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The Reformist Language of Plants: Marianne Dwight’s Botanical Watercolors
Join us on Tuesday, October 19, 12 - 1:30 pm, in the CSWR Common Room
Rochelle Johnson, Visiting Scholar, CSWR Transcendentalism Initiative
What most strikes me at this moment in our work together is that nearly every conversation I’ve had here, nearly every presentation I've heard, resonates in some way with the piece I happen to be writing. I find these resonances inspiring. Beyond providing me with additional energy toward my work, they suggest that my project may be not merely a product of my unique interests in Transcendentalism but also an engagement with larger pressing issues that many people find important to our present times, issues we might address through the Transcendentalist tradition. I found one small-group conversation particularly compelling: we talked about how moments of intellectual ecstasy were important to Transcendentalism and to the generative nature of our own private moments of intellectual growth. I find myself wondering how to open space for others, particularly my students in an educational setting, to have those sorts of transformative moments— moments when they might encounter, imagine, and discover the joy of expanding their own thoughts, thereby connecting with a larger intellectual history that stimulates, emanates, and inspires.
Artificial Somnambulism and Hypnotism, by Adam Crabtree
"From ancient times, people were recognized to sometimes fall into a boundary state between waking and sleeping. In this state, individuals seem asleep but exhibit behaviour that looks like wakefulness: speaking, moving, even carrying out everyday tasks. This state was given the name “somnambulism”—a combination of the Latin words somnus, meaning “sleep,” and ambulare, meaning “to walk;” thus, somnambulism means “sleep walking.” The causes of somnambulism remained a mystery, whether by ingesting certain substances, breathing noxious vapors, or engaging in rhythmic movements. Children frequently become somnambulistic at night, and somnambulistic mediums danced to communicate with spirits. Somnambulism was surrounded by an aura of mystery, and this was the state of affairs up to the late eighteenth century."
Read the full chapter and explore other essays in the Archive of Mystical Experiences (AME), a collection of primary-source accounts of transcendent experiences—including visions, out-of-body experiences, revelations, apotheosis, and more—spanning antiquity to the present and traditions ranging from the world religions to Indigenous and new religious communities.
Featured Programs and Activities
Research Reflections
Research Reflections is an ongoing series that features short, thought-provoking insights from the work of our research scholars and affiliates. These reflections highlight emerging questions, overlooked materials, and fresh perspectives in the academic study of religion, often drawing on historical, cultural, and archaeological themes.
Newly featured Research Reflections:
Does Your Diocese Currently Have an Exorcist on Staff? William S. Chavez
Inventing a Church for Shinto, Avery Morrow
Archive of Mystical Experiences
Featured article:
Artificial Somnambulism and Hypnotism
In 1784, the Marquis de Puységur discovered that he could bring about a somnambulistic state at will — “artificial somnambulism” — opening the dynamic inner world of the mind: rapport, suggestibility, state-specific memory, and clairvoyant diagnosis. Adam Crabtree traces how Puységur's discovery flowed into three streams — healing, spiritual (Spiritism and Spiritualism), and psychological — and how James Braid later reframed the phenomena as “hypnotism,” a narrowed, medicalized version of Puységur's vaster vision.
Om-gnosis: The Occult South Asia Podcast
Om-gnosis was the first podcast dedicated to the study of Occult South Asia.
Occult literally means “hidden,” but the word has come to mean many things. Today what we call occult often has deep ties to South Asian teachings and practices, including modern yoga, Hindu and Buddhist tantra, and Islamic esotericism. Occult South Asia is full of intercultural transfers, and many authors and practitioners from around the world have played a role in shaping this milieu at local and “translocal” or global levels.
Newest Episode: Epidsode 20: Comparing Magic, Yoga, and Occultism
Publications
Discover the CSWR’s flagship publications — bridging rigorous scholarship, creative inquiry, and public accessibility.
Theosis (Annual Publication)
Essays, interviews, art, and photography from our scholarly community. Volume 3 (2025–26) spans diverse spiritual traditions and creative collaborations.
