CANCELLED - Reading Group: Psychedelics & Aesthetics
Registration is required.
How do psychedelic experiences influence the perception of art and beauty? What role does aesthetics play in psychedelic experiences, and how does it impact ethical considerations?
This biweekly reading and learning group led by CSWR Student Research Assistant Tristan Angieri, MDiv ‘26, will explore these questions and more, focusing on the relationship between psychedelics, aesthetics, and ethics. Participants will examine psychedelic practices in various contexts, including clinical, underground, indigenous, and other cultural settings. Topics will include the aesthetics of psychedelic experiences, the role of the ludic and creativity in psychedelic experiences, and the influence of religion, spirituality, and culture on taste-making in psychedelics.
Each session will focus on one or more specific psychedelic substances and companion works of art/media or practices, using diverse readings for analysis. Participants will engage in text-based discussions and optional experient…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Psychedelics and Ethics. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze
Registration is required.
Please register to attend Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze.
As one of the twentieth century’s most original and impactful philosophers, exploring Gilles Deleuze's thoughts can seem daunting. His tendency to treat the history of philosophy with friendly suspicion is a good introduction, and by examining his encounters with Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, and others in this reading and research course, we can have our own encounter with Deleuze. We will begin with two weeks of introductory readings before proceeding to various encounters, and in the final weeks, we will examine a selection of his syncretic works. The organizers have chosen three encounters to begin and ask participants to respond to a ranked-choice poll to determine three others. This course is open to the public; readings will be sent to registrants in advance.
This course meets weekly: Subsequent meetings are: 2/13, 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24
Instructor's bios:…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, March 20, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. Psychedelics and the Future of Religion Series: Psychedelics and Islam
Registration is required.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
As psychedelics gain recognition for their medical and spiritual potential, what role, if any, might they play in the lives of Muslims? Does the Quran's prohibition of intoxicants extend to psychedelics, or can they be seen as permissible tools for healing and spiritual growth within Islam? How might clinical psychedelic research better incorporate and support Muslim participants? These questions will be at the heart of “Psychedelics and Islam,” an event in the CSWR’s “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion" series. The event will feature a panel of scholars and practitioners who will discuss Islamic theology, psychedelic research, and personal experience to illuminate the complex relationship between psychedelics and Islam.
Panelists include SUGHRA AHMED, a human rights educator and former Associate Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University; KAMEL ABU-SHAMSIEH, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Psychedelics and Ethics. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM.
Zoom.
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. Magic, Witchcraft, and Occultism
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
This six-session workshop will be held on February 11, February 25, March 11, March 25, April 8, and April 22. To get the most out of this workshop, we strongly encourage participants to attend all six sessions.
Magic, witchcraft, and occultism are evocative, intriguing, and even a little scary, but they are rich perspectives. Magic is pragmatic ritual technology—rather than an adjective for the extraordinary, the unorthodox, or the prohibited. Ethnographically situated, witchcraft is a system of accusations and remedies for the circulation of invisible forces between people, bearing little resemblance to Wicca or contemporary Paganism. The occult is secret or esoteric, and, in the West, it signifies texts and practices hidden but profoundly transformative and culturally pervasive.
Workshop topics include ancient Greek love magic, sorcery in Hindu tantras to witchcraft among the early twentieth-century Azande people in Africa, anti-witchcraft lore in…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Common Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Reading Group TWP&F - The Arrogant Ape: Unlearning The Myth of Human Exceptionalism & Why it Matters
Registration is required.
Meets biweekly from 3-6 PM at the Center for the Study of World Religions.
In this special TWP&F Reading Group meeting Dr. Christine Webb will lead a discussion entitled:
The Arrogant Ape: Unlearning The Myth of Human Exceptionalism & Why it Matters
Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today, many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This mistaken belief enables us to exploit the earth towards our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance. But is this view and way of life inevitable? In this series of workshops, we’ll explore human exceptionalism as an ideology that relies more on human culture than our biology, more on delusion and faith than on evidence.
