Synchronicity and Personal Connections

15min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

This chapter explores a mysterious incident involving a 1977 Phillips transistor radio that plays music at a wedding, prompting a reflection on synchronicity and personal connections to objects. The discussion connects psychological insights with anecdotes, emphasizing how significant emotional events can shape perceptions of coincidence and the supernatural. Historical perspectives from anthropologists and science writers further enrich the conversation on precognition and the nature of time, suggesting that our understanding of reality is intertwined with personal experiences and emotional bonds.

From precognitive dreams and telepathic visions to near-death experiences, UFO encounters, and beyond, so-called impossible phenomena are not supposed to happen. But they do happen—all the time. Jeffrey J. Kripal asserts that the impossible is a function not of reality but of our everchanging assumptions about what is real. How to Think Impossibly invites us to think about these fantastic (yet commonplace) experiences as an essential part of being human, expressive of a deeply shared reality that is neither mental nor material but gives rise to both. Thinking with specific individuals and their extraordinary experiences in vulnerable, open, and often humorous ways, Kripal interweaves humanistic and scientific inquiry to foster an awareness that the fantastic is real, the supernatural is super natural, and the impossible is possible.

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities, The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge, Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal, and just published, also by the University of Chicago Press, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else.