Extraordinary, Mysterious, and Impossible Experiences, with Jeffrey Kriple

About this episode

The episode features a conversation between Pierce Salguero and Jeff Kripal about extraordinary and mysterious experiences in the context of humanities and religion.

Today Pierce Salguero sit down with Prof. Jeff Kripal, noted scholar of religion at Rice University, to talk about extraordinary, mysterious, and “impossible” experiences. This is a conversation I’ve been waiting a few years to have. Together we explore what you can or can’t talk about in the humanities — and what we risk when we break the rules. Along the way, we touch on paranormal phenomena, epistemological pluralism, conspiracy theories, Plato’s cave, and why no one dresses up as a humanities professor for Halloween. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy the show! Resources related to this conversation: Jeff Kripal's website Archives of the Impossible & Conferences Pierce Salguero, "Secret Lives of Buddhist Studies Scholars" (2024) Pierce Salguero, "The Fractal of Humanities" (2021) Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, "On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research" (2023) Jeff Kripal, The Flip (2020) Jeff Kripal, Secret Body (2019) Commonweal Podcast Subscribe here to unlock our members-only benefits, including…

People in this episode

Host: Pierce Salguero

Guest: Jeff Kripal

Topics covered

• extraordinary experiences
• mystery
• paranormal phenomena
• epistemological pluralism
• conspiracy theories
• humanities

Keywords

• Buddhism
• paranormal
• humanities
• religion
• epistemology
• conspiracy theories
• Asian religions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rice University

Books & works: How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else, The Flip, Secret Body, Secret Lives of Buddhist Studies Scholars, The Fractal of Humanities, On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research

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