Ron Mangravite: Modern Meditation Master (A Tribute)

The publicly available information about metaphysical teacher and healer Ron Managravite barely rise above the surface facts of his life:

• Ronald Vincent Mangravite was born in New York City, New York, on August 15, 1933 to Carmine and Ellen Joy Glenfield Mangravite.
• He died in Leicester, North Carolina on October 1, 1998. There are currently no flowers on his FindAGrave entry.
• Proud of his Italian heritage, Ron was a son, brother, husband, and father.

But to a relatively small group of people, Ron Managravite was a modern meditation master.

And given that it’s been more than twenty years since his passing from this dimension, I feel Ron and his work are highly overdue for an online tribute.

About Ron

As I said, there is precious little online about Ron’s life and teachings.

Jan T. Adams, MD interviewed Ron in this article from the September 1, 1993 edition of The Edge magazine. The interview starts with a brief synopsis of the facts of his life and especially how he came to teach meditation:

Sometime during his 30s, Ron Mangravite attended a party where the conversation centered around a topic called bioenergetics. As he listened, he felt a familiarity with the concept, though he’d not heard it before, and found himself saying, “I can do that.” So they all formed a circle, holding hands. To everyone’s surprise, some people began to fall over when he did, ‘that.’

Though he’d had an unusual childhood, marked with serious illness, Ron had, up to that point, lived a fairly conventional life. After completing collegiate studies in chemistry, he held positions in industry as a chemist, and has operated his own chemical consulting firm since 1973. But it was his “taste for the infinite” which began to play a larger role for him after that pivotal party. He became active in parapsychology, investigating phenomena of all types, and was the consulting parapyschic for The Amityville Horror, as well as many other hauntings.

He has been featured on TV shows, magazine articles (New York Magazine, Fate, Psychology Today,) and in the book, The Joy of Touch, by Dr. Russ Rueger (Simon and Schuster, 1981.) In that book in a chapter on psychic healing, Dr. Russ Rueger discusses his own experience with Ron in an energy circle again with one participant vomiting, another shuddering and weeping uncontrollably.

As his understanding evolved and deepened, he widened his circle as teacher/mystic/healer to include workshops and meditation groups all over the country, and week-long intensives with Foundation, his group for consciousness and spiritual growth. Among his many gifts, however, the ability to concentrate, generate, and transmit energy for transformational and healing purposes remains a standout.

My Connection

In 1993 I was fired from my job as a shoe store manager in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and moved back into my old blue bedroom upstairs in my parents home on Gratiot Road in rural Hemlock, Michigan.

One of my colleagues from the shoe store had moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and I plotted a visit to escape the miserable Michigan winter. Secretly, though, I was hoping to move to Athens, Georgia – the home of the rock band R.E.M.

I did visit my colleague in North Carolina, then went down to Savannah and stayed on nearby Tybee Island.

I arrived in Athens and settled into a furnished one-bedroom apartment on Olgethorpe Avenue by the now defunct Navy Supply Corps school.

One day I walked into a store downtown, looked around, and left thinking to myself, “This is not the right store.” A few months later I walked into same space.

It was now rented by Cynthia Gayle Clayton the proprietor of new age metaphysical store called Pathfinder. I’d found my meditation teacher, but didn’t know it; she seemed like an ordinary person to me.

I left the store that day with a book about pole shifts, and returned over and over again for many classes, workshops, and meditations.

Transformation of the Self & the Universe

In March 1995 I attended a two day weekend workshop called “Transformation of the Self and the Universe” led by Ron Mangravite.

Ron reminded me of Sean Connery in the roll of Ramierz in the move The Highlander. He had sparkling blue eyes and a mischievous smirk.

And, unlike the brash swaggering of Ramierez pictured below, Ron on first glance was kind of quiet and unassuming.

But then he started to teach or do energy work, and he commanded the room with startling authority.

In some ways the workshop was boring because Ron lectured a LOT about a host of convoluted subjects. He could talk for hours slowly tying themes together.

Sometimes he didn’t tie things together, but instead dropped a hint that there was more he could talk about regarding…well, whatever.

