Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of numerous works, including two co-authored books with gifted experiencers: The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained Is Real, with Whitley Strieber (Tarcher/Penguin, 2016); and Changed in a Flash: One Woman’s Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks It Empowers Us All, with Elizabeth Krohn, which will be released this fall by North Atlantic Books.