Huston Smith, "a renowned scholar of religion who pursued his own enlightenment in Methodist churches, Zen monasteries and even Timothy Leary's living room," died December 30, the New York Times reported. He was 97. Smith was best known for The Religions of Man (1958), "which has been a standard textbook in college-level comparative religion classes for half a century. In 1991, it was revised and expanded and given the gender-neutral title The World's Religions. The two versions together have sold more than three million copies," the Times wrote.
In 1996, Bill Moyers showcased Smith in a five-part PBS series, The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith. Richard D. Hecht, a professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, called Smith "one of the three greatest interpreters of religion for general readers in the second half of the 20th century," along with Joseph Campbell and Roderick Ninian Smart.
The Times noted that it was "through psychedelic drugs in the early 1960s that Professor Smith believed he came closest to experiencing God." Although Smith later became disenchanted with Leary, the drug experiments led him to write Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals.
Smith's other books include Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine; The Illustrated World's Religions: A Guide to Our Wisdom Traditions; Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions; Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief; and The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition.