The True Mystery of the Unknown

You’ve never heard of Jeff Kripal, but he’s a prominent professor of religion and philosophy at Rice University, and he’s written the best analysis of the work of Whitley Strieber that has ever been published. He understands the close encounter experience deeply, but with a professional academic’s rigorous mind.

So, what does he think of the edge of reality? Is it just folklore, or are we reacting to something real? Listen as he discusses writers like Charles Fort, the great chronicler of strange events, in ways that you have never heard before.

His book, Authors of the Impossible, takes a clear-eyed and open minded look at what is strange in our world. He says, "I’m trying to develop a vision of human nature that is much more expansive." He began in the Christian mystical tradition, explored Hinduism and Buddhism, and went from there to the Esalen Institute in California, where he began to encounter UFO researchers and others, and came to realize that the vast unknown that surrounds us should be taken seriously as "part of the natural world that we don’t yet understand."

Food for the mind this week on Dreamland, and support for the soul. Visit Jeff here.