Potential Role of Psi in an Expanded Science of the Physical, Experiential, Spiritual

On the Potential Role of Psi in an Expanded Science of the Physical, Experiential, and Spiritual

Charles Tart

This paper is an experiment for me, so there may be rough spots. Its basic goal is to share my excitement about possibilities for parapsychologi-cal applications to help investigate reality, hopefully to stimulate readers who will advance these ideas. . . . I’m relatively retired now. It was originally scripted as an invited address. I’m a good speaker, and it’s easy for me to share possibilities by the way my voice and gestures communicate my ex-citement, and the controlled pace of a lecture lets me build the right atmo-sphere. Too, when I’m a well-known scientist and colleague to the audience, I can deepen rapport by being relatively informal and personal while out-lining the basic science. But converting this to a journal article eliminates much of the above advantages inherent in speaking, and a journal article should more formally demonstrate some of the scientific roots of my pro-posals, especially to younger investigators who don’t know my previous work. So the experiment I’m trying here is to stick close to the somewhat personal, informal, enthusiasm-conveying tone of a lecture but demon-strate its scientific roots with extensive Notes. I invite you to read just the text, pick up on the feelings, put questions and criticism aside for the time being. “Take the trip” with me, while skipping the Notes (I know you’ll peek at the first few anyway). Then if you have picked up enough enthusiasm to want to go deeper, go back through reading the Notes to get the refer-ences, methodological deepenings, questionings, etc. And then . . . maybe you’ll be one of those who advances our fields along these lines