E-SUPPLEMENT TO THE JOURNAL FOR CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS THEORY
The following article is published in three installments. Introduction Zeynep, a 37-year-old Turkish woman, comes from a secular family background. She has traveled to Bali and India on different occasions to participate in yoga and meditation courses. Her main goal for joining these activities was to heal her childhood traumas and release emotions related to […]
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 […]
Osto, Douglas. Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. ISNB 10: 0231177305 Hardcover, e-book. 328 pages. In recent years, the amount of published scholarly work on psychedelics, religion, and spirituality has grown enormously. Even so, many writers still feel it necessary to do a rhetorical dance around the […]
The following is the second installment in a three-part series. The first installment was published on May 27, 2016 and can be found here. Chod, the Rite of Severance Chod, translated from Tibetan as meaning “severance”, is a ritual that focuses on interaction with supernatural entities. As such, one may postulate that Chod is a […]
From time to time Religious Theory (RT) invites well-known academic authors to outline current book projects that have not yet been published. This second installment of the article, released in three parts, reflects a recent talk in California by Prof. Luis Leon, a well-known author of several key books on the theory of Latino religions […]