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

by Jeffrey J. Kripal

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.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Psychology, Cultural, Spirituality, Theory

312 pages, Hardcover

First published July 26, 2024

About the author

Jeffrey J. Kripal, Ph.D. (History of Religions, The University of Chicago, 1993; M.A., U. Chicago; B.A., Religion, Conception Seminary College, 1985), holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he serves as Associate Dean of Humanities, Faculty and Graduate Studies. He also has served as Associate Director of the Center for Theory and Research of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

Reviews

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

So. Right of the bat I should a knowledge that this book is pretty woo-woo (though published with Chicago UP), but I enjoyed Kripal’s perpetual candor about his mission. It feels like he’s risking everything in publishing this, straining for the impossible in a professional knowledge landscape that denies the irrational. Overall, I had fun reading it. I paced myself and read it over the course of a month, which is different from my usual reading speed. Although the slowness allowed me to let Kripal’s thesis sink in, I will have to return to this book again; it’s a dense and erudite work, and I have no training in religious studies. Some of the discussions on gnosticism went right over my head. I buy some of this, and with other things I maintain my (safe) skepticism. But whatever your mileage here, I’d recommend that you allow yourself to be stretched a little.

[History Today]

In opening his manifesto on UFOs with an epigraph from Charles Fort, Jeffrey Kripal warns us that there is interesting trouble ahead. While conceding that Eghigian’s contextual approach explains the format and incidence of encounters with UFOs, this eminent historian of religion argues that it does not detract from their reality. To ‘think-with’ the ‘experiencers’ of such things means treating them as enquirers who can change how history is written. Kripal follows Victorian psychical researchers in assuming that humans in every place and time have enjoyed paranormal powers. Whether our sources tell us our subjects spoke with Venusians, the Virgin Mary or Kali does not matter: their experiences were valid expressions of their neurology, not their beliefs. They were ‘ontological shocks’, which reveal that consciousness is or might become less bounded than we now suppose it to be. Kripal criticises historians for preferring to understand their subjects as ‘horizontal’ people formed by clusters of cultural, ethnic or gendered attributes, rather than as the recipients of ‘vertical’ inspiration.

Should flying saucers initiate a broader ‘weirding’ of historical scholarship? Kripal’s sensitive retellings of what his contactees endured show we cannot just write them off as mad or delirious – even though they were plainly troubled. Their experiences were ‘semiotic’, prompting them and us to question how minds construct reality. But if Kripal is right to note the difficulties they pose for the vanilla ontology and psychology many historians bring to their study of the past, his solution to them will strike many readers as a surrender to credulity. He tells us that governments have probably covered up UFOs, which probably aren’t extraterrestrials, but superhumans from the future. They are alarming but nice: they come to free us from egoism, colonialism and the temptation to vote for Donald Trump. Kripal may mean all this just as a provocation to historians, who could become more creative in dealing with the paranormal if they stretched what they understand normality to be and accepted that something was out there – even if not giant praying mantises in purple cloaks, to take one of his case studies. Perhaps it is boring to object that private jokes are not public scholarship and that our archives are not The X-Files. Taken together though, these books caution us that once we suspend our judgement about what counts as good evidence, anything goes.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Michael Ledger-Lomas is a historian of religion. He is currently writing a book about Edwardians and gods.

[Cav · Rating 1 out of 5]

"What do we do with the empirical or physical implications of impossible phenomena? And how do these same physical-mental phenomena challenge and change our conceptions of the human, of consciousness, of embodiment, and, perhaps most of all, of the relationship of the human being to space-time and the physical cosmos itself? Actually, how do they change everything?"

I was excited to start How to Think Impossibly. Unfortunately, I did not like the writing here, for a few reasons. I first heard about the book from the author's recent appearance on Michael Shermer's Skeptic podcast, which I enjoyed. Unfortunately, the interesting concepts talked about there did not carry over to the writing in the book. More below.

Author Jeffrey John Kripal is an American college professor. He is the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Jeffrey J. Kripal :


The book gets off to a decent start, with a decently engaging and interesting intro. He drops the quote at the beginning of this review, and it continues:

"...I mean it. Consider precognitive phenomena. I have long thought of these as the most well-documented and philosophically important of all impossible events. As such, they carry immense potential for influencing everything intellectuals and scientists do. If taken as real (by which I simply mean, “they happen”), such experiences and events (and they are both) would transform the entire order of knowledge upon which our present culture depends, the sciences included. For a start, they could tell us something stunning about the practice of history (time goes both ways), the history of religions (divination is globally distributed because it is based on an actual, if unreliable, human ability), the philosophy of mind (consciousness and cognition are not stuck in the present skull cavity or in this temporal slice of a body), and even something as abstract as causality itself (agency can act from the future). If we want to begin to learn how to think impossibly, precognitive phenomena are going to be a key to any such new order of knowledge."

