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The Author

G. William Barnard

William Barnard smiling, sitting outdoors wearing a dark blue sport jacket and blue plaid shirt

Academic Background

G. William (Bill) Barnard is a Professor of Religious Studies, as well as a University Distinguished Teaching Professor, at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas. His primary areas of research interests are the comparative philosophy of mysticism, religion and the social sciences, contemporary spirituality, religion and healing, and consciousness studies. For over 15 years (including his ongoing study of Portuguese), Professor Barnard has researched the Santo Daime tradition, a syncretistic, entheogenically-based new religious movement that emerged in Brazil in the mid-twentieth century. Professor Barnard is the author of Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson as well as Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism, both published by State University of New York Press. In addition, Professor Barnard is the co-editor of Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism. Professor Barnard has also written many journal articles and book chapters on a variety of topics, such as pedagogy in religious studies, the nature of religious experience, issues in the psychology of religion, and most recently, entheogenic religions and spirituality.

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Santo Daime alter. A rosary sits on a cross, sitting upon a white and blue fabric place setting. On the place setting are two flower vases with flowers and in the centre of the setting is a lit candle. In front of the display is a large clear crystal.

Spiritual Background

I had my first mystical opening when I was fourteen years old. Then, five years later, in 1975, I received “Shaktipat,” the descent of divine grace, via an initiation from Swami Muktananda, a spiritual master from India, in the tradition of Siddha Yoga. This awakening catalyzed a decades-long spiritual quest. During the next seven years, as Muktananda’s student, I lived in meditation centers across the globe (including two years in India), and spent hours every day meditating, chanting, and giving myself to the practice of selfless service. Eventually, I was trained to become a swami (or monk), and I gave talks and led workshops in the philosophical traditions of yoga. 

Muktananda died in 1982 before I could return to India to take my monastic vows. Soon afterwards, I entered the academic world, studying comparative religion. In 1994, I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, with a focus on Religion and the Human Sciences (the psychology, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology of religion). I joined the Religious Studies faculty at Southern Methodist University that same year. For the last two decades, I have taught courses on mysticism, the nature of consciousness, religion and healing, primal religions, and yogic philosophy and the practice of meditation. 

Also, crucially, in 1986, I married Sandra, my (amazing, wonderful, and almost infinitely patient and forgiving) wife. She has been the spiritual head of the Full Spectrum Center for Spiritual Awakening, located in Meadville, Pennsylvania, for the last several decades.

In 1995, I began my training with Levent Bulakbasi, a Turkish energy healer who led the IM School of Healing Arts in Manhattan. After completing my four-year training in the IM School (which involved many long weekend seminars in NYC), I spent several more years there (as well as several additional years in Sandra’s healing program) teaching neo-Reichian techniques designed to free up life energy by working with breath, movement, and sound in these large (and heartfelt) group settings. 

In 2005, I began my current academic study of, and participation in, the Santo Daime religious tradition. This new religious movement began in the early twentieth century in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil. It is a fusion of indigenous shamanic practices, West African traditions, esotericism, and Christianity. At the heart of the Santo Daime tradition is the sacrament of the Daime (known in other contexts as ayahuasca), a mind-altering tea that opens participants up to the spiritual dimensions of reality. For those of us within this tradition, the Daime embodies the Consciousness of the Christ, it is the transformative Light and Love of our own Divine Nature.

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