I recently received a most surprising email from a young man from abroad, I'll call him Aaron, regarding my recent book, The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together. He wanted my permission to pirate it! Here's his email, and my response. Interesting….

name: Aaron email: topic: Piracy comments: Dear Dr. Tart, My name is Aaron. I'm a 23 yr old student of whatever from a small island nation. May I scan my copy of "End of Materialism" (or nick it from Google books somehow) and release it on the internet? Usually I won't ask but out of immense respect to you I felt I had to.

Do you feel you have made more money than you deserve for writing the book? because only then, i think, will you be content in knowing that your book has been pirated.

People still would buy the book. We love to hold a book in our hands when we read it, do we not? eBooks just don't do that for us, thus the invention of whatsitcalled.. er.. the Kindle and stuff alike.

Where do you stand on Piracy?

I know this is a contradictory subject. So you may not reply and I will assume your answer is "No, you may not pirate my book, thank you". Thank you for your time, Aaron

P.S. Weird eMail I agree too… sorry if I insulted you in any way… That was not my intention :

( I felt moved to repond: Dear Aaron,

> Weird eMail I agree too… sorry if I insulted you in any way… That was not my intention

Yes, certainly one of the most unusual emails I've ever gotten – and I get a lot of them from people who want to tell me about their unusual experiences. Because you seem sincere and are unsure about pirating my book, I think we share enough values that it’s worthwhile to share some thoughts with you.

> Do you feel you have made more money than you deserve for writing the book? because only then, i think, will you be content in knowing that your book has been pirated.<

What a complicated question! Who knows how much I "deserve?" Or anyone? I hope I am never put in a position of having to decide what someone does and doesn’t deserve. When I was young the “good” guys and the “bad” guys were quite distinct, now I have some appreciation for how complex we all are.

As an academic book writer, I have been far more successful in terms of sales than 90% of academic writers – but if I figured out how much I made in terms of the hours I spent doing the writing, not even counting the many years of relative poverty as a student that I put in preparing myself so I would have something to write about, I would guess I earn something like a dollar an hour from my book sales.

Of course I think the path I have followed in my career of research and teaching has been a good one, and will hopefully be of help to people. I think, e.g., that we are spiritual beings in some real sense and the too widespread denial of this in Materialism is harmful to people. Hopefully the book will help people recognize what is really spiritual in them. Readers have already written me that the book has helped them, that’s very rewarding.

Now the bigger question than what I deserve personally. Do authors deserve to make a reasonable living as authors?

Almost all books commercially published are financial failures – they don't earn enough money for the publisher to pay for the costs of publishing, and the author is only getting a fraction of that. You never hear about these books, of course, only about the best sellers, which makes being an author sound lucrative. Less than one percent of authors have best sellers, the rest, going by a survey the Authors Guild did a few years ago, can't earn enough to make a living, they have to depend on working at another job or a working spouse to get by. The consequence of this on the publishing industry is that they are less and less inclined to publish a book simply because it has valuable information: if it's not likely to appeal to mass tastes and become a best seller, they don't want it. You can't get statistics on what doesn't happen, but more and more books that would be of great value to some readers never get published since they won't be popular best sellers.

Now add in pirating. If a publisher thinks he may only sell a thousand copies before a book is pirated, and he needs five thousand sales to recoup his expenses, he's not going to publish the book.

Personally, at the money level, I don't care too much if my books are pirated. I can live on my retirement income from my years of teaching. I care very much for authors trying to earn a living, though, as pirating is going to kill the publishing industry, and so many good authors are never going to publish.

I felt like telling you the above as I don't think people who are starting to pirate books realize they are going to kill book publishing. I've heard the argument for pirating music, it give bands exposure they would never get otherwise and they make money from people who come to their concerts. When was the last time, if ever, you paid to hear an author speak, though? I’m a good speaker and occasionally get paid to speak, but I’m one of the very few authors who does – and I couldn’t make a living and support my family even if I added speaking fees and book royalties together.

> May I scan my copy of "End of Materialism" (or nick it from Google books somehow) and release it on the internet?<

It's very courteous of you in a strange way to ask for my permission, but no, I won't give it. Indeed my publisher would probably sue me if I did! If I'm ever held up at gunpoint, though, I hope the robber is as courteous…. I’m also pleased that you find “The End of Materialism" worthwhile enough to want to share it with others, even if I can’t approve of the way you plan to do it.

Charles T. Tart

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Antelope Canyon, near Lake Powell in Arizona, has a slot canyon on it, a tortuous, twisting, narrow (6-12 feet or so) deep defile between curved canyon walls of red and other colored stone. The sun only penetrates for a few minutes at noon, but when it does, the colors and shapes are out of this world. Even at other times of the day, it's fantastic. If you ever have a chance, go!

