Hi there.

My name is Shreya Maini. I am a PhD student in religious studies at Duke University. My research interests include the anthropology of religion, “Hinduism,” New Age spiritual movements, historiography, and experimental ethnography. I especially like to mull on themes of time and temporality as they relate to these interwoven interests.

Currently, I am getting ready to begin fieldwork in India, Europe, and South America for my dissertation project on a global spiritual group called the World Teacher Trust. Through wide-ranging publications and oral transmission, the Trust aims (1) to align people with the teachings of “Masters of Wisdom” and with esoteric knowledge (such as astrology), (2) to invoke “Aquarian energies” using a “sound key” or mantra given by Canchupati Venkatarao Venkaswamy Rao (known as Master C.V.V.), (3) to externalize the plans of Lord Maitreya (the World Teacher) and the “Hierarchy,” and (4) to encourage a life of service to humanity. Using ethnography, oral history, and philosophy, this project will explore the ways members of the Trust know and relate to the world(s) and to history through astrology, sacred geography, past/future lives, and a commitment to the esoteric.

In my spare time, I also like to write about modernity, late capitalism, and alienation. I am currently working on a collection of essays that thinks about ways that social, cultural, and spiritual revolutions can — and must — accompany and sustain political, economic, and climate revolutions.