Re-visioning Religion Jonas Atlas

Jessica Corneille is a research psychologist who has recently published the peer-reviewed paper: Spontaneous Spiritual Awakenings: Phenomenology, Altered States, Individual Differences, and Well-Being. The main take-aways for Jonas were: 1. In the field of psychology spontaneous spiritual awakenings (SSA's) are still often either pathologized or not taken seriously enough as profound experiences that can have very beneficial effects in the lives of people. 2. Although their might exist a huge variety of SSA’s, it seems like there’s a common substrate to them. 3. SSA’s that are not drug induced seem to have even stronger impacts than ASC’s brought about by psychedelics. In their conversation they unpacked each of these findings and their implications.

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Jessica's article, which was co-authored with David Luke, can be found on the website of the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

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Re-visioning Religion is hosted by Jonas Atlas.

jonasatlas.net

Both Rupert Sheldrake and Bernardo Kastrup are outspoken critics of mechanical materialism. In previous episodes, I already had a conversation with Bernardo Kastrup about his philosophical idealism and how that might influence our view of religion. With Rupert I had an in-depth dialogue about the seven secular myths about religion. However, I was surprised to find out that there were no recordings of the two of them discussing one of their core interests together: consciousness and its relation to the formation of reality. So, I reached out to them and proposed to moderate a talk about the overlaps and divergences in their views. In a sense, this led to a logical follow-up to our previous conversations, since we moved our focus from ‘religion’ to ‘God.’ That is to say, we engagaged in a discussion on the divine essence of existence. Casting a new light on age-old philosophical debates, the conversation explored the inherent consciousness underlying all reality in its deepest depths and highest heights. Rupert and Bernardo reinforced as well as nuanced each other’s perspectives, with a thought-provoking dialogue about the nature of the cosmic mind as a result.



For a video version of this conversation: https://youtu.be/Wi1U7Cw4XV0?si=fyXxoTP0mDult2Bt



For the previous episode with Bernardo Kastrup: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/re-visioning-religion/episodes/An-idealist-perspective-on-God-and-religion-e1k4cs9/a-a84m765



And for Jonas' earlier conversation with Rupert: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/re-visioning-religion/episodes/Bonus-the-seven-secular-myths-about-religion-e28i54o



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For more on Bernardo and his work:

https://www.bernardokastrup.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeDZCa3VrRQvzBlVR-oVVmA

https://www.essentiafoundation.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@essentiafoundation



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For more on Rupert and his work:

https://www.sheldrake.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@RupertSheldrakePhD

https://www.facebook.com/RupertSheldrake

My guest today is Rupert Sheldrake, a well-known biologist and author of groundbreaking books on science and spirituality. But the roles are a bit reversed this time. Instead of focusing on Rupert's ideas, we talked about one of my own books.

As you will hear in the introduction of the conversation, when we originally recorded this podcast a couple of years ago, I had just launched a book in Dutch which tackles the seven main myths about religion. I told Rupert that I hoped to one day publish an English translation as well. And that day has come. At the end of June, the translation was published by IFF books under the title Religion: Reality Behind the Myths. 

As such, it seemed like a good idea to put this conversation with Rupert Sheldrake on my own Re-visioning Religion podcast channel. If, afterwards, you feel like reading the book, then you’ll find Religion: Reality Behind the Myths in your favorite online bookstore. Needless to say, it offers a more in-depth look at all the topics I discussed with Rupert and much more. Because of time constraints, we could of course only scratch the surface.

Those who’d prefer the video version can find the original on Rupert’s YouTube channel. But if you prefer the audio podcast, then please enjoy the conversation.

A conversation with Liz Bucar.

Elizabeth Bucar is a professor of religion at Northeastern University and a leading expert in religious ethics. Jonas and Liz sat down to talk about her latest book 'Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation', which offers an in-depth reflection about the ethical and political dynamics behind various forms of religious borrowing.

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Photograph of Liz Bucar: Alyssa Stone

More info on 'Stealing My Religion': Harvard University Press website.

Many years ago, when I first read Professor William Cavanaugh’s book The myth of religious violence, it thoroughly shook my views on religion and secularism. Religion is generally thought of as something inherently violent because it is based on irrational beliefs, while secularism is seen as a rational way of organizing difference of opinion. Cavanaugh’s book, however, completely upends such commonplace assumptions. Considering the continuing popularity of the book, I clearly was not the only one who found his arguments intriguing. Even though the book was published in 2009, he was recently invited to the Netherlands to give several lectures on the topic at various universities. We met in Nijmegen, where he ended his tour, and had a long, in-depth conversation about various blind spots in the daily discourses on religion, secularism, and spirituality.

We were also joined by my good friend Paul Van der Velde, a professor of Hinduism and Buddhism at the Radboud University. Having Paul with us, allowed us to bring in a more Asian perspective on the topic. Our various expertises eventually combined into a coherent whole.

Besides discussing the myth of religious violence, we als discussed violence in historic and contemporary Buddhism, we questioned whether or not words like “religion” and “secularism” should be completely abandoned, wet analysed historic and contemporary elements of the Iranian regime, we delved deeper in professor Cavanaugh’s views the Catholic Church’s relationship with violence, and we wondered whether we could perhaps interpret Donald Trump’s view on life as a form of extremist positive thinking.

Researching themes like spirituality and religion leads to particular conundrums. One of them is the fact that any discussion about religion is always framed within a particular worldview and thus, inevitably, always also brings along its own religious presuppositions. In this respect, it seems fair to say that the American view of religion started dominating the public debates about religion. For example, a concept like “being spiritual but not religious” is often discussed as if it has universal validity, even though it is strongly connected to the historical dynamics behind Transcendentalism, Theosophy and New Thought. So can we truly apply such concepts when talking about other religious traditions? And should we not be more aware of the history behind them and the specific approach they entail?
To discuss such questions I sat down with professor Jeffrey Kripal, who teaches at the department of religion at Rice University in Houston Texas and who is well known for his interesting writings on mysticism, esotericism and the paranormal.
We started our conversation with a reflection on Ramakrishna and how he does or does not fit contemporary categories of the study of religion, which led us into a discussion on how the ideas of transcendentalism found their way into academia; why those ideas arose specifically in the US at the end of the 18th century; how the comparative study of religions later on became strongly influenced by the counterculture and ecstatic psychedelic experiences; why it nonetheless remains difficult to seriously discuss the vertical dimension of life within academia; and what the future might hold in this respect considering the current approaches toward spirituality.
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For more on Jeffrey Kripal, see his website: https://kripal.rice.edu