What is the oldest ongoing event in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA)? Before there were Insight seminars, before we could take Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy (PTS) classes and Peace Awareness Trainings (PATs), there were the Friday Night Seminars at Prana (now known as Peace Awareness Labyrinth and Gardens) in Los Angeles.

MSIA is a young organization but there are already sacred traditions that serve to assist people on their spiritual journey. The on-going Friday Night Seminars (and the other taped seminars held in private homes throughout the world) are one such offering. Patterned after the live seminars that MSIA’s founder John-Roger brought forward, the home seminars are a reflection of the time when the first few people gathered to hear the Traveler’s teachings. None of these intimate gatherings has a longer history than the one held at Prana.

Ever since the purchase of the beautiful Guasti mansion at 3500 West Adams Blvd in Los Angeles in 1974, there have been taped seminars at Prana on Friday nights. Sometimes only the seminar leader would show up, and at other times the Large Seminar Room would be filled with people. The tradition has endured.

In those thrilling days of yesteryear the technology was limited to audio tapes that had to be manually turned over in the machine to play the second half of the tape. At the end of side one, Phil Danza’s calming voice told us to “turn over the tape to continue the seminar on the other side.” As audio technology improved we soon gained the ability to play both sides of a tape without turning it over and Phil’s gentle admonition was no longer needed.

Video was a giant step forward. Video crews began taping J-R’s live seminars, and those videos could be viewed on Friday night and at all home seminars. In the early days of MSIA, the taped seminars were a principal way of distributing the Traveler’s teachings. These informal gatherings supplemented the information in the early Soul Awareness Discourses and booklets. Each seminar by itself contained within it the kernel of the Traveler’s message. The practice of