Dana Sawyer is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and World Religions at the Maine College of Art & Design. The author of biographies of two prominent 20th Century thinkers, Aldous Huxley (2002) and Huston Smith (2017), his primary expertise is in Hinduism and Buddhism. For more than twenty years Dana's work has focused on comparative mysticism, theories of the “perennial philosophy,” and the value of psychedelic experience in the study of mysticism. His most recent books are an analysis of the Transcendental Meditation Movement for Cambridge University Press (2023), and The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded, published by Monkfish in July, 2024. Our conversation focused on that last book, whose subject, Perennialism, is vital for understanding spirituality in today's complex, pluralistic landscape.
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