Interview begins @ 5:00


Scholars who investigate paranormal, religious, philosophical, metaphysical, and other similar topics fall under the umbrella of the humanities. However, many professors are hesitant to delve into topics that cannot be explained through empirical data or scientific methods. Cultural historian and scholar of religion at Rice University, Jeff Kripal, has dedicated much of his work to exploring these questions. In his latest book, "The Superhumanities," Kripal argues that the humanities must expand beyond their traditional scope and engage with supernatural and paranormal phenomena that challenge our understanding of what it means to be human. Kripal suggests that the people we revere in the humanities were "weird" and had altered states of consciousness, embodiment, precognitive dreams, out-of-body experiences, and mystical experiences of unity with the cosmos. He argues that these alternate states of consciousness and embodiments were, in fact, the origins of their thinking. To fully understand and appreciate the humanities, Kripal believes we must embrace the strange and eerie in our academic and cultural discussions. In this interview, Kripal discussed his new book and the significance of embracing unconventional phenomena in the humanities. The conversation covers a range of topics, including the fractals of social systems, psychotherapy as a means of adapting to a sick social system, listening to the symbolic communication from experiences of the paranormal, metaphysics and the U.F.O., the beauty of not knowing, Christianity and the paranormal, Christianity as a modernized sociological tribal container, black critical theory, feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory, queer theory, post-colonial theory, & ecocriticism, and gender and the modern world.

Overall, Kripal's work emphasizes the need for scholars in the humanities to expand their focus beyond empirical data and scientific methods to explore the strange and mysterious phenomena of life. By doing so, we can gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be human and how we can navigate the complexities of the world around us.

Bio:

Jeffrey J. Kripal is the Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he chaired the Department of Religion for eight years and helped create the GEM Program, a doctoral concentration in the study of Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism that is the largest program of its kind in the world. He presently helps direct the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where he served as Chair of Board from 2015 to 2020. Jeff is the author or co-author of twelve books, eight of which are with The University of Chicago Press. He has also served as the Editor in Chief of the Macmillan Handbook Series on Religion (ten volumes, 2015-2016). He specializes in the study of extreme religious states and the re-visioning of a New Comparativism, particularly as both involve putting “the impossible” back on the academic table again. He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the history of religions and the sciences for The University of Chicago Press, collectively entitled The Super Story.

https://jeffreyjkripal.com

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