The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained
Source entries are currently shown in Spanish; English-first entries arrive with the next cataloguing pass.
Se presenta como conversación entre dos oficios sobre un mismo material. La propuesta la enuncia Kripal en plural: «In the pages that follow, Whitley and I explore the proposal that we are all embedded in a much larger, fiercely alive and richly conscious reality» «Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 9». El método lo declara en la página siguiente: «We work in tandem. We read each other. We rewrite our chapters in the light of what the other has written» «Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 10».
El título es una separación deliberada de palabras: se trata de moverse «beyond both the flatland materialism of scientism (the natural) and the naive literalisms of certain types of religion (the supernatural)» «Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 24», y Strieber adopta el término de Kripal explícitamente «Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 29».
La obra no promete cierre y lo dice: «We have no such easy or settled answers» «Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 11». Y termina con un desacuerdo firmado entre sus dos autores sobre qué herramienta sirve —la ciencia o las humanidades— que ninguno de los dos resuelve «Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 252».
116 claims · 1 source · 2 attributions
Attribution
recorded, never asserted«Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 3»
«Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016) · p. 3»
The chain of the work
the processed witness, in emeraldClaims
116 entries — the work's own voice, with its locator«we are already and always have been living in a super natural world, that we ourselves are highly evolved prisms or mediums of this super nature coming into consciousness» — la tesis del título, en plural por los dos.
«We work in tandem. We read each other. We rewrite our chapters in the light of what the other has written. In the process, we rewrite ourselves.» — declara el procedimiento de escritura del libro.
«a seasoned (take that either way) professor of comparative religion» — así se describe a sí mismo, frente a Strieber como «one of the most widely read figures in UFO and abduction literature».
«far from being what he has been portrayed in the media—that is, an advocate for belief in alien abduction—reveals himself in his chapters as a questioning and self-critical nonreligious but spiritual man» — declara qué NO es Strieber, en su lectura.
«Both of us have known professional rejection, religious hate campaigns, censorship, and outright character slander» — consigna la recepción de ambos como dato del propio libro.
«We want to model a different sort of conversation about the importance of experienced anomalies» — enuncia el propósito como cambio de conversación, no como respuesta.
«Superpowers have been with us for millennia» — sitúa lo extraordinario en escala histórica larga.
«I compare fantastic states of mind and energy in order to catch a glimpse of our own super nature» — formula su propio oficio.
«if Communion is not a piece of modern erotic mystical literature, then I do not know what it is» — adjudica género literario a la obra de Strieber.
«Out of existential necessity and the transcendent traumas of his own immediate experience, he was implicitly, intuitively practicing the comparative study of religion.» — atribuye a Strieber una práctica comparativa implícita.
«I have come to consider him and Communion as litmus tests for my field» — declara a Strieber prueba de fuego de su disciplina.
«UFO” is an umbrella term that encodes a particular cold war military history and encompasses very diverse historical facts, institutions, and experiential events» — el término como categoría-papelera.
«millennia-old folklore currents, particularly around the abductions and otherworlds of faerie lore, as famously pointed out by Jacques Vallee» — parte del inventario de lo que la papelera mezcla; adjudica la conexión feérica a Vallee, sin tilde en la obra.
«various ancient Gnostic and early modern esoteric teachings; more recent Theosophical and New Age beliefs and channeling practices» — continúa el inventario; el esoterismo entra nombrado.
«helped shape the earlier language of the “channel,” from medical clairvoyant Edgar Cayce, into its contemporary use» — data el vocabulario del *channeling* en las comunidades de contactados de los años 50 y en Cayce.
«Whatever the ultimate origin of such events might be» — la fórmula con que se abstiene de decir qué son los visitantes.
«setting these aside in order to move beyond and past them to the much older and deeper roots of the encounters in the global history of mystical and esoteric literature» — segunda mitad de la maniobra metodológica: reconocer la capa militar y apartarla.
«It is very easy to explain everything on the table if you have just taken off the table everything that you cannot explain.» — objeción al *debunker* ideológico.
«best exemplified in figures like Erich von Däniken, author of Chariots of the Gods? (1968), and his followers» — así nombra la comparación reductiva, que lee el pasado desde el presente.
«best exemplified in the writing of various Evangelical and fundamentalist authors who interpret UFOs and aliens as portents of the end of the world and/or as demons» — así nombra la comparación religiosa, que lee el presente desde el pasado.