Subsequent meetings are: 4/9, 4/23.
Programming Series: Thinking with Plants and Fungi. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Walking Tour of Harvard’s Psychedelic History
Registration is required.
While research on psychedelics is ever present in our contemporary moment, there is a long tradition of interest in psychoactive drugs at Harvard University—from the ethnobotanical studies of the 1940s, to “mind-control” experiments of the 1950s, to the “heyday” of psychedelic research and activism of the 1960s. This walking tour traipses through the history of psychedelics at Harvard—stitching together figures as far back as Ralph Waldo Emerson, to little-known heroes of ‘60s drug culture, to contemporary felons, fugitives, and academics. This tour will be guided by CSWR Psychedelics and Spiritualty Program Leads, JEFFREY BREAU and PAUL GILLIS-SMITH. The tour is also accessible via Spotify, linked here.
The tour will cover about 2 miles. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended. The tour will convene in front of the CSWR, at 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA, at 5:00pm, and conclude in Harvard Square at the Kennedy School, at 79 John F Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA.…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Psychedelics and Ethics. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
(617)495-4476.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Center for the Study of World Religions
42 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA.
Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze
Registration is required.
Please register to attend Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze.
As one of the twentieth century’s most original and impactful philosophers, exploring Gilles Deleuze's thoughts can seem daunting. His tendency to treat the history of philosophy with friendly suspicion is a good introduction, and by examining his encounters with Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, and others in this reading and research course, we can have our own encounter with Deleuze. We will begin with two weeks of introductory readings before proceeding to various encounters, and in the final weeks, we will examine a selection of his syncretic works. The organizers have chosen three encounters to begin and ask participants to respond to a ranked-choice poll to determine three others. This course is open to the public; readings will be sent to registrants in advance.
This course meets weekly: Subsequent meetings are: 2/13, 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24
Instructor's bios:…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, March 27, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. List Lecture: “What is Midrash?” with Ishay Rosen-Zvi
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on zoom.
The nature of Midrash has perplexed scholars since the very inception of Jewish Studies as an academic discipline. A systematic analysis of midrashic terminology offers a perspective that stands in sharp contrast to the conventional view, which regards derashot as unpredictable and freewheeling interpretations of the Torah. Just as microhistory offers narratives that diverge from the sweeping portrayals of social and political historiographies, a terminological inquiry can shed entirely new light on midrashic hermeneutics, revealing a depth and structure that often go unnoticed.
ISHAY ROSEN-ZVI, teaches rabbinic literature at the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel-Aviv University. He is currently Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor and a Harry Starr Fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University. He has taught in many universities among them Princeton, UC Berkeley, UCLA and…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, March 27, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Peer Editing Workshop
Registration is required.
Please register to attend the Peer Editing Workshop.
One of several peer-editing workshops where university-wide participants are invited to peer edit a 1000-word selection of any current project. They should bring four, printed-out copies. Peer editing is a powerful tool for authors to receive quick feedback on their work's content and impact. They also receive fine-tuned suggestions on structure, style, usage, and grammar. Participants may present new work or revisions to earlier peer-edited papers.
Participants are placed in groups of three to four, and an initial participant volunteers to be the first author. The authors remain silent while one committee member reads the author’s selection out loud. Then, the committee discusses. Finally, the author responds to the committee and solicits further feedback. All participants take turns as authors. Hearing someone else read one’s writing out loud while remining silent trains an author’s attention to the impact of the words on…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Friday, March 28, 2025, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
Conference Room, CSWR, 42 Francis, Ave.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. Hindu View of Life: Beneath the Texts: Tantric Views of Person, Community, and the Sacred ~ A Lecture with Gavin Flood
Registration is required.
Please register to attend this event in person.
Please register to attend this event on Zoom.
