Thursday, July 2, 2009

A Message from Charley Tart

I’m writing you because you’re probably interested in developments in the areas I’ve researched, such as parapsychology, consciousness, meditation, altered states of consciousness, postmortem survival and spirituality.

My most important book, The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together has just been published. Too many people in modern life suffer uselessly by denying and repressing their spiritual desires and experiences because they think science has proven that all spirituality is nonsense or crazy. This book is intended to help them by showing that, using the best kind of science in the field of parapsychology, this materialistic denial of the spiritual is not actually scientific; it’s a dogmatic denial that’s factually wrong, based on a rigid, dismissive philosophy of materialism. People sometimes show the kinds of qualities we would expect a spiritual being to have when tested in the best kinds of scientific studies. You can read more about the book at the bottom of the first page on my archival web site.

Many of you know I’ve been putting my more interesting and readable research papers on My Website. This includes realistic career advice for those who want to study consciousness and related areas like parapsychology. There are also links to the more reliable sites on parapsychology, and a place to sign up for my “Studentnotices” list.

Studentnotices is a list you can sign up for to get occasional – from once or twice a month to several times a week – email notices about things that I think are of interest to people interested in the nature of mind and the human spirit. I may describe interesting new books I’ve seen, conferences coming up, and my scheduled lectures and workshops.


Finally, I’ve been working as a scientist in these areas for more than 50 years, now, and while it’s a deep part of me, I’m tired of sharing my knowledge only in this formal way. So I’ve started a blog, where I write not simply as a scientist but as a spiritual seeker, a teacher, a professor who built and uses his own little bulldozer, a former martial artist, etc., etc., kind of the “full spectrum Charley Tart” instead of just “Professor Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.” I’ve started it by posting transcripts from one of my classes on mindfulness and meditation, and an interesting discussion is already going on as people respond to some of that material. Visit my blog

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.
Professor, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto CA

Professor Emeritus, Psychology, University of California, Davis
Home page & archives

Editor, The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences

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