Jeffrey John Kripal (Ph. D., University of Chicago, 1993) is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University, Houston, Texas. His areas of interest include the comparative erotics and ethics of mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religions, and the history of Western esotericism from ancient gnosticism to the New Age.[1] Kripal has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. (SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA)