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.

Here he shares a scholarly perspective on the non-fiction books and claims of Whitley Strieber. He describes Strieber as a prophet or shaman in a culture that has no place for prophets and shamans. He acknowledges that he differs from Strieber regarding the physicality of the events he has described. He also doubts that these circumstances are amenable to scientific evaluation. He suggests that humanistic approaches, such as hermeneutics offer much promise in understanding the mystery of Strieber’s life.

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 past-vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and is the recipient of the Pathfinder Award from that association for his contributions to the study of consciousness.

(Recorded on January 11, 2019)

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