Authors of the Impossible

The Paranormal and the Sacred

Jeffrey J. Kripal

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780226453873
  9780226453866
• eBook ISBN:
  9780226453897
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

Most scholars dismiss research into the paranormal as pseudoscience, a frivolous pursuit for the paranoid or gullible. Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey J. Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred and by tracing that history through the last two centuries of Western thought we can see its potential centrality to the critical study of religion.

Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and sociologist Bertrand Méheust. Through incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Dimensions
• Acknowledgments
• An Impossible Opening: The Magical Politics of Bobby Kennedy
• Introduction: Off the Page
• 1. The Book a s Séance: Frederic Myers and the London Society for Psychical Research
• 2. Scattering the Seeds of a Super-Story: Charles Fort and the Fantastic Narrative of Western Occulture
• 3. The Future Technology of Folklore: Jacques Vallee and the UFO Phenomenon
• 4. Returning the Human Sciences to Consciousness: Bertrand Méheust and the Sociology of the Impossible
• Conclusion: Back on the Page
• Impossible (Dis)Closings: Two Youthful Encounters
• Required Reading (That is Never Read): A Select Annotated Bibliography
• Some More Damned Anecnotes
• Index