CHANGED IN A FLASH
Houston IANDS February Presentation
with authors Elizabeth Krohn and Dr. Jeffrey Kripal
Sunday, February 21, 2020 | 2:00-5:00 pm
Hosted on Zoom by the Institute for Spirituality and Health
Free of Charge | Donations Appreciated
When Elizabeth Greenfield Krohn got out of her car with her two young sons in the parking lot of her synagogue on a late afternoon in September 1988, she couldn't have anticipated she would within seconds be struck by lightning and have a near-death experience. She felt herself transported to a garden and engaging in a revelatory conversation with a spiritual being. When she recovered, her most fundamental understandings of what the world is and how it works had been completely transformed. She was “changed in a flash,” suddenly able to interact with those who had died and have prescient dreams predicting news events. She came to believe that some early traumatic and abusive experiences had played a part in preparing her for this experience.
Elizabeth first shared her experience publicly at a program at the Institute for Spirituality and Health in 2015, and it was there that she met Dr. Jeffrey Kripal, a respected scholar of religious studies and mystical experiences. They would go on to coauthor Changed in a Flash, which explores the meanings and implications of Elizabeth’s incredible experience, proposing the groundbreaking idea that we are shaping our own experiences in the future by how we engage with near-death experiences in the present.
Join us to hear Elizabeth’s story and an illuminating discussion with both her and Dr. Kripal.
Our Speakers:
ELIZABETH GREENFIELD KROHN was a wife and mother of two young boys when she was struck by lightning in the parking lot of her Houston synagogue in 1988. Her most fundamental understandings of what the world is and how it works were completely transformed. Following their meeting at a program at ISH, Elizabeth and Dr. Jeffrey Kripal coauthored a book, Changed in a Flash. She has since become a frequent guest on podcasts and radio shows discussing her extraordinary experience. Elizabeth and her husband live in Houston where they spend most of their free time with their nine grandchildren and their puppy Charlie.
DR. JEFFREY J. KRIPAL, PHD holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, where he chaired the Department of Religion for eight years and helped create the GEM Program, a doctoral concentration in the study of Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism that is the largest program of its kind in the world. He is the Associate Director of the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where he also serves as Chair of the Board. Jeff is the editor-in-chief of the Macmillan Handbook Series on Religion (ten volumes) and the author of seven monographs, including, most recently, Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions (Chicago, 2017) and Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics and the Paranormal (Chicago, 2011). He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the history of science and American metaphysical literature for the University of Chicago Press collectively entitled The Super Story. His full body of work can be seen at http://jeffreyjkripal.com
Houston IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies) at the Texas Medical Center serves as a safe space to support those who have had a near-death experience as they integrate their experience into their lives. Houston IANDS also serves to inform the public about NDEs and the lessons and messages that experiencers bring back, and to educate the medical community to recognize and appropriately treat people who have had an NDE.
