William J. Jackson

William J. Jackson was born in Rock Island, Illinois. From his youth he has been fascinated by the Sauk and Fox Indians who lived in that area. He has lived in New York City, in northern Vermont, in California and other parts of America, and has spent a total of three and a half years in India. His childhood education was in parochial schools, and as a teen he learned some things the hard way. An interest in religious symbols, music and tradition gave him an entrance into the culture of India when he went there at age 27. He met his wife Marcia when he was an actor and she was a Theatre Arts student at Brandeis U.

He studied traditions and languages of India at Harvard, where he earned his PhD. He taught courses on Comparative Religion, Asian Religions and Indian culture for many years at Indiana U.-Purdue U. at Indianapolis. He is the author of several books about south Indian musician-saints, three of them published by Oxford U. Press. He is the author of journal articles such as “Sincere Praise of Honest Sweat,” and “Evernew Flights of Creativity,” in Dharma Studies Journal. And essays on wisdom and devotion (bhakti) in the Journal of Vaishnava Studies.

He has also published a book about fractal-shaped images in cultures, Heaven’s Fractal Net. The original inspiration for that book was an entheogen experience he had in 1960s Vermont one autumn involving the cellular structure of vision and light. He also wrote American Tricksters (about con men), and The Wisdom of Generosity, (about giving and volunteerism) as well as novels such as Diving for Carlos (set by the Mississippi river) and The Singer by the River (set by Kaveri river in Southern India).

Visual archetypal imagery has always been a key element in his writing and teaching. In recent decades he has studied the Jungian depth psychology of James Hillman. Collage-making has been a passionate avocation of his for five decades. He feels his found-object collages are about freedom—finding experiential freedom via creative intuition and making art. He loves New England and the traditions of Thoreau, Emerson, Dickinson, Melville, and he appreciates learning from nature and exploring consciousness. He studies and illustrates archetypal wisdom via vernacular language.

He currently lives with his wife Marcia in Leverett, Massachusetts.