«whatever the prophet saw within his own “abduction” experience, it was no chariot. Not even close» — objeta la lectura de Ezequiel como carro.
«the biblical book itself never uses the word “chariot.”» — el dato con que sostiene la objeción anterior.
«Basically, they are invoking chariots.» — extiende la misma objeción a los rabinos y cabalistas que leyeron ahí la Merkabá.
«shoot the arrow both ways» — la regla comparativa del libro: no privilegiar ni el pasado ni el presente.
«Not a straight arrow but an upward spiral» — la figura temporal con que corrige la flecha.
«our future changes the meanings of their past» — el «futuro del pasado» como operación hermenéutica.
«There is a kind of recurring time loop, a constant return to the past in order to reassess and recalibrate the present toward a different kind of future.» — la formula como bucle, no como progreso.
«we move beyond both the flatland materialism of scientism (the natural) and the naive literalisms of certain types of religion (the supernatural)» — justificación del título separado en dos palabras.
«As John Keel put it with respect to his own paranormal researches: “Belief is the enemy.”» — cita a Keel y en la misma página matiza: «I would not go that far.»
«Fundamentalism, of whatever stripe, is the curse and cancer of religious belief.» — su formulación sobre la creencia fija.
«the ideological debunker is also a fundamentalist, if of a very different stripe» — iguala las dos posiciones por su estructura, no por su contenido.
«The debunker makes a liar out of a truth teller» — el efecto que le adjudica.
«the entire history of religions can be summed up this way: strange superbeings from the sky come down to interact with human beings, provide them with cultural, technological, legal, and ethical knowledge» — su tesis sobre la historia de las religiones; sigue con guiarlos, aterrarlos, exigirles sumisión y tener sexo con ellos.
«Others had suggested something similar» — enumera precedentes de la lectura folclórica: John Keel, Jacques Vallee y Eddie Bullard.
«there is something more “physical,” “realist,” or “biological” about Strieber’s suggestions.» — marca en qué difiere Strieber de esos precedentes.
«The same god also gave us the words “Hermetic” and “Hermeticism,” both referring to an ancient Egyptian-Greek stream of secret teachings about the deepest nature of the human mind» — única página donde la obra usa la palabra *hermetic*, y lo hace derivándola de Hermes junto con la hermenéutica.
«Whitley’s visions mostly fall into this camp» — las adscribe al imaginal simbólico (visión salvaje), no al clarividente (talento salvaje).
«Here the human imagination is not so much clairvoyant as it is an organ of revelation» — define así el imaginal simbólico.
«I must add that we cannot treat these two forms of the imaginal as mutually exclusive.» — la reserva con que impide leer su propia distinción como tipología cerrada.
«What if what we so naively call “sex” is not some dumb instinct but a conscious cosmic energy in its own right that is super-intelligent» — lo plantea como pregunta; sigue con que esa energía «escribió» y «coescribe» a los humanos vía ADN.
«This is a modern translation of what Plato was getting at when he called eros a god» — adjudica el linaje de esa erótica a Platón.
«I am not saying: “Whitley Strieber is a shaman.” Nor am I saying: “Whitley Strieber is a prophet.”» — negativa triple; añade que tampoco dice que chamanismo y profecía sean funciones de abducciones.
«Gurdjieff and Ouspensky are central, for example, to his convictions around the paradoxes of “the third”» — adjudica a Strieber ese linaje como clave de lectura.
«there is almost certainly only one world, of which our mental and material experiences are two dimensions or modes» — la ontología del un solo mundo, con el modalizador «almost certainly» que la obra sí escribe.
«the English “to narrate” is based on a Greek root (gno-) that means “to know” and from which we get the word “gnosis”» — enlaza narración y gnosis por etimología.
«As knowing subjects, we are not one but two» — enuncia el Humano como Dos.
«Consciousness is not ego. Consciousness is not culture. And yet no ego or culture can exist without “It.”» — la formulación completa de esa dualidad.
«I confess. This central notion of the Human as Two makes sense of pretty much everything for me.» — es confesión de Kripal en su propio capítulo, no de Strieber.
«Here the soul is a conscious star gently blazing inside a skull.» — sobre la lectura antigua del alma como astro.
«Here the soul is a UFO that has landed for a time in a body-brain» — la identificación alma/ovni, atribuyendo a Strieber la fórmula «a sort of biological technology».
