EHE Book Reviews

Consciousness Record Type: Review ID: 908
States of Consciousness Tart, Charles T.
As a psychologist, Tart has been a pioneer in studying consciousness in various forms. In this book he presents "a way of looking at what people tell us about and how they behave in various altered states of consciousness that I have been slowly developing in a decade of research" (p. ix). He calls this a "systems approach" to viewing consciousness (so-called because "in trying to understand human consciousness, we must get the feel of the whole system as it operates in its world, not just study isolated parts of it" [p. 14]). The book is in two sections. Section I, "States," describes Tart's systems approach, its implications, and provides a summary of what we now know about states of consciousness. Section II, "Speculation," he says, "presents ideas that, while consistent with the systems approach, are not a necessary part of it and are more unorthodox" (p. 11). Although some of the points Tart makes are based on parapsychological findings, basically this book is not about parapsychology. However, it is necessary reading for parapsychologists, for they will not make significant progress until they can relate their findings to the larger field of psychology, a psychology that, as Ornstein and Tart see it, is a science of consciousness.
Publisher Information:	New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975. 305p. Bibliography: 287-295; 19 figures; 11 graphs; Index: 297-305; 7 tables

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States of Consciousness