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.…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’.…Topics Include:00:00 - Intro01:14 - How Steve met Dr Arguelles 02:40 - Inspiration behind the Academy05:06 - The power of peers 07:54 - Dr Arguelles’ unusual upbringing11:49 - Discouraged from language learning by polyglot father14:41 - Areligious family context16:19 - Dr Arguelles’ brother’s catastrophic brain disease 17:45 - Encountering Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas at Columbia University19:24 - Drawn to the Mystery and conversion to Catholicism 21:53 - The unravelling of his vocation as a Benedictine monk24:03 - Obtaining a PhD at the University of Chicago about dreams in the Old 24:56 - Norse sagas25:30 - Reflecting on his conversion experience 28:18 - Dr Arguelles’ current spiritual position31:10 - Thomas Merton and the Mystery32:37 - Born to be a monk 34:08 - Dr Arguelles’ language learning journey35:29 - Learning French, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit at Columbia36:58 - 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 Studies41:09 - Immersing in the Germanic and Romance language branches44:23 - Seeking a greater challenge45:30 - Unlocking the entire language branch46:59 - Different personalities in different languages?47:55 - Awakening languages rather than learning them51:09 - How many languages does Dr Arguelles speak?54:04 - Dr Arguelles’ regret54:44 - The advantage of reading texts in their original languages58:21 - Monastic phase in South Korea and intense learning01:03:42 - Learning more languages and immersing in self-study01:07:08 - Dr Arguelles’ daily routine, beginning at 2am01:08:46 - Emerging from the monastic phase and getting married01:09:32 - Immersion in Sanskrit and pruning his languages 01:11:55 - Immersion in Arabic in Lebanon01:13:05 - Attending Buddhist retreats at Haeinsa in South Korea01:16:47 - Committing faux pas on retreat01:18:11 - Meeting and marrying Park Hyun-Kyung01:20:44 - Dr Arguelles’ language meditation techniques and learning as a spiritual path01:22:14 - Languages offered at the Academy01:24:27 - Learning Sanskrit 01:25:37 - Comparative religions and the Great Books …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... Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James