Miriam Bell, MThReligious Scholar, Researcher of Interconfessional Dialogue
With over 7 years of academic and field research experience, Miriam Bell is a recognized thought leader in comparative mystical traditions and interconfessional epistemology within the esotericism domain. Her work critically examines boundary formation between organized religion, folk practice, and esoteric currents across the Mediterranean and Near East.
Academic & Practical Foundation Miriam earned her Master of Theology (MTh) in Study of Religions from the University of Oxford, where her thesis examined heuristic models for classifying non-canonical ritual texts from the late antique Levant. She subsequently held a Junior Research Fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge), contributing to a three-year documentation project on contemporary interconfessional dialogue initiatives in Lebanon and Northern Iraq. Her archival work has informed two museum exhibition catalogues on regional amuletic traditions.
Methodology & Unique Approach Miriam analyzes religious and esoteric materials through multi-axial comparative methodology: textual philology (critical editions of unpublished manuscripts), ethnographic semi-structured interviews with living practitioners, and material culture analysis of ritual objects. She applies epistemic charity protocols — bracketing confessional truth claims while tracing lineage, borrowing, and syncretic innovation — to avoid both apologetic and dismissive biases. Every typology she proposes is grounded in verifiable primary sources and field notes.
Core Competencies
Comparative mystical theology (Neoplatonic, Sufi, Kabbalistic, Hermetic)
Ritual object provenance & iconographic decoding (amulets, seals, talismans)
Interconfessional dialogue facilitation (Abrahamic and post-Abrahamic frameworks)
Critical edition production for unpublished ritual manuscripts
Esotericism historiography (Faivre’s six criteria, Hanegraaff’s typologies)
Mission at LIBINCMiriam equips LIBINC’s readers with academically rigorous frameworks to distinguish between historical esoteric traditions, contemporary appropriations, and misattributed or exoticised claims. Her analyses help culturally curious audiences navigate esoteric content with source criticism — recognising authentic lineages, identifying anachronistic reconstructions, and understanding interconfessional borrowing without reducing complexity.
Recognition & Public Engagement Author of five peer-reviewed articles, including first-author papers in Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism and Correspondences. Invited speaker at the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) biennial conference and the Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies. Member of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR). Her fieldwork protocols on interconfessional interviewing are cited in a 2024 methods handbook published by Brill.
Philological precision. Ethnographic empathy. Typological clarity.
