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Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was an American scholar of religious studies, 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. "Review of PBS Bill Moyers' interview of Huston 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 religious studies, focusing on the philosophy of religion.SMITH, H. C. (1946). The Metaphysical Foundation Of Contextualistic Philosophy Of Religion: A Study In The Relation Of Metaphysics To Religious Knowledge (Order No. T-00047). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (301857449). Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/metaphysical-foundation-contextualistic/docview/301857449/se-2 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 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.
Upon emigrating to the United States to complete his education, he received a BA from Central Methodist University in 1940 and became an ordained Methodist minister. He then realized a passion for teaching and started a PhD at University of Chicago Divinity School, which he completed in 1945.Smith, Huston; Why Religion Matters, Harper-Collins: San Francisco, 2001.
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. Allmusic.com listing NPR story of recording and MIT analysis Official Website of Recording Because of his belief in religion, however, Smith was mistrusted by his colleagues, leading MIT to prohibit him from teaching graduate students.
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 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.
As a young man, Smith suddenly turned from traditional Methodist Christianity to mysticism, influenced by the writings of Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard. In 1947, before moving from Denver to St. Louis, Smith set out to meet with Heard. Heard invited 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. 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 plants. 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.”Forte, Robert 1999 Timothy Leary: Outside Looking In. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. p. 267 ISBN 9780892817863
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 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that the use of peyote as a religious sacrament by Native Americans was not protected under the US Constitution. Smith took up the cause as a religion scholar. With his help in 1994, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act amendment, providing legislative protection to a religious practice that the Supreme Court had decided lacks constitutional protection. Review of One Nation Under God
Smith was a practicing Christian, with a Vedantic understanding, who credited his faith to his missionary parents who had "instilled in me a Christianity that was able to withstand the dominating secular culture of modernity".Smith, Huston (2005). The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. "Acknowledgments" p. 167. .
In 1996, Bill Moyers devoted a 5-part PBS special to Smith's life and work, The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith. Smith produced three series for public television: The Religions of Man, The Search for America, and (with Arthur Compton) Science and Human Responsibility. His films on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism have all won awards at international film festivals.
Smith was named to be one of the first recipients of the Order of Universal Interfaith and Universal Order of Sannyasa's Interfaith-Interspiritual Sage Award in January 2010. He received the award at his home on February 23, 2010.
The Pacific Coast Theological Society celebrated "the lifetime of achievements of Professor Emeritus Huston Smith by considering the relationship between theology, mythology, and science" in a special session in 2012. In 2015, the society presented Smith with their Codron Prize for The World's Religions. Brandon Williamscraig accepts the Codron Prize for Huston Smith
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