Huston Smith

Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was a scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, The World's Religions (originally titled The Religions of Man) sold over three million copies as of 2017.

On May 31, 1919, Huston Cummings Smith was born in Dzang Zok, Suzhou, China, to Methodist missionaries and spent his first 17 years there.

His first language was Mandarin Chinese, spoken in the Suzhou dialect.

Upon emigrating to the United States to complete his education, he received a BA from Central Methodist University in 1940 and a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1945.

While at Chicago, he married Eleanor Wieman, the daughter of Henry Nelson Wieman, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

She later changed her name to Kendra.

They had three daughters, Karen, Gael, and Kimberly Smith.

Born and raised in Suzhou, China, in an American Methodist missionary family, Smith moved back to the United States at the age of 17 and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1945 with a PhD in philosophy.

Smith taught at the University of Denver from 1945 to 1947, and then at Washington University, for the next 10 years.

He spent the majority of his academic career as a professor at Washington University in St. Louis (1947–1958), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1958–1973) and Syracuse University (1973–1983).

In 1947, before moving from Denver to St. Louis, Smith set out to meet with Heard.

Heard responded to Smith's letter, inviting him to his Trabuco College (later donated as the Ramakrishna Monastery of the Vedanta Society of Southern California) in Trabuco Canyon, Southern California.

Heard made arrangements to have Smith meet Huxley.

In 1958, Smith was appointed professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he remained until 1973.

While there, he participated in experiments with psychedelics that professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert conducted at Harvard University.

In 1964, during a trip to India, Smith stayed in a Gyuto Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

During his visit he heard the monks chanting and realized that each individual was producing a chord, composed of a fundamental note and overtones.

He returned to record the chanting in 1967 and asked acoustic engineers at MIT to analyze the sound.

They confirmed the finding, which is an example of overtone singing.

Smith has called this the singular empirical discovery of his career.

The recording was released as Music of Tibet (1967).

Royalties from the album continue to support the Gyuto Tantric University.

Because of his belief in religion, however, Smith was mistrusted by his colleagues, leading MIT to prohibit him from teaching graduate students.

However, he gave voice to the contrast between himself and Leary when he reminisced about encountering the exile Tim Leary in Switzerland, years later (early 1970s): “he was still a fugitive from lawful society—kicked out of it as he had been kicked out of West Point, Harvard University, and Zihuatanejo.”

During his tenure at Syracuse University, he was informed by leaders of the Onondaga tribe about the Native American religious traditions and practices, which resulted in an additional chapter in his book on the world's religions.

In 1973, Smith moved to Syracuse University, where he was Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy until he took emeritus status in 1983.

That year, Smith moved to Berkeley, California, where he remained a visiting professor of religious studies at the University of California, Berkeley until his death.

In 1983, he retired from Syracuse and moved to Berkeley, California, where he was a visiting professor of religious studies at the University of California, Berkeley, until his death.

In 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that the use of peyote as a religious sacrament by Native Americans was not protected under the US Constitution.

In 1997, Smith entered into an agreement with the Syracuse University Archives to donate his papers, resulting in a large collection of published books, articles, reviews, or endorsements.

During his career, Smith studied Vedanta (studying under Swami Satprakashananda, founder of the Vedanta Society of St. Louis), Zen Buddhism (studying under Goto Zuigan), and Sufism of Islam for more than ten years each.

As a young man, Smith suddenly turned from traditional Methodist Christianity to mysticism, influenced by the writings of Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard.

Smith recounts in the 2010 documentary Huxley on Huxley meeting Huxley at his desert home.

Smith was told to look up Swami Satprakashananda of the Vedanta Society of St. Louis once he settled in St. Louis.

So began Smith's experimentation with meditation and association with the Vedanta Societies of the Ramakrishna Order.

Smith developed an interest in the Traditionalist School formulated by René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon and Ananda Coomaraswamy.

Due to his connection with Heard and Huxley, Smith went on to meet Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), and others at the Center for Personality Research, where Leary was research professor.

The group began experimenting with psychedelics and what Smith later called "empirical metaphysics".

The experience and history of the group are described in Smith's book Cleansing the Doors of Perception.

During this period, Smith was also part of the Harvard Psilocybin Project, an attempt to raise spiritual awareness through entheogenic plants.