The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained

«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.

El 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.

«The first is that the close encounter experience is something unknown and must be kept in question.» — primero de los tres aportes que la dedicatoria firmada por Strieber adjudica a Anne Strieber.

«Second, that the question must be deepened and can only be resolved by scientific and academic inquiry. It must no longer be dismissed with assumptions, beliefs, and premature theorizing.» — segundo aporte, en la misma dedicatoria de Strieber: la vía es la investigación científica y académica, y el descarte por creencia queda excluido.

«It is on her rigorous questioning and tireless inquiry that my own insights depend.» — cierre de la dedicatoria de Strieber, que hace depender sus propias ideas del trabajo de Anne Strieber.

«I dedicate this book to Julie Kripal, whose magnetic hands, night visitations, and general spiritual mojo have opened my mind, and body, to new levels of energy, possibility, and being.» — segunda dedicatoria, firmada JEFF KRIPAL, en registro energético y no académico.

«We would like to acknowledge the help and support of our editor, Mitch Horowitz, without whose enthusiasm and careful shepherding this book could never have reached a point of useful focus.» — agradecimientos en plural de los dos autores, que sitúan a Mitch Horowitz como editor de la obra.

«Additionally, we had the help and support of Adam Crabtree, David Halperin, Toby Johnson, Brent Landau, Glenn Magee, Paul Marshall, Leigh J. McCloskey, Diana Walsh Pasulka, Alex Rotaru, David Gordon White, Haeyoung Seong, and two of Jeff’s colleagues (who are given pseudonyms or superheroic “secret identities” here), whose patient reading of our manuscript, insights, and super natural experiences helped us immeasurably.» — lista de lectores del manuscrito que dan los agradecimientos, con dos colegas de Kripal bajo seudónimo.

«It is not a neutral book. It is an apocalypse of thought waiting for you, the reader, to actualize.» — con esto abre Kripal el capítulo 1, y le pide al lector que actualice lo que el libro solo propone.

«They took a little hair off my head and cut my nails. I asked questions in my mind, but before I could verbalize them, they answered back very softly but directly, “We are making a new you.” I asked him, “Are you like angels?” and he replied, “Not as you have been taught.» — epígrafe del capítulo 1, que la obra adjudica a un corresponsal anónimo de The Communion Letters; es voz del corresponsal, no de los autores.

«To my knowledge, nothing like it has ever been attempted.» — Kripal sobre el formato del libro, dos oficios sentados a discutir el mismo material.

«I bring the practices of the professional study of religion to the table in order to explain what historians of religion have written about these paradoxical things (it turns out, a lot) and how we might make sense of them without surrendering our critical faculties and understandable skepticism.» — Kripal declara qué pone él en la mesa, y con qué reserva: la historia de las religiones sin renunciar al escepticismo.

«I take the role of the trained comparativist, framing my responses to Whitley’s narrative through the tools of my trade.» — Kripal define su papel dentro del libro como respuesta al relato de Strieber.

«I demonstrate how Whitley has, all along, been offering us a most radical theory of religion and the human spirit. I make explicit the principles that are implicit in his writing and give these the names and nuances that have been developed in the study of religion over the last two hundred years.» — Kripal dice qué hace con los escritos de Strieber: darle nombre disciplinar a lo que allí está implícito.

«Whitley in turn challenges me and, by extension, my field with experienced realities that few intellectuals are prepared to admit exist» — la dirección contraria del intercambio, según Kripal: Strieber le pone delante realidades que su campo no admite.

«We know perfectly well that what we think cannot be slotted into the present order of scientific knowledge and religious belief. We will not pretend otherwise.» — Kripal declina acomodar la propuesta al orden vigente del saber científico y de la creencia religiosa.

«I first met Whitley in a Walmart in western Pennsylvania. Well, okay, it wasn’t really Whitley. It was one of his books, which I saw near the checkout counter. It was probably around 1995 or so, so it was most likely one of his nonfiction books reflecting back on the Communion phenomenon. At this point I had no real interest in the book, in the subject of alien abductions» — Kripal cuenta el primer encuentro con la obra de Strieber hacia 1995, y que entonces ni el libro ni el asunto le interesaban.

