What If Science Took The Paranormal Seriously? | The Superhumanities | Prof. Jeffrey Kripal PhD
Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra interviews Prof. Jeffrey Kripal, PhD, who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, on his new book: ‘The Superhumanities, Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities.’
What if the humanities would open their horizon to more metaphysical possibilities? Prof. Kripal has written a book about a future in which the humanities study the full human. In these superhumanities, the weird, the psi—in short, the impossible—is taken seriously metaphysically: anomalous phenomena are not only regarded as subjective truths, but also as objective claims about reality.
In his book, Prof. Kripal clearly shows how the nineteenth century ontology of materialism reigns in almost all of the humanities, which limits our scientific understanding of who we are as humans: there is no transcendence, the individual is nothing but a social body in spacetime, shaped by society. As Prof. Kripal likes to quip: “if there is one dogma in the humanities, it is that the truth has to be depressing.” The humanities need to expand beyond this depressing view, not because it’s depressing, but because it’s simply a half truth. We are conditioned social animals and transcendent beings. We are human and superhuman, as he argues.
Interestingly, the superhumanities can build on the same foundational thinkers as the humanities. When we read the full Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, or Jacques Derrida, for instance, we see that these thinkers very much acknowledged the super. It is only the postmodern reading of their texts in academia that filters out the ecstatic. When it comes to Nietzsche, Prof. Kripal convincingly argues that the ‘crazy’ Nietzsche was perhaps the real Nietzsche, at the pinnacle of his thought. But here’s the thing: did he think his way to the vision of the Übermensch—which later unjustly got contaminated by fascism—or did he somehow receive it as a vision? According to Prof. Kripal, Nietzsche’s vision should be taken much more literally than we now take it: he was talking about an actual superspecies, with superhuman capabilities.
What if the humanities could scientifically investigate what happened when, for instance, Nikola Tesla had the visions that led to groundbreaking inventions? What happened when Einstein saw the principles of general relativity in a dream? Perhaps the key takeaway from Prof. Kripal’s book is that, if the humanities would only dare to turn into the superhumanities, they would again become relevant for the other disciplines in academia.
00:00 Intro
06:49 The humanities only focus on Clark Kent…
08:45 The humanities reduce everything to society
10:53 The humanities are not aware of ontology
12:11 The humanities have to catch up with physics
13:25 What exactly is the ‘super’ in the super humanities?
15:31 The precognitive dreams of Schopenhauer
18:01 How is Nietzsche read in the humanities and how should we read it?
21:51 How ‘super’ was Nietzsche’s Übermensch vision?
23:51 If you actually read Nietzsche not just about him…
26:58 God has to die so super humans can live
28:23 How the Superhuman has been kept alive in many traditions
30:27 How can the humanities deny empirical evidence in favor of the Super?
32:05 X-Men is true!
35:01 Are you opening the door to literal readings of religious stories?
39:39 On the miracles Ram Dass described
41:46 The ontology of William James
44:48 The pragmatist vs metaphysical William James
50:06 Jeffrey’s critique on metaphysical ‘agnosticism’
54:26 The immunological response of the humanities
1:00:53 The human as 2
1:05:09 Jung on UAP’s
1:09:21 We need a story that unites us
1:12:43 Kripal’s take on Foucault
1:15:17 What was Foucault’s ontology?
1:17:27 The study of religion nowadays is only about the horizontal
1:19:28 On decolonizing reality
1:22:15 On the Afro pessimism movement
1:24:18 A day in college in the Superhumanities
1:26:33 The super humanities are very much alive outside of academia
1:29:03 Science should stay science
1:30:42 On Donald Hoffman
1:32:09 On the tyranny of clarity
1:35:36 On becoming AND studying the Superhuman
1:37:27 Integration of these experiences are NOT possible 🙂
1:46:56 Closing remarks on the lava and the rock…
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@radmom4612
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Balance and integration don’t matter? Because maybe the saints were terrible people, but they sure were interesting!
…I was holding my breath waiting for that answer, what a letdown! Balance and integration don’t matter *to you*. Not everyone has the luxury of just not worrying about that.
Also: What do you think they want that functional framework for??
