Black Beryl

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Linda C. Ceriello, a scholar of mysticism and popular culture from Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Linda is one of the foremost scholars of metamodernism, with particular focus on contemporary spirituality and mystical experiences. She talks with me about what this concept of metamodernism means, and how it can open up new kinds of more capacious thinking. I’m sure you will agree that a lot of what we’ve been doing on this podcast over the past 4 years — juxtaposing different perspectives, exposing our full selves, exploring the dark sides of spirituality, leaning into sincerity, etc. — has all embodied a metamodern sensibility. Anyway, I think she’s the perfect guest to talk with as we launch season 4, and I hope you’ll enjoy the show.
If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian healing and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members area on Substack (blackberyl.substack.com), as each episode our guests share downloadable PDFs of articles, book chapters, and other materials for you.
One last thing: we are planning an “Ask Me Anything” episode coming up soon, so reach out via Substack or my website, piercesalguero.com, and let me know your questions. Ok, on with the show!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
* “What is Metamodern?” website
* “What is Metamodern? Conversations” on YouTube
* Bloomsbury Press series: Studies in Metamodernism, Theory and Criticism Across the Disciplines
* Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism” (2010)
* Kersten, Polo, Wilbers, Glocal Metamodernisms: European Fiction After Postmodernism (2026)
* Disambiguation video
* Recorded lecture: “An Overview of the Academic Research on Metamodernism” (2023)
* Recorded panel: “A Bodhisattva Move: Popular Mysticism’s Influence on the Metamodern Turn?” (2021)
Subscribe on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including these PDFs of Linda’s work:
* Metamodern Mysticisms (2018)
* “Toward a metamodern reading of Spiritual but Not Religious mysticisms” (2018)
* “The Metamodern Bend: Theorizations for Religious Studies” (2022)



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Welcome to season 4 of the BBP!
We concluded the last episode with Jeff Kripal calling upon humanities scholars to break out of our conservative paradigms and to allow ourselves to “get weird.” So, let’s do it! This season, we are going all-in on the mystical, mysterious, profound, reality-bending, and impossible aspects of Asian religions, medicines, and spiritualities.
As usual, we’ll launch the season the tables turned, with Lan taking up the mic to interview Pierce. Together, we think about traditional, modern, and postmodern approaches to Asian medicine. Usually, these epistemologies are competing or people are trying to integrate them… but could there be another approach that celebrates all of them without needing to reconcile dissonance?
If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian healing and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also look us up on Substack to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
* Pierce Salguero, “A Metadisciplinary Approach to Asian Medicine (and Other
Epistemological Carnivals)” (2025)
* Pierce Salguero, “The Fractal of Humanities” (2021)
* Pierce Salguero, “A Pedagogy of the Soul” (2022)
* Pierce Salguero, “Let’s Put More Humanity into the Humanities” (2019)
* Pierce’s Human•ities Blog on Substack or on Medium
Subscribe on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including:
* PDF of the introduction to Pierce’s new book: Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice, just published by University of Hawaii Press.


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Today I sit down with Prof. Jeff Kripal, noted scholar of religion at Rice University, to talk about extraordinary, mysterious, and “impossible” experiences. This is a conversation I’ve been waiting a few years to have. Together we explore what you can or can’t talk about in the humanities — and what we risk when we break the rules. Along the way, we touch on paranormal phenomena, epistemological pluralism, conspiracy theories, Plato’s cave, and why no one dresses up as a humanities professor for Halloween. 
If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!
Resources related to this conversation:
Jeff Kripal's website
Archives of the Impossible & Conferences 
Pierce Salguero, "Secret Lives of Buddhist Studies Scholars" (2024)
Pierce Salguero, "The Fractal of Humanities" (2021)
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, "On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research" (2023)
Jeff Kripal, The Flip (2020)
Jeff Kripal, Secret Body (2019)
Commonweal Podcast
Subscribe on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including:
PDF of the introduction of Jeff's book, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else (2024)


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I'm happy to share this rebroadcast of an interview I did with James Bae, the host of the "Buddhist Yoga" Youtube channel. In this deep-dive, we discuss my new book, Meditation Sickness, just out from University of Hawaii Press. This edited collection of translations by expert scholars lays out a range of Buddhist viewpoints about the potential side-effects of contemplative practice, and what happens when one crosses the line between expected challenges and true medical crises. Including ancient scriptures, writings by some of the most celebrated Buddhist meditation teachers of all time, as well as contemporary ethnographic reports from all over the Buddhist world, the book details the symptoms, causes, prevention, and treatment of "meditation sickness." Our conversation provides a detailed overview of the contents of the book, and illustrates why it is crucially important for Western meditators to be knowledgable about these phenomena. Enjoy! 
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Pierce Salguero, Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook of the Dangers of Buddhist Practice (2026). 
Pierce Salguero, “Meditation Sickness” in Medieval Chinese Buddhism
and the Contemporary West (2023).
Pierce's previous appearances on Buddhist Yoga: Buddhist Medicine and Contemplative Pedagogy ; The Contemporary Landscape of Buddhist Healing
Pierce's resource website: BuddhistMedicine.Net
Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including:
PDF of the introduction to the 2026 book. 


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Today I sit down with Sanjay Manchanda, who is an Adjunct Professor at California Institute of Human Science and also teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Sanjay is an awakening facilitator, a practicing psychotherapist, and an inventor and technologist with a PhD in computer science. In this conversation, we talk about the importance of integration after awakening, psychedelics, shadow work, and a helmet that pulses infrared light into the brain to facilitate spiritual experiences. Along the way, we raise the important question of whether we will ever be able to create an enlightenment machine.
If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show!
Resources related to this conversation:
Sanjay's Neuromatrix Headset: https://neuromatrix.health/
Ultrasound research by Jay Sanguinetti: https://www.jaysanguinetti.com/
Arnold Mindell, Dreambody: The Body's Role in Healing the Self (1982).
Les Fehmi, The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body (2008).
YouTube videos: Awareness Explorers, Neuroscience of Meditation Summit
For information about Sanjay's Monday morning group Multidimensional Fundamental Well-Being, personal coaching, and therapy sessions, contact sanjay.manchanda1@gmail.com. 
Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including:
$500 discount on the Neuromatrix Headset



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