Publications & Events

Books and Edited Volumes

• Schlieter, Jens, Sarah Perez, and Bastiaan van Rijn, eds. Accepted. Intentional Transformative Experiences: Theorizing Self-Cultivation in Religion and Esotericism. Berlin: De Gruyter.
  
  
• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. 2023. "The Experimental Culture of Afterlife Research: Attempts by Spiritual Animal Magnetizers to Prove Life after Death." PhD. Diss., University of Bern (unpublished so far).
  
  
  

Book Chapters and Articles

• Schlieter, Jens. Accepted. "Intentional Transformative Experiences and the Concept of Religious Experience." In Intentional Transformative Experiences (see above).
  
  
• Perez, Sarah. Accepted. "Through the Looking-Glass: A Stage-Based Approach to the Intentional Transformative Experience of Reality Shifting." In Intentional Transformative Experiences (see above).
  
  
• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. Accepted. "Building a Typology for Intentional Transformative Experiences: Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet's Experiments with Magnetic Somnambulism and Hashish." In Intentional Transformative Experiences (see above).
  
  
• Schlieter, Jens. 2023. "Religious Experience: A Genealogy of the Concept and Future Prospects of its Scholarly Use." In Stepping Back and Looking Ahead: Twelve Years of Studying Religious Contact at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg Bochum, edited by Maren Freudenberg, Frederik Elwert, Tim Karis, Martin Radermacher, and Jens Schlamelcher, 149–81. Leiden: Brill.
  
  
• Schlieter, Jens. 2022. "Nahtoderfahrungen – Near-death Experiences: Eine Begriffsgeschichte im Kontext religiöser Metakulturen der Moderne." In Grenzarbeiten auf der Nulllinie. Nahtoderfahrungen in interdisziplinärer Perspektive, edited bz Stephanie Gripentrog-Schedel, Jens Kugele, and Enno Edzard Popkes, 25–46. Kiel: Kiel University Publishing.
  
  

Conference Papers and Lectures

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. September 6, 2023. “Weighing Souls and Sculpting Spirits: The Spiritual Machinery of Matla and Zaalberg van Zelst,” Religions and Technologies, EASR, University of Vilnius.
  
  

• Perez, Sarah. June 28, 2023. “Boundary Work and Integration in Reality Shifting: The Appropriation of Spiritual Practices as New Methods and Tools,” Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, Malmö University.

• Mühlematter, Yves. June 26–28, 2023. “Understanding Scientific Facts through Yoga: Occult Science and the Siddhis,” Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, Malmö University.

• Mühlematter, Yves. May 11–13, 2023. Response to Avxentevskaya, “Simulation for Proof and Persuasion in the Experimental Practices of the Early Royal Society,”  Simulations of the Unseen in the History of Art, Science and the Occult conference, ETH Zürich.

• Schlieter, Jens. 30 March, 2023. “Transformative Experiences and the Ethics of the Self,” UZH-Ringvorlesung  ‘Die Welt anders sehen und verstehen,’ Zürich.

• Schlieter, Jens. 23 March, 2023. “A History of Religious Experience,” UZH-Ringvorlesung  ‘Die Welt anders sehen und verstehen,’ Zürich.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. October 21, 2022. “Between Science and Religion: Proving the Afterlife through Animal Magnetism,” Animal Magnetism in Motion: Reconfigurations and Circulations, 1776-1848, University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. September 2, 2022. “The Beginning of an Afterlife-centered Experimental Culture,” Experiments with Experience, University of Bern.

• Perez, Sarah. June 29, 2022. “A Quantum Leap Across Realities: Subcultural Transformative Experiences as Tools for Escape,” Religion and States of Freedom, EASR, University College Cork.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. June 29, 2022. “Liberating the Afterlife Through Science: Spiritual Animal Magnetizer's Attempts at Overcoming Empirical Limits,” Religion and States of Freedom, EASR, University College Cork.

• Perez, Sarah, and Bastiaan van Rijn. June 17, 2022. “A Harsh Reality: Conceptualizing a New Spiritual Response to Devastating Crises,” Humanities Faculty Symposium, University of Leiden.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. May 14, 2022. “A Matter of Life and Death: Experimental Systems of the Supernatural,” Collegium Generale: Experimente, University of Bern.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. April 28, 2022. “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed... Contemporary (Animal) Magnetism's Conceptualization of Healing Energies,” Subtle Energies: Explorations within Holistic Healing and Spirituality, University of Vienna.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. April 8, 2022. “Afterlife Researches: 170 Years of Shared Experimental Styles and Problems,” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Perez, Sarah. December 3, 2021. “Narrative ausseralltäglicher Erfahrungen: Visionen, Prophezeiungen und Träume im Kontext wissenschaftlicher Kategorien und frühneuzeitlicher Realitäten,” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Perez, Sarah. September 2, 2021. “Signs of the Times - Investigating the Analytic Concept Behind Resilient Religious Experiences,” Resilient Religion, EASR, University of Pisa.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. September 2, 2021. “Taming the Religious Vision: Animal Magnetizers’ Attempt of Scientification Through Replication and Verification in the 19th Century,” Resilient Religion, EASR, University of Pisa.

