Charles T. Tart - Seventy Years of Exploring Consciousness and Parapsychology

Charley Tart (1937-2025) was a towering figure in his field of transpersonal psychology, altered states of consciousness and human potential, and was one of our honorary members who died earlier this year. I first met Charley when he was speaking at Mystic and Scientists in the early 1980s, where I remember him saying that only second-rate scientists thought there was a conflict between science and religion. He also spoke at our inaugural Beyond the Brain conference in Cambridge in 1995. He gave a wonderful and amusing talk on Endarkenment in which he claimed to be an expert, also remarking that much of Western psychology could be subsumed under this term. His lecture was used on multiple occasions by students at Alef Trust as the basis for a presentation. This book contains 16 in-depth interviews with Charley, ten of which were recorded in November 2016. Jeff knew Charley for over 50 years, and his last conversation was only three days before he passed.

The book also contains an introduction by Charley himself, who was particularly eloquent in opposing the ignorant arrogance of self-styled sceptics who had never read any of the literature – he called these people pseudo-sceptics, citing one compelling example. Rupert Sheldrake has frequently had such encounters, for instance with Peter Atkins on a morning radio programme. He had sent Peter some of his peer-reviewed papers on telepathy in advance of the interview, but Atkins had not read them on the grounds that he knew in advance that telepathy was not possible. The titles of the interviews give some idea of their scope: science and spiritual traditions, understanding ESP, cultivating mindfulness, fear of psi, psychological reflections on Gurdjieff, science as a spiritual path, altered states of consciousness, transpersonal psychology, and spiritual implications of parapsychology. As one would expect, the interviews are lively and informative, and can be highly recommended to all readers, especially as Jeff himself is so knowledgeable in the field.