The early medieval period in north India witnessed significant new developments in religion regarding theology, practice, and social impact. A new revelation of texts calling themselves Tantras emerged, generating new communities of practice and being adopted by polities, especially in Kashmir and Nepal. This lecture will present the theological vision of the Scripture of the Eye, the Netra Tantra, and raise questions about the text’s understanding of person, community, and the sacred, showing the continuities of this “Hindu view of life” with other Brahmanical ways. Digging deeper beneath the text, we find this way of life founded on cultural ontologies as the necessary condition for conceptions of person and community that the text presents.
GAVIN FLOOD, Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), is Senior Research Fellow in Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion, Campion Hall, Oxford…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave, Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. A conversation with Religious Studies scholar Diana Walsh Pasulka
Registration is required.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
For this special event, we are honored to welcome Diana Walsh Pasulka, PhD, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology (Oxford Univ. Press, 2019) and Encounters: Experiences of the Extraordinary (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2023). In this talk, Prof. Pasulka will explore her upbringing in California during the dot.com boom, her research into Catholic history and Purgatory, and the pivotal fieldwork that took her from sacred sites in New Mexico to the Vatican archives. From there, she will delve into her collaborations with aerospace innovators, her investigations into UAP phenomena, and how the study of religion intersects with emerging technologies and cultural paradigms.
DIANA WALSH PASULKA, PhD is a distinguished professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a leading scholar in religion, technology, and cultural…
Programming Series: Gnoseologies. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
Zoom.
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. Reading Group: Psychedelics & Aesthetics
Registration is required.
How do psychedelic experiences influence the perception of art and beauty? What role does aesthetics play in psychedelic experiences, and how does it impact ethical considerations?
This biweekly reading and learning group led by CSWR Student Research Assistant Tristan Angieri, MDiv ‘26, will explore these questions and more, focusing on the relationship between psychedelics, aesthetics, and ethics. Participants will examine psychedelic practices in various contexts, including clinical, underground, indigenous, and other cultural settings. Topics will include the aesthetics of psychedelic experiences, the role of the ludic and creativity in psychedelic experiences, and the influence of religion, spirituality, and culture on taste-making in psychedelics.
Each session will focus on one or more specific psychedelic substances and companion works of art/media or practices, using diverse readings for analysis. Participants will engage in text-based discussions and optional experient…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Psychedelics and Ethics. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze
Registration is required.
Please register to attend Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze.
As one of the twentieth century’s most original and impactful philosophers, exploring Gilles Deleuze's thoughts can seem daunting. His tendency to treat the history of philosophy with friendly suspicion is a good introduction, and by examining his encounters with Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, and others in this reading and research course, we can have our own encounter with Deleuze. We will begin with two weeks of introductory readings before proceeding to various encounters, and in the final weeks, we will examine a selection of his syncretic works. The organizers have chosen three encounters to begin and ask participants to respond to a ranked-choice poll to determine three others. This course is open to the public; readings will be sent to registrants in advance.
This course meets weekly: Subsequent meetings are: 2/13, 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24
Instructor's bios:…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, April 3, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. Hackett Lecture: Jennifer Scheper Hughes, “Toward a Counter-history of Global Christianity: Reflections on Brokenness and Transcendence from Mexican Catholicism”
Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
Spanish imperialism in the Americas gave birth to competing visions of a global church. This talk returns to the difficult origins of Mexican Catholicism, arguably the oldest extant expression of Christianity in the Americas, to reflect on the global pasts and global futures of Christianity.
JENNIFER SCHEPER HUGHES, (MDiv ’96), HDS 2024-25 Yang Fellow of Global Christianity, professor, University of California, Riverside, Dept. of History, focuses on the lived history of Latin American Christianity with special consideration for the religious lives of Mexican and Mexican American Catholics. Publishers Weekly named her book, The Church of the Dead: The Epidemic of 1576 and the Birth of Christianity in the Americas (NYU Press, 2021), one of the 2021 top five academic books on religion. She is Co-PI of the University of California Critical Mission Studies project supporting Indigenous perspectives on the…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Event Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Monday, April 7, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Magic, Witchcraft, and Occultism
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
This six-session workshop will be held on February 11, February 25, March 11, March 25, April 8, and April 22. To get the most out of this workshop, we strongly encourage participants to attend all six sessions.
