The seed of Mystery School was planted at Imagination, 10 September 1992 at Townsend in San Francisco. Promoted by Richard Sun, the lineup included a live performance by Mindarc, Seofon's musical project at the time. Contact between Sun and Seofon was intermittent for the next year, while Seofon completed his first solo album, and upon its completion Richard proposed a collaboration, the fruit of which was the ninety-minute "Mantram" (two excerpts of which have been released). Sun and Seofon were immediately aware of their common interests and effective chemistry, and decided to form a subdivision of ATOI called Mystery School, which would focus on releasing records and CD's of material which continued the transmission of the mystery schools of ancient and modern times.
The songwriting process for Mystery School usually begins with a meditation or dream for Richard which introduces the new song as a kind of mantra. The studio session then starts an an extensive dialog on the material that is to be brought forward in the transmission, with attention to both experimentation and cohesion of the album. The piece is thus created first on the mental level first; then it is just a matter of putting the pieces together on the physical plane with Seofon. Richard relies heavily upon the techniques of automatic drawing, channeling inspiration with whatever tools are available. Although Mystery School is electronically based, Richard occasionally plays e-bow electric guitar and performs incantations for injections of raw energy.
Mystery School has the awareness that new technology, even like electronic music instruments, affects the destiny of humanity, and that music is not about becoming a rock star but about discovering and learning--both for the artist and the listener. Evolution in the present time requires more than a rock & roll mentality or a product mentality -- We want to change and open that paradigm, and facilitate the progress to a galactic mind. We are clearly in intense times on this planet. ATOI and Mystery School focus explicitly on religion and prophecy because religion is used to program and control people, but we have power over this enough to change the "doomsday" prophecies, to demonstrate that we have choice in these things.