The Basement: Jeffrey Kripal | Inside the Archives of the Impossible

Jeffrey Kripal (0:00)

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AJ Gentile (0:12)

Today, I'm talking with Jeffrey Kripal. He holds an endowed chair at Rice University where he runs an archive of the impossible. Over a million documents on the paranormal. Jacques Vallée's files are in there. John Mack's 150 boxes and 3,400 letters people wrote to Whitley Strieber after they read Communion. Rice University, isn't that what Kennedy said we'd go to the moon?

Yep. Oh, so technically it's been an archive of the impossible since 1962

Jeff grew up in a Nebraska hardware store, and at 13 he stopped eating to become a saint. Then one night in Calcutta in 1989, he thought the wall was electrocuting him. He says every book since came out of that night. If you think the wall is electrocuting you, guess what? The wall is electrocuting you. Today we're covering what's in those boxes, why he thinks the X-Men are real, and his new series, Archive X, on AMC+. And then there's the Nobel Prize winner and the glowing raccoon. That one got an actual woe out of me, and you'll hear it. Even Nobel Prize winners can eat the blubbers too hard. We all can. Once we wrap up, I'll come back and break down the conversation.

Dr. Kripal is here. This is exciting. What drew me to your work most of all is your third space, which is not believing, not debunking, just having a conversation. And that is the thesis of my entire channel.

Jeffrey Kripal (1:39)

Yeah. Well, fantastic.

AJ Gentile (1:41)

Why is it so hard for people to live in that space?

Jeffrey Kripal (1:47)

Well, first of all, it is. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I see it every day. I walk into a classroom.

Some people are set up to be reflexive, to step outside of their worldview, and to laugh at it, and to live in that third space, and most people are not capable of it.

And I don't know why. And I teach at a very elite, very selective university. So these are really smart kids, and there aren't many of them capable of this third space. So I don't know. I don't know.

AJ Gentile (2:28)

I don't either. It wasn't a facetious question. When I started the channel, I'm interested in the content, in the stories, but I can only find people that just were totally believers, and a lot of it's like, that's bullshit, and then you have the other side, which is just these snide debunkers, very condescending.

Jeffrey Kripal (2:51)

Well, try teaching religion. I mean, it's bad, and to get across what compare... When you compare religions, of course, what you see is the commonalities, but you also see the differences, and it's really hard.

There's so much of our modern world is really scientific and materialistic, and it's based on a rejection of religion. And I think so that historical background is part of the answer. But the other part, I guess this will get us into the deep end, I think a lot of philosophical or religious truth is esoteric, by which I mean it's secret, by which I do not mean I can whisper to you a piece of data or information which you suddenly know. I mean, you literally can't know.

AJ Gentile (3:47)

Right.

Jeffrey Kripal (3:48)

And you can tell people until you're blue in the face about what is so or what is the case, and they will not understand. And they're being very sincere and very genuine. I don't question their sincerity at all, but I think there are a lot of religious and philosophical truths that simply are not communicable. And I mean, this is what has...

This gets into media, by the way, and into whether you can translate certain truths.

AJ Gentile (4:20)

What do you mean?

Jeffrey Kripal (4:24)

Can you translate truths into a language or a poetry or an expression that lots of people can hear? And maybe even be entertained by?

Or is it always for a select group of people that is small?

You know, and that works away from the whole media or whole entertainment model. But I do think about that. And I think that's what academics do really well, is they speak to a very small audience, basically of the converted, basically they preach to the choir. And I understand that. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you want to be confirmed in your belief system, that's a good way to do it. But what happens when you enter a public space is you encounter a lot of people who don't agree with you or who can't understand what you're saying. And that's why I think it's a really good, it's a good situation to be in, certainly for an academic. And we tend to make fun, as you probably know, of popularizers. We don't like them. And by we, I don't mean me.