Magic, witchcraft, and occultism are evocative, intriguing, and even a little scary, but they are rich perspectives. Magic is pragmatic ritual technology—rather than an adjective for the extraordinary, the unorthodox, or the prohibited. Ethnographically situated, witchcraft is a system of accusations and remedies for the circulation of invisible forces between people, bearing little resemblance to Wicca or contemporary Paganism. The occult is secret or esoteric, and, in the West, it signifies texts and practices hidden but profoundly transformative and culturally pervasive.
Workshop topics include ancient Greek love magic, sorcery in Hindu tantras to witchcraft among the early twentieth-century Azande people in Africa, anti-witchcraft lore in…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Common Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Reading Group: TWP&F: Roundtable on Northern European Plant Magic & Folklore
Registration is required.
Meets biweekly from 3-5 PM at the Center for the Study of World Religions.
Recent scientific research has shed light on the sophisticated ways plants and fungi sense, make sense of, and interact with the world. Alongside these discoveries is a wave of interest in the “more-than-human” humanities—a scholarship raising fundamental questions about the nature of the human and the non-human: What is mind, where does it extend, and how? , How do plants and fungi trouble our understanding of “thinking” and perhaps cause us to reconsider what it means to be human? , What cultural frameworks give us opportunities to think about next means of engagement? In its third year of gathering, this reading group will explore these questions and more. Past scholarship has included works by thinkers such as Emanuele Coccia, Monica Gagliano, Suzanne Simard, and Michael Marder. All meetings will take place at the Center for the Study of World Religions and are organized by Natalia Schwien, PhD…
Programming Series: Thinking with Plants and Fungi. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Walking Tour of Harvard’s Psychedelic History
Registration is required.
While research on psychedelics is ever present in our contemporary moment, there is a long tradition of interest in psychoactive drugs at Harvard University—from the ethnobotanical studies of the 1940s, to “mind-control” experiments of the 1950s, to the “heyday” of psychedelic research and activism of the 1960s. This walking tour traipses through the history of psychedelics at Harvard—stitching together figures as far back as Ralph Waldo Emerson, to little-known heroes of ‘60s drug culture, to contemporary felons, fugitives, and academics. This tour will be guided by CSWR Psychedelics and Spiritualty Program Leads, JEFFREY BREAU and PAUL GILLIS-SMITH. The tour is also accessible via Spotify, linked here.
The tour will cover about 2 miles. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended. The tour will convene in front of the CSWR, at 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA, at 5:00pm, and conclude in Harvard Square at the Kennedy School, at 79 John F Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA.…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Psychedelics and Ethics. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
(617)495-4476.
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Center for the Study of World Religions
42 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA.
Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze
Registration is required.
Please register to attend Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze.
As one of the twentieth century’s most original and impactful philosophers, exploring Gilles Deleuze's thoughts can seem daunting. His tendency to treat the history of philosophy with friendly suspicion is a good introduction, and by examining his encounters with Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, and others in this reading and research course, we can have our own encounter with Deleuze. We will begin with two weeks of introductory readings before proceeding to various encounters, and in the final weeks, we will examine a selection of his syncretic works. The organizers have chosen three encounters to begin and ask participants to respond to a ranked-choice poll to determine three others. This course is open to the public; readings will be sent to registrants in advance.
This course meets weekly: Subsequent meetings are: 2/13, 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24
Instructor's bios:…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, April 10, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. Thinking With Plants and Fungi: Treadwell’s Book of Plant Magic: A Conversation with Historian Christina Oakley Harrington
Registration is required.
Register to attend in person.
Register to attend on Zoom.
Christina will present a talk on her book, The Treadwell's Book of Plant Magic (Treadwells, 2020/Weiser Books, 2023). This meticulously researched compendium explores the magical uses of common European plants drawn from over 200 historical texts. The book highlights the attributes that plants have been believed to possess, such as attracting love, enhancing fortune, providing protection, and even granting invisibility. Christina will discuss the traditions that informed these practices, share insights into her research and writing process, and reflect on how these ancient plant traditions resonate with contemporary magical practices.
