Jeffrey J. Kripal

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Jeffrey J. Kripal
NationalityAmerican
Education
Conception Seminary College (BA)
University of Chicago (PhD)
Scientific career
Fieldsstudy of comparative erotics and ethics in mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religions, and the history of Western esotericism from gnosticism to New Age religions
InstitutionsRice University

Jeffrey John Kripal (born 1962) is an American college professor. He is the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at

Houston, Texas. While chairman of the Religion Department at Rice, he helped found their "GEM" program, with a doctoral concentration in "Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism".[1][2]

His work includes the study of comparative erotics and ethics in mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religions, and the history of Western esotericism from gnosticism to New Age religions.[3]

Scholarly Impact

Kali's Child

Kripal's 1995 book

History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995.[4] A second, revised edition was published in 1998. The book has been dogged by controversy ever since its initial publication in 1995.[5] The book's claims have been questioned by Alan Roland and other scholars, as well as members of the Ramakrishna Mission such as Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana,[6] often on the grounds of translation errors. However, Bengal scholar Brian Hatcher has defended Kripal's translations.[7]

Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion

In 2007 The University of Chicago Press released Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, Kripal's account of the

Journal of American History, Catherine Albanese called it "a highly personal account that is also a superb historiographical exercise and a masterful work of analytical cultural criticism."[8]

Authors of the Impossible

Kripal's 2011 book traces the history of psychic phenomena over the last two centuries. The book profiles four writers: the British psychical researcher

Jacques Vallee, and the French philosopher Bertrand Méheust
.

Chronicle of Higher Education

In a March 2014 article for the

Chronicle of Higher Education, "Visions of the Impossible", Kripal cited Mark Twain
, who wrote that a dream about his brother's death appeared to come true in detail a few weeks later. Kripal writes that

The professional debunker's insistence, then, that the phenomena play by his rules and appear for all to see in a safe and sterile laboratory is little more than a mark of his own ignorance of the nature of the phenomena in question.[9]

Kripal's article was criticized by Jerry Coyne in The New Republic as "the latest anti-science argument."[10]

Criticism

Hindu nationalist ideologue

Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America, Malhotra's criticisms are primarily based on the work of Swami Tyagananda.[12]

As a result of criticisms like Malhotra's, Kripal was among a group of scholars receiving death threats and physical attacks from Hindus offended by his portrayals.[13] He shifted his research focus away from Hinduism afterward, claiming, “I stuck with it and responded as best as I could for about six or seven years. It just wore me down after a while. At some point I felt like it wasn’t worth it anymore, that it was starting to affect my health. I couldn’t go anywhere, any conference or anything, without having to deal with the thought police, as it were.”[14]

Bibliography

Books authored

Books edited

Articles and essays

See also

References

  1. ^ Lending library of the Scientific Anomaly Institute
  2. ^ Homepage of the GEM program
  3. ^ Jeffrey J. Kripal's faculty page at the Department of Religious Studies, Rice University.
  4. Kurien, Prema A.
    (2007). "Challenging American Pluralism". A place at the multicultural table. Rutgers University Press. pp. 201–202.
  5. ^ Balagangadhara, S.N.; Sarah Claerhout (Spring 2008). "Are Dialogues Antidotes to Violence? Two Recent Examples From Hinduism Studies" (PDF). Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. 7 (19): 118–143. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-08-20. Retrieved 2010-01-15.
  6. ISBN 978-81-208-3499-6
    .
  7. S2CID 147134190.[permanent dead link
    ]
  8. ^ Catherine Albenese, [untitled review] Journal of American History Mar 2008, 1326 [1]
  9. ^ Jeffrey J. Kripal (31 March 2014). "Visions of the Impossible". chronicle.com. Retrieved 2014-04-03.
  10. Jerry Coyne (3 April 2014). "The Latest Anti-Science Argument Comes Down to ESP"
    . The New Republic. newrepublic.com. Retrieved 2014-04-03.
  11. ISBN 978-8129111821
    .
  12. ISBN 978-8120834996
    .
  13. ^ "The University of Chicago Magazine: December 2004". magazine.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2019-06-02.
  14. ^ "Scholars who study Hinduism and India face hostile climate". www.insidehighered.com. 12 April 2016. Retrieved 2019-06-02.

External links

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