Long hours of lecture were broken up with energy work and potluck lunches. And as you may have guessed, the big attraction to these workshops was the energy.

The Energy

The sad thing is that, if you have no experience with someone who transmits energy, you may have a hard time understanding what I’m talking about.

Maybe the closest equivalent is the feelings of love or fear. Once you experience those energies, you know them.

Here’s another example: Ron could cause energy to move up, down, clockwise, or counter clockwise. Standing in a circle holding hands with other workshop participants, you could literally feel that movement.

But Ron did a whole lot more than move energy in these simple ways.

He transmitted lightning hot energy (clear/focused) into this lower (dense/cloudy) dimension. And that energy moved through that standing circle.

Words start to fail when you try to describe these things.

Anyway, I was in several workshops taught by Ron in 1995-1998 in Athens, Georgia.

My time in Athens was magical and extraordinary; there were a lot of friends, good food, and great poetry (I wrote a lot of poems in my book The WordStorm while in Athens.)

Ron and his teachings were a large part of those phenomenal years.

Timeline

This is a list of known dates for workshops, retreats, lectures, etc., and I’ll update this list as I learn more. These are listed by year, title or topic, and location if known.

Disclaimer: Some of these have recordings; however, the recordings are held privately and are not available for purchase or download or anything. As far as I know, it’s not possible to buy Ron’s work anywhere. I do not retain copyright control for any of Ron’s metaphysical work.

• 1976 Orgone Energy, QSP Seminar
• 1977 Parapyschology
• 1977 Paranormal Modes of Healing
• 1977 An Alternate Reality
• 1977 Haunted Houses, Pennsauken, New Jersey
• 1981 Transparent Psychology and Chakras
• 1981 Foundation
• 1982 Tampa, Florida
• 1982 {William} Reich 25 Years Later at LSP
• 1983 Aspects of Sexuality at Mensa Snowball
• 1984 Seacliff LT2
• 1985 Earth Meditation, Guildford-Greensboro, North Carolina
• 1985 Esoteric Psycholgy, Tupelo, MS
• 1986 Lambertville
• 1986 Bonclarken I
• 1986 New Teaching in Tampa, FL
• 1987 New York City Group
• 1987 PSI in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
• 1987 New Overview Workshop, Denver, Colorado
• 1987 Cosmology at SE SFF
• 1987 Bonclarken IV
• 1987 Concepts of Harmonic Convergence at UUPSI
• 1988 Bonclarken V
• 1988 Holy Blood, Holy Grail at NE SFF
• 1988 Bonclarken VI
• 1989 Foundation
• 1989 Stargate – Treatise on the Death Process
• 1989 The Mysteries and their Origins, Atlanta, Georgia
• 1989 Myths of Extraterrestrials
• 1989 Psychosis, Olivette SFF
• 1989 Great Space Meditation
• 1989 Creation in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• 1989 Foundation II
• 1989 Mystery Schools and Extraterrestrials
• 1990 Foundation
• 1990 Conscious Dying at SFF NE
• 1990 Meditation Weekend, New Jersey
• 1990 Foundation IV
• 1990 Karma, Consciousness, and Healing Workshop
• 1991 My Death Experience
• 1991 Myth and Psyche
• 1991 Foundation V
• 1991 Summer Intensive
• 1991 Speech at Ananda Center, Tampa, Florida
• 1991 (December 4) Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship
• 1992 Religion & Science: Is the Conflict Over, SFF Great Lakes Retreat
• 1992 Kundalini/Chi, Windham, Portland, Maine
• 1992 Teaching the Close
• 1992 Foundation VII
• 1993 Foundation IX
• 1993 Foundation X
• 1994 What Is Our Future Path? SFF Midwest Retreat
• 1994 Foundation XI
• 1994 Energy System, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• 1994 Spiritual Growth: Promise and Paradox, Poconos, Pennsylvania
• 1994 Universal Mysteries, Sacred Marriage, SFF Midwest
• 1994 Foundation XII
• 1995 Brain Mapping Technique
• 1995 Transformation of the Self and the Universe Part I, Athens, Georgia
• 1995 Foundation XIII
• 1995 Transformation of the Self and the Universe Part II, Athens, Georgia
• 1995 Foundation XIV
• 1996 Opening Into A Higher Reality, Athens, Georgia
• 1996 Myth and Consciousness, Chapel Hills, North Carolina
• 1996 Foundation XV: A View From The Bridge
• 1996 Sacred Geometry and the Mystical State, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• 1996 Space, Time, and Spirit, Athens, Georgia
• 1996 Ego, Ritual and The Twelve, Poconos, Pennsylvania
• 1996 Attributes of the Higher Realms, Athens, Georgia
• 1997 The Initiate Teaching, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• 1997 Greater Mysteries, Poconos, Pennsylvania
• 1997 Ritual and Consciousness, Diviana, New Jersey
• 1997 Tantra of the Body, Denville, New Jersey
• 1997 Tantra of the Body, Georgia
• 1998 Meditation Intensive, Asheville, North Carolina
• 1998 Bonclarken XXII
• Unknown date, Earth Meditation at Awareness Motivation Institute

