Episode 45: Jeffrey J. Kripal on 'Flipping' Out of Materialism

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2019

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"May the present 'you' not survive this little book," Jeffrey Kripal writes in the prologue to The Flip. "May you be flipped in dramatic or quiet ways." Indeed, Kripal's latest is a kind of manifesto, a call to embrace the metaphysical expanses that reveal themselves to many who dare dip a toe outside the materialist lifeboat we've been rowing away in for a couple of centuries now. In this conversation, Phil and JF talk to the eminent scholar of religion about the life-changing epiphanies that have convinced many a hardboiled materialist that bouncing billiard balls is probably not the best metaphor for what is actually going on in the universe. In essence, this is a conversation about stories, about the fictions we tell ourselves to make sense -- or nonsense -- of our world. REFERENCES Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents Weird Studies, Episode 37: Entities, with Stuart Davis Special Guest: Jeffrey J. Kripal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.8	For more episodes or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdst. I'm J.F. Martel.
0:52.8	Jeffrey J. Criple is convinced that mine is at least
0:55.9	as fundamental a constituent of the universe as matter. A growing number of scientists
1:01.5	reared in the dominant materialist dogma are coming around to this realization. According to
1:07.4	Criple, many of these scientists change their worldview as a result of what Criple calls the flip,
1:13.2	a mystical experience so profound and transformative that it amounts to a kind of conversion.
1:19.3	The flip has whisked these scientists out of Professor Newton's billiard room and landed them in, well, there's no easy way to describe it.
1:27.4	Mrs. Peacock's ballroom, maybe?
1:29.6	Somewhere else, in any case.
1:31.9	From one perspective, Cripple's new book, The Flip, Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge,
1:37.2	is an engaging catalogue of flip experiences collected from members of the scientific community.
1:43.3	From another perspective, it's a kind of manifesto, a call to embrace a more expansive,
1:48.3	human-centered vision of reality, a worldview that turns the universe into something like
1:53.4	what the French philosopher Henry Bergson called a machine for making gods.
1:58.6	We humans, Criple argues throughout the text, are not mere meat puppets dangling
2:03.3	in a bright yet meaningless abyss. We are supernormal participants in the dance of being,
2:09.1	co-creators of a cosmos that exceeds us only because we exceed ourselves. Jeff came on weird
2:15.6	studies in January to talk about the challenge of the paranormal.
2:19.5	In this second conversation with him, we delve into more metaphysical and political matters,
	...

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