@techereyes
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
It's amusing to watch and listen to these videos on Essentia and other channels after devouring videos and talks from Catholic content creators especially those who focus on the more "paranormal" like aspects of our religious beliefs. The teachings of the Church, for example, about preternatural and supernatural. (demons, angels, mystics, etc).
@figure8analogy677
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Such an excellent discussion….If the Universe is pure consciousness and we arise out of that through an evolutionary process, once the Mind’s power is truly understood we will eventually be able to do everything that is possible in the dream world in this world…Precognitive dreams has already been established, it’s only a matter of time before someone uses their mind to fly in the awake-state and that’s so damn exciting to think about if only as a potentiality!💫!
@scotchhollow
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
“There’s no devil, only God when he’s drunk” – Tom Waits
@newdawnrising8110
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
There is a big difference between psychedelic plant experiences and a genuine supernatural experience.
The unitive state of consciousness, experience of oneness is very different than standing before the Father of Lights or Godhead.
Plants show us our natural potential but Christ shows us the Father and union with the real divine. Unfortunately this understanding has been greatly lost when originally the Christian Revelation was much more common just over a thousand years ago. Few today even suspect there are states higher than the unitive state of oneness.
@bobfalconer
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
THANK YOU BOTH. a great conversation, excellent questions. what a gift! thanks more please
bob
@colinjames7569
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Revelation is given. Never known or ontological.
@colinjames7569
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Why question your existence
@Jana-fp8qp
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
It would be cool if someone could record super human stuff on a smartphone. Maybe it doesn't work around technology 🤨
@PaulFSphere
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Just discovered this space, trailing Kripal. Great stuff Hans! subscribed
@ShirleyMcalpine
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Dr.Jeffery Kripal. Oh how I wish you were on my dissertation committee😊 looks like I will remain ABD. Now 74 years old and with serious brain damage.
I've not read much of Nietzsche but I've read enough to have the same view of him that you do. I feel vindicated😊
@joselopez-eb4lj
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
I should not profit from this but you could help me… i would like to acompany 1 being through his healing/growth process with mushrooms, (only in august/september). I can give more details
@joselopez-eb4lj
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Ane your word choice is perfect, its a revelation an objective task for the energetic me, im not special, just cought a messege
@joselopez-eb4lj
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Thank you
@paulmint1858
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Hmmm you lost me at around 36 mins when you said the fabled JC’s miracles wee literally true. Oh dear
@leslietaylor2754
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
I must state this, even prior to the end of the conversation, which is quite good so far. I have a lot of these experiences, always have. In trying to understand why and how I've assumed that, all humility aside, it's because I have a high degree of natural talents, artistic being the most visible and the one I've mostly focused on. Yet, I do a lot of things as though I've had previous learning or training. It's hereditary. The miraculous, or paranormal, I have studied and written about extensively including documenting my own experiences. One thing I do not do is drugs, other than some marijuana in my youth — no hallucinogens. I commit to this in particular so that no one can attribute my paranormal experiences and as being drug induced.
I noticed that the interviewer snuck in the word transhumanism — a trap — an AI/5G enslaved state. Personally, I believe that all the mad plans the 'elite' have for the total technological control of humanity, or what's left of, the rest spiritually free, will fail. Some believe that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (b. 1881 – d, 1955 on Easter) was prescient and perhaps experienced an NDE. I had the same thoughts when reading his works. "On Love and Happiness" he states, "The servants of material progress …try their hardest to emerge into freedom, but they are fatally sucked in and assimilated by the determinisms they construct. Their own machinery turns them into machines. The true Hindu karma. At this moment all that remains to control human energy is the use of brute force — the same force that is very logically being offered us at present as objects of worship [injected chemicals, cell phones, 5G, AI, etc.). Now this is treason against spirit, and at the same time a grave mistake in human technology, a system of elements of consciousness that can only cohere on a basis of immanence – the doctrine or theory of immanence holds that the Divine encompasses and is manifested in the material world. Not by force, but love above us, and therefore, at the beginning the recognized existence of an Omega that makes possible a universal Love."
