Swami Padmanabha is a Gaudiya Vaishnava monk, scholar, and spiritual teacher known for his eloquent synthesis of devotion, unconditional love, and contemplative theology. A prolific author and global speaker, he has written hundreds of articles and three books—translated into various languages—which have been widely praised by academics, practitioners, and general readers alike.

He is the founder of the Tadatmya Alliance and hosts The Free Radical Podcast, where he engages voices from diverse traditions in heartfelt dialogue. Fluent in English and Spanish, Swami regularly lectures at universities, spiritual communities, and interfaith gatherings around the world. His writings and teachings are cherished for their intellectual richness, poetic insight, and transformative clarity.

For over twenty-five years, Swami Padmanabha has traveled extensively, mentoring others and leading retreats, while drawing inspiration from the wisdom of his many guides. His talks and seminars are freely accessible at swamipadmanabha.com, inviting listeners into a space of thoughtful inquiry, inner stillness, and sacred relationship.

Books:

Inherent or Inherited? Bhakti in the Jiva According to Gaudiya Vedanta

Radical Personalism: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion

Evolution in Divine Love: The Eternal Becoming of God, Soul, and Matter

Websites:

swamipadmanabha.com

tadatmya.org

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Interview recorded August 24, 2025

Michael Bradford has been involved in research into Kundalini and consciousness for more than 45 years. In 1977 he traveled to India where he spent six years serving as a volunteer for the Central Institute for Kundalini Research, founded and directed by the late Pandit Gopi Krishna, the noted authority on Kundalini.

Michael has been a board member of the Institute for Consciousness Research (I.C.R.) since it was founded in the 1990’s, and has been Director of Publications during this time. In 2015, he also became a board member of the Emerging Sciences Foundation (E.S.F.). He was also a founding member of the Kundalini Research Network (K.R.N.) and served as joint coordinator for the organization from 1993 to 1995.

In 2014, Michael retired from a career in the IT consulting field, and since then he has been working to make Gopi Krishna’s theories more widely known, and to encourage research into Kundalini and consciousness.

Michael can be contacted at [email protected]

Books:

Consciousness: The New Paradigm by Michael Bradford

Gopi Krishna-A biography: Kundalini, Consciousness and Our Evolution to Enlightenment by Teri Degler

Living with Kundalini - the Autobiography of Gopi Krishna by Gopi Krishna

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Interview recorded August 16, 2025

While expanding his education and eventually working at a number or companies as an HF engineer, Dan's first love was always spiritual exploration. In 2011, after a number of years of trial and error refining the process of self inquiry into deep self investigation, there came an undeniable recognition that he was not a separate self. Simply no one at all. There was only the selfless THIS, "aware existence". This became his permanent condition.

Soon after, (from a certain perspective), Dan left a successful corporate position and his old life, following an intuited impulse to be in a more free, natural and creative circumstance. He now lives with his wife Victoria in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, loving nature, exploring various forms of artistic expression and guiding others to awakening.

Website: deepselfinvestigation.com

Book: Deep Self Investigation: A Modern Guide to Awakening

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Interview recorded July 19, 2025

Savita is a spiritual teacher, mentor, embodiment facilitator and healer.

She experienced a profound shift in consciousness after great tragedy, followed by years of further spiritual openings, mystical experiences and her own deep healing.

She meets people with generosity, humour and grounded practicality. Providing a safe space for them to open to their own divine light and inner wisdom.

Website: savita.com.au

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Interview recorded July 6, 2025

Former barrister turned philosopher and writer, Aedamar Kirrane experienced a spontaneous mystical awakening that began in 2015 and continues to unfold. Unable to find any support or understanding within her own Christian tradition she embarked on a deep enquiry to understand the inner dynamics and telos of awakening. She came to believe in life as an original blessing rather than the doctrine of original sin that she thinks has destroyed our sense of ourselves as sacred beings.

Her spiritual autobiography is Light on Fire: Waking Up to Divine Love, published 2021. Through ongoing reflection and curiosity she has developed her own threefold mystical cosmology that understands creation in the pattern of exodus and return; that recognises all of life as sacred, described through the concept of panentheism; and that the purpose of human life is deification or the return to our divine state while still in human form.

All this is set within the context of the Great Awakening we are living through now, of which the human experience is a micro version. She has come to recognise that spontaneity is characteristic of the human experience of an evolutionary shift in consciousness. Aedamar's awakening is mediated through her mystical and spiritual writing and she recognises sacred writing as its own spiritual path that she calls The Via Scriptoria.

Aedamar's visions are published on aedamarkirrane.com. She blogs at The New Scriptorium.

Aedamar will be opening a wisdom school called "The Mystical Birth of the True Self" in September. It will be a nine month programme to support awakening to our inner divinity. If you would like to be notified when it is formally announced please visit her website to sign up for her newsletter or sign up here.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Summary and transcript of this interview

Interview recorded June 21, 2025

Jurgen Ziewe is not a teacher in the traditional sense, but a witness—one who has journeyed beyond the boundaries of self into the vast stillness of unity consciousness. For over five decades, his life has unfolded as an ongoing exploration of multidimensional reality, shaped by a profound meditation practice and spontaneous Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs) that opened the doorway to a deeper truth.

