R. C. Zaehner

R. C. Zaehner — 1913–1974

Robert Charles Zaehner was a British scholar of Eastern religions, especially Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and comparative mysticism. He became Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford in 1952. His major works include Mysticism Sacred and Profane (1957), Hindu and Muslim Mysticism (1960), The Bhagavad-Gītā translation and commentary, and Zen, Drugs and Mysticism / related writings on altered states and religion. He was particularly known for arguing that “mysticism” is not one single universal experience but a family of distinct types: nature mysticism, monistic mysticism, theistic mysticism, and other forms.

In Jeffrey Kripal’s context, Zaehner represents the comparative scholar trying to classify mystical experiences while also resisting simplistic perennialism. He was fascinated by mystical states, but also suspicious of claims that all mysticism says the same thing. Kripal is interested in Zaehner partly because Zaehner’s own personality, religious commitments, and anxieties about sexuality, drugs, and modernity shaped his categories. He becomes a case study in how typologies of mysticism can reveal as much about the scholar as about the mystics.