At the Raven Foundation (a registered 501(c)(3) Private Foundation), we seek to make religion reasonable, violence unthinkable and peace a possibility by translating scholarship on mimetic theory into everyday, accessible language. Using the images, idiom, and communication tools of popular culture, we seek to enter into the conversations taking place around war and peace, violence, identity and desire to challenge conventional wisdom and open pathways to authentically peaceful communities.

Long the subject of academic research, mimetic theory is not well known beyond the halls of academia, yet it can have its greatest impact in the coffee shops and online chat rooms where everyday people do the work of making meaning out of their lives and making sense out of the conflict and violence that they witness in the world. Mimetic theory provides the best analysis available for understanding the pressing issue of religious violence that plagues humanity today. It offers much needed insight into the role of desire in identify formation and the culture of materialism. The time has never been more critical for mimetic theory to leap the university wall and make itself heard in neighborhoods, workplaces, schools and shopping malls.

Through education about mimetic theory, our goal is to foster peaceful individuals and harmonious communities who will reject scapegoating and violence as ways to form identity and achieve peace. We did not invent this mission nor the hope of its fulfillment, but consider ourselves part of an ancient tradition spanning cultures, continents and religions that works for peace in each generation. We seek to partner with others from all religious and cultural traditions who share our commitment and who support the effort to end scapegoating and violence wherever they find it.