HOW TO THINK IMPOSSIBLY ABOUT SOULS, UFOs, TIME, BELIEF, and EVERYTHING ELSE
A MIND-BENDING INVITATION TO EXPERIENCE THE IMPOSSIBLE AS FUNDAMENTALLY HUMAN
DR. JEFFREY KRIPAL
Winter 2025
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 develop an awareness that the fantastic is real, the supernatural is supernatural, and the impossible is possible.
Nine Saturdays Live on Zoom
2 PM — 3:30 PM PST *Recordings will be made available
January 4 — March 1, 2025
$333
Enrollment Opens September 21
Jeffrey J. Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He also helps direct the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and sits on numerous advisory boards in the U.S. and Europe involving the nature of consciousness and the human, social, and natural sciences. Most recently, Jeff is the author of The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities (Chicago, 2022), where he intuits an emerging order of knowledge that can engage in robust moral criticism but also affirm the superhuman or nonhuman dimensions of our histories and futures. His forthcoming book is How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else (Chicago, 2024). He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the sciences, modern esoteric literature, and the hidden history of science fiction collectively entitled The Super Story: Science (Fiction) and Some Emergent Mythologies. His full body of work can be seen at jeffreyjkripal.com
He thinks he may be Spider-Man.
