Science and Spirituality

[Guest guest]

Dear List members

 

One of the key projects I am working on is: Links between 'science and

spirituality'.

It is a tall order !

 

I received the following message from the office of Prof Charles Tart.

University of California. The material may be of interest to other list

members

hence I am sending it to the list...........................jay

 

========original mesg=========

February 27 , 2000

Dear Jay

 

I am a graduate student at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology,

assisting Professor Charles T. Tart on his new consciousness research

website project, The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences

(TASTE). TASTE is intended as a service for people in general, as well

as a research project to advance our knowledge.

 

Because you have had email correspondence with Professor Tart in the

past, I'm assuming it's likely that you will find the TASTE project of

personal interest, so I'm sending you this brief notice about it.

 

Thank you!

 

Vera M. Lind

Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

Palo Alto, California

veralind

 

THE ARCHIVES OF SCIENTISTS' TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCES

(TASTE)

 

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/

 

Over the years many scientists, once they've realized I'm a safe person

to talk to, have told me about unusual and transcendent experiences

they've had. Too often I'm the first and only person they've ever

spoken to about their experiences, for fear of ridicule from their

colleagues and adverse, prejudicial effects on their career. Such

fears have, unfortunately, too much of a basis in fact. It's not that

there are a lot of scientists with nasty intentions deliberately trying

 

to suppress their colleagues, it's just the social conditioning of our

times. I want to change that, and I ask your help in doing so.

 

Scientists today often occupy a social role like that of "high

priests," telling laypeople and each other what is and isn't "real,"

and consequently what is and isn't valuable and sane. Unfortunately,

the dominant materialistic and reductionistic psychosocial climate of

contemporary science (what sociologists long ago named scientism, an

attitude different from the essential process of cience), rejects and

suppresses a priori both having and sharing transcendent, transpersonal

 

and altered states (or "spiritual" and "psychic," to use common

words, in spite of their too vague connotations) experiences.

>From my perspective as a psychologist, though, this prejudicial

suppression and rejection psychologically harms and distorts both

scientists' and laypersons' transcendent (and other) potentials, and

also inhibits the development of a genuine scientific understanding of

the full spectrum of consciousness. Denial of any aspects of our

nature, whatever their ultimate ontological status, is never

psychologically or socially healthy.

 

The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (TASTE), that I

have just opened, is intended to help change this restricted and

pathological climate through the operation of a World Wide Web site in

a journal form which will allow scientists from all fields - from

anthropology through botany through mathematics through physics through

 

psychology through zoology, to name just a few - to share their

personal transcendent experiences in a safe, anonymous, but quality

controlled space that almost all scientists and the general public have

 

ready access to.

 

Specifically TASTE will, to various degrees:

 

- allow individual psychological growth in the contributing

scientists by providing a safe means of expression of vital experiences;

 

- lead toward a more receptive climate to the full range of our

humanity in the scientific professions which, in turn, would benefit our

 

world culture at large;

 

- provide research data on transcendent experiences in a highly

articulate and conscientious population, scientists;

 

- facilitate the development of a full spectrum science of

consciousness by providing both data and support for the study of

transcendent experiences.

 

- help bridge the unfortunate gaps between science and the rest of

culture by illustrating the humanity of scientists.

 

Please take a look at the TASTE site, whose URL is

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste (if

the Psychology server is off line you can use www.issc-taste.org). If

you find it valuable, please pass this information on to friends and

colleagues. I have no budget for advertising, so must depend on word

of mouth to get this information around.

 

If you have a web site of your owX-Mozilla-Status: 0009table to link

from to TASTE, thank you! Feel free to copy one of the TASTE

experiences as an example on your web site, if you like.

 

In terms of more conventional, slower publicity, if you can recommend

any journals I should send notices to, please let me know. If you are

the editor of any publication, you have my permission (and thanks!) to

print this notice in your publication.

 

Thank you!

 

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., Editor

Professor Emeritus, Psychology,

University of California at Davis

Professor, Core Faculty, Institute of Transpersonal

Psychology, Palo Alto, CA