The writing in the book loosely incorporates many different stories of precognition. The author expands further:

"Impossible things certainly happen in numerous cultural zones and through specific ritual practices on a fairly routine basis. This is why a comparative practice is so necessary, so liberating and healing, but also so devastating to our local assumptions. Trained intellectuals who experience the impossible are commonly shocked and often see and say more or less the same thing: “It is not what we thought.”13
That is the very first lesson of thinking impossibly: recognizing that the impossible is a function not of reality but of our own present social constructions and subsequent perceptions and cognitions. That is also the humanist’s secret taken to its furthest point until it bends back on itself and consumes its own historical perspective. That is the deconstruction of deconstruction. That is the snake biting its own tail."

Unfortunately, the writing here progressively took a turn into the weeds, and became long-winded, dense, and tedious. The book slowly lost the forest for the trees. It's also way too long; IMHO. If you are going to write a book this long, it had better be interesting.

Sadly, most of the writing was not. The author started citing obscure books and authors. He went into great detail about these authors, their books, and their personal philosophies. There was lots of rambling writing that lost focus and narrative continuity. There was also just too much esoteric philosophical jargon throughout. I found this style to be very off-putting.

Also, quite a lot of time was spent here talking about interdimensional beings. Specifically: mantises and other insectoid creatures. This was beginning to strain credulity. The author also theorizes a correlation between the rise of alien abductions and autism, providing only a philosophical underpinning for this assertion.

So, all that was getting a bit much for me - but it kept going. The author also talks about "remote viewing" and other pseudoscientific woo-woo. He asserts that these phenomena are all objectively real, and not simply the by-products of altered states of consciousness.


********************

Ultimately, I put this one down a little over halfway through, which is something I rarely do. The book was a jumbled mess. I was not prepared to spend any more time on a super long book I was not enjoying.
1 star.

[B. Rule · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really squirmed for the first half of this until the project snapped into focus in the theoretical section. The book opens with recitations of all sorts of high weirdness, accepted as fact: UFOs, abductions, precognition, NDEs, telepathy, and in the deathless prose of one Garth Marenghi, two words: telly kinesis. While I've read and loved prior Kripal works, a sinking feeling seized me that his credulousness had finally gone too far. I realized only later what he's up to: this was an intentional ontological shock, to jar the reader from the strictures of our physicalist, innately dualist orthodoxy.

Kripal only shows his cards in the second half, which turns into a pretty solid if broadly reasoned case for dual-aspect monism (i.e., that mind and matter are two aspects of an underlying One), and a plea for epistemological humility about what is possible. I really like his pithy line that the "World is One and the Human is Two," which like all good aphorisms, admits of a multiplicity of meanings. Among others, I take him to mean that the split between objective and subjective, transcendental and immanent, is in us, not "out there," whatever that may mean. Despite all the technological success milked out of the effort to "shut up and calculate," we've never encountered reality unmixed with consciousness. Kripal stands with those who are willing to read the participatory universe of quantum physics as proof that in fact, they cannot be separated. There are lots of ways to understand that, and Kripal's commitment to his monism is lightly worn: he leaves space for all kinds of nondualisms, pantheisms, and idealisms.

While I can't really travel as far as him in accepting all the reports of anomalous events on face value, I have a lot of appreciation for the project. It's fundamentally an epistemologically optimistic approach: Kripal wants to preserve the possibility of direct access to the ground of Being, however dark the mirror may be, through participation in the imaginal faculty. This should be welcome to anyone with a mystical bent (or really just about any religious or scientifically curious person, I suppose). Even though this is more of a cri de coeur than a technically reasoned support for that position, I count Kripal on the side of the angels (or the insectoid time-displaced intelligences) for his efforts to preserve space for a bigger reality.

[Garrett Maxwell]

A how-to manual for "thinking impossibly" -- that is, when we refuse to take anything off the table, including precognitive dreams, abduction literature, quantum weirdness, and, of course, giant purple-robed praying mantis apparitions.

Thinking impossibly is not for everyone. It cannot be, he says. Our rational/social ego strenuously resists. But the only prerequisite is either 1) a direct experience of the impossible (gnosis), or 2) a hermeneutic sympathy with those who have.

Kripal is admirable for his willingness to think-with those people who have, and to take them seriously. Because at the end of the day it is better to be fooled on occasion than to dismiss a whole realm of human experience, one with vast archives spanning all of history to back it up.

Dismissing it, he holds, risks missing out on the future of knowledge. And it's boring.

[Aric Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bridges a lot of gaps for me. It’s nice to read an academic, theological take on the weird and strange. Highly recommend it this to anyone even remotely interested in the bizarre.