CHRISTINA OAKLEY HARRINGTON is the founder of Treadwell’s Books in London. Fascinated by spirituality and magic since childhood, she discovered Europe’s native religious traditions in her early 20s and has been a pagan ever since. She earned her doctorate in Medieval History from the…
Programming Series: Thinking with Plants and Fungi. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Common Room, Center for the Study of World Religions
42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138.
Reading Group: Psychedelics & Aesthetics
Registration is required.
How do psychedelic experiences influence the perception of art and beauty? What role does aesthetics play in psychedelic experiences, and how does it impact ethical considerations?
This biweekly reading and learning group led by CSWR Student Research Assistant Tristan Angieri, MDiv ‘26, will explore these questions and more, focusing on the relationship between psychedelics, aesthetics, and ethics. Participants will examine psychedelic practices in various contexts, including clinical, underground, indigenous, and other cultural settings. Topics will include the aesthetics of psychedelic experiences, the role of the ludic and creativity in psychedelic experiences, and the influence of religion, spirituality, and culture on taste-making in psychedelics.
Each session will focus on one or more specific psychedelic substances and companion works of art/media or practices, using diverse readings for analysis. Participants will engage in text-based discussions and optional experient…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Psychedelics and Ethics. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze
Registration is required.
Please register to attend Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze.
As one of the twentieth century’s most original and impactful philosophers, exploring Gilles Deleuze's thoughts can seem daunting. His tendency to treat the history of philosophy with friendly suspicion is a good introduction, and by examining his encounters with Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, and others in this reading and research course, we can have our own encounter with Deleuze. We will begin with two weeks of introductory readings before proceeding to various encounters, and in the final weeks, we will examine a selection of his syncretic works. The organizers have chosen three encounters to begin and ask participants to respond to a ranked-choice poll to determine three others. This course is open to the public; readings will be sent to registrants in advance.
This course meets weekly: Subsequent meetings are: 2/13, 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24
Instructor's bios:…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, April 17, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. Magic, Witchcraft, and Occultism
Registration is required.
Please register to attend.
This six-session workshop will be held on February 11, February 25, March 11, March 25, April 8, and April 22. To get the most out of this workshop, we strongly encourage participants to attend all six sessions.
Magic, witchcraft, and occultism are evocative, intriguing, and even a little scary, but they are rich perspectives. Magic is pragmatic ritual technology—rather than an adjective for the extraordinary, the unorthodox, or the prohibited. Ethnographically situated, witchcraft is a system of accusations and remedies for the circulation of invisible forces between people, bearing little resemblance to Wicca or contemporary Paganism. The occult is secret or esoteric, and, in the West, it signifies texts and practices hidden but profoundly transformative and culturally pervasive.
Workshop topics include ancient Greek love magic, sorcery in Hindu tantras to witchcraft among the early twentieth-century Azande people in Africa, anti-witchcraft lore in…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Common Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit cswr.hds.harvard.edu. Psychedelic Facilitator Training: Taking Stock of an Evolving Landscape with an Eye Toward Spiritual Care
Registration is required.
Please register to attend on Zoom.
Caring for individuals who take psychedelics is a meaningful and important service that requires preparation and training for the caregiver. Many formal programs now offer training to aspiring facilitators, although approaches vary. This event will present preliminary findings from a collaborative research program between Roman Palitsky, MDiv, PhD, and Caroline Peacock, DMin, LCSW, MDiv, from Emory University and the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR). The research surveyed psychedelic facilitator training in the U.S. and program leaders to understand the evolving psychedelic training landscape to identify needs, opportunities, and challenges. This talk will explore the state of psychedelic training, different models and approaches, and the role that spiritual care and chaplaincy play in these trainings.
The event will also introduce two spiritual care and psychedelics workshops this fall at the CSWR. Panelists include ROMAN…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and Ethics. Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Zoom.
