Recently on the podcast The Mystical Positivist, hosts Stuart Goodnick and Dr. Robert Schmidt interviewed stick diviner Kenneth Hillsman. Stuart is the newest diviner to the Strega Tree collective. Kenneth has been a member of our collective for many years and is a seasoned stick diviner. Together with Dr. Robert Schmidt they hold a lively, entertaining and informative conversation about all things spiritual, spiritual lineages, Dagara stick divination, Malidoma Somé, the elemental beings, finding one’s path, following one’s intuition, and much more.

Find the description of and link to the podcast below as well as information about Kenneth Hillsman. Learn more about Stuart at his diviner page here on this site. Enjoy!!

The Mystical Positivist – Radio Show #444 – 22AUG26

https://mysticalpositivist.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-mystical-positivist-radio-show-444.html

This week on the show we feature a pre-recorded conversation with Kenneth Hillsman, a diviner in the Dagara West African tradition. Kenneth was born and raised in Tennessee as a preacher’s kid in a very religious family. In college while taking African studies classes, he read Elder Malidoma Somé’s first book, Of Water and Spirit, which planted the seeds for what was to come. While working in the family business, a health and natural foods store, he developed a passion for herbs and roots and how they can heal people. In 2018, Kenneth was initiated into the Dagara tradition of Stick Divination, and after developing a deeper relationship with the ancestors, he began to be shown how herbs and roots can not only heal and help people physically but spiritually as well. As he learned more about past family members it became clear that practicing root medicine always ran in his blood. Now Kenneth uses his divination and root medicine tools to help others along their own spiritual journeys, and he looks forward to one day making the trip to Dagara land in Dano, Burkina Faso, to pay homage to the tribe that helped awaken the medicine that was deep in his bones.

listen here.

More information about Kenneth Hillsman’s work can be found at: