Overview

Tart’s 2000 letter to the Journal of Near-Death Studies announced a project that reflected decades of his work at the intersection of parapsychology, transpersonal psychology, and consciousness studies. The Archives of Scientists’ Transcendent Experiences (TASTE) represented both a practical initiative and a philosophical statement about the state of science and the human experience of the paranormal and spiritual.

Throughout his career, Tart had encountered a recurring pattern: accomplished scientists (physicists, biologists, psychologists, mathematicians) would privately confide in him about unusual experiences they had undergone: out-of-body experiences, encounters with apparent paranormal phenomena, mystical states, or other transcendent events. Yet these same scientists almost never spoke publicly about such experiences, fearing that disclosure would invite ridicule from colleagues and jeopardize their professional standing and reputation.¹

This silence troubled Tart on both scientific and psychological grounds. He saw it not as a sign that such experiences were rare or unimportant, but as evidence of a deeper problem: the dominance of what he called “scientism”, a materialistic, reductionistic worldview that had become the unofficial orthodoxy of the scientific establishment, suppressing inquiry into consciousness, paranormal phenomena, and the full spectrum of human experience.

The problem: scientism and suppression

Central to Tart’s letter was a sharp distinction between science and scientism. Science, in his view, is a genuine investigative process: open-minded, empirical, willing to follow evidence wherever it leads. Scientism, by contrast, is an ideology (what sociologists had long ago identified as such) that uses the authority and prestige of science to enforce a narrow materialist philosophy and to dismiss or suppress any claims that fall outside its approved boundaries.¹

Tart observed that the dominant materialistic and reductionistic climate of contemporary science had created what he termed a form of social conditioning. Scientists occupied a role analogous to that of “high priests,” he wrote, telling both laypeople and each other what is and is not “real,” and by extension, what is and is not valuable and sane. This gatekeeping function, though often exercised without malicious intent, had the effect of suppressing both the having and the sharing of transcendent, transpersonal, and altered-state experiences among scientists themselves.¹

From a psychological perspective, Tart argued, this suppression was harmful. Denial of any aspects of human nature (whatever their ultimate ontological status) is never psychologically or socially healthy. The result was that scientists, like the broader population, were forced to compartmentalize their inner lives, keeping their transcendent experiences hidden from their professional identities. This fragmentation, Tart believed, distorted the transcendent and other potentials of both scientists and laypersons, and inhibited the development of a genuine scientific understanding of the full spectrum of consciousness.¹

TASTE design and purpose

TASTE was Tart’s response to this problem. The archive operated as a World Wide Web site in journal form, allowing scientists from all fields (anthropology, botany, mathematics, physics, psychology, zoology, and beyond) to share their personal transcendent experiences in a safe, quality-controlled space.¹ Anonymity was available to contributors who wished it, removing one major barrier to disclosure.

Tart outlined five specific objectives for the archive. First, it would allow individual psychological growth in contributing scientists by providing a safe means of expression for vital experiences that had previously been suppressed or hidden. Second, it would work toward creating a more receptive climate to the full range of human experience within the scientific professions, which would benefit world culture at large. Third, it would provide research data on transcendent experiences in a highly articulate and conscientious population (scientists themselves) offering a unique window into how educated, trained observers describe and interpret such phenomena. Fourth, it would facilitate the development of a full-spectrum science of consciousness by providing both empirical data and psychological support for the study of transcendent experiences. Fifth, it would help bridge the unfortunate gaps between science and the rest of culture by illustrating the humanity of scientists and demonstrating that scientists, too, have inner lives and experiences that transcend the material and the measurable.¹

The archive was not intended as a repository of uncritical anecdotes. Tart emphasized that TASTE operated with quality control, meaning submissions were reviewed and evaluated. The goal was to create a credible, scholarly resource that could be taken seriously by the scientific community while simultaneously providing a genuinely safe space for disclosure.

Bridging science and transcendence

Tart’s letter reflected his broader conviction that genuine science could and should engage with paranormal and transcendent phenomena. Throughout his career, he had conducted laboratory studies of out-of-body experiences, investigated altered states of consciousness, and explored the relationship between parapsychological phenomena and consciousness itself.² He had also written extensively on the distinction between science as a method and scientism as an ideology, arguing that the two had become dangerously conflated in modern culture.

TASTE was designed to help reverse this conflation. By creating a space where scientists could openly discuss their transcendent experiences without fear of professional retaliation, Tart hoped to shift the cultural climate within science itself. He recognized that such a shift would be gradual and would require sustained effort. He had no budget for advertising TASTE and explicitly asked readers of the Journal of Near-Death Studies to help spread the word through personal networks and by linking to the archive from their own websites.¹

The initiative also reflected Tart’s view that the study of near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and other paranormal phenomena was not peripheral to science but central to understanding consciousness itself. His earlier work on out-of-body experiences had demonstrated that scientific investigation of such phenomena could yield distinctive physiological correlates and even evidence for paranormal perception.² TASTE extended this commitment by creating an infrastructure for gathering and analyzing reports from scientists across all disciplines.

Responses and evaluation

Tart’s letter and the TASTE initiative reflected broader debates within parapsychology and consciousness studies about the relationship between science and subjective experience. His emphasis on the distinction between science and scientism echoed arguments made by other researchers in the field who sought to defend parapsychological inquiry against charges of pseudoscience.²

The letter also demonstrated Tart’s long-standing concern with the integration of transcendent experiences into everyday life and professional identity. In his other work, he had explored how individuals could learn to use paranormal abilities, how altered states of consciousness could be studied systematically, and how psychedelic experiences related to spiritual development.³ TASTE represented an extension of these concerns into the institutional and cultural realm.

Tart’s emphasis on the psychological harm caused by suppression of transcendent experiences was grounded in his understanding of consciousness as multifaceted and capable of accessing states and phenomena that materialist frameworks could not accommodate. He had written extensively on altered states of consciousness and their role in human development, and he viewed the scientific suppression of such experiences as not merely intellectually limiting but psychologically damaging.²

The TASTE initiative also reflected Tart’s commitment to what he called “consensus consciousness”, the culturally constructed, normalized state of awareness that most people inhabit most of the time. By creating a space for scientists to discuss experiences that fell outside consensus consciousness, Tart was working to expand the boundaries of what the scientific community recognized as real and worthy of study.⁴

In his letter, Tart was careful to position TASTE not as a challenge to science itself but as a defense of genuine science against the distortions of scientism. He argued that true scientific inquiry requires openness to evidence and phenomena that challenge existing frameworks, and that the suppression of transcendent experiences among scientists represented a failure of that openness. By providing a safe venue for such experiences to be shared and studied, TASTE aimed to restore science to its proper function: the systematic investigation of all aspects of human experience and consciousness.