Jeffrey J. Kripal

It is sometimes taboo in intelligent circles to admit you believe in ESP or other extra normal phenomena. In Flip, the author shows again and again that educated and celebrated scientists and authors have had these experiences also. They too are often reluctant to admit them, but while rare, these experiences are often life changing. Having had a handful of such experiences in my own lifetime, I am happy that J. Krippal has done the research to bring these stories to light. He debunks many of the common critiques re the untestability of ESP and brings out the human side of these encounters. An enjoyable and educational read.… (mais)

I have read books like this, but have to say that this is the best I have read on the subject. I think the title fits the first part of the book. I can see with the wonderful stories the author, Jeffrey J. Kripal, is helping the reader gain insight on life experiences that can’t be explained by modern science that has “Flipped” those with “Abnormal” experiences to look at what seems beyond normal. Those things that science seems to fail to explain and have been written off. I think the rest of the book is a good argument for the duality of science or matter and consciousness. Instead of flipping, it was more helping people like me understand principles that are needed to argue his point that we need to look at what science can’t explain yet and may never explain based on its current focus.
I was a little disappointed with Kripal’s neutrality between the secular and religious. I understand why he kept a neutral position when it came to discussing the abnormal. He wished to engage all possible options to conciseness. He did not side with religion and he used many respected philosophers who fathered the field of science. People who did not embrace religion yet did experience something that brought their attention to something more. Again, I understand this is because the author wants to keep this experience of something more open to any possibility not ruling out something as to avoid what science is currently doing, which is rule out anything it can’t explain.
I only wished it would have a least shown more of the parallels in religion as the author is an expert in the field of religion. If only to say that some of the observers of consciences of religious nature at the very least have observed and recorded in religion these paranormal experiences and in turn has captured things such as a “God” who may be omnipresent. A concept which quantum physics has proven possible through entanglement. I am not saying he should commit to religion, but at least recognize or give credit to the observers outside the scientific window.
This book has helped me understand more about quantum physics and the implications of these discoveries that I could have thought possible. He clearly has a great understanding of the material. I think he has a great understanding of the future of exploration of matter and consciences. I think he has taken the theories of the past great minds and have updated there thinking through the most current studies and observations of science. He has shown the benefits of science as well as the short comings of science and makes a great argument of how we need to move forward with our observation and not ignore what hasn’t been explained by current means of exploration.
I am not sure this review gives justice to the amount of information that the author has condensed into a reasonable read. Kripal has proven to be extremely intelligent and well researched. He seems to have a great understanding of where we are and where we are going. If science can heed the words of this book, the future of exploration can get very exciting.… (mais)

Aside from its flippant title, Jeffrey Kripal's book The Flip ; Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge, essays a new world view now forming around the idea of consciousness as a dimension of the natural world or cosmos, wherein "the cosmos is not just human [but] the human is also cosmic."

Professor Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Chair of Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, Houston, Texas, and an Associate at the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, California, argues for a new outlook, pre-and post- scientific, that is in a long tradition of enlightened skepticism going back to the pre-Socratics and perhaps most recently articulated by the thought of Thomas S. Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and its discussion of paradigm shifts in thought that include social and political background as well as development of "pure" scientific hypotheses.

Following the Prologue: The Human Cosmos

Chapter 1, Visions of the Impossible

Chapter 2, Flipped Scientists

Chapter 3, Consciousness and Cosmos

Chapter 4, Symbols in Between

Chapter 5, The Future (Politics) of Knowledge

Epilogue: The Cosmic Human

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.… (mais)