens not once a year or once a month or once a day but many times every day.”

Tactical ecstasies are strategies designed by our various spiritual traditions to bring these breakthrough experiences about, especially if we are hurting from pain or abuse or have been taking life for granted. Thus such practices as meditation, fasting, chanting, and pilgrimage can bring us alive again.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover the power of amazement, wonder, and awe — and your right to it
• Understand the power and necessity of “letting go” and “letting be” as taught by Eckhart
• Return to your “unborn self” and become new again
• Practice meditations that will help you tame your reptilian brain
• Experience the meaning and importance of “nothingness”

Module 3: Meister Eckhart’s Naming of the Prophetic Journey (or Outer Journey) — From Creativity to Transformation Through Justice & Compassion

Following from the emptying of the Via Negativa comes the Via Creativa, the awakening to our creativity.

It has been said that Eckhart had an entire philosophy of creativity, and he invites us to not just contemplate but to be able to live and work in the world. “While contemplating our creativity,” says Eckhart, “we bring God into the world… I once had a dream, even though a man I was pregnant, pregnant with nothingness, and out of that nothingness God was born.”

Eckhart also teaches that interdependence constitutes the basis of compassion. This fits marvelously with today’s physics, wherein we are again seeing the world as interdependent. And he teaches that compassion means justice, God is justice, and compassion is where peace and justice kiss.

In this module, you’ll:

• Celebrate your creativity as a divine gift and divine experience
• Elicit your creativity through the formula of Via Positiva + Via Negativa = Via Creativa
• Name the mystical side as well as the prophetic side to compassion
• Consider how sustainability is another word today for Justice
• Connect Eckhart’s words to the wisdom of Buddhism, Judaism, Sufism, Hinduism, Jung, and more

Module 4: Hildegard of Bingen — Finding Wisdom in Creativity, the ‘Greening Power of Nature’ & the Divine Feminine 

Hildegard of Bingen was a brilliant musician, healer, artist, poet, scientist, and prophet. She challenged societal leaders from popes to emperors, abbots, bishops, and clergy. She championed the Divine Feminine.

A mystic/prophet herself, we will consider her love of nature and the “greening power” of it. Hildegard was declared both a saint and a “doctor of the Church” just seven years ago. This brings her teachings right into the heart of the Christian church. Her love of cosmology and science was explicit — she said “all science comes from God” — and she paints pictures of the universe as science sees it.

In this module, you’ll:

• Meditate on Hildegard’s mandalas and paintings based on her visions
• Allow her amazing music to speak to your deepest Self
• Discuss the Divine Feminine and what this means in renewing our lives and institutions
• Embody Hildegard of Bingen’s prophetic voice to experience how she criticizes patriarchal power — and find your own prophetic voice
• Recover the power of “greening power”

Module 5: Thomas Merton — Deepening Your Journey Through Merton’s Wisdom and Dedication to Peace & Justice

Thomas Merton was a monk who lived in the Cistercian Order, a strict Catholic Order, for 26 years. On a journey to Asia, where he met the Dalai Lama and many other spiritual leaders of the East, he died a sudden death following a talk he delivered entitled “Karl Marx and Monasticism.”

Merton was converted by Meister Eckhart in 1958 to become a prophetic Christian witness to movements of peace and justice. His mystical journey did not stop with his own enlightenment, but culminated in resistance to war, racism, economic injustice, genocide, environmental degradation, and patriarchy.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover Merton’s insightful, humorous, and prophetic poetry and prose
• Deepen your journey as a mystic and prophet, inspired by Merton’s activism
• Discuss what is possible when East meets West along our spiritual paths
• Embrace art as meditation that nourishes the prophet in you
• Discover Merton’s acute criticism of our culture and discuss how it applies to conflicts we wrestle with today

Module 6: Mary Oliver — Nourishing Your Spiritual Journey With ‘Praise & Wonder’

In this module, you’ll explore Mary Oliver’s poetry and how it can enrich your mystical and prophetic journeys. A key category to Oliver is “astonishment” — a synonym for awe or wonder or the Via Positiva. She talks of “wanting to be dazzled.”

Though a self-named “praise poet,” Oliver was familiar with the Via Negativa and suffering and loss. As a child she suffered abuse, and it took her “years and years” to get her love of life back. She writes about the “dark river of loss.” 

Thus, her capacity to praise did not come cheaply; it was a process and a journey. We are the blessed recipients of her largeness of soul. Embedded in her work, her poetry, her Via Creativa, are layers of wisdom for deepening and nourishing our spiritual journeys.

In this module, you’ll:

• Explore the wisdom of Mary Oliver as we journey the Four Paths with her
• Meditate with Mary Oliver through her poetry and spiritual insights
• Become more attuned to praise and wonder, and what Mary calls the “glory of the world, that great teacher”
• Challenge and empower others to become more attuned to praise and wonder

Module 7: Integrating & Heeding the Call of Our Suffering World

In this module, we’ll address any remaining questions that may have been raised, and discuss areas that may have gone underdeveloped due to shortage of time. You’ll be invited to submit questions ahead of time.

You’ll also receive a short summary of where we’ve traveled together and what comes next: what directions challenge us as we move beyond our virtual “classroom” into our work worlds, homes, and communities.

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn from one another’s questions
• Voyage more deeply into your inner and outer journeys of joy and emptying, creating and healing
• Bring together and summarize the teachings from Eckhart, Hildegard, Oliver, and Merton that have nourished and challenged us
• Prepare for the future with suggestions on where we go from here as mystics and prophets, responding to the call of Mother Earth today