Faculty Spotlight: Charles Tart
"I see transpersonal psychology in the long run as saving the planet, by helping people to have directly experienced spiritual lives, and so to act out of a deep, genuine spirituality. Without that genuine spirituality I think most of our efforts to make the world a better place will not succeed. To tell people to live as if we are all one does not hold up well under stress if they have never experienced anything like that."
These words come from long time ITP professor and supporter, Charles "Charley" Tart. Charley came to ITP via a well established career in mainstream psychology. Chuckling, however, as he says it, he was "never particularly mainstream in my actual interests."
When queried about what his actual interests are, Charley answers with the fundamental question: "What are human beings?" He goes on to add that he is specifically interested in consciousness and its potentials, parapsychology, and transpersonal experiences in general.
When he began his career over four decades ago, there was no such field as Transpersonal Psychology. The closest thing that he could do was some research in hypnosis and parapsychology, in which he is recognized as a leading authority. His interest in these non-mainstream matters led to the creation of many books, especially one originally titled, Spiritual Psychologies.
In that book, various professionals wrote about the psychologies embedded in spiritual traditions. As the book was in press in 1975, he received a call from his publisher. The publisher said "We have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the major psychology book club in the country wants your book for its monthly selection. The bad news is that most psychologists can't handle the word 'spiritual,' so can we call it something else?"
Charley changed the title to Transpersonal Psychologies because psychologists didn't have prejudicial defenses against 'Transpersonal' because the word was unknown to them, it didn't mean anything yet. He adds pragmatically: "That's how things happen in the real world sometimes." The book went on to become a textbook for many courses and the unknown status of the word "transpersonal" quickly changed.
At ITP he sees himself "making the most contribution in emphasizing research in transpersonal psychology." He notes that at this stage in the transpersonal field we've often borrowed wholesale from various spiritual traditions. He cautions that some of what we've borrowed may not be relevant, and may perhaps even be pathological for our times. This is why he stresses the need to keep refining our research. "We're really at beginning of our field. We need to do the basic research."
Charley enjoys his work with the students at ITP. He believes that students contribute importantly to the field by clarifying transpersonal experiences in their research. He finds ITP students are very ambitious in the scope of their research and notes that many proposed dissertation projects are wonderful ways to go for a life's work, but they need to be simplified for the dissertation. His job is to help keep students inspired and practical, and suggest resources.
In helping students prepare to take Transpersonal Psychology out into the real world, Charley finds it important to teach what he knows. He tries to stay honest and not fake it. He hopes to help students recognize how little we do know and to discern when to reflect and research, rather than act. His wish is that students come out of ITP more mindful and sensitive to what's going on around them in addition to having their minds and bodies filled with useful information.
One of the things that Charley hopes to instill in the students at ITP is the practicality of the information that they give to their future clients. "You can tell people that they should be more spiritual, and that's nice, but until you tell them how to effectively become spiritual, you're not telling them very much."
"If people have had some kind of spiritual or transpersonal experience where they feel a deep sense of connection with other people, where it is a more direct knowledge than 'You should think and feel this way,' then they are much more likely to try to figure out; 'How can we share?' 'How can we help each other?' 'How can I do things that are a benefit to everybody not just myself?' That's the guiding force of my life."
Dr. Tart's faculty profile is here.