A moment of unexpected clarity during an ordinary breakfast catalyzed Jurgen’s first direct experience beyond the body—an event that would transform his life and initiate hundreds of journeys into higher realms. What he discovered was not theory, but a living presence—structured, luminous, and more real than waking life.

Rather than building an identity around these experiences, Jurgen surrendered ever more deeply into stillness. His work, including the acclaimed books Multidimensional Man, Vistas of Infinity, and The Ten Minute Moment, offers not just insight but transmission—a quiet resonance that awakens something remembered but long forgotten.

Audiences often speak of his presence as calming, expansive, and strangely familiar. His seminars and talks evoke deep shifts—not through persuasion, but through the palpable stillness from which he speaks.

A renowned illustrator by profession, Jurgen now brings his inner visions to life using cutting-edge virtual reality and AI, offering immersive glimpses into realities beyond the senses.

He offers no dogma, only a clear, ego-free reflection of the vast peace and joy available when the self dissolves into unity. His life is not a performance, but a quiet act of service—a transmission from stillness to stillness.

Books:

Multidimensional Man (2008)

Vistas of Infinity (2015),

The Ten Minute Moment

Explorations in Consciousness: A New Approach to Out-of-Body Experiences

The Phase: Shattering the Illusion of Reality

New Territories

Elysium Unveiled: A Visual Odyssey of Life Eternal

Websites:

multidimensionalman.com

Some of Jurgen’s “multidimensional” artwork

Virtual reality videos

Celestial-Song – Angel of the Earth – A new virtual reality project between Jurgen and composer Craig Pruess

Jurgen’s commercial art

Videos:

About Elysium Unveiled - A Visual Journey through Life Eternal

A video of the final chapter of Jurgen's book “Multidimensional Man” "which illustrates better than the words in my book the entry into Unity consciousness during an Out-of-body experience."

"A spontaneous entry into unity consciousness after I recovered from a cancer operation in 2011"

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

First BatGap interview with Jurgen

Summary and transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded June 7, 2025

Diarmuid O'Murchu, a member of the Sacred Heart Missionary Order, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin Ireland, is a social psychologist whose early working life had been in social ministry, predominantly in London, UK. In more recent years he has worked as a workshop leader and group facilitator, conducting programmes on Adult Faith Development across several countries. He is a widely read author, with many of his books listed on this webpage. Now as a retired missionary, he lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Books:

When the Disciple Comes of Age: Christian Identity in the Twenty-first Century

Doing Theology in an Evolutionary Way

Divine Radiance in Human Evolution

Ecological Spirituality

Website: diarmuidomurchu.com

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Summary and transcript of this interview

Interview recorded May 17, 2025

Julie Seido Nelson is a transmitted teacher (Sensei) in the Maezumi Roshi Zen lineage. Her home Zen community is the Greater Boston Zen Center, a sangha which has experienced three major upheavals due to teacher arrogance and abuses of power over the last several years. She is also a teacher at the Great Plains Zen Center in Monroe, Wisconsin, and has written for Buddhist audiences in Tricycle magazine and on her blog.

Having begun Zen practice in 2004, she has found it to be of immense value. She is deeply saddened when people, either in addition to or instead of realizing the benefits, suffer great harm.

When not reflecting writing about Zen, she sometimes writes and give talks based on her pre-retirement academic work as a feminist and ecological economist. She enjoys visiting her two children and two grandchildren and enjoying the New England outdoors.

Books:

Practicing Safe Zen: Navigating the Pitfalls on the Road to Liberation (Monkfish, 2025)

Amazon

Indie Pubs

Economics for Humans (University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed. 2018)

Website: julieanelson.com

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Summary and transcript of this interview

Interview recorded May 11, 2025

Stephan Martin is an astronomer, educator, and author who has taught astronomy, physics, and consciousness studies at colleges, universities, and learning centers across the US for over thirty years. He is currently Director of the Deeptime Leadership Program at the Deeptime Network, where he helps develop and facilitate transformative and innovative leadership programs that support a flourishing future that works for all. Steve is active in leading workshops, lectures, and experiences that bring insights and wisdom from the cosmos down to Earth and everyday life. His first book Cosmic Conversations is a multidisciplinary approach to exploring the universe through the lenses of science, spirituality and culture, and his second book Living a Cosmic Life helps people navigate crisis and change from a cosmic evolutionary perspective. You can find more about him at: cosmicconversations.org and dtnetwork.org.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Summary and transcript of this interview

Interview recorded April 25, 2025

Mary Mueller Shutan is a spiritual healer, teacher, and author. She is the author of

The Spiritual Awakening Guide: Kundalini, Psychic Abilities, and the Conditioned Layers of Reality

Managing Psychic Abilities: A Real World Guide for the Highly Sensitive Person

Shadow Work for the Soul: Seeing Beauty in the Dark

The Body Deva: Working with the Spiritual Consciousness of the Body

Working with Kundalini: An Experiential Guide to the Process of Awakening

The Shamanic Workbook series, and

The Complete Cord Course: Working with Cords through Energy Work and Shamanic Healing

She combines her extensive education with her personal meditative practices and direct revelation of the spirit world. She has been serving her community as a spiritual healer and teacher since 2004.

Website: maryshutan.com

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group

Full interview, edited for readability

Interview recorded April 5, 2025