Knowledge Must Bow to Spirit: A Journey with George Inness
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Release Date: 04/30/2025
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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Waking Up: Dreams, Enlightenment, and the Space Between
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if waking up isn’t a single breakthrough moment—but a layered, looping journey through insight, fear, wonder, and mystery? In this episode, we explore the complex terrain of spiritual awakening through dreams, false awakenings, mystical encounters, and moments of terrifying clarity. From Michael’s lucid Spirit Train dream to Jeff’s powerful visitation from a fierce divine feminine presence, we ask: What does it really mean to wake up—is it a one time affair or is it a journey, a process? We dig into the paradoxes of awakening: how it can feel ecstatic or annihilating, grounding...
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Searching for a God We Will Never Find with John Hamilton
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What happens when the walls of traditional religion crumble, and all that’s left is raw, unfiltered awe? In this episode we sit down with John Hamilton—UCC minister, musician, and author of the excellent theological memoir Honest to God. Guided by the book, the three of us dive into the chaos and beauty of spiritual awakening in an era of collapsing institutions. John Hamilton was born into a spirited Irish-American family of singers and storytellers. Breaking with his strict Catholic upbringing, he embarked on a career in music that immersed him in the colorful but dangerous world...
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The Homa & the Chapel Perilous
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What happens when you call on Jesus in an ancient Vedic fire ritual? Will he show up? How? In this episode, Michael shares his experience with Homa, a Vedic fire ceremony, and what happened when he decided to dedicate it to Jesus. The result was an unfolding series of synchronicities—stretching across years, continents, and eventually even into the Spirit Train dream—culminating in a moment of undeniable presence. Meanwhile, we explore the Chapel Perilous, the threshold between belief and madness, where meaning breaks through in ways that can’t be ignored. We briefly summarize the...
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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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All Aboard the Spirit Train: Dreams, Discernment, and Anxiety
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...
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Star Wars, Hidden Histories, and the Stories That Shape Us with AJ Musewe
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Why do Star Wars, Harry Potter, and other sci-fi/fantasy stories resonate so deeply with us? What do they reveal about power, identity, and spirituality? In this episode of we sit down with historian and educator AJ Musewe to explore the power of myth, the narratives we inherit, and how reclaiming lost stories shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world. From the parallels between Anakin Skywalker and Harry Potter to the hidden histories of the Civil Rights movement, this conversation dives into how fantasy, sci-fi, and real-life struggles intersect in our search for meaning. ...
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Consciousness & the Cross (D.B.Y.D. Pt. 2)
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Is the self an illusion—or something real and necessary? If we must die before we die, what is it that actually dies? In this follow-up to Dying Before You Die, hosts Michael Ellick and Jeff Mansfield wrestle with the paradox of selfhood, consciousness, and crucifixion. Does awakening mean dissolving the ego, or is there something essential about our individuality? How did Jesus navigate this mystery, and what does it mean for us? From childhood mystical experiences to the Church’s to the potentially heretical path of theosis, we explore what it means to let go—and what...
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Dying Before You Die (Part 1)
The Gospel of Direct Experience
Have you ever felt like every path you turn down leads to hell? In this episode, we explore the idea of dying before you die, a concept central to many of the world's religions and mystery traditions. Is it possible to face the terror of our own fragility and emerge transformed? What if the self you cling to is the very thing keeping you from true life? Join us as we face down Death with stories, poetry, and a dream about battling a creature that refuses to die. Time-stamped Episode Highlights and Works Cited in the on the website. While you're there: to keep up to date on...
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Rewilding the Soul: Wilderness, Apocalypse, Practice
The Gospel of Direct Experience
What if our deepest spiritual experiences aren't found in churches or meditation halls, but in lonely wilderness and abandoned subway tunnels? In this week's episode, Michael and Jeff explore how their earliest encounters with the divine came through wandering in the woods, which later developed into seeking out the "in-between spaces" of disused urban landscapes. From a transformative 2,200-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail to trespass in the post-apocalyptic spaces of New York City, they reveal how conventional spiritual practices often try to recreate what wilderness and devastation...
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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