An Interview with Jeffrey Kripal, Part Two: Challenging Binaries
This is part two of our three-part conversation with Jeffrey Kripal. Watch part one here. In conversation with Paul Courtright of Emory University, Jeffrey Kripal, of Rice University, discusses his new textbook, Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms. Professor Kripal’s latest book is a departure from the traditional ‘world religions’ textbook. He frames the adventure of the comparative study of religion as […]
An Interview with Jeffrey Kripal, Part One: Comparing Religions
In conversation with Paul Courtright of Emory University, Jeffrey Kripal, of Rice University, discusses his new textbook, Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms. Professor Kripal’s latest book is a departure from the traditional ‘world religions’ textbook. He frames the adventure of the comparative study of religion as a kind of passage from conventional categories of religion, through an analysis of […]
Sacred Spinebusters, Transcendent Toe Holds, Part Two: The Confluence of Religion and Professional Wrestling
By Dan Mathewson Ask any wrestling aficionado about the greatest wrestlers from the last quarter century and one name you will consistently hear is “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels, the wrestler discussed at the very end of part one of my series on the intersection of religion and professional wrestling. With the charisma of The Rock, […]
If You See Shirdi Sai Baba’s Face on This Wall, Don’t Worry . . . It’s Normal
Jonathan Loar I. The miracle in Mississauga Last month, the face of Shirdi Sai Baba (d. 1918)—a holy man who lived about 150 years ago in the small village of Shirdi in what is today the state of Maharashtra in western India—appeared on the wall of Sai Dham Canada in Mississauga, Ontario. According to the […]
Hell Is Coming Here: Cthulhu Cosmology in Hellboy
David McConeghy In the four issues of the Dark Horse Comics mini-series Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (1994), readers meet the titular demon Hellboy, who arrived in the world thanks to a Nazi “Doomsday” ritual led by Russian occult figure Grigori Rasputin. If this sounds familiar, you may have caught the popular 2004 movie adaptation directed by Guillermo […]