RESEARCH & STUDIES
This page will be updated on a regular basis with Research and Study papers.
Please note that only the last five (5) papers published will be displayed on this page. Please select further topics from the complete listing of viewable items already published, listed in the menu, under the title: Research and Studies, to the right of this page.
Just hover with your mouse over the title in the list to obtain the title in full. Alternatively, an index of titles in full can be found at the bottom of the page - just scroll down.
We hope you enjoy the papers, and look forward to any suggestions or feedback you may have.
Please feel free to comment or to discuss these papers in our forums, located at our main site: path-ways.com
|
|
|
|
|
Second Psychophysiological Study of
Out-of-the-Body Experiences in a Selected Subject
Charles T. Tart
University of California Davis
Davis, California 95616
(1967, International Journal of Parapsychology.)
Published in the International Journal of Parapsychology, 1967, vol. 9, 251-258.
The contents of this document are Copyright © 1967 by International Journal of Parapsychology
Abstract
Out-of-the-body experiences (OOBEs) have been reported throughout the ages. This account is primarily a demonstration of the feasibility of scientific study of such experiences. A tentative hypothesis is that "at least some may be a mixture of dreaming and 'something else.'
Article
Reports of people finding themselves "outside" their physical body have come down to us from the most ancient recorded history and from a multitude of different cultures. The typical experience usually contains some combination of the following elements:
(1) floating;
(2) seeing one's physical body from the outside;
(3) thinking of a distant place while "outside" and suddenly finding oneself there;
(4) possessing a nonphysical body; and
(5) being absolutely convinced that the experience was not a dream.
For the vast majority of people who report this, it was a once-in-a lifetime experience, and, although it was frequently reported as pleasurable, they had no idea what caused it or how to make it re-occur. It was also puzzling to many of the reporters, as they had never heard of such experiences and did not know what to make of them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sex, Drugs and Altered States of Consciousness
Charles T. Tart
University of California, Davis
Davis, California 95616
(1978, Unpublished.)
This is a chapter I wrote for a book on sexuality, applying my systems theory approach to understanding altered states of consciousness to the altered state(s) produced by high sexual arousal and orgasm. Because of a variety of complications (the publisher introduced so much bureaucracy I got disgusted and withdrew my chapter) the chapter never got published. The contents of this document are Copyright © 1978 by Charles T. Tart
Abstract
Precis: From the author's systems approach to consciousness, both high sexual arousal and the pharmacological effects of psychoactive drugs, interacting with social and psychological factors, can be viewed as capable of inducing a radical, transient reorganization of consciousness, a discrete altered state of consciousness. The nature of such induction is considered for sex and marijuana intoxication, and specific experiential effects of marijuana intoxication on sexual experience are discussed. The methodological implications of such non-linear, qualitative transformations of consciousness are important.
The purpose of this chapter is to outline a systems approach to understanding sexual behavior and drug use in terms of altered states of consciousness. The focus will be on people's experience: while there is a fair amount of literature correlating such "objective" indices of sexuality as frequency of intercourse with other variables, such as socio-economic class, personality, etc., real people do not engage in sexual activity or take a drug in order to produce that kind of data but to have a certain kind of experience. Thus we must understand the kind of experiences produced if we wish to fully understand the relationship between sex and drugs.
My focus will be outlining a systems approach to the nature of states of consciousness and the way consciousness is altered by strong emotions, particularly sexual arousal, and particularly by one drug, marijuana, for it is here that we have the most extensive data. This chapter is primarily methodological in intent, showing how data about sexuality and marijuana can be viewed from this approach, rather than providing any final data on it. This approach can be extended to other drugs than marijuana. We shall briefly consider the nature of ordinary consciousness and altered states of consciousness, the way sexual arousal may produce an altered state of consciousness, some of the qualities of the sexual state of consciousness that can be so produced, the general way that drugs can induce an altered state of consciousness, the constellating power of both sexual arousal and drug-induced states, and then specifically consider reports of effects of marijuana intoxication on sexuality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mathematical Inference Strategies versus Psi:
Initial Explorations with the Probabilistic
Predictor Program
Charles T. Tart
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis
Davis, California 95616 U.S.A.
