Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Jeffery Kripal on the mystical human experience

Author Jeffery Kripal just published a book co-written by Whitley Strieber, it's titled The Super Natural. In the quote below Jeff talking about his work with people who tell of anomalous experiences. He is describing what I've encountered many times. He clearly articulates the challenges of trying to make sense of these mysteries while listening to people as they share what has happened to them.


This is the thing about this material, you think you’ve heard the last strange thing, and then it gets stranger. What the debunker thinks is that, no—if we just had enough information it would all make sense and all the strangeness would go away.
But my experience with these folks is exactly the opposite. The more they tell you the weirder it gets. Part of the reason is that they don’t quite trust you in the beginning and so they tell you just sort of the surface of the story. And then they tell you a little more, and a little more. And the more they tell you the stranger it gets. It does not make more sense, it makes less sense. And I think that this is important, I think that is part of the phenomena, that it’s absurd, and that it’s meant to confuse us. And I think that when we look for it to make sense I think we are going down the wrong path. Because it doesn’t. 
        —Jeffery Kripal, 2016  

This quote from and audio interview from May of 2016. Link to this interview on Where Did The Road Go, Part ONE and Part TWO

Here is my interview with Jeff on Mutants and Mystics, perhaps my favorite book ever.
_______________________________________________

3 comments:

Dennis/87 said...

Mutants and Mystics was good reading! Strieber's story is less than believable me thinks. He was raised Roman Catholic and his spiel has lot's of absolutes that are less than my sensibilities could imagine. Sure something happened to him, the space brothers are everywhere. Shine forth brave souls. Dennis

TenaciousDM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TenaciousDM said...

Whitley and Jeff together come away with some very good schools of thought to work with. I highly recommend this book. I do not believe Whitley has exaggerated or made up any of the stuff he is written about. His unique ability to manifest his imaginations is the key here. Quantum entanglement is abound . A highly thought provoking book not for the weak minded.