Comments on: Taking the Purple Pill: On the Paradoxical Pedagogy of Mysticism

By: Liam Cooper (Associate Managing Editor)

Liam Cooper (Associate Managing Editor) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:40:06 +0000

[Hi Carl, please find below a response to your query from Jeff Kripal. Best, Liam] Thanks, Carl, I have assembled a sample list of reading materials here for your perusal. For more books and annotations on them, see my The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). Best, Jeff

Georges Bataille, Erotism: Death & Sensuality (San Francisco: City Lights, 1986). Virginia Burrus and Catharine Keller, ed., Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of a Discipline (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006). Gary David Comstock and Susan E. Henking, eds., Que(e)rying Religion: A Critical Anthology (New York: Continuum, 1999). Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). Grace M. Jantzen, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Jeffrey J. Kripal, Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

By: jelloflavoredmidget

jelloflavoredmidget — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:44:53 +0000

I’d like a red pill please. Also, was Jesus a mystic parallel to Ramakrishna? What I mean is, do their lives reflect each other’s as far as their relationships with their “Mothers” I’m referring to Jesus to Mary and Ramakrishna to Sikta (or Kali).

By: Pages tagged "paradoxical"

Pages tagged "paradoxical" — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:00:22 +0000

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By: The Pedagogy of Mysticism « The Website of Unknowing

The Pedagogy of Mysticism « The Website of Unknowing — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:11:20 +0000

[...] The Pedagogy of Mysticism A blog called Religious Compass Exchanges has just published a wonderful essay by Jeffrey J. Kripal “on the paradoxical pedagogy of mysticism.” Click here to read it. [...]

By: Carl McColman

Carl McColman — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:05:09 +0000

Thanks for a wonderful reflection on mysticism. I am neither an academic nor clergy, so in my work (I have a blog devoted to Christian mysticism and am currently writing a book on the topic for the general reader) I’m interested in what, for lack of a better term, could be called ‘mysticism on the street.’ In other words, how does this particular kind of religious discourse shape, and is in turn shaped by, the experience of contemplative practitioners, particularly in our day when such practice is increasingly not anchored in a monastic or even religious context.

A question for you: You reference “a standard collection of essays on the study of sexuality and Christian mysticism.” Could you please provide bibliographic details? I would love to check this out. Or is it your own, as yet unpublished, collection?

Bring on the red pill!

Carl McColman
The Website of Unknowingtt