In this episode, Joe interviews Charles Stang: Professor of Early Christian Thought and the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School.

The Center was created to gain a better understanding of world religions by bringing scholars from their respective countries to study and live alongside Divinity School students. As students and Stang started to become interested in psychedelics, a zoom series, “Psychedelics and the Future of Religion,” began, and the school just hosted their second conference, “Psychedelic Intersections: Cross Cultural Manifestations of the Sacred.” Next year’s Psychedelics and Spirituality conference will take place February 15, 2025.

He discusses:

• Harvard’s psychedelic history, and why it’s important to not erase the past out of the interest of presumed legitimacy
• How people are consistently having extraordinary experiences with psychedelics, but not always with religion: Are people becoming less (or more) religious?
• The Immortality Key, the Eleusinian mysteries, and psychedelic enthusiasts’ need to connect Christianity with psychedelics
• Psychedelics and other mystery religions, like Hermeticism and Mithraism
• Why religion is important to so many people, and how it helps us understand the “more-than-human”

and much more!

Links

Harvard Divinity School: Center for the Study of World Religions

Psychedelics and the Future of Religion Zoom series

Spirituality and Psychedelics conference: 2025

Wikipedia.org: Theosophy

Celestial India: Madame Blavatsky and the Birth of Indian Nationalism, by Isaac Lubelsky

Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelic Sacraments and the Origins of the Vajrayana, by Mike Crowley

The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, by Brian C. Muraresku

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, by Dr. Carl L. Hart

PT236 – Drugs: Honesty, Responsibility, and Logic, featuring: Dr. Carl Hart

The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America, by Don Lattin

Spotify: Harvard Psychedelic Walking Tour

Outside Looking In: A Novel, by T.C. Boyle

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, by Michael Pollan

A Theological Reckoning with ‘Bad Trips’ by Rachael Petersen

The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, & Carl A. P. Ruck

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, by Wouter J. Hanegraaff

Ancientegyptonline.co.uk: Kyphi

Worldhistory.org: Mithraism

Harvard: The Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture

Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale