Author: Timothy Knepper

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Thursday, December 6th, 7:00 pm
Sussman Theater, Olmstead Center

Joe Nickell is Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and investigative columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. With a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, Dr. Nickell investigates myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has authored more than twenty books, most notably the Science of Miracles. He has also appeared on numerous national TV shows, earning titles such as “the modern Sherlock Holmes,” “the original ghost buster,” and “the real-life Scully” (from “The X-Files” ).  

In his lecture, Dr. Nickell will review some of the allegedly miraculous cases that he has investigated over this career. These include phenomena as varied as the Shroud of Turin, weeping statues, faith healing, and other empirical claims of religion.

Video of lecture

https://vimeo.com/305770919

Fritz Detwiller, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Adrian College
Thursday, November 15^th, 7:00 pm
Sussman Theater, Olmstead Center

 

Fritz Detwiler is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Adrian College, where he has taught for the past 35 years. He is a charter member of the Society for the Study of Native American Traditions and has lived among the Ho Chunk in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. His current research is on Native American ethics, with particular focus on the Lakota, Tlingit, and Diné.

In his lecture, Detwiler will argue that if we are to take Native American lifeways seriously, then we have to address the problem of miracles not in Western terms, but as a window into fundamentally different Native American worldview assumptions. Using concepts that are closer to Native viewpoints—power, personhood, relatedness, and change—Detwiler’s talk will explore an understanding of reality that does not admit of miracles but rather beholds mystery.

Click link to listen to lecture

https://vimeo.com/301600014

Des Moines Zen Center 
6901 SW 14th Street, Des Moines
Sunday, November 4^th

1:00 pm 

 

Please join us for our next Meet My Religious Neighbor open house, which is to be hosted by the Des Moines Zen Center at 6901 SW 14th Street in Des Moines. From 1:00 – 3:00 pm, the Zen Center will hold an open house during which guests can tour their new facility, meet members of their community, and learn how they practice Zen Buddhism there. At 3:00 pm, there will then be a guest lecture by David Loy, a celebrated professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism.

 

Meet My Religious Neighbor is a monthly open-house series. Each open house allows the public the opportunity to tour a sacred space, learn how religion is practiced in it, and meet the congregation who worships there.

 

Kin Cheung, Assistant Professor of Asian Religions, Department of Global Religions, Moravian College
Thursday, October 25^th, 7:00 pm
Sussman Theater, Olmstead Center

Kin Cheung is an Assistant Professor of Asian Religions in the Department of Global Religions at Moravian College. He has written on Buddhist meditation and healing, practical implications of Buddhist ethics, and Buddhist institutions’ involvement in China’s stock market. His dissertation examines how meditation changes the senses of self, using both scientific studies of meditation’s effects on the brain and Chan/Zen Buddhist descriptions.

In his lecture, Prof. Cheung will explore how healing and religion are intertwined in a Chinese-American community in New Jersey, where his father, CHEUNG Seng Kan, teaches a small group of regular students an eclectic practice of qigong meditation, Buddhist dharani chants, geomancy, and various Chinese medical treatments. Cheung has taken on the role of a community healer for his students and their social networks. This presentation argues that healing is one avenue for the contemporary innovation and spread of religion in a Chinese-American diaspora community.

 

Click link below to hear lecture

https://vimeo.com/299525106

Jeffrey J. Kripal
J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religion, Rice University
Thursday, October 4^th, 7:00 pm
Sussman Theater, Olmstead Center

 

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University and the Associate Director of the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including his most recent Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions (Chicago, 2017). He specializes in the comparative study and analysis of extreme religious states from the ancient world to today.

In this lecture, Prof. Kripal will describe the near-death experience of Elizabeth Krohn, with whom he has co-written a recent book. He will then use Elizabeth’s visionary narrative and precognitive dreams to rethink how such anomalous events are treated, or not treated, in the study of religion and what they might still mean for rethinking the limits of the human. 

 

(Photo Credit Michael Spadafina for MAX Video Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved)

 

Video of Lecture

https://vimeo.com/294187731