Stephan A. Schwartz
California Institute of Human Science
From the Journal of Near-Death Studies, Volume 43-1
Alternative Link: https://doi.org/10.17514/JNDS-2025-43-1-p1-3
In every branch of science, a very small group of scientists always stand out, and Charles Tart-known to his friends and colleagues as Charley, his preferred name form is one such person. In two disciplines, psychology and parapsychology, his work stands out for its originality, insights, and influence on others’ work. Charley died at the age of 86, by his own account, just before he died, “mostly of old-age.” He is survived by his daughter, Lucinda, and his son, David. His beloved wife, Judy, died in 2022, and her death was, as he told me, “very difficult and very sad.”
Charley was born in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, but grew up mostly in New Jersey. As a teenager, his consuming interest was electronics, particularly for communications, and he became so proficient that, as a teenager, he became a Ham radio operator and even worked as a radio engineer. He was an excellent student, and his electronic interests and his student achievements qualified him for admission to the engineering program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But this was the age when drugs that produced altered states of consciousness became a major cultural trend amongst the young, and after several personal experiences, his fascination with altered states became so strong that, after reading J. B. Rhine’s The New World of the Mind, Charley transferred from MIT to Duke University to meet and be mentored by Rhine, then the leading parapsychologist in the United States. This professional decision marked the start of his lifelong research into altered states of consciousness, particularly nonlocal consciousness.
After earning his bachelor’s degree, Charley went on to graduate work in psychology and became fascinated with altered consciousness produced by hypnosis. In 1963, Charley finished his doctorate in psychology at the University of North Carolina, based on his research on the use of posthypnotic suggestions to influence dreaming, and then went to Stanford University to pursue post-doctoral research with Ernest R. Hilgard, internationally known for his research in altering consciousness through hypnosis. This foundation led him on a lifelong dual-path career as a psychologist and as a parapsychologist and he was soon recognized for his substantial contributions.
Charley joined the faculty of the University of California – Davis in the Department of Psychology, where he would serve for 28 years, eventually becoming a Professor Emeritus. But he also held several concurrent academic appointments: Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the first holder of the Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, a Visiting Professor in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, 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. Following his retirement from UC Davis, he spent several years on the faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, in Palo Alto, CA-now Sophia University.
From the beginning of his academic life, Charley was a prolific writer. He would go on to publish more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in books. His work was recognized as being of such quality that his papers were accepted and published in both Science and Nature. His first book, Altered States of Consciousness, published in 1969, was quickly recognized as an international classic, as was his 1975 book, Transpersonal Psychologies. Both books were considered so significant that they became textbooks. He also became one of the founders of the then-emerging approach to psychology-transpersonal psychology and became an internationally recognized figure in both psychology and parapsychology.
Over the course of his career, in addition to the two books already mentioned, he wrote a number of others on the topics of both psychology and parapsychology, including On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication, States of Consciousness (1975), and Symposium on Consciousness (1976). In March 1998, his 1997 book, Body Mind Spirit: Exploring the Parapsychology of Spirituality, which explored the relationship between parapsychological abilities and spiritual and religious beliefs, won amazon’s best metaphysical book award. His most recent books were Mind Science: Meditation Training for Practical People (2013) and The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together (2009), which he later re-released as The Secret Science of the Soul: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science & Spirit Together (2017).
Of the several videos of Charley that can be found on the internet, two are of note. In 2009, Charley “starred” in what was to become an award-winning documentary, Something Unknown is Doing We Don’t Know What (https://somethingunknown.com). The film is organized around Charley’s concept of “the big 5” parapsychological phenomena-precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and healing-exploring the research into each. Because a viewer can not only see Charley and hear his own words but also get a sense of the humor and spirit of this exceptional human being, the documentary stands as a lasting tribute to him. He is also commemorated in a 2025 reboot of his 2016 interview by Jeffrey Mishlove in the New Thinking Allowed video series (https://wwww.youtube.com/watch?v=s3CMR5QB3Qc).
The lives of hundreds of students were positively affected by Charley’s instruction and mentoring. In addition, he co-founded, with myself and others, the International Society for the Study of Energy Medicine (ISSEM) and the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Science (AAPS), and he was a major figure in, and one-time president of, the Parapsychological Association (PA), an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Few people have advanced both the scientific study and the humanistic valuing of parapsychology as much as Charley did. As I said at the beginning of this tribute, in every discipline of science, a very small group of scientists always stand out, and Charles Tart was one such scientist. He will be celebrated in history and deeply missed by his friends and colleagues.
Stephan A. Schwartz is a Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Human Science in Encinitas, CA. Corresponding regarding this obituary should be sent to Mr. Schwartz at email: saschwartz@earthlink.net.