Steven J. Gelberg
Steven J. Gelberg is an independent scholar and writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Nilima Bhatia, a retired administrator at UC Berkeley. For many years he was an orthodox Hindu monk and householder, during which time he regularly visited and traveled throughout India as both spiritual pilgrim and student of the culture. He has written and edited religious and scholarly works on the Krishna-bhakti tradition in India and the West, lectured in colleges and universities throughout the United States, and made unique contributions to the literature on new religious movements and cults.
While a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) from 1970 through 1987, Gelberg served as the organization’s chief liaison to the international academic community as well as its Director for Interreligious Affairs. His book Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna: Five Distinguished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West, was published in 1983 by Grove Press in its Eastern Philosophy and Literature Series.
His writings and publications for the Krishna movement were numerous, including a study-guide to the Bhagavad-gita, prefaces and introductions to several of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s translations and commentaries on Hindu texts (e.g., Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Sri Brahma-Samhita), and three book-length thematic compilations of Bhaktivedanta’s teachings (e.g., The Spiritual Master and the Disciple and Sri Namamrta: The Nectar of the Holy Name). Both during and after his affiliation with the Krishna movement, Gelberg wrote articles on ISKCON (and related topics) published in various academic books and journals. Other, more personal accounts, include “On Leaving ISKCON” [in Bryant & Ekstrand, eds., The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2004)]; and Oh, the Things I Learned!: Lessons from Seventeen Years in the Hare Krishnas. (Both these articles, and others, are available online at https://surrealist.org/cults/gelberg.html)
After leaving the Krishnas in 1987, Gelberg studied comparative religions at Harvard Divinity School (M.T.S., 1990). In 1994 the Muse initiated him on the path of fine art photography (www.stevengelberg.com), and over a number of years he published fifteen volumes of his work (available at www.blurb.com). His photographic work is represented by Robert Tat Gallery in San Francisco (http://www.roberttat.com).
His latest book, the fruit of several years intensive research, was published by S.U.N.Y. (State University of New York) Press in early 2025. Titled Tuning In: Experiencing Music in Psychedelic States, it is the first authoritative study of the role of music in psychedelic-assisted therapy and personal growth. https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/Tuning-In
