Transcendence and Transformation is an initiative to study religious and spiritual traditions and practices—ancient and modern, global in reach—that aim to transcend our normal states of being, consciousness, and embodiment, and thus to transform the individual, community, and society.
This initiative affirms the existence of the sacred, different levels of reality, seen and unseen, and different modes of access to them. This initiative will investigate what might be called “metaphysics and mysticism,” by which is meant the traditions across time, people, and place that have cultivated practices of transcendence and transformation, and have articulated scaffolded worldviews to make sense of those practices.
Throughout history and across cultures, humans have developed rituals and practices to explore and to experience different levels of reality. These practices include many modes and means of transcendence and transformation—from silence to song, from sitting meditation to ecstatic dance, from spiritual reading of texts to psychedelic sacraments, and many more besides. These methods have been developed for exploration and expanded experience, but also for treating ills that afflict the individual and the group – ills that today go by such names as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
These “spiritual exercises” are often termed “ecstatic”—that is, they usher us outside (ek-) our accustomed states of being and understanding (stasis), and invite us into new relationship with ourselves, our fellow humans, and our more-than-human neighbors, including the earth’s mineral, plant, and animal life, but also those beings we name spirits, angels, demons, and gods—visible and invisible, real and imagined, malevolent and benign.
As is fitting for the CSWR, it studies the traditions of transcendence and transformation in the so-called "world religions," but also those traditions excluded by that framework, including indigenous religious traditions, and those that have been, for better or for worse, grouped under such categories as “animism,” “paganism,” and “shamanism” (to name only a few).
Transcendence and Transformation also studies these traditions and practices as a resource for contemporary religion and spirituality—the ways elements of these traditions and practices are continually disassembled and reassembled for contemporary use—what often goes under the name of “syncretism”—especially by so-called “seekers” and those who identify as “spiritual but not religious.”
We invite you to learn more about the initiative and to participate in our events, study groups, and other activities.
Photo by Sami Takarautio on Unsplash
