Rockwell Rel igious studies symposium and BuRkit t puBlic lectuRe kyle moRRow Room, FondRen l iBRaRy, Rice univeRsity apRil 15-18, 2010

In Western religious traditions, God is conventionally conceived to be a humanlike creator, king or ruler enthroned in heaven. But what about the God of the unconventional Western traditions, or the God of the mystics, gnostics and sages? Like almost everything else in these esoteric traditions, God is hidden, secreted away. Sometimes God shows up in another universe beyond our world. Other times God is cloaked behind veils in celestial palaces or within a body of blinding light. Often God is understood to be utterly transcendent, utterly beyond us, while also immediately immanent, immedi-ately within us. This symposium, the inaugural event of the Department of Religious Studies new program on Gnos-ticism, Esotericism and Mysticism (GEM) offers academic reflections on these secreted traditions about God, from the ancient world to the modern period.

SpeakerSBURKITT PUBLIC LECTURE April 15, 7:309 p.m.

Kocku von Stuckrad, University of GroningenThe Esoteric Quest and Western Culture

ROCKWELL SYMPOSIUM April 1518

APRIL 15, 35 P.M.April D. DeConick, Rice UniversityWhat is hiding in the Gospel of John? Reconceptualizing Johannine Origins and the Roots of Gnosticism

John Turner, University of NebraskaFrom Hidden to Revealed in Sethian Revelation, Ritual and Protology

APRIL 16, 8:30 A.M.5 P.M.Kelley Coblentz Bautch, University of St. EdwardsRevealed by the Prophets, Obscured by the Scriptures: God in the Pseudo-Clemen-tine Homilies

Andrei Orlov, Marquette UniversityAdoil Outside the Cosmos: God Before and After Creation in Enochic Tradition

David Porreca, University of WaterlooHow Hidden is God? Revelation and Peda-gogy in Ancient and Medieval Hermetic Writings

Bernard McGinn, University of ChicagoThe Hidden God and the Hidden Self in Christian Mysticism

Claire Fanger, Rice UniversityGods Occulted Body: Divine Involucra in Bernard Sylvestris and Alan of Lille

David Cook, Rice UniversityThe Vision of God in Muslim Dreams

Anne Klein, Rice UniversityThe Transcendent, the Mysterious and the Hidden in Tibet: A Buddhist Logos

APRIL 17, 8:30 A.M.3 P.M.

Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice UniversityOn the Mothman, God, and Other Mon-sters: John A. Keel and the Superspectrum of the Occult

Stephen C. Finley, Louisiana State UniversityHidden Away: Esotericism and Gnosticism in Elijah Muhammads Nation of Islam

Shira Lander, Rice UniversityScholarship on Ancient Palestinian Helios Mosaics: Hiding the Revealed God

Marcia Brennan, Rice UniversityThe Modern Museum and Mystical Houston

APRIL 18, 8:3011 A.M.

Jonathan Garb, Hebrew UniversityShamanism and the Hidden History of the Modern Kabbalah

William B. Parsons, Rice UniversityContours of an Emerging Psychoanalytic Spirituality: Prospects and Problems

Gregory Kaplan, Rice UniversityHow (Not) to Immanentize the Eschaton and Other Problems for Hans Jonas and Eric Voegelin

John Stroup, Rice UniversityThe Multidimensional Physics of History and the Problem of Transtheistic God-Lan-guage as Cultural Critique in the Popular and Learned Works of Joseph P. Farrell

Religious Studies

Humanities Research Center