Jeffrey Kripal's Comparative Approach Essay

Jeffrey Kripal’s method is important because it looks deeper into experiences that would be considered weird or strange. He does not immediately write off experiences he takes his time and really focuses on. What this essay will look to do is look at every one of the five steps of Kripal’s comparative approach and will use it to analyze the experiences of Whitley Strieber based on the YouTube video we watched in class and The Super Natural. The main advantage to Kripal’s approach is that he does not reject any experience and carefully examines all experience. The first part of Kripal’s comparative approach is what he calls “anomalous experience”. Essentially they are similar to peak experiences. For Whitley Strieber, his “anomalous experience”
He was one of the few people to go back and take Whitley Strieber’s experiences out of the “wastebasket” even though he had never experienced something like Strieber did. Kripal’s comparative approach is one that not only works for this topic of comparing sacred experiences, but it also works in life. The concept of taking a step back when you encounter something new and not rejecting something because it is weird or new in a valuable thing to learn in life. That is something that this class taught me because I had never been to a church or done anything remotely religious before I took this class. Now I know that religion provides so much more for people it is not all about worship, it is about teaching, and understanding, and compassion. I think that is the point that Kripal is trying to make, to be open to new experiences, opinions,and ideas and do not reject something because it seems new or unusual. That is how Kripal helped me understand Whitley Strieber’s experiences, he taught me to take a step back and reevaluate before judging a group or experience or opinion of another person. This class was more than just religion to me, it was about acceptance of something new and Kripal opened my eyes to