Tart, Charles T., 1937-
Dates
- Existence: April 29, 1937 - March 5, 2025
Biography
Charles T. Tart is a pioneering psychologist and parapsychologist known as one of the foundational contributors to the field of transpersonal psychology, which integrates spirituality and altered states of consciousness into psychological theory. He has authored influential works, including "Altered States of Consciousness" (1969) and "Transpersonal Psychologies," (1975) and has published more than 250 articles, including lead articles in prestigious scientific journals as Science and Nature. After initially studying electrical engineering at the Massachusettes Instiute of Technology, he went on to earn his doctoral degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1963, and then completed postdoctoral training in hypnosis research with Ernest R. Hilgard at Stanford University. Tart was a Core Faculty Member at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (later Sofia University) (Palo Alto, California), a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (Sausalito, California), and a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, where he was a particularly popular teacher, for 28 years. He served as a Visiting Professor in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, as an Instructor in Psychiatry at the School of Medicine of the University of Virginia, and a consultant on government funded parapsychological research at the Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI International).
His primary goal was to build a bridge between the scientific community and the spiritual community, and to integrate Western and Eastern approaches to personal and social growth.
Citation:
"Charles Tart." Parapsychology Association website. Accessed June 2, 2025. https://www.parapsych.org/users/cttart/profile.aspxFound in 1 Collection or Record:
Jessica Gaynor "Altered States of Consciousness" course symposium recordings
This collection includes recordings of a symposium on altered states of consciousness organized by Jessica Gaynor, who was a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston in the 1970s. Speakers include Sam Keen, John Lilly, Raja Rao, Ram Dass, Charles Tart, and Andrew Weil. It also coontains an interview with Jessica Gaynor and Andrew Weil on their recollections of the event.