«By a “spiritual body,” then, Paul did not mean an “immaterial” one. He meant a real immortal body that shines like the stars» — lee el *soma pneumatikon* de 1 Cor 15:45–49 como cuerpo sutilmente material.
«The early Christian Gnostic texts are filled with similar convictions about our true home among the stars, about the secret spark of divinity that sleeps in us all» — sigue con la naturaleza estelar del alma y el salvador venido de las estrellas.
«I think Chris is right.» — suscribe la fórmula de Christopher Knowles sobre el gnosticismo cristiano temprano como primer culto del platillo volador.
«rejected belief, ritual, sacrifice, and martyrdom» — así caracteriza esa espiritualidad gnóstica, que proclamaba un conocimiento místico directo del *pneuma*.
«The ancient Gnostics did not know what we know. They did not have evolutionary biology, modern cosmology, and quantum physics.» — marca la distancia que impide la identificación simple.
«Here God is not like light. God is light.» — glosa las «energías» de Dios en Gregorio Palamás, con los deificados vueltos *homotheoi*.
«I would go so far as to suggest that we need the older mystical ideas of the subtly material “spiritual body,” the “energies of God,” and the deifying light to really understand the contemporary UFO encounters.» — su tesis de continuidad más fuerte.
«Which does not mean, of course, that we must adopt the older understandings and belief systems. We do not.» — la reserva que acompaña a la tesis anterior.
«contemporary abductees do experience “becoming a god” within these illuminations» — Añade que callan por vergüenza o miedo.
«He was talking about pneuma, the subtly material “spirit” of the Gnostics.» — así lee el «homoplasmate» y el «bio-linguistic plasma» de Philip K. Dick.
«Whitley, or so it seems to me, often appears to think that science is the way forward» — abre el desacuerdo con su coautor; sigue «I am very skeptical of this».
«because it is not a military or technological object, because it is a mythical object» — el ovni como objeto mítico.
«I mean a friggin’ story that shows up on radar.» — la formulación paradójica con que define ese objeto.
«it was foolish to turn to engineers in order to understand something in the sky whose true meaning lay in the souls of the contactees and the rich history of Western esotericism» — adjudica el argumento a Keel, *UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse* (1970).
«People who study mythology and comparative mystical literature, people like me, are almost universally allergic to accepting the possibility that these subjects might be real objects» — autocrítica gremial.
«Whitley’s faith in science and my faith in the humanities are probably both misplaced. Neither can really deliver the goods here.» — cierra el desacuerdo sin resolverlo a favor de nadie.
«If you are worshiping a god, any god (including “God”), you are basically “worshipping Zeus.”» — su posición sobre el culto.
«I don’t do conspiracy» — se desmarca de la teoría conspirativa.
«Every culture is a trance state. Every ego is a cultural production.» — En la misma página: «mythologies are also always ideologies».
«we are not the artists but the drawings» — lo cita de Philip K. Dick.
«Whitley and I have done our best in these pages» — apéndice, rotulado `JEFF`, hablando por los dos; añade «We have failed, of course, to arrive at any “realness or final awakening.”»
«an approximation to realness or final awakening» — el título del apéndice sale de Charles Fort, *The Book of the Damned* (1919), que llama a eso «the gossip of angels».
Las nueve reglas del método, en versalitas: COMPARE · MAKE A CUT · HISTORICALLY CONTEXTUALIZE · INTERPRET AND DOUBLY IMAGINE · PRACTICE AN EROTICS · SAY AWAY · LISTEN FOR THE TRAUMATIC SECRET · THINK IN TERMS OF AN ENERGETICS · SAY AGAIN.
«Hone your Hermes practice, your hermeneutics.» — cierre de la cuarta regla, INTERPRET AND DOUBLY IMAGINE.
«The Renaissance brought reason, the enlightenment that followed the freeing disciplines of structured academic inquiry and scientific method» — así abre su primer capítulo, y añade: «However, there is one area that remains outside of understanding».
«Moses, Paul, and all the others who encountered such manifestations in the past saw something, just as people who encounter UFOs, orbs of light, and aliens do today» — afirma continuidad del encuentro entre lo antiguo y lo moderno.
«The only things new are the names, and with them a visual grammar that fits our imagination» — sitúa la novedad en el vocabulario, no en el fenómeno.
«bring reason to enchantment» — su programa, en tres palabras.
«In February of 2015, presidential adviser John Podesta tweeted that his greatest regret of 2014 was that he had failed to get the government to release the information it possesses about UFOs.» — dato fechado que consigna.
