The AOTI conference series:
A dynamic and evolving conversation about the impossible.
Since their inception, our AOTI conferences have become one of the most anticipated gatherings in the community—a space where scholars, experiencers, artists, scientists, and the simply curious enjoy a friendly, relaxed environment to engage anomalous experience as a legitimate field of inquiry. What began as an experiment in public scholarship quickly revealed a global appetite for rigorous, humanistic investigation of the impossible.
Each conference has expanded the conversation, deepened interdisciplinary ties, and affirmed what the archives themselves already suggest: anomalous experience constitutes a legitimate, complex area of research with implications for the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities..
With the establishment of the Center for the Impossible in 2025, the series now sits within a broader institutional ecosystem. The next major gathering—AOTI 2027: Art and the Impossible—will explore how anomalous experience shapes, and is shaped by, creative expression across audio, visual, performance, narrative, and multimedia forms.
Through its iterations, our conference has become more than an academic event. It is a rare intellectual commons where the community is given open access to conference presenters, and the study of anomalous experience finds the institutional support it deserves.
AOTI 2027: Art and the Impossible
Anderson-Clarke Center
Rice University
October 21st - 24th
“As Jeff likes to say, the Center is a “rocket going off.” The level of public and academic interest is basically unmanageable, far more than we can integrate into our little professional lives. The AOTI conferences are a small example of this. Jeff’s joke is that we are going to disappoint a lot of people” (he uses more colorful words) in the sense that we simply don’t have enough capacity to meet the demand. With so many interested in attending our conferences, they sell out within days.”
—The always slightly overwhelmed CFTI team
Visit our YouTube channel for a library of our AOTI conference presentations organized by year and playlist…
AOTI 2023: Closing Remarks | Jeffrey Kripal