Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred
by Jeffrey J. Kripal
On This Page
Description
Most scholars dismiss research into the paranormal as pseudoscience, a frivolous pursuit for the paranoid or gullible. Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey J. Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred and by tracing that history through the last two centuries of Western thought we can see its potential show more centrality to the critical study of religion. Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and sociologist Bertrand Méheust. Through incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
paradoxosalpha Pasulka and Kripal are sympathetic colleagues. In these books they treat closely related subjects.
Member Reviews
This book about the metaphysical and cultural significance of the study of the paranormal is constructed through case studies of Frederic Myers, Charles Fort, Jacques Vallee, and Bertrand Méheust.
Kripal is a scholar who really knows how to tell a story, and he's got plenty of stories to tell in this work. His authorial voice is sufficiently kind and intelligent that it can allow him the occasional use of profanity. And sentence fragments. As usual for him, he includes anecdotes from his own experience, but the focus is on the four "authors" studied. Of the four, I had previously read in the work of Charles Fort only, but I am now quite interested in writings by all three of the others, particularly Myers.
One element of this book's show more project is to give the reader a new perspective (or several) on "psychic phenomena" and "UFOs." Another is to suggest a fruitful rapprochement between the fringes of the physical sciences and the margins of the humanities. This book is a close companion to Kripal's earlier Mutants and Mystics, contributing to an original hermeneutics of the strange.
It is a very worthwhile read. show less
Kripal is a scholar who really knows how to tell a story, and he's got plenty of stories to tell in this work. His authorial voice is sufficiently kind and intelligent that it can allow him the occasional use of profanity. And sentence fragments. As usual for him, he includes anecdotes from his own experience, but the focus is on the four "authors" studied. Of the four, I had previously read in the work of Charles Fort only, but I am now quite interested in writings by all three of the others, particularly Myers.
One element of this book's show more project is to give the reader a new perspective (or several) on "psychic phenomena" and "UFOs." Another is to suggest a fruitful rapprochement between the fringes of the physical sciences and the margins of the humanities. This book is a close companion to Kripal's earlier Mutants and Mystics, contributing to an original hermeneutics of the strange.
It is a very worthwhile read. show less
Kindle edition
May 18, 2014Dutch
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
23+ Works 883 Members
Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University and is the associate director of the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He has previously taught at Harvard Divinity School and Westminster College and is the author of eight books, including The show more Flip. show less
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Frederic William Henry Myers; Charles Fort; Bertrand Méheust; Jacques Vallee
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 111
- Popularity
- 293,504
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.90)
- Languages
- English, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
