Jeffrey J Kripal
Biographic Data
| ID | 505695 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jeffrey J Kripal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jeffrey J |
| FAMILY NAME | Kripal |
| SIGNATURE | KRIPAL J J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rice University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
They Flew
They Flew is an exquisite historical study of individuals in Spain, Portugal, and Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who floated or flew, according to archival data, extensive personal witness, or autobiographical testimony: particularly Saint Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582), Saint Joseph of Cupertino (1603 – 1663), and María de Agreda (1602 – 1665). The author, a Yale historian of early modern Europe, is a biographer of Teresa of Avi…
At Your Door
Kocku von Stuckrad, A Cultural History of the Soul
Kocku von Stuckrad, A Cultural History of the Soul: Europe and North America from 1870 to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 352 pp., $30 (pbk), ISBN: 9780231200370
The Superhumanities
Hidden Intercourse
From rumors about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first t…
Prologomenon to the Future
I AM not a scholar of Theosophy. I do not know the literature. Like many of us, I have read into this literature and read a good deal about Theosophy and its central figures. I have also learned a great deal from a former PhD student, in this case Erin Prophet, who does know the literature and has been patient and gracious with my theosophical dullness for almost a decade now. But none of this hardly constitutes any real fluency on my part, much …
Reflections of an American Gnostic
The Gnostic Garden
After relating a dramatic near-death experience of a Houston woman named Elizabeth Krohn, this essay explores some of the themes of her near-death experience, particularly the invisible presence of a being of unconditional love in a paradisiacal garden and various direct transmissions of some traditional religious convictions. The essay then discusses some of the obvious New Age contexts and features of the visionary event and of the subsequent c…
The New Mutants
The New Mutants is a sophisticated and detailed reading of a select slice of American comic book history: those über-popular superheroes now celebrated in Hollywood blockbusters, who, at their original creation, were the stuff of cheap ephemeral adolescent literature. What Ramzi Fawaz demonstrates through quite stunning readings and precise cultural observations (involving everything from Saran Wrap and disco balls to inner-city race relations an…
Eranos
Better Horrors
Trauma, Trick, and Transcendence in the Life of a Horror Writer: The Case of Whitley Strieber. This essay treats the theorization of horror in Whitley Strieber's Communion (1987). It also pushes us to consider more honestly and forthrightly the question of “real monsters,” that is, the phenomenology of encounters with fantastic presences routinely experienced in the environment. Historical contextualization of Strieber's abduction experiences in …
Psychology and Religion at Rice University
Quietism and Karma
This essay is conceived as a contribution to the academic debate on the ethical status of mystical traditions with regard to Jain asceticism in particular and-through comparison of Jain with Advaita Vedanta asceticism-to ideologies of radical quietism more generally. For both Jain and Advaita Vedantic ascetic traditions, the material world, and particularly the body, are the primary obstacles to spiritual development. We deal with the social, phy…
Introduction
This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called "Apology for Quietism." This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the "activist" Susan Sontag's attraction to the "quietist" Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the "activist" William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, w…
Gnosisssss ‐ A response to Wouter Hanegraaff
The new sensibility does not threaten a regression from rationality to superstition; rather, it allows for expansion beyond the one-sided worldview that scientism has provided us over the last three hundred years. We should never forget how utterly unsophisticated the tenets of eighteenth-century rationalism have left us, believers and unbelievers alike, in that complex arena we blithely dub ‘spiritual’. Even as we see all too clearly the kitsch …
Remembering Ourselves
Through a brief cultural genealogy of the West’s encounter with Asian Tantric traditions from the late 1880s through the early 1980s and some personal reflections on the controversies surrounding the author’s Kali’s Child, this essay suggests that contemporary Indology’s orienting turn to Tantric texts and traditions and its occasional “excessive” focus on sexuality and gender do not derive in any direct or primary sense from Western colonialism,…
Reality against Society
