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- Title
Calling a New Séance: The Theosophical Origins of Harvard's Center for the Study of World Religions.
- Authors
Stang, Charles M
- Abstract
The ultimate goal of the sympathetic study of other religions is the realization of the transcendent unity of all religions: "There is a fundamental unity and reality back of all religion - a common root in the spiritual world." THE PURPOSE of the present roundtable is to assess Theosophy's complicated relationship with the academic study of religion, from the late nineteenth century to the present.[1] For our purposes, "Theosophy", with a capital "T", here refers first and foremost to the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 - associated with such figures as H. P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907), Annie Besant (1847-1933), Charles Leadbeater (1854-1934), and many more besides - a movement that rose to prominence, fragmented amidst controversy and internal competition, and fell into relative obsolescence over the course of a century - whereas "theosophy", with a small "t", refers to the broader Western esoteric streams that fed into, and in some cases issued out from, that movement. Internal to the document, the sympathetic study of religion serves as an alternative to "traditional comparative studies of religions with their critical evaluations of other faiths from the point of view of humanism, traditional Christianity, or any preconceived systematic analysis" ([2], 18). To tap into this fundamental unity is to not to leave one's own religion behind, but rather to "gain a clearer insight and firmer faith in the truth of [one's] own religion.".
- Subjects
HARVARD University; RELIGIONS; ANONYMITY; SACRED mysteries
- Publication
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2021, Vol 89, Issue 4, p1143
- ISSN
0002-7189
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/jaarel/lfab106