Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained. Tarcher/Penguin, 2016. "If Communion is not a piece of modern erotic mystical literature, then I do not know what it is. I consider Whitley Strieber and his most famous text to be, in effect, litmus … [Read more...]
Sabbatai Zevi, the “Holy Serpent,” and the Passover Plate
This is a post for Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating the Exodus from Egypt, which starts tonight. It's on a subject, though, that at first sight doesn't seem to have much to do with the festival. Snakes. Snakes, not as a zoological but as a psychological reality. Snakes, not for what … [Read more...]
Conspiracy Theories Revisited – The Strange Case of Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz (Part 3)
(This is part 3 of a three-part post. For part 1 click here; for part 2 click here.) In last week's post, I began to describe the scandalous book of Kabbalah that surfaced in Germany in 1725, with the title Va-avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin, "I Came This Day to the Spring." Rumor had it that the book … [Read more...]
