Tradition and Modernity: Two Paradigms

Huston Smith was largely responsible for introducing Eastern religion to Americans with his 1950s TV series, The Religions of Man, which led to his classic textbook, The World's Religions. He was born in 1919 in China to missionary parents and planned to continue in their footsteps as a missionary - but while in college in the U.S., he was exposed to mysticism and was introduced to Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, and Vedanta, which changed the direction of his life. Huston helped get the Dalai Lama to the U.S. and also helped the Native American Church get legal status for their sacred peyote rites. In 1996 Bill Moyers produced a 5-part PBS series featuring Huston on the world’s religions.