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. 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.
- ISBN10 0226453863
- ISBN13 9780226453866
- Publish Date 30 May 2010
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780226453866