Knowledge Must Bow to Spirit: A Journey with George Inness
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Release Date: 04/30/2025
Ask Us Anything—Live!
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Welcome to our very first live AMA episode—unscripted and full of spirit. Listeners showed up with real questions about prayer, mystical experience, cryptids, and the strange space where the psychological meets the spiritual. We talked about what it means to pray when God no longer fits, how to trust the knowledge of the heart, why some people encounter the sacred and others don’t, and whether Bigfoot might just be a messenger from beyond (seriously). It was thoughtful, honest, sometimes strange, and fun! Thanks to everyone who joined us live—and if you missed it, we hope to see you...
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The Gospel of Direct Experience
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The Gospel of Direct Experience
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The Gospel of Direct Experience
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Knowledge Must Bow to Spirit: A Journey with George Inness
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if a long-dead painter could reach across time to guide your spiritual awakening? In this episode, Jeff shares the astonishing true story of how George Inness—a 19th-century landscape artist and mystic—emerged as a living spirit guide in his life. From a chance encounter at a museum to a series of visionary dreams filled with barns, handprints, and transfigured light-beings, Jeff and Michael explore how spirit invites us to see beyond appearances, surrender our over-love of knowledge, and walk the ancient, living path of direct experience. This is an episode about listening deeply,...
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The Gospel of Direct Experience
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The Gospel of Direct Experience
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Awaken in the Dream with Paul Levy
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Read Paul's full bio and the time-stamped episode highlights in the on the website. While you're there: to keep up to date on the all the latest from us about your own experiences, questions, comments Read the latest blog post:
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The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if your anxieties weren’t obstacles but doorways? What if your dreams aren’t nonsense, but portals to deeper wisdom, hidden truths, and paths yet unseen? What if the very fears that keep you up at night are the same forces trying to wake you up? In this episode Michael recounts a dream of cosmic proportions—one that begins in the disorienting corridors of an ever-shifting church and ends aboard a song-filled dragon train soaring into the multiverse. Along the way, we wrestle with discernment, anxiety, and the unsettling realization that reality itself may be more dreamlike than we...
info_outlineWhat if a long-dead painter could reach across time to guide your spiritual awakening? In this episode, Jeff shares the astonishing true story of how George Inness—a 19th-century landscape artist and mystic—emerged as a living spirit guide in his life. From a chance encounter at a museum to a series of visionary dreams filled with barns, handprints, and transfigured light-beings, Jeff and Michael explore how spirit invites us to see beyond appearances, surrender our over-love of knowledge, and walk the ancient, living path of direct experience. This is an episode about listening deeply, following the signs, and allowing Spirit to lead the way.
Episode Highlights
[00:00:47] Introduction: Bringing Gnostic Texts into Real Life
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Jeff reflects on the show’s evolution toward the personal and devotional, emphasizing the need to live these spiritual insights rather than just study them.
[00:03:05] A Spirit Encounter at the Montclair Art Museum
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Jeff shares the powerful experience of being arrested by George Inness’ words—“Knowledge must bow to spirit”—and the unfolding realization that Inness had something vital to teach him.
[00:08:11] Bypassing the Theopoetic Middlemen
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Jeff critiques the academic appropriation of theopoetics and makes the case for going straight to the poets and artists themselves—those who embody mystery, not just define it.
[00:14:31] Direct Experience and the Mission of Art
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Jeff reads Inness’s reflections on memory, beauty, and art’s mission to reveal the unseen—sparking connections to spiritual practice and preaching.
[00:19:43] Dream One: Entering the Haunted Barn
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Jeff recounts a vivid dream where a mysterious three-fingered hand points to a dark doorway and an optical device, leading to a transformation.
[00:27:18] Dream Analysis: The Role of Vision and Witnessing
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Jeff and Michael explore the symbolism of the optical device, the three-fingered hand, and the barn owner’s transfiguration—uncovering profound insights about spiritual sight and bearing witness to change.
[00:39:59] Deeper Symbolism: The Barn, the Handprints, and the Call to Ministry
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Jeff recalls that the summer he first heard his call to ministry, he was living in a barn—and left his handprint on its wall. The dream becomes a bridge across time, connecting his present awakening with his spiritual origins.
[00:43:53] Confirming the Connection: Finding George Inness' Barn
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Jeff shares the culmination of his search for George Inness’ physical traces—finding the land where Inness’s farmhouse and barn once stood, affirming the deep personal connection to his spirit guide.
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