Dear Elena Petelos, Composed August 16, 2007
[...]
Although I think we can never define consciousness itself in any final way - defining is a part of consciousness, and why should we expect the part to be able to totally encompass the whole? - we can make practically useful distinctions. We all know the old Zen saying, "The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon," but a finger pointing in the right direction may help us direct our attention in a way that lets us see the moon.
> Did you actually mean "ever-changing"? No, and I appreciate your desire to get the terminology right. Reinterpreting what I meant (and still mean) with Wilber's later writings is inaccurate scholarship and confusing to people.
Let me put it this way. If I say "My friends are traveling," it is further useful to note whether they are traveling in a car or an airplane or a ship. The possibilities in each are different. Within each of those vehicles, of course, the particulars can keep changing: which direction my friends face in, what they are saying to one another, sitting or standing, etc. The overall "shape" or pattern of consciousness, the "state," is useful to know, even if the moment-to-moment particulars, the specific thoughts, feelings and perceptions within the state, change a lot. If I say you're going to meet an acquaintance of mine in a moment it is helpful if I add state information, say, "He's enraged about something," as opposed to, say, "He's drunk" or "He's stoned on marijuana."
So when I use "state" I mean an overall pattern of consciousness that is stable enough to be around long enough for us to get an understanding of what it is. Within that particular pattern particular content may vary from moment to moment, but the overall pattern remains the same.
There may be practical confusion at times if states themselves change rapidly, such as with emotional states.
This is spelled out in more detail in my "States of Consciousness" book (1975), not to be confused, as it often is, with my "Altered States of Consciousness" (1969) anthology.
I hope this is helpful.
"Altering Consciousness" is wrong if it's supposed to be about my work, rather than Wilber's. Sincerely,
Charles T. Tart
PS: As part of spreading the word about this project,
I am regularly attaching this PS to my correspondence.
The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences
(TASTE)
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/ or
www.issc-taste.org
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
careers. 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 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 science), 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 the transcendent (and other)
potentials of both scientists and non-scientists, and
also inhibits the development of a genuine scientific
understanding of the full potentials 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) site that I have opened is intended to help
change this restricted and pathological climate through
the operation of a World Wide Web site in journal form
that allows 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 many people have ready
access to.
TASTE:
- Allows individual psychological growth in the
contributing scientists by providing a safe means of
expression of vital experiences;
- Leads toward a more receptive climate to the full
range of our humanity in the scientific professions,
which, in turn, will benefit our world culture at large;
- Provides research data on transcendent
experiences in a highly articulate and conscientious
population, scientists;
- Facilitates the development of a full spectrum
science of consciousness by providing both data and
psychological support for the study of transcendent
experiences.
- Helps bridge the unfortunate gaps between
science and the rest of culture by illustrating the
humanity of scientists.
Please take a look at TASTE: the URL is
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste or
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 own and can add a link 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 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
cttart@ucdavis.edu
--
Note: If you are emailing me for the first time, your email will be intercepted by my spam arrest service, which will email you and ask you to type in a word or number displayed against a wavy background - something computers can't do. Respond to this request, and then your email will be forwarded to me from then on.
Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.
Professor, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto CA
Professor Emeritus, Psychology, University of California, Davis
Home page & archives: http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/
Editor, The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/