Jeffrey J. Kripal
Encyclopedia
Jeffrey John Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies
and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University
, Houston, Texas
. His areas of interest include the comparative erotics and ethics of mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religion
s, and the history of Western esotericism from ancient gnosticism
to the New Age
. Kripal has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School
.
: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna was a study of the Bengal
i mystic
Ramakrishna
. The book won the American Academy of Religion
's History of Religions
Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. A second, revised edition was published in 1998. The book has been dogged by controversy ever since its initial publication in 1995. The thesis of the book has been questioned by scholars like Gayatri Spivak, Alan Roland
and members of the Ramakrishna Mission, such as Swami Tyagananda
and Pravrajika Vrajaprana
.
, the retreat center and think-tank located in Big Sur, California. Writing in the Journal of American History
, Catherine Albanese called it "a highly personal account that is also a superb historiographical exercise and a masterful work of analytical cultural criticism."
, the astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee
, and the French philosopher Bertrand Méheust. The film is being produced by Ken Kosub and Jeffrey J. Kripal, and directed by Scott H. Jones.
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
, Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
. His areas of interest include the comparative erotics and ethics of mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religion
Eastern religion
This article is about far east and Indian religions. For other eastern religions see: Eastern_world#Eastern_cultureEastern religions refers to religions originating in the Eastern world —India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia —and thus having dissimilarities with Western religions...
s, and the history of Western esotericism from ancient gnosticism
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
to the New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
. Kripal has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School
University of Chicago Divinity School
The University of Chicago Divinity School is a graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries...
.
Kali's Child
Kripal's 1995 book Kali's ChildKali's Child
Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna is a book on the Indian mystic Ramakrishna by Hindu studies scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal, published in 1995 by the University of Chicago press...
: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna was a study of the Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
i mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
. The book won the American Academy of Religion
American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,...
's History of Religions
History of religions
The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious experiences and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,000 years ago in the Near East. The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the...
Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. A second, revised edition was published in 1998. The book has been dogged by controversy ever since its initial publication in 1995. The thesis of the book has been questioned by scholars like Gayatri Spivak, Alan Roland
Alan Roland
Alan Roland is a psychoanalyst who has written several books and articles on the interface between traditional psychoanalysis and Asian cultures/persons of Asian descent....
and members of the Ramakrishna Mission, such as Swami Tyagananda
Swami Tyagananda
Swami Tyagananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and presently the head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Boston. Currently he is also the Hindu chaplain at MIT and Harvard. He is also a member of American Academy of Religion and the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies...
and Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana
Pravrajika Vrajaprana is a writer on Vedanta, the history and growth of the Vedanta Societies and a nun at Vedanta Society of Sarada Convent.Her works on Vedanta include, Vedanta: A Simple Introduction , editor of Living Wisdom...
.
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion
In 2007 The University of Chicago Press released Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, Kripal's account of the Esalen InstituteEsalen Institute
Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
, the retreat center and think-tank located in Big Sur, California. Writing in the Journal of American History
Journal of American History
The Journal of American History is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the official journal of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association...
, Catherine Albanese called it "a highly personal account that is also a superb historiographical exercise and a masterful work of analytical cultural criticism."
Authors of the Impossible
In May 2009, XL Films began production on a documentary film based on Kripal's forthcoming book, Authors of the Impossible. As in the book, the film traces the history of psychical phenomena through the last two centuries of Western thought. The film profiles four thinkers: the British psychical researcher F. W. H. Myers, the American anomalist writer and humorist Charles FortCharles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
, the astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee
Jacques Vallée
Jacques Fabrice Vallée is a venture capitalist, computer scientist, author, ufologist and former astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California....
, and the French philosopher Bertrand Méheust. The film is being produced by Ken Kosub and Jeffrey J. Kripal, and directed by Scott H. Jones.
Books authored
- Kali's ChildKali's ChildKali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna is a book on the Indian mystic Ramakrishna by Hindu studies scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal, published in 1995 by the University of Chicago press...
: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of RamakrishnaRamakrishnaRamakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...
(Chicago, 1995, 1998) ISBN 978-0-226-45377-4 - Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of MysticismMysticismMysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
(Chicago, 2001) ISBN 978-0-226-45379-8 - The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2006) ISBN 978-0-226-45381-1
- Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago, 2007) ISBN 978-0-226-45370-5
- Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (University of Chicago Press, 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-45386-6
- Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-45383-5
Books edited
- VishnuVishnuVishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
on Freud’s Desk: A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism edited with T.G. Vaidyanathan (Oxford, 1999) ISBN 978-0-19-565835-4 - Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism edited with G. William Barnard (Seven Bridges, 2002) ISBN 978-1-889119-25-0
- Encountering KaliKali' , also known as ' , is the Hindu goddess associated with power, shakti. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Kali means "the black one". Since Shiva is called Kāla - the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" . Hence, Kāli is...
: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West edited with Rachel Fell McDermott (California, 2003) ISBN 978-0-520-23240-2 - On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture edited with Glenn ShuckGlenn ShuckGlenn W. Shuck is an Assistant Professor in the Religion Department at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. from Rice University, and is best known as a scholar of North American evangelicalism....
(Indiana, 2005) ISBN 978-0-253-34556-1
Articles and other
- Mystical Homoeroticism, Reductionism, and the Reality of Censorship: A Response to Gerald James Larson. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, volume 66, number 3, pages 627–635 (1998).
- Textuality, Sexuality, and the Future of the Past: A Response to Swami Tyagananda. Evam: Forum on Indian Representations, volume 1, issues 1–2, pages 191–205 (2002).
- Foreword to Adi DaAdi DaAdi Da Samraj , born Franklin Albert Jones in Queens, New York, was a spiritual teacher, writer and artist, and the founder of a new religious movement known as Adidam...
's The Knee of Listening (2003) - Comparative Mystics: Scholars as Gnostic Diplomats. Common Knowledge, volume 3 issue 10, pages 485–517 (2004)
- "Sexuality (Overview)". The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition (2005)
- "Phallus and Vagina"." In Encyclopedia of Religion (2005)
- Reality Against Society: William Blake, Antinomianism, and the American Counter Culture. Common Knowledge, volume 30, issue 3 (Winter 2006)
- Re-membering Ourselves: Some Countercultural Echoes of Contemporary Tantric Studies, lead-essay of inaugural issue, Journal of South Asian Religion, volume 1 issue 1 (2007)
- "Liminal Pedagogy: The Liberal Arts and the Transforming Ritual of Religious Studies." in How Should We Talk About Religion? Perspectives, Contexts, Particularities, edited by J. White (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006)
- "Western Popular Culture, Hindu Influences On." In The Encyclopedia of Hinduism edited by D. Cush, C. Robinson, and M. York, Routledge/Curzon (2007)
- The Rise of the Imaginal: Psychical Phenomena on the Horizon of Theory (Again)." Religious Studies Review volume 33 issue 3 (2007)
- "Myth" in The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion edited by R.. Segal. Wiley-VCH (2008)
External links
- An excerpt from Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion.
- AUTHORS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE A documentary based on the forthcoming book by Jeffrey J. Kripal.
- Dr. Kripal's Rice University web page.
- Kali's Child Discussion Site An article by Dr. Kripal regarding the Kali's Child controversy.
See also
- Invading the SacredInvading the SacredInvading The Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America is a critical work published in 2007 by Rupa & Co. which discusses the perceived biased portrayal of Hinduism in the Western academy based religious studies and Hindu studies. The editors of the book are Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan...