Intellectuals have tended to dismiss people’s spiritual experiences by reducing them to public ritual spaces, to forms of cultural theft, to colonial history, to economics and capitalism, to narcissism and dilettantism. These processes are important to analyze, but is that all there is? The author’s answer is a definitive ‘No.’ The basic model here is performance studies, a field that ... Read moreassumes to know anything is to show it, so that others can see it happening. What to do, then, with the invisible, which, by nature, cannot be shown or known in a public way? Through detailed studies of two contemporary meditation practices and their founders, this book reveals how insufficient various materialist methodologies are to understanding the interior, life-changing, and often extreme experiences of the spiritual … Reckoning with Spirit is an especially powerful and effective tour de force.” —Jeffrey Kripal, Rice University Show Less