E-SUPPLEMENT TO THE JOURNAL FOR CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS THEORY
The following is the third of a three-part series. The first and second can be found here. It Was Only a Dream The idea of reaching another layer of reality via hallucinogens is often associated with the dream experience. Dreaming is believed by many New Agers and New Paradigmers to be a therapeutic phenomenon. But […]
The following is the second of a three-part series. The first can be found here. Symbolically, the idea of going beyond the edge of the ordinary world to encounter other levels of reality is a recurring theme in religion and mythology. For example, Hindu mystical texts promise, via practices such as yoga and meditation, glimpses […]
The following is the first of a three-part series. Introduction: Alice and Entheogens In this article I seek to analyze spiritual phenomena using contemporary mythological and pop-cultural referents, such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), and The Matrix. Using these texts as interpretive mediums, I […]
The following is a talk presented at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and is the second installment of a two-part series. The first installment can be found here. II. Epistemological Musings So much for “the deductions from the obvious” that I promised to explore with you. I also promised you some “epistemological […]
The following is a talk presented at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and is the first installment of a two-part series. When I was invited to give this talk, my first reaction was “why me”? As a rather obscure and not very orthodox sociologist of religion from a second-tier West Coast teaching […]
Han, Sam. Technologies of Religion: Spheres of the Sacred in a Post-Secular Modernity. Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society 19. New York: Routledge, 2016. ISBN-10: 1138855863. Hardback, e-book. 142 pages. In Technologies of Religion Sam Han discusses religions’ relationships to new media technologies in the post-modern era. The key question Han raises is: “what […]