Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he is also the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. He is the author of Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism, and Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna.
His present areas of interest include the comparative erotics of mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religious traditions, and the history of Western esotericism from ancient Gnosticism to the New Age. He is currently working on a book on the paranormal and American popular culture.