«they did not act, in my encounters with them, like explorers in any easily understood sense, nor, in my experience, are they aliens in the way that is commonly assumed. But that does not mean they emerge from our minds and nowhere else» — su reserva ante la hipótesis extraterrestre, sin caer en la mental.
«The “alien” is as much a herald from the dark of the universe as it is a signal from the depths of our own minds.» — sostiene las dos lecturas a la vez.
«I don’t believe in the supernatural or the paranormal, but I do feel strongly that these terms are used in our materially focused culture to explain away phenomena that are in some way real» — su negativa doctrinal.
«Aliens both are and are not aliens, for example. Ghosts are both real and illusory, something like reflections.» — su registro es paradójico, no disyuntivo.
«I don’t think that I am perceiving the supernatural, but rather, as Jeff has so adroitly expressed it, the super natural, that which is part of nature but works by rules that are different from those we are familiar with.» — adopta el término de su coautor y lo declara.
«I do not see it as being overseen by a final being, or god. We the living, in all our ancient vastness, are all that is here. But by living, I don’t mean only physically alive.» — declaración antiteísta explícita.
«capering stick insects, others squat, frog-faced trolls who were a deep iridescent blue» — así describe a los presentes en el episodio de diciembre de 1985.
«What can we do to help you stop screaming?» — la frase que relata haber oído, en voz femenina robótica.
«by identifying themselves with owl imagery» — sostiene que la imaginería del búho es lenguaje de los visitantes, no coincidencia.
«My efforts to describe my experiences publicly and accurately have profoundly compromised my credibility.» — consigna el costo público de su relato.
«It’s not nothing. Something happens and it is not confined to the mind. It isn’t hallucinatory. Neither, however, is it real in the same way that we are real, not exactly.» — el estatuto que le da al fenómeno.
«There cannot be consciousness or coherent being outside of the physical—which is, in fact, what I want to believe. Unfortunately for me, though, it simply is not my perception.» — declara que su deseo va contra su percepción.
«They are in my life, but I don’t know what they are» — su abstención sobre la naturaleza de los visitantes.
«I’d prefer to let that sort of debate wander off down its meaningless pathway on its own.» — rechaza el debate binario sobre el trucaje de la imagen del gnomo de cámara trampa que le envió Linda Moulton Howe.
«In the academy and the professional study of religion» — reconoce ahí un debate de ciento cincuenta años que apenas llegó a la percepción pública.
«I am, in my heart, a secular individual, but I do consider it possible, based on personal experience, that there may be conscious being outside of the body.» — su posición declarada al cierre del capítulo 2.
«The Emerald Tablet of Hermes by Hermes Trismegistus, which first appears in an Arabic text in about the eighth century» — la data ahí y añade que Newton la tuvo por fundamento del movimiento alquímico.
«So the kobolds, perhaps, were communicating that it is possible to mine for wisdom by ascending.» — lee los episodios de la cabaña como jeroglíficos vivos, no como sucesos brutos.
«The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.» — cita la Tabla de Esmeralda en la traducción de Newton.
«An alchemical transformation that was apparently not so good for the circulatory system of an elderly lawyer» — aplica el vocabulario alquímico al episodio del vecino que sangró por la frente.
«half a lifetime of spiritual search and fifteen years of intensive inner work in the Gurdjieff Foundation» — declara su formación; en las páginas vecinas nombra a Ouspensky, *In Search of the Miraculous* y las reuniones en la Fundación de Manhattan.
«holy the firm» — expresión que adjudica a G. I. Gurdjieff.
«Gurdjieff taught the importance of friction» — el linaje operando como clave de lectura de su propia experiencia.
«A brutal rape by a beloved parent might become a brutal alien abduction» — enuncia la hipótesis de sublimación del trauma.
«A rape by a father becomes a visit from a god. Leda didn’t get ravished by daddy—too unbearable to contemplate. No, it was a swan, and that swan was a god.» — la extiende al mito.
«This might explain many of these experiences, but it should not be used to explain them away.» — el límite explícito que le pone a su propia hipótesis.
«The shattering of expectation that accompanies trauma doesn’t just cause transference, it opens a door.» — su lectura del trauma como apertura, no solo como causa.
«my perception is that our physical reality is embedded in something larger—an island, as it were, alone in a vast ocean» — su cosmología, declarada como percepción.
