How to Meditate with Charles T. Tart

Charles T. Tart, PhD, is emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, as well as the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He is a past-president of the Parapsychological Association. He has published over 100 scientific papers in parapsychology. He is editor of several anthologies including Altered States of Consciousness, Transpersonal Psychologies, Mind at Large, and Body Mind Spirit: Exploring the Parapsychology of Spirituality. Books that he has authored include Mind Science: Meditation Training for Practical People, Psi: Scientific Studies in the Psychic Realm, States of Consciousness, The End of Materialism, Learning to Use Extrasensory Perception, On Being Stoned, Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential, and Open Mind – Discriminating Mind.

Here he presents basic and simple ideas related to the practice of meditation. He suggests that there are two basic reasons why people meditate: to calm the mind and for self-awareness. When initiating a session, it is good to have a clear idea of one’s purpose for the session. With reference to himself, Tart notes that meditation has been difficult. Such difficulties occur when the mind races, and when one somehow expects an extraordinary experience. The key is to find a particular focus, such as the breath and to keep returning to that central focus each time one realizes that the mind has wandered.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is past-vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and is the recipient of the Pathfinder Award from that association for his contributions to the study of consciousness.

(Recorded on November 10, 2016)

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