Speakers

ESSWE11 | 16–19 June 2027 – Turku, Finland

Kocku von Stuckrad

Kocku von Stuckrad is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and the Director of the Groningen Graduate School of Religion, Culture, and Society. He has published extensively on topics related to the history of religion, science, and philosophy in Europe and North America. He is particularly interested in the long genealogies of spiritual ideas and practices that have gained traction in the 20th and 21st centuries—from Earth-based spiritualities to astrology—and challenge hegemonic narratives of European ‘modernity.’ Kocku von Stuckrad served as President of the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion NGG, as well as of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture ISSRNC. He also is co-founder and co-director of the initiative Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge. His most recent book is After Exploitation: How We Can Build Flourishing Relationships with the Earth (Equinox, 2026).

Esoteric Epistemologies between Human Exceptionalism and Ecologies of More-than-human Agency

The study of esoteric discourses, both past and present, is particularly interested in epistemologies that claim ‘higher’ or ‘salvational/transformative’ knowledge in philosophy, science, and spirituality. These claims often construct the human species, or the individual, as the centre of universal knowledge. As part of the ‘relational’ and ‘ontological’ turns that have swept through the sciences and arts since the beginning of the twenty-first century, we observe the diversification of epistemological and ontological systems alongside a critique of European binary categories such as nature–culture, mind–body, and human–nonhuman. For esoteric studies, these developments raise complex questions: How do non-anthropocentric approaches, which locate knowledge in the intelligent and agential more-than-human world, impact esoteric epistemologies? If esoteric traditions have arguably been an alternative to hegemonic European binaries, thus pioneering the relational turn, how will the end of human exceptionalism and privileged human access to knowledge impact esoteric discourse? What does esotericism (and its study) look like in a world that locates knowledge in ecologies of more-than-human agency?

Siv Ellen Kraft

Siv Ellen Kraft is a professor of religious studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, in Tromsø, Sápmi on the Norwegian side. She has lived and worked in Tromsø since 2000. Her educational background is from the University of Bergen, with a doctoral thesis on gender discourse in the early history of the Theosophical Society (defended in 1999). Since then, she has worked mainly on contemporary issues and, increasingly, on indigenous religion(s) in Sápmi, focusing primarily on processes of reclaiming ancestral traditions, on ways in which elements from the past are used and talked about, and on how these relate to contemporary concerns and connections.

Kraft is the author of six monographs (two coauthored), coeditor of eight books, and author of numerous articles. She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and serves on the Holberg Prize Board.

Sámi Art Activism: Epistemic Terms, Turns, and Translations

Árbediehtu is a North Sámi term for knowledge developed and transmitted through Sámi life-ways. It is commonly referred to as traditional, ecological, indigenous and land-based, and in relational terms, based on ontological premises that challenge clearcut distinctions between religion and the secular, culture and nature.

My talk will center on the changing status of árbediehtu, and the role of religious registers therein. While still alternative to European majority standards,  árbediehtu has moved from a position of rejection and stigma to a promising framework, at least in some contexts, for certain concerns. Artists have been key to such changes, due both to their public access and creative foundations.  I will use two prominent artists as entry-points: Hans Ragnar Mathisen/Keviselie (1945- ), and Outi Pieski (1973- ). Mathisen grew up under the politics of Norwegianization and became an artist in the 1970s—an era of protests, consciousness-raising, and alignments with the emerging world of global indigeneity.  Pieski works under the horizon of Indigenous epistemologies, climate change concerns, and land-based conflicts. Like Mathisen she self-identifies as an Indigenous (contra Western) art activist. Both have opted for widespread reach, in and outside of galleries, and both have added to spiritual turns and translations.

Anya Foxen

Anya Foxen is a historian and comparativist scholar of religion. She is currently an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, as well as a Research Affiliate at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Foxen is the author of four books including Inhaling Spirit: Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western Roots of Modern Yoga (Oxford University Press, 2020) and, most recently, The Serpent’s Tale: Kundalini, Yoga, and the History of an Experience (Columbia University Press, 2025). Her work, to date, has focused on the intersection of South Asian yogic and tantric traditions with Western esotericism and Euro-American metaphysical spiritualities. Her current research examines embodied practices, focusing on theories of the subtle body and altered states.

Yogivision: What Theories of Yogic Perception Can Tell Us About Epistemology and State-Specific Knowledge

At the turn of the twentieth century, South Asian men billing themselves as yogis captured the Western imagination with performances of superhuman feats, such as stopping the heart at will. Even those who dismissed such physical showmanship did not always extend the same skepticism to the mental dimensions of yoga and their purported ability to yield experiential insights into the very nature of reality. Basic forms of yogic techniques show up in a variety of contemporaneous esoteric groups, including the Theosophical Society and the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). However, an examination of how such abilities are represented by South Asian popularizers of yoga shows that they are not only technologies of gnosis, but also intricately woven into South Asian theories of perception, and broader historical debates over epistemology. Because South Asian philosophical systems draw the lines between matter and mind, and therefore between (objective) cause and (subjective) effect differently than their Western counterparts, they stand to trouble our standard epistemological assumptions in ways that may extend beyond esoteric practice. How can adopting some of the ways such frameworks delineate modes and objects of cognition offer us new ways of drawing connections between areas such as mysticism, aesthetics, and other “altered states”?