Tart, Charles T.

Charlie is a Core Faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He is known for his work on the nature of consciousness (particularly altered states), as a founder of transpersonal psychology, and for research in scientific parapsychology. Among his many books are Altered States of Consciousness; Transpersonal Psychologies; States of Consciousness; Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm; Living the Mindful Life; and Body Mind Spirit: Exploring the Parapsychology of Spirituality. What is the nature of human consciousness, according to Charlie, especially its deeper and more profound aspects? He approaches the question from three related perspectives that represent major aspects of both his scientific research and personal life. The three perspectives are those of ordinary psychology, transpersonal psychology, and parapsychology. Each of these perspectives has primary implications for understanding consciousness. Here’s how Charlie brings it all together: “Now we have the scientific basis to deal with the criticism that transpersonal psychology is about nothing but illusions. Of course it is - some of the time. Ordinary psychology has shown us innumerable mechanisms by which people fool themselves and each other. On the other hand, the data of parapsychology show us that sometimes there is a very real way in the ‘mind’ ‘tr anscends’ the ‘brain.’ I put all three critical words in quotation marks to emphasize that while this statement is correct in general, our understanding of what exactly this means is still very crude, and great amounts of open-minded research are needed to flesh this statement out…If you look at the sources of the great religions, however, you discover transpersonal experiences by the founders of the religions. If you look at transpersonal psychology, you see that such life transforming experiences of love, unity, and compassion are a basic part of human potentials, not just things that happened to a few people long ago. And if you look at the data of parapsychology, you see that the scientistic basis for automatically rejecting such transpersonal experiences is fallacious. There is considerable hope for humanity as conscious beings, and there is a lot of excitement awaiting us as we discover exactly what that means!”