In this episode Rabbi Marc Katz is in discussion with Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin about his new book Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer (Central Conference of American Rabbis Press, 2025), an engaging and insightful commentary on the Shabbat evening and morning services. Designed for students of all ages, from bet mitzvah to adulthood, the book's relatable tone and discussion questions meaningfully engage readers in the worship service they are leading or attending. In the book, Rabbi Salkin breaks down each prayer and ritual, helping learners connect to the service with fresh insight and knowledge. With a blend of humor and depth, Inviting God In shows how the ancient words of prayer still speak to the challenges and joys of contemporary life. Our discussion, not only touches on the main themes and ideas in the book, but about prayer itself and the role that ritual plays in helping Jews connect with God.

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is the author of numerous books, including Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships and Putting God on the Guest List, winner of the 1993 Benjamin Franklin Award for the best religion book published in the United States.

Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life.

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Yoga Studies in Five Minutes (Equinox Publishing, 2025) provides an accessible guide to the diverse and growing field of research into yoga as a social, historical and cultural phenomenon. Both leading scholars and innovative researchers offer 60 brief responses to questions that offer insights into the study of yoga, such as: Who was the first teacher of yoga? Is yoga Indian? What is parampara? Are there holy texts in yoga? What are the goals of yoga? Why do yogis hold their breath? The collection covers ancient history, modern developments, and contemporary issues, considers the diverse practices and philosophies of yoga in a range of contexts, and uses a range of approaches, from philology to anthropology to art history. The collection is useful for established scholars looking to broaden their understanding of this rapidly developing field, as well as for those new to the subject. The book is an ideal starting point for both independent study and the classroom.

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Today, host Prof. Pierce Salguero sits down with Susannah Deane, a scholar of Tibetan medicine, Buddhism, and psychiatry. Together, we delve into her work on Tibetan concepts of "wind disorders" and Tantric practice gone wrong. Along the way, we talk about losing control of spirits, becoming a deity, and how Tibetans choose between religious and medical specialists when spiritual practice goes off the rails.

If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including downloading:

Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.

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With a growing number of students entering college with an existing mental health diagnosis, College Mental Health 101: A Guide for Students, Parents, and Professionals (Oxford UP, 2025) offers hope and clear direction to those struggling with mental illness.

There is an undeniable mental health crisis on campuses these days. More students are anxious, depressed, drinking, and self-harming than ever before. The statistics are startling: 50% of mental health issues begin by age 14, 75% by age 24, while suicide is the second leading cause of death among young adults. And yet even while more students are struggling, more students than ever are breaking through stigma, seeking help, and sharing openly in person and social media about their challenges.

College Mental Health 101 offers more answers, relief, resources, and research backed information for families, students, and staff already at college or beginning the application process. With simple charts and facts, informal self-assessments, quick tips for students and those who support them, the book includes hundreds of voices addressing common concerns. Basics like picking and contacting a therapist, knowing your rights, disclosing to friends and family, advice on medication and time off, are all covered in brief digestible sections. The book also offers support and understanding to families and friends of struggling students who are often uncertain of where else to turn for expert advice. Packed with hundreds of expert and student voices, three diverse experts in the field have assembled the right resources at the right time.

Christopher Willard is a clinical psychologist, author, and consultant based in Massachusetts. He teaches at Harvard Medical School.

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For more than four centuries, the scientific discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and Freud created the impression that we could explain the workings of the Universe without the idea of a creator--God. By the beginning of the twentieth century, materialism had become the dominant theory of the time. And yet, with unexpected and astonishing force, the pendulum of science has swung back in the other direction, owing to a rapid succession of discoveries: the theory of relativity; quantum mechanics; the Big Bang; the theories of expansion, heat death, and fine-tuning of the universe.

Michel-Yves Bolloré is a computer engineer with a master's of science and doctorate in business administration from the University of Paris Dauphine.

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Host Pierce Salguero sits down with Richard Saville-Smith, an independent scholar of madness, religion, and psychiatry. We discuss Richard’s book Acute Religious Experiences (2023), which argues that frameworks from Mad Studies can get us out from under the academy’s current habit of either pathologizing or sanitizing religious experiences. Along the way, we talk about the power struggle between psychiatry & the humanities, the influence of Queer Studies on Richard’s work, and his reinterpretation of Jesus as a madman.

If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including PDFs of some of these resources.

Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.

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Every good parent wants to create relationships with their children that are filled with joy, connection, and healthy attachment. Yet well-meaning but traumatized parents--those who suffered as children or who are dealing with traumatic events as adults--tend to see the world from a survival point of view. If that's you, you might suspect that your own trauma is negatively influencing your parenting behaviors. Where can you turn for support and wisdom?

Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle and Become the Parent You Always Wanted to Be (Broadleaf Books, 2025) goes far beyond the fad social-media trends like "gentle" and "responsive" parenting to provide a clear, easy-to-follow, and substantive guide, offering both what to do and why it works, so traumatized parents can create the kind of relationship they want with their children of any age. In this book, you'll learn how to properly adjust your techniques and strategies, act in accordance with your defined parenting values, and, best of all, create your own survival strategies and flip them into your parenting superpower.

