Abstract: Psychedelics have led neuroscientists and policymakers to employ lexicons of theology and spirituality, but scholars of religion have been strikingly absent from the conversation. Consequently, psychedelic studies draws uncritically upon classic essentializations of “religious experience” that academic religious studies abandoned decades ago for crucial phenomenological and ethical...
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Abstract By the end of the sixteenth century, textual manifestations of kabbalah—a variety of Jewish mysticism that first emerged in medieval Provence and Catalonia—achieved the status of elite but authoritative lore in Eastern and Central Europe, even if at times they stirred religious opposition. At the same time, and especially in the seventeenth century, the so-called practical kabbalah,...
Abstract This article focuses on the meeting of faith traditions—interfaith dialogue—from the perspective of mystical consciousness. In doing so, it aims to understand the dynamics and potentialities of interfaith mysticism. The contribution of this article to religious studies, in combination with theological inquiry, is threefold: first, it illuminates how the Trinity is directly experienced...
Abstract The study explores the character and meaning of the imagery of the kiss in theZoharas an expression of dynamic union. In order to demonstrate the formation of a specific structure of ideas and their dynamics within Kabbalistic theosophy, theZoharicimagery found in the pericopeTerumahhas been situated here within the context of numerous sources, from which theZohar, through direct or...
Abstract Comparative theology generally begins from a study of texts, scriptural texts that have been canonized, and commentaries on these texts—as well as philosophical, theological and mystical treatises. Though this textual focus gives us access to some of the most subtle and nuanced reasonings developed in various traditions, I am concerned that this textual focus may limit our...
The story of the four who enteredpardes, or the orchard, is thecrux interpretumof the study of ancient Jewish mysticism. The answer to the question of how much mysticism existed in rabbinic Judaism depends on the interpretation of this story. In the history of scholarship of the past several decades, two major approaches have been taken. One approach, spearheaded by Gershom Scholem, although by...
The idea of mystical union with God or a higher being is universal in theological systems, although it may take many forms, metaphorical and moral as well as metaphysical. In Hinduism this concept is expressed in the sayingTat twam asi(“This is thou”); a human being, by finding his or her true immortal self (atman), becomes united with Brahman and, in so doing, achievesnirvana. In Buddhism,...
Understanding the role played by emotion in relation to culture and nature is relevant to theories of religion and to issues of theological method. The extent to which one grants emotion independence from cognition may well determine whether one views religious experience as an avenue available to free one from culture or simply as the product of culture. In theories of religion the role played...
This Spring I received a long distance telephone call from Dean Samuel Miller, who invited me to give this year's Ingersoll Lecture on human immortality. Three days later, Dean Miller was dead. When I heard the sad news, I, as many of you no doubt, began to think about the way he had influenced me, especially during my theological training here at Harvard Divinity School. One of my most vivid...
Man poses for himself his most tantalizing problems. He seeks to discover what he is, to foresee whither he goes, and to find what limits are imposed on his progress. He ponders his connections with the realm of matter, and seeks to locate himself within a larger sphere of an all-inclusive Reality. As a citizen of the world of space and time, man feels an essential homelessness, and reaches out...