The following report comes from Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., creator of "The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (TASTE)," which provides a growing archive of transcendent experiences reported by scientists. Thanks to "New Heaven New Earth", www.nhne.com, for alerting us to it. -- 21^st Century Radio

In July of 1999, I announced on jcs-online that I had opened The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (TASTE) (http://www.issc-taste.org), a web journal where scientists can submit their personal transcendent experiences for publication. "Transcendent" is used in the inclusive sense of transpersonal (trans, beyond, beyond one's usual personal/biological identity) experiences, altered states of consciousness experiences, or anomalous information gathering or action experiences ("psychic" experiences, to use a common word, in spite of its too vague connotations) which imply transpersonal qualities of our nature. This is a brief report on the roughly year and half of initial operation.

Dissemination of Information:

Word about TASTE has spread almost entirely by word of mouth, interested people passing the information along to others. (I will put my standard announcement at the end of this report in case you want to pass it on to anyone -- and thank you in advance for doing so!) Many of you have already helped with this, for which I thank you.

As of November 25th, 2000, 72 experiences from 67 people have been published (as well as some commentaries on the experiences), and there have been 79,331 unique visits to the TASTE site. "Unique visits" is not the same as the common measure of "hits" (which is a greatly inflated count because it includes all the graphics on pages as distinct hits), but the actual number of people who have logged on to the TASTE journal site. (There is no way to tell how many of these unique visits are repeat visits from earlier visitors, as, out of respect for privacy, no data is collected about the identity of those visiting the TASTE site.)

The Contributing Scientists:

Who are the contributors? TASTE policy restricts potential publication to scientists, typically meaning an advanced degree in a recognized area of science, ranging from anthropology through botany through mathematics through physics through psychology through zoology, to name just a few. In terms of disciplines, the largest number of accounts has come from psychologists (25%). (I would not interpret this to mean psychologists have more transcendent experiences however: since information about The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences has spread by word of mouth, starting with me, a psychologist who knows mainly other psychologists, it's probably just a sampling artifact.) The next most frequent discipline represented is medicine and medical researchers (19%), followed by physics (14%), chemistry (14%), engineering disciplines (10%), and biology (5%). Other disciplines include mathematics, anthropology, sociology, epidemiology, linguistics and Geodermography.

Of the 72 contributors to date, 52 (72%) of the accounts are from men. Although contributors may remain anonymous to the public, to avoid potential backlash from narrow-minded colleagues (a real worry for some), two thirds have chosen to use their real names.

What Kinds of Transcendent Experiences?

Most of the published transcendent experiences are rich and include aspects of several kinds of known phenomena, but a rough categorization of the 72 experiences to date would classify the largest grouping of them (about 28%) as centering around radical changes in identity. This can be briefly illustrated with a quote from the very first publication (Submission 00001, Neurophysiologist): "...I had expanded. I was no longer a small, discrete consciousness located in my head - I encompassed the whole valley. I was HUGE. I was part of everything - or rather everything was part of me. I was ancient and unbelievably powerful. It was wonderful." The reported changes include expansion to experience self as radically different from ordinary self to part of something much bigger, all the way up to the unitive experience where self and cosmos are one. Naturally this has a major effect on the rest of the experiencers' lives, but I will let the TASTE accounts speak for themselves.....

The other roughly grouped categories range from one to six experiences each, so are not worth computing percentages for at this early stage of data collection, but just to name those with more than one instance and give raw numbers:

• Unitive mystical experience 6
• Action at a distance, psychokinesis 6
• Undifferentiated ESP 6
• Precognition 5
• Telepathy 5
• After-death communication 5
• Body energies, "kundalini" 4
• Out-of-body experience 4
• Near-death experience 4
• Enlightenment experience 3
• Creative insights, noesis 3
• Altered state of consciousness 2
• Psychic Healing 2
• Cosmic Consciousness 2

All in all, the TASTE project has been quite successful in encouraging scientists to report their transcendent experiences. This should make for a more accepting climate for such experiences and so produce more data that are part of the total spectrum of human existence. I look forward to continuing submissions of you and your colleagues' transcendent experiences.

Charles T. Tart

**The Standard Announcement about TASTE:

THE ARCHIVES OF SCIENTISTS' TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCES (TASTE)
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste/ or www.issc-taste.org

Over the years many scientists, once they've realized I'm a safe person to talk to, have told me about unusual and transcendent experiences they've had. Too often I'm the first and only person they've ever spoken to about their experiences, for fear of ridicule from their colleagues and adverse, prejudicial effects on their careers. Such fears have, unfortunately, too much of a basis in fact. It's not that there are a lot of scientists with nasty intentions deliberately trying to suppress their colleagues; it's just the social conditioning of our times.

I want to change that, and I ask your help in doing so.

Scientists today often occupy a social role of "high priests," telling laypeople and each other what is and isn't "real," and, consequently, what is and isn't valuable and sane. Unfortunately, the dominant materialistic and reductionistic psychosocial climate of contemporary science (what sociologists long ago named scientism, an attitude different from the essential process of science), rejects and suppresses a priori both having and sharing transcendent, transpersonal and altered states (or "spiritual" and "psychic," to use common words, in spite of their too vague connotations) experiences.

From my perspective as a psychologist, though, this prejudicial suppression and rejection psychologically harms and distorts the transcendent (and other) potentials of both scientists' and non-scientists', and also inhibits the development of a genuine scientific understanding of the full potentials of consciousness. Denial of any aspects of our nature, whatever their ultimate ontological status, is never psychologically or socially healthy.

The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (TASTE) site that I have opened is intended to help change this restricted and pathological climate through the operation of a World Wide Web site in journal form that allows scientists from all fields - from anthropology through botany through mathematics through physics through psychology through zoology, to name just a few - to share their personal, transcendent experiences in a safe, anonymous, but quality controlled space that many people have ready access to.

TASTE:

• Allows individual psychological growth in the contributing scientists by providing a safe means of expression of vital experiences;
• Leads toward a more receptive climate to the full range of our humanity in the scientific professions, which, in turn, will benefit our world culture at large;
• Provides research data on transcendent experiences in a highly articulate and conscientious population, scientists;
• Facilitates the development of a full spectrum science of consciousness by providing both data and psychological support for the study of transcendent experiences;
• Helps bridge the unfortunate gaps between science and the rest of culture by illustrating the humanity of scientists.

Please take a look at TASTE: the URL is http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/tart/taste or www.issc-taste.org. If you find it valuable, please pass this information on to friends and colleagues. I have no budget for advertising, so must depend on word of mouth to get this information around.

If you have a web site of your own and can add a link to TASTE, thank you! Feel free to copy one of the TASTE experiences as an example on your web site, if you like.

In terms of conventional, slower publicity, if you can recommend any journals I should send notices to, please let me know. If you are the editor of any publication, you have my permission (and thanks!) to print this notice in your publication.

And if you value The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences as much as I do and would like to make a financial contribution to help support it, email me about it. TASTE is sponsored by the Institute for the Scientific Study of Consciousness Inc., and all contributions are fully tax deductible.

Thank you!

Charles T. Tart, Ph.D.,
Editor Professor Emeritus, Psychology, University of California at Davis Professor,
Core Faculty, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, CA
cttart@ucdavis.edu

The TASTE name, logo, web site contents and computer graphics are Copyright © 1999 by Charles T. Tart. All rights reserved.