«That all changed around 2009 or so, when I picked up Communion at the recommendation of a number of colleagues who learned that I was working on a book on the paranormal and popular culture. Communion, of course, is the book that recounts Whitley’s experience of what he calls “the visitors” during the Christmas holidays of 1985.» — Kripal fecha su entrada al material en la lectura de Communion, recomendada por colegas mientras escribía sobre lo paranormal.

«What struck me about the book were the various ways that Whitley was engaging my own professional discipline in order to make sense of his traumatic openings and bizarre visions.» — lo que a Kripal le llamó la atención de Communion: que Strieber ya estaba usando la disciplina de él.

«I decided to look and listen. I reminded myself that, as a historian of religions interested in comparative mystical literature, especially of the erotic sort (this is what I wrote about for twenty years), I had some responsibility to do exactly this.» — Kripal declara por qué se sintió obligado a atender el material, por su propio oficio de comparatista de literatura mística erótica.

«We either put up here, or we shut up there. I decided to put up.» — el ultimátum que Kripal le pone a su gremio a propósito de Communion, y de qué lado se pone él.

«Nevertheless, Whitley and I consider the materialist objections to be serious objections. They are certainly the most successful objections. Accordingly, we take them seriously, and we will be addressing them at considerable length as we proceed with our conversation.» — los dos autores, por pluma de Kripal, se comprometen a tratar en extenso las objeciones materialistas.

«This book is my public engagement with what I have elsewhere called the comparative practices of popular culture. By the latter expression, I mean those comparisons performed by individuals who are not professionally trained to compare across cultures and times.» — Kripal declara el género del libro en su propia obra: su intervención pública sobre las prácticas comparativas de la cultura popular.

«The truth is that the comparative practices that Whitley and I will be performing in the pages that follow are neither purely reductive nor religious. We will privilege neither our modern world’s materialism and mechanisms nor the mythical and religious assumptions of some past worldview, since all of these are clearly relative to their place and time, as is our own.» — Kripal declara por los dos que la comparación del libro no será ni reductiva ni religiosa, porque las dos posiciones son relativas a su lugar y su tiempo.

«The vague mythological beings of the past that have focused into the aliens of the present» — línea de Strieber en The Secret School que Kripal cita dentro de su capítulo 1; sigue con que nosotros seremos esos viajeros del tiempo.

«To really name it, define it, and practice it, however, will take the work of both an experiencer and a theorist working together, in deep conversation and mutual criticism. This is the spirit of our undertaking.» — Kripal justifica el formato a dos voces: hace falta un experimentador y un teórico en conversación y crítica mutua.

«Our mutual wager is that, by “shooting the arrow both ways,” by practicing the paradoxes of “the future of the past,” by “sitting with the question” instead of landing on some stock rational or religious answer, a third kind of gnosis or new superknowledge will eventually emerge, one that can encounter a strange being in the bedroom without labeling that presence an angel or an alien, much less a demon, hallucination, or anecdote.» — la apuesta que Kripal declara por los dos, una tercera gnosis que pueda encontrarse con una presencia en la recámara sin rotularla.

«Within that tiny gap or space, we seek another different kind of answer or, at the very least, another way of asking the questions, one that is deeply material and deeply spiritual at the same time.» — lo que Kripal dice buscar en el espacio que abre el título, una respuesta a la vez material y espiritual.

«Anne, who read them all, compiled a book called The Communion Letters that includes a little over a hundred of them, chosen because they contained examples of typical experiences, and were quite well written.» — Strieber declara la procedencia de The Communion Letters, de donde el libro toma el epígrafe de su capítulo 1.

«I, who stated in large type on the inside front cover of Communion that “the enigmatic presence of the human mind winks back from the dark,» — Strieber cita la línea que él mismo puso en la portada interior de Communion, y se queja de haber quedado adscrito a una de las dos posiciones del debate.