Simon Cox

Simon Cox received his PhD in the Study of Religion from Rice University in 2019 and is the author of The Subtle Body: A Genealogy (Oxford University Press, 2022). He is a Research Fellow at the Esalen Center for Theory and Research and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) at Harvard Divinity School.

His research focuses on the intellectual history of subtle body traditions, with particular attention to the parallel genealogies of the Western concept of energy and the Chinese concept of qi. Bringing together the history of religions, philosophy, and intellectual history, his work explores how these traditions have shaped evolving conceptions of the body, consciousness, and cosmology across Eurasia.

At the CSWR, Cox is developing a dual genealogy of energy and qi, tracing their distinct historical trajectories from Neoplatonism and the Hermetic traditions in the West and from early Chinese philosophy and Daoism in East Asia. By examining both their independent development and their modern convergence, the project illuminates the conceptual foundations of contemporary discussions of religion, science, and embodiment.