Author Spotlight: Lawrence Pintak

Lawrence Pintak is a journalist, scholar, and lifelong explorer of both global politics and spiritual traditions. An award-winning former CBS News Middle East correspondent with a PhD in Islamic Studies, Pintak has reported from more than two dozen countries and written for The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and many of the world’s leading media outlets. He’s also deeply engaged in the contemplative world, having spent more than three decades practicing Tibetan Buddhism and studying Java’s Kejawèn mysticism, while exploring the perennial truths at the heart of the world’s religions.

The author of seven books at the intersection of religion, media, and policy, his most recent nonfiction work, America & Islam, was a finalist for the 2020 Religion News Association Award for Religion Reporting Excellence. Beyond his writing, Pintak has played a leading role in shaping journalism education globally as founding dean of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, as well as through his work establishing media institutions in East Africa, the Arab world, and South Asia. In recognition of his global impact on the profession, he was named a Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2017.

In this interview, Lawrence Pintak shares how his lifelong passion for journalism and writing evolved into a deeper exploration of spirituality and mysticism through his latest book, Lessons from the Mountain Top. After decades of covering the geopolitical turmoil of the Middle East, he turned inward, drawing on his longtime practice of Tibetan Buddhism and fascination with Eastern traditions. A chance meeting with a Sufi master in Istanbul sparked the idea for a book profiling lesser-known mystics across faiths including individuals who despite being hidden from the public eye, radiate profound spiritual insight. Pintak reflects on the universal truths that unite all religious traditions and emphasizes our deep, intrinsic connection to one another. 

Sentient: Tell us about your path as a writer. What inspired you to start writing, and what catalyzed the writing process for this book?

Pintak: I have always loved writing. My path to books was through journalism. From high school, I wanted to be a journalist. And not just in any job; one nigh, watching The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, I saw then then-Middle East correspondent doing a standup on the Golan Heights and said, "That's the job I want." About six years later, I got the job. Books grew organically from that role. My first, which was reissued in 2003 as Seeds of Hate, chronicled America's disastrous engagement in Lebanon and traced the winding path that ultimate took us to 9/11. Lessons was a direct result of my exhaustion with writing about the endless drama of the Middle East. After decades writing about America's twisted relationship with the world's Muslims, I concluded it was simply geo-political Groundhog Day. The images from Gaza and Lebanon were indistinguishable from the images in my own stories 30 years before. I had written six books on the topic and thousands of stories, as had so many other journalists, and no matter what we wrote about the root causes, nothing changed. I have been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism since the mid-90s and have always had a strong personal interest in Eastern religion and mysticism, which ultimately brought me to Lessons.

Sentient: Was there a particular moment or experience that sparked the idea for your book? If so, can you tell us about it?

Pintak: My wife and I were visiting Istanbul and we met with an old friend from my years at the American University in Cairo. I had always known he was a serious Sufi, but at that lunch I learned he was one of the most senior figures in the most renowned Sufi order in Turkey and had helped bring Sufism to the U.S. We immediately thought about doing a film about him. Ultimately, we could not find the backing. I wrote a long profile about him, but in the process realized this could be the anchor for a book that was a series of profiles about similar under-the-radar mystics across a range of traditions. I immediately thought about a couple of other people I knew who fit that description, then began the long process of identifying others. The whole point was to write about people who generally were not known outside a small circle, which by definition meant they were hard to find. I spoke with many of my contacts in the spiritual world for suggestions and had conversations or meetings with many of those people. Some didn't quite fit the profile I was looking for, two were not interested in being profiled ("God knows what I'm doing, that's enough," one mystic told me), and ultimately narrowed it down to those in the book. 

Sentient: What ultimate message do you hope to convey to readers?

Pintak: No religion has a monopoly on Truth. Once you shed the scaffolding of doctrine, the mystic truths behind all religions take us to the same place. As one of the mystics profiled in the book put it, "You climb the mountain on one side, I climb it on the other, and we meet at the top."

Sentient: What chapter or passage was the most fun for you to write?

Pintak: I learned so much from each of the mystics profiled, but the chapter on Michael Holleran was, as I wrote, a master's class in modern Christian mysticism. It stretched my spiritual perceptions in new directions. But in a broader sense, it was fascinating that as I drilled down into the language of these various traditions, it was so clear that they were all saying the same thing using different language. Holleran had a line that I think best sums up the take-away for the book: "God is an energy field."

Sentient: Do you have a writing routine? What does it look like? 

Pintak: My routine on this book was different than all of my others. Normally, I am gathering my material -- sometimes in the course of my other reporting, sometimes specifically for that book -- then I sit down and intensively write the first draft for a few weeks or a month. This one was different. Each chapter was written separately after I finished my conversations with the subject because my little brain cannot simultaneously hold the minutae of multiple traditions at once without mixing them up!. Before I started speaking with them, I did a very deep dive into their particular tradition, reading extensively in often-obscure texts, and adopting the meditation techniques of that tradition. Then I began my conversations -- and these were conversations that continued for months. In some cases, as much as a year. Only then did I sit down and write the chapter, usually in the course of a week or two.

Sentient: What role do you think books and authors play in contributing to meaningful and positive social change?

Pintak: I'm a journalist, so I'm a cynic. There are mass market books that drive trends, but those are rarely trends that are helping humankind. But some books can shape how a subset of us see things and maybe even shape our behaviour. But as I said earlier, when it comes to geopolitics, books have essentially no impact. Just look at Gaza. 

Sentient: If your book could help shift one perspective in our culture, what would it be?

Pintak: Our connection to each other. Color doesn't matter, ethnicity doesn't matter, socio-economic status doesn't matter. We are all part of that same big ball of energy. We emerge from it, we dissolve back into it, then we come back out again in another form. But we never disconnect. 

Sentient: What advice would you give to someone who wants to write their first book?

Pintak: Find a topic that YOU are passionate about, not that you think might sell. Then be patient with yourself.