For our third episode, we welcome the #1 New York Times best-selling author Whitley Strieber. Whitley discusses his boyhood as a Roman Catholic, the erotic dimensions of alien contact, his lifelong meditative practice, evolving views of the afterlife, and the recent U.S. Congressional testimony concerning Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

Whitley Strieber is the author of "Communion", one of the most iconic books in the literature of the unexplained and the bestselling nonfiction book on UFO-related subjects in history. His most recent book about...

The "Psychedelic Intersections: Cross-cultural Manifestations of the Sacred" conference, held at Harvard Divinity School on February 17, 2024, provided an unprecedented forum for the exploration of psychedelic spirituality across diverse cultural and disciplinary landscapes, and welcomed more than 230 in-person and 800 remote attendees. Hosted by the Center for the Study of World Religions, the conference sought to deepen the understanding of how psychedelics intersect with religion, spirituality, and medicine across traditions, modern and ancient, as well as across social stratifications, such as race, class, gender and culture. This year's programming built upon the foundational work of the previous year's conference, expanding the conversation beyond Harvard and investigating the capacity for psychedelic spirituality encounters at the intersections of diverse belief systems, disciplines, and communities.... Read more about Towards Intersectionality in Critical Psychedelic Studies: The Psychedelic Intersections Conference

Professor Charles Stang, CSWR Director delivered a lecture entitled, “Apophasis and Angelology: Henry Corbin’s Neoplatonism” at the 2023 Eranos conference in Switzerland. 

“This is not merely a minor chapter in the history of ideas, but rather a case study in how Neoplatonism has come to serve as a perennial source, or resource, for the reification of modern thought. … Throughout his work [Corbin] champions the Platonic tradition, over against what he perceives to be the deadening influence of Aristotelianism, Sunni orthodoxy, and modern materialism, secularism, and historicism. For Corbin, Plato – or Aflatûn as he is known in Arabic – is the sage whose name stands for what is most worth preserving in the philosophical tradition, especially when wed to the prophetology of the Abrahamic traditions, or ‘peoples of the book.’” 

... Read more about Video: Eranos Conference 2023, "Ideas and Influences on Eros"

A discussion with Jocelyne Cesari, HDS T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding, on her recent publication, We God's People: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations.... Read more about Video: Author Discussion: "We God's People: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in the World of Nations"