We are beginning our fifth year of writing these MSIA Presidency updates. We’ve appreciated your positive feedback; the articles have been consistently among the most read in the NDH. We are grateful to have this outlet in addition to the Global LA ministers meeting to share our perspectives and current news. The articles are all archived if you ever want to revisit them.
The original MSIA publication was a small multi-page booklet called The Light Side first published in October 1971. It was replaced by The Movement Newspaper which debuted in July 1972 and was eclectic enough to be sold in health food stores and bookshops. It featured interviews with spiritual figures of the day, including Swami Satchidananda and Joya, an American spiritual teacher who Ram Dass briefly studied under. In January 1989, the New Day Herald became the latest version, exclusively featuring activities and articles on MSIA and other John-Roger related organizations.
Deborah Martinez is the current NDH editor. If you would like to write an NDH article, you can contact Deborah for submission guidelines. We encourage everyone to share NDH articles with friends and family. A couple of recent articles are worth mentioning in case you missed them — “From Walking Into Walls to Walking Into Hearts — Part I of an Interview with John-Roger” is an interview conducted by Rick Edelstein on behalf of The Movement Newspaper, that was first published in the July 1980 Movement Newspaper. Another is a heartwarming tale of service “A Ministry That Was Never Built to Expand” by Valeria Aloe, DSS that we particularly enjoyed.
The new method for subscribing and renewing your SAT and Discourse subscriptions is now in place. You now have your own personal subscription page in the student dashboard. You can get to it directly in the msia.org top right-hand side drop down menu under Student Subscriptions, or click on SHOP at the top menu level and select Subscriptions – SATs and Discourses.
When you are logged into msia.org, your subscription page will only show you what you need for your subscriptions — it automatically identifies your current Discourse year and you will see only the options that are right for you. It also shows you when your subscriptions expire so you’re never caught off guard. Guest checkout is no longer available. If you’ve never created a free msia.org login, you’ll need to create one here. It just takes a couple of minutes. Be sure to use the same email address we already have on file for you and allow one business day for it to sync with your student record.
Here is a video that describes the new subscription page.
The next big change will be the online store being replaced with a new MSIA store in the Shopify platform – by the end of the year (if all goes well). It will be more attractive and user-friendly, and will feature books by John and J-R, jewelry, photographs, and fun lifestyle items our team has curated. Initially, the selection of MP3 and MP4 media will be limited, however, we plan to expand the number of titles available over time.
If there are any MSIA seminars, initiates or ministers seminars, or meditations you want in MP3/MP4 format, now is the time to go to the current online store to purchase them. Of course, they will continue to be available in That Which Is. In the MSIA app there is a feature to save videos to an offline playlist, so that you can watch/listen to them later when not connected to the internet. This feature will take up memory on your device (so it is a download in that sense) but you won’t be able to access it outside of the app or transfer it to another device.
We have had some questions about these coming changes – a big one being whether SAT seminars will still be downloadable in the msia.org student download center. The answer is, yes. Nothing will change with downloading the past 12 months of SAT seminars. If you have other questions, our Help Center covers everything from turnaround times to Family Rate eligibility.
Please send your Light and love to all of the above. It is greatly appreciated and really makes a difference! And, thank you to all of you for all that you give in so many ways. As J-R would constantly remind us, “It is the loving that makes all this work.” The times are calling us all to stay in the loving!
God bless you,
Sherie, David, Vincent, Paul, Mark, and Jeffrey