• Schlieter, Jens. August 30, 2021. “Introduction;” and “Experimenting with Transformative Experiences and the Concept of 'Religious Experience,’” Intentional Transformative Experiences: Theorizing Self-Cultivation in Religion and Philosophy, University of Bern.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. August 30, 2021. “Spiritual Animal Magnetism as a Science of Transformative Experiences: The Case Study of Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet,” Intentional Transformative Experiences: Theorizing Self-Cultivation in Religion and Philosophy, University of Bern.

• Schlieter, Jens. 16 June, 2021. “Religious Experience – Simple, True, and Universal: A Genealogy and Future Prospects,” Abschlusstagung Käte-Hamburger-Kolleg, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. March 26, 2021. “A Spiritual Science: Analyzing the Work of Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet,” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Rimbach-Sator, Friedemann. November 27, 2020. “Selbst-Experimente mit religiösen Erlebnissen in autobiographischer Narration,” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Perez, Sarah. May 15, 2020. “Ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst…: Zwischen mittelalterlicher Vision und moderner Nahtoderfahrung – Eine systematische Untersuchung religiöser Erfahrungen zwischen 1500 und 1800,” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Schlieter, Jens. 14 Februari, 2020. “Response: Buddhism and Science. Japanese Buddhism and the Modern Natural Sciences.” Workshop, Mahāyāna in Europa. Japanische Buddhisten und ihr Beitrag zum wissenschaftlichen Wissen, Institut für Japanologie, Universität Heidelberg.

• Rimbach-Sator, Friedemann. December 13, 2019. “Experimenting ‘is the only teacher we have,’” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Van Rijn, Bastiaan. October 25, 2019. “The Experimental Culture of Animal Magnetism,” Research Seminar of the Institute for the Science of Religion, University of Bern.

• Schlieter, Jens. 3 July, 2019. “Chair of the Mesmerism and Somnambulism Panel;” and “‘No Religion’ and ‘Beyond Belief?’ The Epistemic Innocence of Theosophy’s Higher Consciousness (presentation),” Western Esotericism and Consciousness: Visions, Voices, Altered States, ESSWE, University of Amsterdam. 

• Schlieter, Jens, Friedemann Rimbach-Sator, and Bastiaan van Rijn. July 3, 2019. “Experiments with Experience: Spiritual Practice as Scientific Experimentation,” Western Esotericism and Consciousness: Visions, Voices, Altered States, ESSWE, University of Amsterdam.

• Schlieter, Jens, Friedemann Rimbach-Sator, and Bastiaan van Rijn. June 26, 2019. “Experiments with Experience: Spiritual Practice as Scientific Experimentation,” Religion – Continuations and Disruptions, EASR, University of Tartu. 

• Schlieter, Jens. April 17, 2019. “Experiments with Experience: Spiritual Practice as Experimentation in (Neo-)Yoga and (Neo-)Buddhism,” South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin.

• Schlieter, Jens, Friedemann Rimbach-Sator, and Bastiaan van Rijn. 29–30 March. Kick-off Workshop: “Experiments with Experience.” University of Bern
  

Organized Events

• Conference: "Experiments with Experience: Experimenting with Religions and Spiritual Practice as Experimentation" (September 2-3, 2022). University of Bern.

• Conference: "Intentional Transformative Experiences: Theorizing Self-cultivation in Religion and Philosophy" (August 28-30, 2021). University of Bern.

• Guest Lecture: Deslippe, P. (January 24, 2020). “The Practice and Experience of Face-Gazing in Yogi Bhajan's Kundalini Yoga”, Experiments with Experience Lecture, University of Bern.

f

• Guest Lecture: Licha, S. K. (November 12, 2019). “Die Entdeckung des Geistes: der Erfahrungsbegriff im modernen japanischen Buddhismus”, Experiments with Experience Lecture, University of Bern.

• Kickoff Workshop: “Experiments with Experience” (March 29-30, 2019). University of Bern.