Program:
Process Explorations
Series Theme:
Building Alternative Futures
Session Topic:
Imagination, Ritual, and Non-Ordinary Experiences
Presenter(s):
Jared Morningstar, Communications Director
In this session of Process Exploration, Jared Morningstar shares his recent research exploring connections between ritual practice and imagination. Drawing upon ideas from process and Islamic philosophies, Jared provides a broad overview and analysis of the field of ritual studies before discussing the significance of non-ordinary experience for insight and self-transcendence. In the second half of the presentation, Jared explores imagination as a primordial human faculty which interprets and transmutes the unique experiences provided by ritual practices. Imagination, he argues, is central to our ability to make meaning and self-actualize.
About the Presenter(s)

Jared Morningstar is an independent scholar and public intellectual based in Chicago whose work explores philosophies and wisdom traditions that are attuned to our time of profound cultural, ecological, and spiritual transition. His research focuses especially on process philosophy and theology, classical and contemporary Islamic thought, metamodernism, comparative religion, and non-ordinary experiences. Across his writing and public scholarship, he explores how religious traditions can be articulated to respond constructively to contemporary challenges such as nihilism, interreligious conflict, ecological crisis, and the so-called “meaning crisis.” Jared’s work has appeared in a variety of publications including Metamodern Theory and Praxis, Process Perspectives, and Emerge alongside the edited volumes Open and Relational Theology and its Social and Political Implications: Muslim and Christian Perspectives and Amipotence: Expansion & Application. He is a frequent lecturer and conference presenter and has appeared on numerous podcasts and public forums to discuss religion, process thought, Islam, and metamodernism. He holds degrees in Religion and Scandinavian Studies from Gustavus Adolphus College and currently works with the Center for Process Studies and the Psychedelic Medicine Association.