«I agree with Jeff that these are probably not tracking devices. I also stand by the idea that somebody was there. They had to be. I saw two of them.» — sobre el implante: concede la interpretación y sostiene el hecho.
«I think that the program was run by German scientists who had been brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. They had worked in human behavior in the concentration camps.» — su hipótesis sobre el programa que recuerda en Randolph Air Force Base.
«the title a play on that of Project Blue Book’s Condon Report» — así presenta el Condign Report, documento de 408 páginas desclasificado por el Ministerio de Defensa británico.
«they generate hallucinations» — lo que el Condign Report adjudica a los plasmas, según su lectura.
«Frequencies can be detected and analyzed» — su apuesta por la vía instrumental.
«I would be extremely surprised if aliens have anything to do with any of this. The magical stones of shamanism are quite interesting» — correo suyo del 1 de enero de 2015 a Kripal, reproducido dentro de un capítulo de Kripal; añade que le fue «dada» una piedra así.
«We have always assumed that myth only came out of the mind» — pasaje suyo citado en bloque por Kripal dentro del capítulo 17; sigue con que ahora se ve que el mito «isn’t entirely imaginary».
«it is not necessary to believe in such things as flying saucers, aliens, ghosts, and other unexplained phenomena in order to study them.» — su cierre programático, que él mismo adjudica a Kripal («as Jeff has pointed out»).
«If disclosure or some other event created a compelling suggestion, say, that aliens are here, it would be a grave mistake and a great tragedy to attempt to understand them in the context of the popular vision of them.» — la consecuencia que teme.
About the work
12 entries — what the apparatus and scholarship say about itEl asiento catalográfico de la Biblioteca del Congreso da el título completo —«The super natural : a new vision of the unexplained»— y ordena la autoría «Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal», con materias «1. Occultism. 2. Supernatural. 3. Parapsychology». Sello: Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin, 2016.
«I dedicate this book to the memory of Anne Strieber. We evolved our approach to the super natural together.» — dedicatoria firmada WHITLEY STRIEBER; le adjudica tres aportes fundacionales.
«she was able to say with authority that close encounters with apparent aliens often include perceptions of the dead as well» — tercer aporte que la dedicatoria adjudica a Anne Strieber, tras leer más de doscientos mil testimonios del público.
«Instead of shunning the darkness, we can face straight into it with an open mind.» — epígrafe del libro, tomado de *Communion* del propio Strieber.
«The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.» — segundo epígrafe, atribuido por la obra a Meister Eckhart (1260–1327).
«were somehow trying to hide themselves in our folklore» — frase de Strieber que Kripal cita de *Communion* dentro de su capítulo 5; no fue escrita para este libro.
«Thus the corridor into our world could in a very true sense be through our own minds.» — otra cita de *Communion* reproducida por Kripal; en el mismo lugar cita el prefacio de 2008 a esa obra, donde Strieber niega que sean «visitantes».
«the hippies who saved physics» — fórmula que Kripal adjudica a David Kaiser; en la misma página adjudica a Nick Herbert «elemental mind» y «Quantum Tantra».
«I realized that the wave/particle paradox had been my first koan, and that I had just solved it.» — testimonio de Jane English, doctora en física de altas energías e ilustradora del *Tao Te Ching* con Gia-Fu Feng, citado en bloque por Kripal. Voz de English, no de los autores.
«They were intentional. In other words: I knew that they knew.» — testimonio de «Stuart» sobre tres orbes dorados en Esalen, julio de 2010, citado en bloque por Kripal. Voz de Stuart.
«Mark Pilkington, Robbie Graham, and Diana Walsh Pasulka» — los tres nombres que Kripal señala como quienes sí trabajan la capa militar e ideológica que él aparta.
El aparato editorial del libro son las notas de las pp. 281–290 («ENTIRELY NATURAL NOTES»), el índice analítico de las pp. 291–304 y la solapa «About the Authors» de las pp. 305–306. Las notas las firma Kripal aunque comenten capítulos de Strieber.
Concepts treated
Gnosis (conocimiento salvífico) — La narración y la gnosis comparten raíz griega (gno-); el gnosticismo antiguo se lee como precedente ontológico del encuentro, no como analogía.
Imaginación (phantasia) — Se distingue el imaginal clarividente (talento salvaje) del imaginal simbólico (visión salvaje), sin tratarlos como excluyentes.
Ocultismo (occultisme) — El asiento catalográfico clasifica la obra bajo «Occultism».