Experienced, renowned traumatic parenting expert, workshop leader, speaker, and founder of the Center for Psychological Growth, a large children's therapeutic practice in New Jersey, child psychologist Dr. Robyn Koslowitz directly explains exactly how every post-traumatic parent can reverse the damage from their own traumas and forge a strong, healthy relationship with their children. Finally, you can find true joy in the day-to-day of parenting. It's time to recognize that post-traumatic parenting is a deep, authentic, powerful healing journey. It features easy-to-follow instructions, along with simple tools, to help you effectively parent your children, no matter what happened in the past. Let Post-Traumatic Parenting help you break the cycle, enjoy the journey, and create healthy, joyful, dynamic, lasting relationships with your children. It is a singular guide to becoming the parent you always wanted to be.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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There is a hidden addiction plaguing humanity right now: revenge. Researchers have identified retaliation in response to real and imagined grievances as the root cause of most forms of human aggression and violence. From vicious tweets to road rage, murder-suicide, and armed insurrection, perpetrators almost always see themselves as victims seeking justice. Chillingly, recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies of the human brain show that harboring a personal grievance triggers revenge desires and activates the neural pleasure and reward circuitry of addiction.
Although this behavior is ancient and seems inevitable, by understanding retaliation and violence as an addictive brain-biological process, we can control deadly revenge cravings and save lives. In The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction—and How to Overcome It (Random House, 2025), Yale violence researcher and psychiatry lecturer James Kimmel, Jr., JD, uncovers the truth behind why we want to hurt the people who hurt us, what happens when it gets out of hand, and how to stop it.
Weaving neuroscience, psychology, sociology, law, and human history with captivating storytelling, Dr. Kimmel reveals the neurological mechanisms and prevalence of revenge addiction. He shines an unsparing light on humanity’s pathological obsession with revenge throughout history; his own struggle with revenge addiction that almost led him to commit a mass shooting; America’s growing addiction to revenge as a special brand of justice; and the startlingly similar addictive behaviors and motivations of childhood bullies, abusive partners, aggrieved employees, sparring politicians, street gang members, violent extremists, mass killers, and tyrannical dictators. He also reveals the amazing, healing changes that take place inside your brain and body when you practice forgiveness. Emphasizing the necessity of proven public health approaches and personal solutions for every level of revenge addiction, he offers urgent, actionable information and novel methods for preventing and treating violence.

James Kimmel, Jr. is an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, a lawyer, and the founder and co-director of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Control Studies.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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In this episode, “Truth is a Pathless Land,” we speak with Transformative Inquiry Program faculty member Connie Jones to explore the micropolitical stakes of revolutionary spirituality through Krishnamurti’s challenge to religious prescription, psychological conditioning, and egoic identification. We discuss techniqueless meditation, the primacy of awareness over truth, and the distinction between perception and cognition as a path beyond the representational mind. Our conversation engages the unknown as the ground of creativity and examines how culturally conditioned individualism is challenged by non-dual insights. We also explore Bohmian Dialogue as a transformative practice aligned with Krishnamurti’s vision—an open, non-hierarchical mode of collective inquiry that suspends judgment and cultivates shared attention. Through this lens, we consider how his praxis opens onto a micro-political awareness capable of generating new forms of being and transformation beyond all systems of conditioning.

Connie Jones, Ph.D., is a sociologist of religion who joined CIIS in 1994, having taught at several colleges and theology schools. Beginning with her doctoral dissertation on the caste system in India, she has pursued a long interest in the cultures and religions of the East, including the adoption of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs and practices in the West. She researches spiritual teachers as well as the evolution of new religious movements around the world. Throughout her career in higher education, she has helped establish women’s studies departments and curricula in several colleges and has published research on women’s status in India and feminist methods. She has been a member of a multidisciplinary team of scholars that investigates new religious movements around the world and has published articles on movements that are based on Eastern religious belief and practice. At present, Constance has a book, Krishnamurti: Self-Inquiry, Awakening, and Transformation, in press with Cambridge University Press. In this volume she outlines the life and teaching of the enigmatic 20th century philosopher and teacher J. Krishnamurti. She serves in scholarly positions with the Gurdjieff Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man (2017- present) Tbilisi, Georgia and the Publications Committee of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America (2018-present), Ojai, California.

Books:

Encyclopedia of Hinduism

Contemplative Literature

The EWP Podcast credits

• Connect with EWP: Youtube • Facebook

• Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD grad)

• Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay

• Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay

• Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala

• Music at the end of the episode: Tundra Immanence (blowing meditation)

• Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra

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Today I sit down with Willoughby Britton and Jared Lindahl, the interdisciplinary team from Brown University that is responsible for the “Varieties of Contemplative Experience” study on the challenges and adverse effects of meditation. We talk about the design, findings, and outcomes of the study, and how it opened up a new field of interdisciplinary investigation. Along the way we ask: if someone suffers harm from practicing meditation, whose fault is it? What is the ultimate cause? And who gets to interpret the experience?

If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including PDFs of these resources.

Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.

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