I just recently heard the news that my college professor and advisor passed away.
He was a professor of comparative religion and was a phenomenal mentor, teacher and advisor to me as well as countless other students.
He was only 71.
His name was Rick Jarow and he was a tall, big bearded teddy bear with a low baritone voice and eyes that would squint when he smiled. He was wise but he was also funny. Never one to take himself too seriously, his humor and punch lines would emerge slowly, as if they too were bears, waking up and sleepy from hibernation. His eyes would grow large – alongside a grin – when the finish of the joke finally arrived. Similar to those sloths in Zootopia.
Jarow was nevertheless devoted to the pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. And nowhere more than while teaching and mentoring students in the classroom. His soft teddy bear nature could turn taciturn and stern, and even flash angry when it came to the rigor of scholarship. He demanded we cultivate a clear, discerning analysis of texts. He would wage war on our arrogance, and on the tendency to think literally. Concretizing and literalizing were sins in his view, but so was reductionism or dogma of any kind. He taught us to be thoughtful, deep, and humble in the search for the truth.
He oversaw my thesis which was focused on a man named Paracelsus, a famous Swiss alchemist from the 16th Century, who’s real name was Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim (how’s that for a mouthful - also did you know that this man’s name is where we get the modern word bombastic from? No, I didn’t either). He was a controversial but brilliant renaissance figure; a physician and chemist - he was the first to coin the term Zinc (Zinke) - as well as a theologian and philosopher, he became the famous historical model for Goethe’s renaissance character Faust.
Don’t ask me why I chose to write about Paracelsus – I suppose I was precocious enough to attempt to wrestle the truth out of a medieval philosopher and mystic who spent his life on a quest for the enigmatic Philosopher’s Stone. I was indeed intrigued by a mystical theologian and philosopher who also contributed in many ways to the emergence of modern science and medicine - Isaac Newton had a complete collection of Paracelsus’s complete works in his office and the astronomer Kepler once singled out “copernicanism” and “paracelsianism” as the most noteworthy features in the rise of modern knowledge.
I myself nearly died from the mental gymnastics of trying to wrap my head around chemical as well as "psychological” and “spiritual” dimensions of medieval alchemy before the 140 page Thesis was finished. Jarow, however, was supportive the entire time and positively jubilant at the finished product.
In my final year at college I remember a class on Western Esotericism Jarow co-taught with a fellow Religion professor. This other professor was secular, and saw religion solely as a vehicle for passing along cultural rituals, stories and myths. He did not believe in the ‘superstitious’ elements of the supernatural that permeated the worlds many religions. He did not believe in the ‘reality’ of the supernatural. He believed in the scientism of the senses, and that anything else was a rosy romantic illusion. Why, I would mutter to myself, did he become a professor of religion then?
But after an hour’s lecture Jarow would amble up to the lectern and begin, slowly at first but gathering momentum and power as he went, to talk about the vast ecology of beings that surround us. The spirits, the angels, the stars, the plants and minerals, as well as the demons and lost ancestors, all of whom populate a vast multi-dimensional cosmology within which the human realm is but one among many. This is the cosmology of all world religions, from the Native Americans to the Judaic-Christian monotheistic religions of the West to the complex metaphysics of Asia’s religious traditions.
He unpacked the deep archetypal truths found within the Bible, but also the Bhagavad Gita and the Sutras of the Buddha. He knew Lao Tzu’s teachings as well as those of the Sufis. He had an intuitive way of connecting the mysteries of Plato’s sophisticated philosophy to the religious beliefs of the early Christian desert fathers, and explaining how Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell were able to weave together the spiritual principles of both ancient cosmologies into modern day language.
He demonstrated how while these world religions are not the same, they all point to different angles of the Holy, just as a diamond can have its light reflected through many different facets. His knowledge was vast, but his wisdom - borne not just books and literature but of deep meditation, travel, and spiritual practice - was rooted in direct intuitive experience of these truths.
Jarow believed the Cosmos was alive, not just in this physical dimension but in the adjacent dimensions. He believed, as did all ancient peoples from across the globe, that the universe breathes with Life and in that Life is multitudes of beautiful beings, some large and some small, but many of whom only exist across the threshold of the Other Side. These billions of beings remain invisible to us here on earth, but can often times greet us when we have a mystical experience, a sacred medicine journey, or a Near-Death Experience. To think humans and animals and plants are the only living beings in the universe always made me think of humans living in north America (or in Europe) who thought that no other humans lived anywhere else on the planet.
I will always remember Jarow and his colleague, taking turns lecturing about the human condition and the meaning of life, each with a different perspective. I was glad to be in Jarows camp. How boring life would be, I mused as I walked home after class, if nothing else existed. The cold, lonely world of the existentialists was not the world for me. I choose to believe in a world where souls are eternal and brilliant sparks which dance in human form for brief intervals for the sake of learning.
This is why Near-Death Experiences have always intrigued me. I read my first book while in college and taking classes with Jarow. It was Betty Eadie’s book Embraced by the Light, a staple and early classic of the NDE genre, and it blew my mind open. It was a direct encounter with the mystical teachings of the worlds religions – but it was not a book that came from a dry academic or philosophical place. It was a woman’s direct experience of undergoing clinical death and what she encountered on the Other Side.
These stories are phenomenological evidence – they are subjective but true stories, modern ‘religious experiences’ as William James would say, experienced and shared by everyday people.
This is a core lesson I learned from Jarow, and one that has inspired and motivated my brother Eliot and I in creating and sharing Coming Home.
The teaching and reminder Jarow imprinted in my mind is to move away from the world of logical and philosophical analysis, not completely as these have great meaning, but to primarily focus on people’s direct encounters with Truth. Away from dogma and towards direct perception of Reality. Away from assumptions and presumptions, and towards self realization.
I believe Jarow would enjoy our Coming Home films, and find myself wishing I had sent him our channel. Regardless I have no doubt he is now out there exploring the vast astral vistas with that big teddy bear grin and those wide squinting eyes.
Godspeed Jarow - thank you for your generous and thoughtful life. I know the world is a better place because you were in it.
Lovely. Thank you.
Beautiful Jesse. Loved reading this story about Jarow. He sounds like a real mentor and true teacher.