Project
Sweden’s Mystical Turn
Social Change, Interfaith Mysticism, and Mystical Poetics at the Nexus of Global and Local
Examining the rise of mystical and non-denominational spiritual movements in modern Sweden, this research traces connections between interfaith communities, artistic networks, and alternative religious practices. The work considers how mystical experience became intertwined with broader questions of social transformation and creative expression. Situating these developments within both Swedish history and global conversations on mysticism, the project challenges common assumptions about secularization and spirituality.
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Mystical Language in Theory and Practice
The Surface and the Deep – Mystical Language in Theory and Practice
Rather than treating mystical speech as failed description, this project examines what it actually accomplishes and uses that lens to reconsider whether diverse traditions share a common spiritual reality.
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Focusing on the tombs of Muslim holy figures in Yemen, this research examines how saint veneration through pilgrimage, healing rituals, and visionary dreams continues to shape contemporary community life.
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The Mystical Worlds of Ibn ‘Arabi
The Mystical Words and Worlds of Ibn ‘Arabi: A Hermeneutic & Creative Approach
Using Ibn ‘Arabi’s writings as a springboard, this project explores whether engaging mystical texts through painting, film, and poetry produces deeper transformation than conventional academic study.
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Mysticism Against the Grain
Exploring how mystical ideas reemerge during moments of cultural disruption and change
Examining key moments in twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy and art, this research explores how mystical ideas resurface at cultural turning points to challenge assumptions about identity and meaning.
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Sino-Muslim Mysticism in China
Translating the Ineffable — Sino-Muslim Engagement with Esoteric Knowledge across Han Kitab and Menhuan Networks
Studying centuries of Sufi-inflected writing in a neo-Confucian register, this project reveals how Islamic mysticism adapted across linguistic and cultural boundaries through sustained exchange with Daoist and Buddhist thought.
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Mysticism and the Global Amma Movement
The Religion of Love and the Divine Feminine: From Mystical Experience to Humanitarianism in the Global Amma Movement
Centered on the global movement surrounding Amma, this research investigates how mystical experience becomes expressed through compassion and service, and what it means when a living woman embodies the Divine Feminine.
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Public Mysticism and Peacebuilding
Peace and Action: Beneficial Ripple Effects of Public Mysticism in Society
Moving beyond private inner experience, this project develops a broader model of mysticism that includes communal expression and asks empirically whether mystical practice can serve as a tool for peacebuilding.
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Patterns of Contemplative Transformation
‘Is There a Mystic Arc?’ A Theoretical, Textual, and Empirical Investigation into Patterns of Destabilization and Integration within the Process of Contemplative Development
Investigating whether spiritual transformation follows a predictable arc of breakthrough, destabilization, and integration across traditions, this research argues that recognizing the full pattern is essential for teachers, therapists, and guides.
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Imagination and Mystical Transformation
Imagination and the Ground of Awareness: A Comparative Inquiry into Mystical Transformation
Exploring how imagination is transformed rather than abandoned in deep contemplative states, this project compares Christian and Buddhist traditions to map the interplay between imaginative activity and receptive surrender.
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Modern Jewish Mysticism in Perspective
Rethinking mystical consciousness through Jewish traditions and cross-cultural inquiry
Reconnecting Kabbalah and Hasidism to broader comparative conversations, this project tests new hypotheses about the relationship between study and mystical states, and the role of negativity in spiritual consciousness.
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Mysticism and the Contemporary Arts
Experiencing Transcendence through the Arts – A Comparative Study on Mysticism and the Arts in Contemporary Islam, Buddhism, and Bāul
Through ethnographic fieldwork across Islamic, Buddhist, and Bāul traditions, this project asks whether contemporary musicians, dancers, and visual artists can be understood as mystics in their own right.
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Mysticism and Analytic Philosophy
Mind, Metaphysics, and Mysticism – Bringing Mystically-inspired Philosophizing into Fruitful Dialogue with Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
Drawing on Western and Indian traditions, this project argues that mystical experience constitutes a legitimate mode of access to ultimate reality, bringing that claim into dialogue with contemporary philosophy of mind.
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The Perennial Philosophy Reconsidered
The Next Draft: Metaphysical Realism, Vedantic Universalism, and the Re-Centring of Mystical Experience
Revisiting Huxley’s “perennial philosophy” with fresh rigor, this project takes earlier critiques seriously while arguing that a reformulated version remains relevant to contemporary debates in neuroscience and consciousness studies.
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Selecting foundational texts from six major traditions, this project compares recurring themes of transcendence, unity, and transformative practice, producing an accessible introduction for contemporary readers navigating the interfaith landscape.
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New Perspectives on Mysticism
Translating Mysticism: New Perspectives from Islamic/Sufi and Other Traditions
Letting premodern Sufi mystics speak in their own vocabularies, this project argues that returning to the sources—rather than imposing theory from outside—is the path to renewing comparative mystical scholarship.
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Mysticism and Human Flourishing
Tracing the connections between contemplative practice and the common good
Challenging the image of the mystic as socially isolated, this large-scale project examines how mystical consciousness connects personal spiritual experience to social benefit across four major religious traditions.
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Visual Ethnographies of Mysticism
Before the Name – Visual Ethnographies of Mysticism across Five Great Religions
Through a four-part documentary series spanning five religious traditions, this project brings broad audiences into direct contact with lived mystical practice, organized around transformed consciousness, suffering, love, and social action.
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Mysticism and the Transformation of Consciousness
Rethinking mystical experience through interdisciplinary studies of consciousness
Built around William James’s still-unanswered questions about consciousness, this conference unites scholars across mysticism and depth psychology to explore how psychedelics, trauma, and the unconscious relate to mystical experience.
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