occasionally glitchy, but the conversation was so fascinating and

important I posted it anyway. The discussion is clear and intelligible.

In this chat, Dr. Jack Hunter and I discuss the nature of the

paranormal, and the ways in which Academia has embraced the topic, and

the ways in which it has failed to engaged with its more challenging

aspects.

Through the lens of such disciplines as ecology and anthropology, a

coherent understanding of the paranormal is possible if difficult to pin

down.

Hunter has made a career out of engaging with these topics, and in

refusing to be reductive about the complexities involved. His recent

book, "Deep Weird," focuses in particular on those occurrences that fall

outside mainstream categories by virtue of their strangeness.

Hunter argues that it's that complexity that can likely tell us the most

about what we're encountering. All aspects should be embraced and

analyzed, not ignored or ridiculed according to operative prejudices and

intellectual laziness.

We explore his experiences with the spiritual realm through early

research around spiritualists and mediums, events that challenged his

world view and pushed him into a process of what he calls "ontological

flooding," where the possible explanations for various phenomenon

multiply and refuse simple or trite resolutions.

This straddling of ontologies and explanations is one key to gaining a

global perspective, he believes.

Hunter is known for exploring the borderlands of consciousness,

religion, ecology and the paranormal.

He is an Honorary Research Fellow with the Alister Hardy Religious

Experience Research Center, and a tutor with the Sophia Center for the

Study of Cosmology in Culture, University of Wales Trinity St David.

To purchase Dr Jack Hunter's books:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dr+jack+hunter&crid=1H27A8FVEUIKD&sprefix=dr+jack+hunte%2Caps%2C178&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

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