How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else

by Jeffrey J. Kripal

Overview

A mind-bending invitation to experience the impossible as fundamentally human.
 
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 foster an awareness that the fantastic is real, the supernatural is super natural, and the impossible is possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226833699
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	07/26/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Prologue. Knowledge before Its Time

Introduction. The Fantastic Foundations of Reality

Part One. When the Impossible Happens
1. Words Are Experiences: Evolutionary Origins and the World of the Dead
2. Why They Don’t Land: Mantis, Mystical Theology, and Social Criticism
3. “That They Are Not Human”: Thinking on the Autistic Spectrum

Part Two. Making the Impossible Possible
4. The Timeswerve: Theorizing in a Block Universe
5. The World Is One, and the Human Is Two: Some Tentative Conclusions
6. We Are God (and the Devil): Further Thoughts and Moral Objections

Conclusion. How to Think Impossibly
Epilogue. The Three Bars

Acknowledgments. A Sociology of the Impossible
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Kripal inspires and provokes us to rethink what we imagine can and cannot be. Winding his way through accounts of encounters with demons, flying saints, precognitive dreams, clairvoyant visions, near-death experiences, and alien intruders, he invites us to take seriously the fantastic and exotic. Alternately outrageous, whimsical, weird, and startling, How to Think Impossibly offers a breathtaking adventure into the world and meaning of wonders."

Greg Eghigian

"If I am to be provoked, I’d want it to be by a book like this one. How to Think Impossibly asks us to take seriously (but not solemnly) notions that reason would have us reject: to contemplate compassionately, humanely, and broadly the quiddities of human experience. Kripal’s book is the best kind: not an instruction manual on what to believe but an invitation to the imagination. Frankly, I don’t know what I think about it—but I want to think about it.

Philip Ball

This daring book offers a serious challenge to many of the dogmatic assumptions that govern the humanities, our understanding of religion, and—most significantly—our conceptions of reality. Kripal’s ideas call for nothing less than a quantum leap beyond the paradigms that shape our thinking about what is possible or impossible. His philosophy is as bold as it is compelling, and the cogency of his arguments is intensified by prose that packs a vigorous punch. Kripal has a gift for conveying very complex ideas succinctly, bringing abstractions out of their ether and connecting dots that have long needed connecting.

Carlos Eire

"Read this book if you want to make sense of how apparently impossible events do sometimes occur and how uncanny connections can arise between quantum physics and religious mysticism."

Amitav Ghosh

2024-05-04
A philosophical engagement with the impossible.

Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, so it is his job to think outside the conventional box. In his latest book, following The Flip and The Superhumanities, the author interrogates the nature of consciousness, belief, even reality itself. His thesis is that the body of things considered impossible by the norms of rational thought and scientific inquiry is so large, when taken as a whole, that it should be placed at the center of discourse rather than pushed to the margin or dismissed entirely. Kripal examines precognition, near-death experiences, altered states of consciousness, religious visions, psychic connectivity, and quantum entanglement (“whereby invisible particles seemed to influence and affect one another across unimaginable distances instantly”), concluding that they indicate that the structure of time and space is not linear and fixed but omnidirectional and fluid, folding back on itself in unpredictable ways. “Why do people believe impossible things?” he asks. “People believe impossible things because impossible things happen to people….One does not need to believe any of the belief systems that build up around such extraordinary experiences to acknowledge that the experiences in fact happened.” It is an interesting paradigm, but, as befits the subject matter, many sections of the text are convoluted and difficult to follow, even after repeated reading. However, readers who can navigate the labyrinthine narrative will appreciate Kripal’s idea of broadening your mind to see the nonrational as a deeper form of rationality. Certainly, this book is not for everyone, especially those who adhere to conventional religious teachings, but readers who want to venture into the world behind the world might find it an intriguing journey.

Kripal bravely dives into fundamental questions, and he offers mind-stretching possibilities as a result.

Kirkus Reviews