[Marisa Duarte · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give this book 5 stars for being the most fascinating and well-written non-fiction scholarly work I have read this year. Kripal is an esteemed religious studies scholar at Rice University most recognized for research on mysticism and what he calls "the impossible." The impossible refers to revelatory experiences and encounters that change the lives and cosmic sensibilities (and sometimes sensory capacities) of otherwise ordinary people. Indeed, sometimes these folks are so ordinary that they are somewhat disregarded or maltreated given the social customs of their surroundings. Impossible encounters may include (but aren't limited to) ufo abductions or sightings, sightings of saints, flight and levitation, ghostly or spirit encounters, precognition, and experiences with tulpa, Bigfoot, or other such entities. In academia the Age of Reason has us scoffing at or debunking that which challenges our understanding of linear time and historical 'progress.' The major religions (especially Protestant sects) will tell us to look away from anything that evokes a challenge to the institution's authority or doctrine. So, even though many people experience impossible phenomena, these go unexamined by serious scholars and conscientious skeptics. (Conscientious because we note the foundational flaws in Western Scientism, and are open to paradigm shifts.) Kripal explains the mentalities for thinking impossibly, whether because you have had such an experience or because you have deep regard for those who do and must learn to co-think with them. Stand-out sections for me include: an essay on the deception/revelation paradigm characteristic of UFO encounters and how these relate to releasing bigotries and expectations of national security; explanation throughout of intellectual genealogies of notable phenomenologists such as Husserl and Heidegger; and explanations of why the major religions struggle with some of these experiences in particular when ordinary people express extraordinary capacities in thought and physicality. Ultimately Kripal explains why this way of thinking is integral to recharging the humanities in an era of technocratic disenchantment. Non-Western thinkers firmly rooted in their cosmic ancestral practices will laugh at how deeply a Western mind most go to unsettle Cartesian dualism, but can also appreciate the citation practices and acknowledgement of non-Western world religions and philosophies of consciousness.

[Drak · Rating 4 out of 5]

What we consider impossible and to lie outside reality is merely another perspective on the massive dimensional superstructure we all reside in. A full picture of which is unattainable, but through our various lived slices we claim to have a full understanding. Full truth cannot be attained until we embrace the immensity and the inability to see which we have conditioned ourselves into by culture.
Fitness has been placed above truth in our quest for survival since time immemorial. we forget that we're living in illusion so what we consider to be phantoms are glimpses of truth, not imaginary tricks. This forgotten memory that allows us to continue our quotidian existence had deleterious side effects like enabling cults and fostering general disdain for truth. People can't accept the truth because it would mean the destruction of the weltanschauung they've built up over centuries.
What we see as impossible today, was seen as very possible in the past—like magic and witches and other supernatural phenomena. They aren't any more true than our unbelief but each one touches upon a greater reality of which we have been incapable of grasping.
Modern science like quantum mechanics is finally allowing us to peek at the greater truth which has eluded us for so long. With advances that were once seen as impossible, we are learning more and more about this world in which we live.
To think impossibly, then, is to embrace paradox, to recognize the limits of our perception while daring to imagine beyond them. It is a call to inhabit a space of wonder, to see our "phantoms" not as mere figments but as signposts pointing toward a larger, incomprehensible whole.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read almost every book by Jeffrey Kripal and this one is another winner. This new entry is right up there with The Flip for being his best book and a great starting point for those getting into his works. Kripal writings are easily one of the funnest reads in academia today and this book lives up to everything I want going into one of his books (chapter four of his book, The Timeswerve Theorizing in a Block Universe, was a full-on trip). His 2019 work The Filp was my book of the year upon its release and this one will be in strong contention for my favorite of 2024.

[Ioana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind expanding

It matters so much from what place you come to this book.

I came from a place of awe and I let it expand my perspective. To me this is a mind bending, world opening book and I will treasure forever the over encompassing, compassionate and inclusiveness it brings to such a vast subject that is basically.. everything.

The impact Jeff Kripal had for me is so much bigger than this book, but as the story goes, is this book.

[Dieter Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Depending on your worldview, you will either give this book five stars or zero. If you're ready to dive into the unknown, it will motivate you to do so. If you prefer to play it safe, you will disregard every temptation to explore the unknown. The leap is risky, but I believe that our time is ripe for dramatic change. That's why I gave it five stars.

[Jeremy Landau · Rating 1 out of 5]

The subject my be interesting, however the author's convoluted and often self-justifying use of language is not. Look elsewhere for better more erudite opportunities.

[Dh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not philosophy. Not science. Not metaphysics. A good title to snag readers like me who hoped for any one of these three topics.

[Mick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topic that I want to know more about, but the author's connection to the Esalen Institute dimmed my willingness to spend more time on it. I might go back, I might not