For more info visit harvard.zoom.us. Reading Group: TWP&F: Special Workshop Series: The Arrogant Ape: Rethinking our Relationships to Others
Registration is required.
Meets biweekly from 3-5 PM at the Center for the Study of World Religions.
Recent scientific research has shed light on the sophisticated ways plants and fungi sense, make sense of, and interact with the world. Alongside these discoveries is a wave of interest in the “more-than-human” humanities—a scholarship raising fundamental questions about the nature of the human and the non-human: What is mind, where does it extend, and how? , How do plants and fungi trouble our understanding of “thinking” and perhaps cause us to reconsider what it means to be human? , What cultural frameworks give us opportunities to think about next means of engagement? In its third year of gathering, this reading group will explore these questions and more. Past scholarship has included works by thinkers such as Emanuele Coccia, Monica Gagliano, Suzanne Simard, and Michael Marder. All meetings will take place at the Center for the Study of World Religions and are organized by Natalia Schwien, PhD…
Programming Series: Thinking with Plants and Fungi. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze
Registration is required.
Please register to attend Reading and Research: Encountering Deleuze.
As one of the twentieth century’s most original and impactful philosophers, exploring Gilles Deleuze's thoughts can seem daunting. His tendency to treat the history of philosophy with friendly suspicion is a good introduction, and by examining his encounters with Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, and others in this reading and research course, we can have our own encounter with Deleuze. We will begin with two weeks of introductory readings before proceeding to various encounters, and in the final weeks, we will examine a selection of his syncretic works. The organizers have chosen three encounters to begin and ask participants to respond to a ranked-choice poll to determine three others. This course is open to the public; readings will be sent to registrants in advance.
This course meets weekly: Subsequent meetings are: 2/13, 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24
Instructor's bios:…
Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Thursday, April 24, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit harvard.az1.qualtrics.com. Reading Group: Psychedelics & Aesthetics
Registration is required.
How do psychedelic experiences influence the perception of art and beauty? What role does aesthetics play in psychedelic experiences, and how does it impact ethical considerations?
This biweekly reading and learning group led by CSWR Student Research Assistant Tristan Angieri, MDiv ‘26, will explore these questions and more, focusing on the relationship between psychedelics, aesthetics, and ethics. Participants will examine psychedelic practices in various contexts, including clinical, underground, indigenous, and other cultural settings. Topics will include the aesthetics of psychedelic experiences, the role of the ludic and creativity in psychedelic experiences, and the influence of religion, spirituality, and culture on taste-making in psychedelics.
Each session will focus on one or more specific psychedelic substances and companion works of art/media or practices, using diverse readings for analysis. Participants will engage in text-based discussions and optional experient…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Psychedelics and Ethics. Transcendence and Transformation. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Conference Room, Center for the Study of World Religions, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA.
Walking Tour of Harvard’s Psychedelic History
Registration is required.
While research on psychedelics is ever present in our contemporary moment, there is a long tradition of interest in psychoactive drugs at Harvard University—from the ethnobotanical studies of the 1940s, to “mind-control” experiments of the 1950s, to the “heyday” of psychedelic research and activism of the 1960s. This walking tour traipses through the history of psychedelics at Harvard—stitching together figures as far back as Ralph Waldo Emerson, to little-known heroes of ‘60s drug culture, to contemporary felons, fugitives, and academics. This tour will be guided by CSWR Psychedelics and Spiritualty Program Leads, JEFFREY BREAU and PAUL GILLIS-SMITH. The tour is also accessible via Spotify, linked here.
The tour will cover about 2 miles. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended. The tour will convene in front of the CSWR, at 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA, at 5:00pm, and conclude in Harvard Square at the Kennedy School, at 79 John F Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA.…
Programming Series: Psychedelics and the Future of Religion. Transcendence and Transformation. Psychedelics and Ethics. Spirituality and Psychedelics. Contact: Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
(617)495-4476.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Center for the Study of World Religions
42 Francis Ave.
Cambridge, MA.