Explore Theosis
4T (Texts & Translations of Transcendence & Transformation)
Open-access translations of visionary and mystical texts from across Eurasia and Africa, presented with original languages and interpretive aids.
Order The Pearlsong and Porphyry of Tyre: On Theology and Theurgy
Thinking with Plants and Fungi
Building on a landmark 2025 conference and years of interdisciplinary collaboration, the volume examines the entanglements of mind and matter, nature and culture, human and more-than-human.
Psychedelics, Religion, and Spirituality
Between 2021 and 2026, the Center was privileged to convene an extraordinary community of scholars, researchers, practitioners, artists, students, and staff whose collective efforts helped establish CSWR as a leading institutional home for serious and sustained engagement in this rapidly evolving field.
Under the leadership of Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith, Program Leads (2024–2026), the program operated as a global think tank advancing the interdisciplinary study of psychedelics. The program was part of the CSWR's Transcendence and Transformation Initiative and the Harvard Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture, a collaborative study with the Mahindra Humanities Center and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.
A review of the program's accomplishments and primary initiatives can be found here.
Poetry
In advancing its mission to “promote the study of the world’s religions in their classical and contemporary forms,” the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) has highlighted the intersections of poetry, philosophy, and religion.
Since 2017, resident fellow Sherah Bloor—host of the Poetry Series and editor-in-chief of Peripheries—has been central to this work, offering programs, resources, and a creative venue for HDS poets. The Poetry Series rests on three pillars: talks and workshops with visiting poets, in-house workshops, and the journal Peripheries.
Watch the recording: The Invisible Sun: Poetry, Translation, and the Mystical Imagination with Sholeh Wolpé
Pop Apocalypse: Podcast with Matt Dillon, Lead Research Associate, T&T Database
Pop Apocalypse explores the mystical and the mythic, the paranormal and the psychedelic in popular culture.
The show features interviews with musicians, artists, and writers about how their spiritual experiences and practices inform their work.
Newest Episode: Episode 22: Exploring the Mysticism of Mathematics with Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo
Transcendentalism
The Transcendentalism research initiative reimagines American Transcendentalism as a living tradition that continues to shape religious, ethical, and political imaginations. Through scholarly research, workshop collaborations, and educational programming, the initiative brings together historians, philosophers, writers, activists, and practitioners to explore the meaning and relevance of Transcendentalism today. Committed to interdisciplinary dialogue across religion, literature, political thought, and environmental ethics, the initiative seeks to expand the canon of Transcendentalism beyond its most familiar figures and forms.
Watch the recording of CSWR’s screening and conversation on the new PBS documentary Henry David Thoreau, where filmmakers, scholars, and a broad public audience explore the enduring force of his thought.
In his response to the new PBS documentary Henry David Thoreau, Russell Powell reflects on the central question the film poses today: What would it mean to inherit Thoreau? Powell’s answer frames Transcendentalism as a politics whose hope resides in our always falling short of, but continuing to pursue, emancipatory ideals. Read: Transcendentalism and the Politics of Failure
Peripheries
We are pleased to announce the release of the seventh issue of Peripheries, our annual literary and arts journal.
This year’s edition invites readers into poetry—and art—as a habitable space, exploring themes of privacy, containment, exile, alienation, and home.
Peripheries is a nonprofit literary and arts journal that publishes artistic work that is, broadly understood, “peripheral;” work that explores the interstices between discourses, traditions, languages, forms, and genres.
Thinking with Plants and Fungi
“Thinking with Plants and Fungi is an interdisciplinary exploration into how plants and fungi help us rethink the nature of mind and matter, and humans’ relationship to the “more-than-human” world. The program’s offerings include a speaker series, a conference on “Interdisciplinary Exploration into the Mind of Nature,” experiential field trips for theHarvard community, and a bi-weekly reading group.
MISSION
The CSWR seeks to promote the study of the world’s religions in their classical and contemporary forms, serving both as a residential community of students and scholars and an international “think tank” in the study of religion.
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