Coast to Coast AM, 2020-08-01: The Hero's Journey / The Awakened Wayshow's image

The Hero's Journey / The Awakened Wayshow's image

Saturday - August 1 2020
Host
Lisa Garr
Guests
Christopher Vogler, Suzanne Giesemann

Christopher Vogler is a veteran story consultant for major Hollywood film companies. His seminal book, The Writer’s Journey, provides observations from Vogler's ongoing work on mythology's influence on stories, movies, and humanity. Vogler joined Lisa Garr (email) on the first half to discuss how he recently discovered that his Hero’s Journey guide was really made for drastic, world-shaking times like these. In 1985, Vogler was working for the Disney Studios as a story consultant when he released a memo describing how most stories (at least the compelling ones) closely follow the concepts laid out in mythologist Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. The memo caused a sensation and led to Vogler’s hiring as a story consultant for the wildly popular Lion King animated feature. He called Campbell’s work "a great template for creating popular films" because it is "a very universal pattern."

Vogler recounted a story of a "vision quest" he took in the mountains above Big Sur California, where he became hopelessly lost until a voice in his ear advised him to "follow the path." By reading clues in the landscape, he was able to find his way back before he died from exposure. He said the experience taught him to "just keep going forward and trust this path you are on" and to not "get paralyzed with fear." Volgler also sees the present state of the world and the COVID pandemic as a classic hero’s journey because he believes we are being set on an (unwilling) "call to adventure" which tests our strength and resolve and which we will eventually emerge from with opportunities to "set a new pattern" and eventually receive, as Vogler said, "a payoff, a reward for it, for having confronted your fears."

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In the second half, Suzanne Giesemann, the founder and teacher of The Awakened Way spoke on working with higher levels of consciousness and how a personal family tragedy propelled her on a mystical journey that changed her life forever. Her stepdaughter was struck by lighting and killed, which led Giesemann on a journey to find out what happened and achieve inner peace. After a few years of meditation, she says she achieved communication with Susan, and also a group of spirit beings or a collective consciousness she said called themselves "Sanaya." Giesemann now practices what is known as "evidentiary mediumship," which uses actual facts about deceased loved ones to establish that they are in fact in contact with the dead by relating such things as "little habits and gestures" of the loved one, she said. Giesemann believes that the recent flood of deaths from COVID-19 has caused the spirit world to accommodate larger groups passing to the other side.

The night of the interview was also Giesemann’s birthday and she reported that she received a visit from her beloved deceased stepdaughter who she said "held my face in her hands like she used to." She referred to her mediumship and communication with the spirit world as "a different way of relating to them" than when they were alive even though "it’s not near the same as being able to hear their voice and feel their touch," but is "better than no communication at all." Even though Giesemann does not habitually make predictions about the future, she said that he guides told her during the show that "there will be cure for this" (meaning the pandemic) but she could not put a date on it. In the last hour, Giesemann took calls from listeners and provided advice on various aspects of the spiritual realm.
Website(s):

mythosophia
suzannegiesemann.com

Book(s):

The Writer's Journey
Messages of Hope
In the Silence
The Priest and the Medium

Bumper Music:

Bumper music from Saturday August 1, 2020

The Chase
Giorgio Moroder
Policy Of Truth
Depeche Mode
Modern Love
David Bowie
Don't You Want Me?
Human League
Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles
Lowdown
Boz Scaggs
Summer Of '69
Brian Adams
Everybody Dance
Chic
It Ain't Over Till It's Over
Lenny Kravitz
Everybody Loves The Sunshine
Roy Ayers
By The Way
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Where It's At
Beck
In The Fade
Queens Of The Stone Age
Spain
Chick Corea
Island In The Sun
Weezer
Inca Dance
Cusco