How can you see the unseen? And does it matter if you don’t “believe” in it, as a scholar of religion?

This week, I’m thinking through how we, as scholars of religion (yes, that includes you if you’re listening), come to see and engage the unseen, regardless of whether we “believe” in it or can perceive it through our physical senses.

I also share how I encounter and draw on the unseen in my own intellectual work and practices, and what this has taught me about a much broader, more embodied understanding of the unseen. One that goes beyond flickering lights, things flying across rooms, or haunting silhouettes.

Follow me on socials @imanabdk for more of my thinking on the unseen.

Works referenced:

Ahmad Greene-Hayes, “Hair, Roots, and Crystal Balls: Archival Viscerality, Black Conjuring Traditions, and the Study of American Religions,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91, no. 4 (2023): 798–819.

Amira Mittermaier, Dreams That Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (University of California Press, 2010).

Safiya Bukhari, The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010).

We've got our first listener question!

How did you make your writing practice feel like a spiritual practice?

I break down three ways I made the dissertation writing practice feel like a spiritual practice: thinking about writing as channeling, ritualizing the whole thing, and working in some collective accountability.

I've NEVER been motivated by the kind of disposition that says "get up and grind," "show you're the smartest," "dominate the field you are in," or "be the best." It works for some people, just not me. But what has always helped me tap into the kind of discipline I needed in this moment was seeing the task before me as a challenge for obtaining spiritual depth. You mean I’ll get to know myself better through this practice? Develop a deeper connection to my ancestors? Think about my work as part of a larger tradition? Now that I will get up and do every day.

Works referenced:

For my reference to "archival ancestors," see Ahmad Greene-Hayes Underworld Work: Black Atlantic Religion Making in Jim Crow New Orleans (University of Chicago Press, 2025).

For my reference to "ancestrally responsible work," check out the amazing public, artistic, and scholarly work of Alexis Pauline Gumbs, including Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (Penguin, 2024).

For my note on getting started with ancestor veneration, I learned so much from Ehime Ora's Spiritu Come From Water: An Introduction to Ancestral Veneration and Reclaiming African Spiritual Practices (Hay House, 2025) and JuJu Bae's The Book of Juju: Africana Spirituality for Healing, Liberation, and Self-Discovery (Sterling Ethos, 2024).

What's the difference between religion and spirituality? This is the second most frequently asked question I get as a scholar of religion, next to “Oh, so you're a minister.” And to be honest, folks tend to be disappointed by my answer to both.

When it comes to the religion versus spirituality question, that is often because my answer focuses less on defining the terms and more on the question itself. I am fascinated by what is really going on in people’s thought worlds when they want me to distinguish between religion and spirituality in the first place.

This week, I'm thinking through my own experiences alongside Robert A. Orsi’s Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton University Press, 2005).

If you like the episode, don’t forget to share it with a friend and follow me @imanabdk on socials.