Theosis: Letter from the Director

Dear colleagues,

Our Center may be located on the geographic periphery of Harvard University, in a quiet, oasis-like corner of the campus, but I feel that the exciting research and programming we are doing as part of the Transcendence and Transformation initiative has brought us closer to the University’s and the public’s interest. I am delighted to bring our Center’s work into greater focus in our first edition of Theosis, a collection of essays, interviews, news stories, imagery, and data highlights, inviting you to discover the richness and depth of our research and programming.

The Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) was founded in the late 1950s, when Harvard Divinity School was resolutely Christian in its identity, to herald and catalyze the integration of the study of the world’s religions into the School’s curriculum. Since the success of its founding mission, the Center has been reimagined multiple times. Under my tenure, the Center’s research and programming have been organized around twin poles, transcendence and transformation, by which we mean to highlight traditions and practices that aim to transcend our ordinary states of being, consciousness, perception, and embodiment, thus to transform the individual, community, and society.

We have chosen “theosis” to capture the Center’s range of research and programming under the Transcendence and Transformation initiative. We borrowed the Greek term from Eastern Christian theology, in which it names the process of becoming ever more divine, participating ever more fully, even uniting with God. A Latin-derived equivalent would be “divinization.” There are analogous terms in Judaism and Islam: devekut and fanāʾ. Outside these Abrahamic monotheisms, “theosis” can mean any effort to live a divine life, transcend the normal conditions of human consciousness, transform into something more than human, and become a god. We trust you will see the “theosis” thread woven throughout.

It has been another remarkable year at the CSWR. While it’s impossible to showcase all the incredible research, programming, and publications in a single letter, I’m delighted to share some of our most exciting research and programming and the exceptional scholars, researchers, students, and staff who have made it all possible.

This past year, our research community has expanded to include 24 researchers, visiting scholars, research associates and affiliates, and post-doctoral fellows, and 13 student research assistants. Their work, spanning a diverse array of religious traditions and disciplines, has been instrumental in advancing the Center’s expansive view of humanity and the humanities—what my friend and colleague Jeff Kripal terms “the superhumanities.” Their work has been shared through a variety of channels, including a podcast (Matt Dillon’s Pop Apocalypse), journal papers, conference presentations, classes, books (for example, Andrew Jacob’s Gospel Thrillers and Keith Cantú’s Like a Tree Universally Spread), speaker series (Giovanna Parmigiani’s “Gnoseologies”), and popular essays (for example, Nick Low’s and Russell Powell’s essays in that same issue of the HDB). I want to draw your attention to the Center’s new “Research Reflections” series, in which our affiliates translate their research and scholarship for a broader audience. I want to thank Gosia Sklodowska for launching and overseeing this important new series and Aaron Ullrey for his editorial acumen. You can find 18 recent reflections on our website, including four thought-provoking pieces featured in this publication.

On the programming side, I’m delighted to highlight two exceptional events we hosted in Spirituality and the Arts. In the fall, we hosted “Enheduanna: Voicing the Feminine Divine” and, in the spring, “The Thunder, Perfect Mind.” In each case, we sought to bring an ancient text to life for contemporary readers through scholarly lectures and artistic performances. Specially-commissioned world premiere musical pieces were performed, and portions of the ancient texts—poems in Sumerian and Coptic—were sung in their original languages! These events were unlike any other I’ve ever hosted or attended, and we have CSWR Visiting Scholar Anne Harley to thank.

On November 30, we celebrated the release of the latest issue of Peripheries, the annual literary and arts journal published by the CSWR and edited by CSWR resident Sherah Bloor. That evening, I said, “Of all the efforts the CSWR has supported over these past five years, the launch of the series on ‘Poetry, Philosophy, and Religion’ and the publication of the journal Peripheries were our earliest successes, and are perhaps what I am most proud of as I look back on my tenure so far.” The event featured poetry readings from Victoria Chang, Jorie Graham, and Alice Oswald and a jazz improvisation with Sam Weinberg.

The CSWR is pleased to partner with the Mahindra Humanities Center (FAS) and the Petrie-Flom Center (HLS) on the Harvard Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture. As part of that Study and our years-long investment in “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion,” the CSWR hosted its second annual conference, “Psychedelic Intersections: Cross-cultural Manifestations of the Sacred,” on February 17. Keynote speakers included Luis Eduardo Luna, Director of the Wasiwaska Research Center, and Carl Hart, Professor at Columbia University and author of Drug Use for Grown-Ups. That conference was organized by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith, who both recently graduated from Harvard Divinity School and joined the CSWR as full-time project leads for the CSWR’s portion of the Harvard Study.

We ended the year’s programming on a very high note with our conference, “Platonism as a Living Tradition.” Although the conventions of contemporary scholarship discourage them from admitting it, scholars of Platonism very often understand themselves as Platonists and as part of a living Platonist tradition. Our conference aimed to gather scholars whose writings demonstrate an existential investment in that tradition and to invite them to reflect on their part in it. The later Platonists spoke of a Golden Chain, a community of philosophers for whom Platonism was a way of life, a path of intellect and heart, of reason, revelation, and reverence. We wished to honor this tradition and its relevance for the world today.

We are also laying the groundwork for an exciting conference next May 2025, culminating our initiative, “Thinking with Plants and Fungi,” generously supported by the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation and Wonderstruck Podcast. This initiative builds on the momentum created by the CSWR’s reading group, “Plant (and Fungi!) Consciousness,” which has been running for two years and is led by Rachael Petersen and Natalia Schwien. You might be interested in reading Rachael’s interview with Michael Pollen, who was a member of the reading group in its first year, or Natalia’s review essay in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, or reading about our field trip to the “Church of the Woods” in Canterbury, New Hampshire.

Looking ahead, we are laying the foundation for another year of rich and dynamic programming. Highlights include music, arts, and transcendence, including an organ concert of Arvo Pärt’s music, art exhibits, movements workshops, and a conference on G. I. Gurdjieff (c. 1867­­–1949), the esoteric philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and dance teacher, whose teachings and legacy reverberate around the world to this day. We also have an exciting lineup of events in Psychedelics and Spirituality centered around the themes of psychedelic chaplaincy, psychedelics and aesthetics, and Indigenous traditions. I invite you to visit us at cswr.hds.harvard.edu and sign up for our newsletter to stay abreast of our 2024-2025 programming.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our Center. I look forward to connecting with you and seeing you at our upcoming events!

Charles M. Stang, ThD
Director, Center for the Study of World Religions
Professor of Early Christian Thought,
Harvard Divinity School