Introduction

Jeffrey J. Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought and former chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His books include Kali’s Child, Esalen, Authors of the Impossible, The Serpent’s Gift, Mutants and Mystics, The Supernatural (with Whitley Strieber), and Secret Body. He is coauthor, with Elizabeth Krohn, of Changed in a Flash: One Woman’s Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks It Empowers Us All. His most recent book is The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge. His website is https://jeffreyjkripal.com/ Professor Kripal organized the Archives of the Impossible symposium at Ric University. See https://impossiblearchives.rice.edu/

Here he points out that spiritual epiphanies can occur to individuals with strong scientific backgrounds and materialistic beliefs, such as Nobel laureate Kary Mullis or professional skeptic Michael Shermer. Sometimes, but not always, such events lead to profound shifts in belief. Synchronistic events can shape major cultural shifts, such has occurred with the Esalen Institute and the Human Potential Movement. He points out that, often, such epiphanies defy all attempts at rational explanation.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death.

(Recorded on March 24, 2022)

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