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367 results

Universal Blackness among the Muridiyya and Its Artists
Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. Francesco Piraino, Tenure-track Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Director of the Center for...
Woman in black headscarf and black robes sitting at a table in front of a pile of salt or white substance with blue tablecoth looking at the other end of the table where there is a table fan facing her.

It Loves To Happen
Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. I am a painter. The first thing I do in any new studio is to write—in tiny pencil letters, in a corner or by the...
Painting of man with head bursting with colors

Knowledge Like Life-Giving Rain  

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. Imagine living in a world where you are told that most of what is around you is only an opaque refraction of true...
Mountain ranges one behind the other, clouds and soft light

Aryavarta, Land of the Noble Ones

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. In 1891, readers of a small American journal called The Path encountered an article by a Jodhpur pandit titled...
Helena Blavatsky reading a book

The Childless Ascetic

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. When I was seven years old, through songs and poems, my teacher, a widow, instilled in me an awareness of the...
A group of sadhus walking on the street, some carrying sticks

How Psychedelic Science Invented a History of Religion

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions. It is challenging for me to imagine a time before the concept of “the psychedelic” existed, despite its emergence...
Lab desk with magnifying glass, scrolls, plant specimens, and tinctures

Cultivating Ecological Vision: Thoreau, Emerson, and Goethe
By Ryan Shea | Edited by Russell C. Powell An encompassing ecological vision may be one of our best hopes not only for a healthy and habitable future, but also for a wise and worthwhile present. Such an ecology cannot be less than a science, but it can...
Poppy

End-of-Year Letter from Director Charles M. Stang
Dear Colleagues and Friends, As this academic year draws to a close, I find myself reflecting with gratitude on the extraordinary vitality, intellectual ambition, and creative breadth that have animated the Center for the Study of World Religions over the...

Charles M. Stang

Charles Stang

The Literary Gods of Roberto Calasso

Nicholas Low is a Research Fellow, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School and a Fellow, Center for Theory and Research, Esalen Institute The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic...

Nicholas Low

Image of a man wearing a red robe, writing something

Transcendentalism and the Politics of Failure
By Russell C. Powell A mystery is announced—heralded, really—toward the end of the first episode of Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers’ new three-part documentary film Henry David Thoreau , produced by Ken Burns and Don Henley, which was released...
Thoreau grave

Video: Om-gnosis Episode 20: Comparing Magic, Yoga, and Occultism
In this episode of Om-gnosis, Keith Edward Cantú speaks with Gordan Djurdjevic, an independent scholar and author who writes about global esotericism, South Asian yoga and tantra, and comparative religion. As the author of the books India and the Occult...
Title card for Episode 20