Friends: Tell us a bit about the entire series on fundamentalism Esalen is hosting.

Jeff: The series originated in my own and other colleagues' experiences of being attacked in various ways for our scholarship on religion. In the study of Hinduism, these assaults have ranged from hate and smear campaigns on the Internet directed at our persons and writings, to attempts to get individuals fired or denied tenure at American universities, to ban movements, Parliamentary debates, actual physical violence and the destruction of an important research center in India. The basic idea was to bring some of these writers together in a supportive atmosphere, listen to their stories, learn from each other, and try to come up with creative and positive responses to such acts of attempted censorship and intimidation.

Friends: What is your role in the series?

Jeff: With the support and encouragement of Michael Murphy and Gordon Wheeler, I helped initiate it with the crucial leadership of Dulce Murphy and a colleague at Emory University named Paul Courtright. Paul and I were two of the scholars here in the States who came under pressure to retract what we think and write about. After the initial conference, Joe Montville, a career diplomat and political psychologist with deep historical connections to Esalen, emerged as the person with the most experience to carry the series through. Joe is now providing the real leadership for the series. I am simply delighted (and relieved) about this.

Friends: What do you see as the universal characteristics of fundamentalism?

Jeff: This is a very complicated issue. Generally speaking, I see fundamentalism as a modern phenomenon that effectively uses the means of modernity (technology, mass communication, identity politics) to resist or reject modernity as something corrosive to traditional (usually very hierarchical) forms of authority, community, gender and truth. Scriptural literalism, a rejection of historical consciousness (that is, the notion that all religious traditions change over time), sexual repression and the disempowerment of women, and a stunning ignorance of the complexities of religious texts define most forms of fundamentalism. At our last conference, for example, we came to the conclusion that there were two subjects that most upset our fundamentalist critics: sex and history. Both, after all, powerfully dissolve any stable or rigid notions of identity and truth.

Friends: What is unique about Hindu fundamentalism that differentiates it from other forms of fundamentalism?

Jeff: Again, this is a very complicated issue (professors always say that, don't they?), but perhaps Hindu fundamentalism. which we might better define as Hindu essentialism or Hindu nationalism, is different to the extent that it is essentially a form of mimicry that is not rooted particularly deeply in Indian history and religion. That is to say, modern Hindu nationalism has rather ironically tried to adopt many of the intolerant and exclusivistic strategies of western monotheisms (at their worst) precisely in order to compete with these same monotheisms both in India (especially vis-à-vis Islam) and on the world stage. Although there are certainly historical precedents for religious violence and communal intolerance in India, the Indian traditions are also especially rich in notions of plurality, religious tolerance and the sensuality of human and divine life. It is the latter "Indias" that are being elided or flatly denied in modern Hindu nationalism.

Friends: Do you see Hindu fundamentalism gathering strength?

Jeff: I do not make predictions, but if India's elections last spring mean anything, it is that the political forces that brought Hindu fundamentalism into power in the early 90s are now being widely rejected by the Indian people. On this side of the planet, I take great hope from the young people I work with in the classroom, talented, friendly, often brilliant Americans of Indian descent who can appreciate and understand both the cultural riches of India and those of America and so want nothing to do with any kind of national or religious essence. It is in them and in the process of liberal education itself that I place my own hope.

Friends: What specific socio-economic, cultural, current political, and historical influences are at work in promoting Hindu fundamentalism?

Jeff: The traumas of colonialism are paramount here. There can be no question that India and Indians have suffered considerably from centuries of colonizing activity, first by the Muslims (who rather quickly integrated themselves into the cultural landscape) and then by the British (who generally did not integrate themselves). It is precisely this kind of centuries-long humiliation and suffering that have generated so much contemporary bitterness and anger at the West and its monotheisms and which in turn feeds into Hindu nationalism and essentialism. Who can not understand that?

Friends: Tell us a bit about the backgrounds of the people who are participating in this series?

Jeff: It is crucial to point out that Hinduism was only our starting point, and this for the rather arbitrary reason that I happened to have the most experience in dealing with the fundamentalisms of this particular set of traditions. We now plan to move through the rest of the major world religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism). Finally, I hope to have a fifth "capping" conference here at Rice University sometime in 2007 or 2008. Rice has recently instituted the Boniuk Center for the Study and Promotion of Religious Tolerance. This, I believe, is precisely the sort of efforts the Boniuk Center should be about.

Friends: What are you hoping to achieve from this series? Why is this topic important today?

Jeff: I think it goes without saying why the topic is important. Fundamentalisms (of both the Islamist and American Christian varieties) are in the news every day and define so much of our contemporary world, often, if not always, for the worse. Innumerable individuals and institutions are trying to address these issues with their own resources and worldviews. It is my own personal conviction that Esalen -- with its rich history of an integral global civilization, Soviet-American exchange, citizen diplomacy and cross-cultural dialogue -- has much to offer. "What could the human potential possibly have to do with terror?" one might legitimately ask. "What did it have to do with the Cold War?" I would answer. It was psychical research in the Soviet Union that led eventually to the Soviet-American exchanges and eventually to Boris Yeltsin's historic Esalen-sponsored visit to the U.S. in 1990. Perhaps something similar can happen again here. My own conviction is that the world's mystical traditions--with their radical pluralistic theologies and radical attempts to move beyond all rigid categories into what Frederic Spiegelberg called "the religion of no religion" -- have much to offer our present encounters with fundamentalism. Joe Montville turns to an Abrahamic core of the western monotheisms and to the diplomatic wisdom of political psychology to address similar concerns. Here we go again . . .