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 Psi: Scientific Studies in the Psychic Realm, States of Consciousness, The End of Materialism, Learning to Use Extrasensory Perception, On Being Stoned, Waking Up, and Open Mind – Discriminating Mind.

Here he observes that, in previous generations, people suspected of using psi abilities for harmful purposes (i.e., witches) were burned at the stake. Fear of psi is akin to religious fear of the devil. It is also akin to what scoffers refer to as their fear of the “rising tide of superstition”. Many in academia fear that, if their interest in parapsychology were to become public, their colleagues would view them with disdain. This can affect research funding and tenure; it is a legitimate fear. Others who experience psi sometimes express the fear that they might be going insane; or that they will become overwhelmed by unwanted psi-related imagery.

Edited subtitles for this video are available in Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, and Spanish.

(Recorded on November 9, 2016)

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Published on April 10, 2023