The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained

Whitley Strieber (Communion) and Jeffrey J. Kripal (J. Newton Rayzor professor of religion at Rice University) team up on this unprecedented and intellectually vibrant new framing of inexplicable events and experiences.  Rather than merely document the anomalous, these authors–one the man who popularized alien abduction and the other a renowned scholar and 'renegade advocate for including the paranormal in religious studies' (The New York Times)–deliver a fast-paced and exhilarating study of why the supernatural is neither fantasy nor fiction but a vital and authentic aspect of life. Their suggestion? That all kinds of 'impossible' things, from extra-dimensional beings to bilocation to bumps in the night, are not impossible at all: rather,  they are a part of our natural world. But this natural world is immeasurably more weird, more wonderful, and probably more populated than we have so far imagined with our current categories and cultures, which are what really make these things seem 'impossible.' The Super Natural considers that the natural world is actually a 'super natural world'–and all we have to do to see this is to change the lenses through which we are looking at it and the languages through which we are presently limiting it. In short: The extraordinary exists if we know how to look at and think about it.  'A cohesive reframing of the 'pantheon of the unknown' . . . A thought-provoking, intelligent reconceptualization of supernatural events.'  Kirkus Reviews  'This book is a dream come true. It has taken thirty years for the most articulate of abductees to be taken seriously by a senior academic. This dialogue between the famous abductee and the historian of religions is the first major step in ufology since Jacques Vallee's writings of the 1990s. Whitley Strieber's intelligence and honesty compel one to take his experiences seriously, though they may sweep the philosophical ground from under our feet. In taking up the challenge, Jeffrey Kripal avoids the simplistic reactions of both skeptic and true believer. Instead of pretending to have the answers, he asks mind-bending questions, whose very asking is an act of self-transformation. Their conversation sets off sparks that should rekindle the search after 'rejected knowledge,' and integrate it with the great paradigm change of our time: the end of materialism.'  Joscelyn Godwin, Colgate University'If reading The Super Natural doesn't make your hair stand straight up, you need to read it again. This book is at once disturbing and disorienting, fascinating and lucid. Its 'new vision of the unexplained' dives headfirst into all sorts of strange but true encounters, from ravishing alien goddesses to loathsome blue gremlins. While this domain of human experience remains strictly taboo, it doesn't stop hundreds of thousands of ordinary people from continuing to report bizarre encounters with we know not what. This remarkable book does not attempt to explain what is going on. But it does crack open your head long enough to provide a new perspective.' Dean Radin, Chief Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of Supernormal; Entangled Minds; and The Conscious Universe'Something is happening here, and we're not sure what it is, but Kripal and Strieber have a clue: if there are aliens among us, they are ourselves, and we seem eager to make contact. This is a brilliant, provocative, and gripping new inquiry into the mysteries of time, space, and the human — and not so human — mind. Absolutely captivating; one could even say I was abducted . . . '  Gary Lachman, author of The Secret Teachers of the Western World