@beyshore_
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
william james doing whip-its let's gooooo
@farquoi
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
I love this guy, but where is the proof that people, anywhere, are levitating? That should be easy to document but it has not been
@happyday2912
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
I think scientists should check the supranatural things more, in many countries that still preserve their traditional beliefs such as in Indonesia, which many people still believe in shamanism and voodoo practice. I found this video about a girl that said to be victim of voodoo practice called "santet" that suddenly there are nails inside her and real hospital doctor that took the nails out of her body, there are also proof of the photo when they are doing the surgery and the nails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uooN2yP5ck0
@8n8nxxi
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
great interview until he completely misrepresents Afro-Pessimism. It’s a shame because it’s the one humanities field that will be crucial in understanding the “next phase of human development”. Afro-futurism is about reproducing the present/pasts antiBlack (humanist) value systems into the future. If you see this Prof. Kripal, please read Becoming Human by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson.
@antinatalope
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Science does take the paranormal seriously. And it will acknowledge it if it's actually a thing.
@haydencalninmusic
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Wonderful conversation, thank you
@ama-tu-an-ki
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Kripal falls for forced binary dichotomy in his materialism vs gnosticism, when he forces agnostics to be sliding materialists.
No, agnosticism can ALSO be the EXCLUDED MIDDLE.
If you haven't had GNOSIS, but don't believe in materialism, then what are you? It would be lying to call yourself a gnostic, you haven't had gnosis experience (that you are aware of).
Maybe we need a better term for it. People who claim that "nothing can be known about the existence / nature of god" are more accurately ANTI-GNOSTICS. They deny the possibility of gnosis.
What are those who believe in the possibility of it, maybe even seek the experience, but have not had gnosis?
I'd claim those are the majority of the people.
Very few are true physical materialist when acutely facing their own death.
@follonica1
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
In the end the politically correctness on Jung did not like me…before he speaks of abnormal states and then he falls again in the politically correct for the fear of cancel culture. This is the problem. If you do not want to be integrated then how you survive? The prize to pay is too high. There is no alternative…It seems that modernity has burned the seeds and now you must deal only with that episteme that cannot be surmounted within that episteme. You cannot make understand certain things to people who did not have that kind of experience and you lose if you play in their episteme. Probably it is not possible even art anymore, how can you deal with the norms of modern academy?
@shwetasinghnm
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
A human being is a potential super human. It doesn't happen by wishing but by going through an evolutionary , transformative process. There is a path to be traversed, at least as an archetype . The stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata are exactly that , a narrative of transformation of the central figure from human to superhuman. As I think might be the Bible . But the process is very painful , often full of suffering , loss and pain. Essentially letting go of the small egoic identity to become no one in particular but the one common being , th ontological primitive of all human beings.
@FrogInPot
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Much as I love this interview, I find the reference on the title misleading and a cultural insight into the abuse of semantics that is hugely responsible for many of the abuses by the Humanities studies of our culture, that being the continual dangerous wielding of the Humanities studies with the authority as if they be Scientific.
@Mastermindyoung14
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Poorly formed question. "Science" doesn't "take things seriously". The scientific method is the best tool we have for understanding reality. If the paranormal has something of substance worthy of conducting science and surviving peer review, it will surface; if not then it shouldn't take it seriously. It's really that simple. Onus/burden of proof/null hypothesis. Show me and I'll believe you. Just be ready for skepticism.
@DrDorothyParker
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
I believe we are more than the summation our parts. For me this means we have to stop using labels like human beings, biology, psychological, and spirituality. In other words we are cosmic beings having an earthly experience, but that doesn't mean we dummy down our abilities to this earthly environment. I tell people the label human being is a rather new terms.
@jupiterthesun3217
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
We are only superhuman when we are as humble as the grasses in the fields .
@cocobololocoloco
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
Great filming method..a secondary camera maybe to standard video call…nice idea !
….and of course the interview itself is great….
@chookskapow
October 23, 2024 at 12:16 am
The comparison with the comic Superman is erroneous. Seigal and Schuster created this character as a very Jewish reaction to a racial ideology pervading the German government of the time. Siegal and Schuster’s Superman is an alien refugee from a destroyed planet – original Israel. As a refugee, he must conceal his real identity from his host in order to go about ‘repairing the world’ – Tikkun olam. His super-human powers consist of over-blown muscles, laser eyes and unfathomable flight. The Nietzschean Ubermench is very different!