Notes

• Bonclarken is a private conference center in Western North Carolina. Ron rented space there for week-long intensives.
• Retreats were also held at the Montreat conference center near Black Rock, North Carolina. The Reynold’s Lodge was often rented; it has two communal bathrooms, housing for up to 32 guests, a working stone fireplace, a fully equipped kitchen, and a rocking chair porch.

Quotes

A small collection of quotes pulled from those 1994-1998 lectures. I won’t include the bad dad-style puns and jokes that broke up the long hours of lectures.

To learn to play the role of a conscious being, you are a part of the highest being you consider to be your ideal: Jesus, Buddha, or magician. To fully pass that level, you must become all of them.

You must be in the system. You cannot affect the system and be out of the system. You can affect the system by being above it. You cannot affect the system and be below it. How do you get out of the system? By being conscious, you cause things to happen to other people.

The world is full of dead people. People who formed a functional ego and then refused to allow it to change. They are rigid, strong, solid, and will not change. They cannot conceive of their fundamental nature changing… Rearranging your outer behavior does not accomplish the inner work. Rearranging your inner self gets the work done How? By re-scripting.

Personal power is a high level substitute for functional ego. A person with true power has no need to put people down.

The nature of true spiritual growth and enlightenment depends upon slowly changing your underlying premise. You never lose anything that is real.

In terms of ghosts, the average person on dying has a certain amount of conscious essence which lasts anywhere from a few minutes if they are highly evolved and they are attempting to translate themselves rapidly into some other dimension, or it can last for weeks or months. In the average individual, it lasts anywhere from a day to three days… What tends to last long is what’s been called a shell, a…record of whatever compulsions that ran through the person’s mind. These shells last longer if they attach themselves to something that is physically dense… {Haunts tend to be} an afterimage of the strong emotional patterns of someone who lived in the home.

Every conscious being is in total control of the universe. Why doesn’t one conscious being go to war with another conscious being? They can’t. If they are truly conscious, what is is, and you have no wish to change what is. You simply look around yourself and try to sort out illusion from what is. If you’re really conscious, no two conscious beings will disagree on what is illusion and what is because they recognize that they are each other.

Legacy

Ron Managravite lectured and taught around the United States in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Many times these were small, intimate gatherings in student’s homes; sometimes they were larger venues with more people. But the people who attended these workshops and lectures are still out there today – are you one of them?

• Gayle Clayton taught extensively in Athens, Georgia, and at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York. She has written several books including Transformative Meditation and Mystery School: An Insider’s Perspective.
• There is a course based on Gayle’s Transformative Meditation taught at the Awareness Institute in Sydney, Australia. One of these days, Australia, I’d really like to come and visit!
• Claire Lewis Evans, student of both Gayle Clayton and Ron Mangravite filmed Masks during a week-long retreat in 1997. The 30-minute documentary “follows a group of seekers in an intimate day of mask making as an exercise in delving beneath the everyday persona and exploring the archetypal essences of self.” The video was filmed at the Reynolds Lodge mentioned above at the Montreat Conference Center.

How About You?

Did you ever attend a workshop taught by Ron Mangravite? Do you have a favorite quote or memory? Tell me about it in the comments.