Research Article| January 01 2007 Reality against Society: William Blake, Antinomianism, and the American Counterculture Jeffrey J. Kripal Jeffrey J. Kripal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2007) 13 (1): 98–112. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2006-033 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Jeffrey J. Kripal; Reality against Society: William Blake, Antinomianism, and t…
Introduction
Research Article| January 01 2007 Introduction: “SUFFOCATION in the Polis” Jeffrey M. Perl; Jeffrey M. Perl Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Michael Seidman; Michael Seidman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Simon Richards; Simon Richards Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Daniel Juan Gil; Daniel Juan Gil Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Gordon Ma…
Comparative Mystics
It is not difficult to see why Ulrich Beck’s cosmopolitan viewpoint would inspire dissent. In a time of religious violence, fundamentalist politics, and attempts to erase historical memory on behalf of ethnic self-interest, it is easy to forget that, not so long ago, intelligent and pragmatic people could hope for a global worldview and even a global spirituality to emerge. It is worth remembering. It is worthwhile resisting the cynicism that com…
The Domestication of a Goddess
Kālīghāt, the landing stage sacred to Kālī on the old course of the river Ganga at Calcutta, is regarded as an important seat of the Goddess (mahāpītha or śāktipītha) and is visited by thousands of pilgrims everyday. One particular feature of Bengali religiosity is a deep-seated devotion to mother goddesses. The most important public religious festivals in Bengal are connected with two goddesses, Durgā and Kālī, the goddess of war and victory and…
Mystical Bodies
Symbolic Loss
One Lifetime, Many Lives
Jīvanmukti in Transformation
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
The New Mutants
The New Mutants is a sophisticated and detailed reading of a select slice of American comic book history: those über-popular superheroes now celebrated in Hollywood blockbusters, who, at their original creation, were the stuff of cheap ephemeral adolescent literature. What Ramzi Fawaz demonstrates through quite stunning readings and precise cultural observations (involving everything from Saran Wrap and disco balls to inner-city race relations an…
Remembering Ourselves
Through a brief cultural genealogy of the West’s encounter with Asian Tantric traditions from the late 1880s through the early 1980s and some personal reflections on the controversies surrounding the author’s Kali’s Child, this essay suggests that contemporary Indology’s orienting turn to Tantric texts and traditions and its occasional “excessive” focus on sexuality and gender do not derive in any direct or primary sense from Western colonialism,…
Quietism and Karma
This essay is conceived as a contribution to the academic debate on the ethical status of mystical traditions with regard to Jain asceticism in particular and-through comparison of Jain with Advaita Vedanta asceticism-to ideologies of radical quietism more generally. For both Jain and Advaita Vedantic ascetic traditions, the material world, and particularly the body, are the primary obstacles to spiritual development. We deal with the social, phy…
Introduction
This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called "Apology for Quietism." This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the "activist" Susan Sontag's attraction to the "quietist" Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the "activist" William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, w…
Monastic Life in the Christian and Hindu Traditions
The Secret of the Three Cities
Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa
Kālī's Tongue and Ramakrishna
Kali's Child
The 19th-century Bengali mystic Ramakrishna played a major role in the development of Hinduism and is regarded as a modern saint. Yet he remains an enigma to followers unable to reconcile his saintly status with his eroticized language and actions. In this work, Jeffrey J. Kripal attempts to untangle the paradox. He demonstrates that Ramakrishna's famous mystical experiences were driven by erotic energies that he neither fully accepted nor unders…
Mystical Homoeroticism, Reductionism, and the Reality of Cenorship
Journal Article Mystical Homoeroticism, Reductionism, and the Reality of Cenorship: A Response to Gerald James Larson Get access Jeffery J. Kripal Jeffery J. Kripal Westminster CollegeNew Wilmington, PA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 66, Issue 3, FALL 1998, Pages 627–636, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/66.3.627 Published: 01 October 1998
The Divine and the Demoniac
Jīvanmukti in Transformation
The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling
One Lifetime, Many Lives
Symbolic Loss
The Domestication of a Goddess
Kālīghāt, the landing stage sacred to Kālī on the old course of the river Ganga at Calcutta, is regarded as an important seat of the Goddess (mahāpītha or śāktipītha) and is visited by thousands of pilgrims everyday. One particular feature of Bengali religiosity is a deep-seated devotion to mother goddesses. The most important public religious festivals in Bengal are connected with two goddesses, Durgā and Kālī, the goddess of war and victory and…
