In this episode I am joined by Dr Alexander Arguelles, linguist, world-renowned polyglot, and scholar of comparative religion.

In this episode, Dr Arguelles recounts his unusual upbringing in counter-culture America, traces his academic career through institutions such as the Universities of Columbia and Chicago, and details his remarkable life as a scholar and teacher.

Dr Arguelles illuminates the inner world of the polyglot, listing his dozens of ancient and modern languages and revealing his methods of study, his surprising daily routine, and how deep immersion in language families such as Germanic or Romantic, can unlock all related languages without the need for extensive study.

Dr Arguelles also reflects on his own spiritual life, including his mystical conversion to Catholicism, the unravelling of his vocation as a Benedictine monk, his time in Buddhist meditation retreat, and the ways in which a life of study and language learning can be a profound spiritual path of meditation.

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Video version: https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep199-path-of-the-polyglot-dr-alexander-arguelles

Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

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Topics Include:

00:00 - Intro

01:14 - How Steve met Dr Arguelles

02:40 - Inspiration behind the Academy

05:06 - The power of peers

07:54 - Dr Arguelles’ unusual upbringing

11:49 - Discouraged from language learning by polyglot father

14:41 - Areligious family context

16:19 - Dr Arguelles’ brother’s catastrophic brain disease

17:45 - Encountering Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas at Columbia University

19:24 - Drawn to the Mystery and conversion to Catholicism

21:53 - The unravelling of his vocation as a Benedictine monk

24:03 - Obtaining a PhD at the University of Chicago about dreams in the Old 24:56 - Norse sagas

25:30 - Reflecting on his conversion experience

28:18 - Dr Arguelles’ current spiritual position

31:10 - Thomas Merton and the Mystery

32:37 - Born to be a monk

34:08 - Dr Arguelles’ language learning journey

35:29 - Learning French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit at Columbia

36:58 - Old Norse, Old High German, Middle High German, Old English, Medieval French at University of Chicago

38:34 - The murder of Ioan Petru Culianu

40:03 - Postdoctoral work on 1890s neo-paganism at the Berlin Centre for Advanced European Studies

41:09 - Immersing in the Germanic and Romance language branches

44:23 - Seeking a greater challenge

45:30 - Unlocking the entire language branch

46:59 - Different personalities in different languages?

47:55 - Awakening languages rather than learning them

51:09 - How many languages does Dr Arguelles speak?

54:04 - Dr Arguelles’ regret

54:44 - The advantage of reading texts in their original languages

58:21 - Monastic phase in South Korea and intense learning

01:03:42 - Learning more languages and immersing in self-study

01:07:08 - Dr Arguelles’ daily routine, beginning at 2am

01:08:46 - Emerging from the monastic phase and getting married

01:09:32 - Immersion in Sanskrit and pruning his languages

01:11:55 - Immersion in Arabic in Lebanon

01:13:05 - Attending Buddhist retreats at Haeinsa in South Korea

01:16:47 - Committing faux pas on retreat

01:18:11 - Meeting and marrying Park Hyun-Kyung

01:20:44 - Dr Arguelles’ language meditation techniques and learning as a spiritual path

01:22:14 - Languages offered at the Academy

01:24:27 - Learning Sanskrit

01:25:37 - Comparative religions and the Great Books

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To find our more about Dr Alexander Arguelles and his Academy, visit:

- https://www.alexanderarguelles.com/academy/

For more interviews, videos, and more visit:

- https://www.guruviking.com

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Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James