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.
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
Height:
Width:
Spine:
Weight:454.00