Mystical Bodies
Comparative Mystics
It is not difficult to see why Ulrich Beck’s cosmopolitan viewpoint would inspire dissent. In a time of religious violence, fundamentalist politics, and attempts to erase historical memory on behalf of ethnic self-interest, it is easy to forget that, not so long ago, intelligent and pragmatic people could hope for a global worldview and even a global spirituality to emerge. It is worth remembering. It is worthwhile resisting the cynicism that com…
Remembering Ourselves
Through a brief cultural genealogy of the West’s encounter with Asian Tantric traditions from the late 1880s through the early 1980s and some personal reflections on the controversies surrounding the author’s Kali’s Child, this essay suggests that contemporary Indology’s orienting turn to Tantric texts and traditions and its occasional “excessive” focus on sexuality and gender do not derive in any direct or primary sense from Western colonialism,…
Reality against Society
Research Article| January 01 2007 Reality against Society: William Blake, Antinomianism, and the American Counterculture Jeffrey J. Kripal Jeffrey J. Kripal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2007) 13 (1): 98–112. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2006-033 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Jeffrey J. Kripal; Reality against Society: William Blake, Antinomianism, and t…
Introduction
Research Article| January 01 2007 Introduction: “SUFFOCATION in the Polis” Jeffrey M. Perl; Jeffrey M. Perl Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Michael Seidman; Michael Seidman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Simon Richards; Simon Richards Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Daniel Juan Gil; Daniel Juan Gil Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Gordon Ma…
Gnosisssss ‐ A response to Wouter Hanegraaff
The new sensibility does not threaten a regression from rationality to superstition; rather, it allows for expansion beyond the one-sided worldview that scientism has provided us over the last three hundred years. We should never forget how utterly unsophisticated the tenets of eighteenth-century rationalism have left us, believers and unbelievers alike, in that complex arena we blithely dub ‘spiritual’. Even as we see all too clearly the kitsch …
Psychology and Religion at Rice University
Quietism and Karma
This essay is conceived as a contribution to the academic debate on the ethical status of mystical traditions with regard to Jain asceticism in particular and-through comparison of Jain with Advaita Vedanta asceticism-to ideologies of radical quietism more generally. For both Jain and Advaita Vedantic ascetic traditions, the material world, and particularly the body, are the primary obstacles to spiritual development. We deal with the social, phy…
Introduction
This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called "Apology for Quietism." This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the "activist" Susan Sontag's attraction to the "quietist" Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the "activist" William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, w…
Better Horrors
Trauma, Trick, and Transcendence in the Life of a Horror Writer: The Case of Whitley Strieber. This essay treats the theorization of horror in Whitley Strieber's Communion (1987). It also pushes us to consider more honestly and forthrightly the question of “real monsters,” that is, the phenomenology of encounters with fantastic presences routinely experienced in the environment. Historical contextualization of Strieber's abduction experiences in …
Eranos
The New Mutants
The New Mutants is a sophisticated and detailed reading of a select slice of American comic book history: those über-popular superheroes now celebrated in Hollywood blockbusters, who, at their original creation, were the stuff of cheap ephemeral adolescent literature. What Ramzi Fawaz demonstrates through quite stunning readings and precise cultural observations (involving everything from Saran Wrap and disco balls to inner-city race relations an…
The Gnostic Garden
After relating a dramatic near-death experience of a Houston woman named Elizabeth Krohn, this essay explores some of the themes of her near-death experience, particularly the invisible presence of a being of unconditional love in a paradisiacal garden and various direct transmissions of some traditional religious convictions. The essay then discusses some of the obvious New Age contexts and features of the visionary event and of the subsequent c…
Philosophy (23 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Art (13 works) · Religious studies (12 works) · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices (12 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Theology (11 works) · History (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Mysticism (9 works)