Eugene Dronek
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California 94720 U.S.A.
(1982, European Journal of Parapsychology.)
Published in the European Journal of Parapsychology, 1982, vol. 4, 325-356. The contents of this document are Copyright © 1982 by the European Journal of Parapsychology
Abstract
With the increasing use of immediate feedback of target identity in parapsychological research, the question of departures from randomicity (equiprobability and serial independence) in target generators becomes important, as it is possible that some percipients might identify such departures and develop a mathematical inference strategy for predicting targets, thus artifactually inflating their scores. The key aspect of randomicity of relevance is not lack of pattern per se, but the predictability of the generator. It is shown that standard Chi-square tests of randomicity are poor measures of predictability in short to moderate length experiments. A direct approach to the predictability of a possibly biased target source has been developed, the 'Probabilistic Predictor Program' (PPP), which is probably much more powerful than most human percipients could be. The operation of the PPP is described in detail.
The PPP is then applied to both the target and response data of Tart's first Training Study, where some small departures from randomicity were found in the electronically generated target sequences and, of course, in the percipient generated response sequences. The PPP was found to occasionally score significantly on the target sequences, but far less successfully than the actual percipients did. The more biased response sequences were predicted quite significantly by the PPP. Examination of the internal displacement scoring patterns of the PPP was also compared with the patterns of the actual percipients and found to be drastically different. For these two reasons, it was concluded that use of mathematical inference strategies of the PPP sort could have only accounted for a trivial portion of the extremely high target scoring of the percipient S in the first Training Study. While we should normally strive for completely random target sequences, the PPP is offered as a powerful approach to the question of predictability when departures from randomicity do occur, and can be of use in working with other experimental data.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marijuana Intoxication, Psi and Spiritual Experiences
Charles T. Tart
University of California, Davis, California and
Institute of Noetic Sciences, Sausalito, California
(1993, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.)
Published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, volume 87, pp. 149-170, 1993. The contents of this document are Copyright © 1993 by the American Society for Psychical Research
Abstract
General social beliefs that are acquired and operate in our ordinary state of consciousness usually deny the reality of psychic phenomena and thereby probably inhibit psychic functioning. Anecdotal reports, however, suggest that ostensibly paranormal phenomena often occur in association with altered states of consciousness. This study focuses on the altered state of marijuana intoxication. A questionnaire study of 150 experienced marijuana users found that 76% believed in ESP, with frequent reports of experiences while intoxicated that were interpreted as psychic. Sixty nine percent reported that they had experienced telepathy while intoxicated, 32% reported precognition and 13% reported psychokinesis. Fifty percent had experienced seeing auras around people and 44% reported out-of-the-body experiences.
These findings suggest that marijuana, used under the proper psychological conditions, might facilitate the manifestation of psi. No studies are known in which ESP performance was tested under laboratory conditions while percipients were intoxicated with marijuana, but a 1975 study (Tart, 1975; 1976) found a positive correlation between laboratory ESP scoring and frequency of marijuana use outside the laboratory in a student population. This study also found a negative correlation between ESP scoring and frequency of alcohol use in everyday life. A 1977 laboratory study (Tart, 1977) failed to confirm these findings. Differences between the studies are discussed, as is the importance of the ostensible paranormality of various experiences associated with marijuana intoxication on belief systems, irregardless of whether such experiences are actually paranormal.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marijuana Intoxication: Common Experiences
Charles T. Tart
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis
Davis, California 95616
(1963, International Journal of Parapsychology.)
Published in the journal Nature, 1970, vol. 226, pp. 701-704. The contents of this document are Copyright © 1970 by Nature
Abstract
As a guide to further experiments, the chief experiential effects of marijuana have been elucidated with the help of a detailed questionnaire given to seasoned marijuana users whose experiences, it seems are almost entirely pleasant.
|
|
|
 |
|
|  |
|
 |
| MENU
 |
 |
|
|  |
|