My wife and I went there, on the photographers' tour last week, while on our camping vacation. She got off hundreds of fabulous photos, but I knew I didn't have the skill to take in the panorama of this place, so I looked for interesting people at interesting moments, while just appreciating the beauty generally. The prime result is this, my first attempt to put a photo in this blog, what I call Child of Light.

A beautiful little Japanese girl stepped into this tiny shaft of sunlight, and…..wow!

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Needless to say, perhaps, but then I forget it all the time, so perhaps needful to say.

We get so caught up in our concerns, our "stories," our struggles about so many things that have only a psychological reality, but little or no basis in the physical world….So it's good to get out in nature, where the plants and animals are just living moment-to-moment.  No, we can't live lives that simple and still be human, but it's nice to be reminded once in a while of the basic, simple side of life…..

The story of mindfulness at ITP continues with my next post – sometime in the next few weeks….

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"But," I told her, "I won't be at home."

Then I realized that under "Home Number" on the paperwork they wanted, of course, my cell phone number, not my old-fashioned wired telephone number at home!

Silly me…..

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Nonordinary States of Consciousness in Transpersonal Psychotherapy

William James first explored how nonordinary states of consciousness can be induced and the value that they have for providing access to special knowledge that cannot be gained through ordinary consciousness. Many schools of psychology "adhere to an unnecessarily restricted view of the psyche [and refuse to] work therapeutically with spiritual experience and experiences of nonordinary reality" (Scotton, 1996, p. 3). In transpersonal psychotherapy, induction of nonordinary states of consciousness has a respected place.

Transpersonal psychotherapists have explored the healing potential of many states of consciousness, including those associated with meditation, bodywork, movement, dreamwork, guided imagery, prayer, drumming, chanting, sweat lodges, fasting, shamanic journeying, and psychedelic drugs (Cortright, 1997). Anthropologist Michael Hamer (1990) and Native American psychologist Leslie Gray (2002) have developed shamanic counseling approaches based on shamanic practices that induce nonordinary states (particularly drumming). New techniques to induce nonordinary states have also been developed such as holotropic breathwork, an experiential procedure developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof involving several-hour sessions of music, energy work, and hyperventilation to simulate psychedelic drug experience (K. Taylor, 2003).

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I teach this course, even though I’m old enough to retire, because I think its subject matter is interesting and important in making at least a small contribution to our individual and collective psychological and spiritual growth.  That you are here at ITP, of your own volition, that you’re taking this course which is an elective, rather than required, allows me to assume that you too are really interested in its subject matter.  Thus I don’t have to motivate you to keep up with the readings, to read relevant material beyond what’s required, to contribute both your enthusiasm and doubts and questions in class, and to find it a privilege to write small papers each week to share your own enthusiasm and thinking with me and your fellow students.  I bring to class my interest and enthusiasm to share with you, and I’m rewarded by your interest and enthusiasm.  Yes, I bing expertise in content too, but that interest and enthusiasm is more important.  When I see you grappling with our material, intellectually and experientially, in class or in your papers, I feel I’m a success as a teacher!

If, God forbid, it ever reaches a point where nobody says anything interesting in class and the papers are all nothing but book reports, then it will be time to stop teaching….  I know this may happen someday if I get too old or sick, but I doubt it will happen for lack of student interest and enthusiasm.

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Neuroglamorizing. Noun. The hyping of ordinary speech by the use of frequent but superfluous terms relating to the brain and brain functioning.

Instead of talking about becoming less fearful, for example, you make it sound like your understanding is much deeper and very scientific by talking about reducing activation in your amygdala.

Dogmatic materialism is so prevalent in scientific and academic circles that you find neuroglamorizing everywhere.

I love research on brain functioning and it's very useful. The more we understand about the brain the better. But when we slip into a habit of making ourselves seem smarter this way, we may well be thinking less deeply and accurately, charmed by our own glamor, being fashionable in in the scientific know….

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Without having any real reason, I slowly developed an “instinctive” dislike of her. I say “instinctive” because there was no real conscious reason for it. This feeling puzzled me, as I like to know how and why my mind works.

Lately when I've seen her I've thought about how hysterical people in the old days – people certainly not like me! – would scapegoat old women, call them witches, persecute them, even kill them when times were bad. I thought that if things ever got really bad here, the neighbors (hopefully not me!) would attack this funny old lady.

Today she stopped as she was walking by, smiled, and asked me how my daughter Cindy was doing!

The instant she smiled and spoke, obviously knowing and caring about my daughter, my whole perception of her was transformed. She was just an old lady, probably tired from walking up the hill, with a funny sense of fashion, but certainly not ugly or an old witch!

It amazes me how quickly a perception can change. For the better, thank goodness!

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I haven't really advertised the existence of this blog to my list yet, I've been too busy to get around to it, but I think I will wait a while – lots of other writing to do! – as I like the way we seem to be slowly, but organically growing….

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