Boston, Massachusetts, USA
November 20-23

Session One:

“Metaphors of Light and Space in the World’s Mystical Traditions”

B. Alan Wallace, University of California, Santa Barbara:
Images of Space and Light in the Cosmogony of Vajrayana Buddhism

Ann M. Caron, Saint Joseph College:
Exploring Metaphors of Light and Sound in the Writings of the Cistercian Mystics: Mechtild of Hackeborn and Gertrud of Helfta

David McMahan, University of Vermont:
Visual and Spatial Metaphor in the Buddhist Episteme Paradigm

J. Noel Hubler, Lebanon Valley College:
Dematerializing Space:

Plotinus’ Use of Spatial Metaphor for the Immanence of the One

John M. Thompson, Graduate Theological Union:
Sengzhao’s ‘Wild Words’: An Exercise in Textual Mysticism


Session Two:

“Mysticism and Shamanism”

Stuart Sarbacker, University of Wisconsin, Madison:
Entasis and Ecstasis: A Critical Appraisal of Eliade on Yoga and Shamanism

James W. Perkinison, Ecumenical Theological Seminary:
The Gift/Curse of ‘Second Sight’: Is ‘Blackness’ a Shamanic Category in the Myth of America

Kocku Von Stuckrad, University of Bremen:
Between Mysticism and Science: New Shamanism and ‘Naturphilosophe’

Jane Magon, University of the Sunshine Coast:
Shamanism and the Art of Frida Kahlo