Recording: "The Sacred is not the Good" special guest Jeffrey Kripal

Debunking was debunked, deception was defended. All attempts to package reality completely confounded. If we project what we deny, might even God be a repressed dimension of our own humanity?

Jeffrey Kripal is a professor of philosophy and religion at Rice University, Houston, where he co-founded the Archives of the Impossible, a major research hub housing thousands of documents on UFOs, paranormal phenomena, and extraordinary human experiences. So I thought this Q&A with Bernardo Kastrup might be on little green men - but it was abducted by other concerns.

Jeffrey emphasised that "the sacred is not the good." It may be powerful, overwhelming, and transformative, but not necessarily benevolent by our own measure. Divine-like forces can appear as both angelic and demonic, creative and destructive. The trauma that can occasion spiritual revelations is accompanied by moral and philosophical ambiguity.

Have a tidy model for anomalous encounters, UAPs or religion? You're probably ignoring much of the data. Full understanding might escape even future generations, but the suspicion is that anomalous encounters may be nothing but our repressed nature, seeking expression. The invitation is to consider that even as individuals, we are vaster than we can imagine.

Whilst any single explanation was rejected, none more so than physicalism. Jeffrey's departing reflection that our culture may be at a flipping point - materialism just doesn't work.

Also discussed:

• It is impossible to explain the impossible
• The blind spots of rational people
• The deception behind UAPs
• What causes a perceptual 'flip'
• Jeffrey’s view on Jacques Vallée’s work
• Trauma, revelation and religion
• The variable speed of light

Background resources, and the recording of this session are below.

Next week, we embark on perhaps the most personal session so far, a book launch for Bernardo's autobiographical reflections on the Daimon, and the Soul of the West.

Until then!

Amir

Philosophy professor Jeffrey J Kripal: ‘Thinking about a UFO as some kind of extraterrestrial spaceship is naive’

The academic and author draws on quantum mechanics, English romantic philosophy and mysticism to explore a new theory of mind that embraces the paranormal

The GuardianTim Adams

Here is Jacques Vallée's TED talk that was referenced:

Also, you might enjoy this link to a Reddit AMA with Jacques Vallée:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/O7oAdCZ8ve

Time Stamps

Courtesy of Rita Conde

00:01:30 - Preamble
00:07:10 - Start of Q&A
00:08:14 - Implications of qualia in the phenomenal experience of revelations
00: 16:40 - Why is mind-at-large love and light?
00:18:18 - Are these revelations latent in human history?
00:20:00 - Alters, sub-alters, and splitters
00:24:25 - The entities are probably us
00:26:03 - Entities might have agency
00:27:00 - We are cosmic
00:28:40 - What does it mean to say that everything is us?
00:30:00 - Only analytical idealism can articulate these experiences
00:33:20 - Reality is a hallucination
00:35:00 - Jeffrey’s view on Jacques Vallée’s work
00:39:45 - What is the control system for Jacques Vallée?
00:41:00 - The speed of light as a basic scientific postulate
00:42:33 - For Jacques Vallée, Jeffrey is the key figure in UAP research
00:43:00 - Deception is not necessarily bad
00:44:40 - Plato’s cave at the root of the humanities
00:46:00 - Jeffrey’s views on UAPs
00:47:47 - The Archives of the Impossible
00:51:40 - Discerning the signals from the noise
01:01:00 - Debunking shuts down the discussion
01:02:40 - Religion is more than crowd control
01:03:00 - Jeffrey’s view on channeling
01:03:30 - Wouldn’t channeling be a more verifiable practice?
01:04:40 - How to stop explaining the impossible
01:07:10 - Our narratives are no longer aligned with reality
01:08:30 - Things we don’t know that we don’t know
01:10:00 - Allow yourself to not believe in yourself
01:11:25 - Looking for closure
01:13:00 - The importance of archives
01:15:30 - Extraordinary stories require extraordinary evidence
01:16:40 - After-death communication
01:20:40 - Agency and locality in after-death communication
01:24:10 - Eternity doesn’t mean “forever”; it means “outside time”
01:25:25 - Each person is a multitude
01:26:26 - All here at once
01:28:25 - The risks of category mistakes
01:33:00 - Everything is archetypal
01:33:58 - Are some of the anomalous encounters repressed parts of us coming into light?
01:38:08 - Agency, personality, ego, and reincarnation
01:40:00 - Deceit, trickery, and personality cults in religious movements
01:47:18 - The abundance of religions in biblical times
01:50:20 - Who is the founder of Christianity: Paul or Jesus?
01:52:30 - Einstein and Spinoza
01:55:40 - Final remarks