A Life Between Rockets; A Tribute to Charles T. Tart, 1936-2025
Journal of Scientific Exploration June 30, 2025 DOI: 10.31275/20253749 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Obituary or memoir Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | The obituary highlights Tart's formative years: born in 1937, he grew up in New Jersey, worked as a teenage radio engineer, studied electrical engineering at MIT, and later transferred to Duke to study psychology, where he was mentored by parapsychology founder J. B. Rhine. |
Abstract
When I was asked to write an obituary for Charles "Charley" Tart, I knew it would be an emotionally wrenching experience because we had been close friends and colleagues for more than half a century.Although we did most of our current work in California, neither of us were born there.I was born in Wisconsin, and Charley was born on April 29, 1937, in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, and grew up in New Jersey.I was active in amateur theatrical productions, and he was active in amateur radio, working as a radio engineer while a teenager, holding a First Class Radiotelephone License from the Federal Communications Commission.As an undergraduate, Charley studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and transferred to Duke University to study psychology.He was intrigued by parapsychology and was mentored by J. B. Rhine, the founder of the field, as an undergraduate in speech education at the University of Wisconsin (Krippner, 1963).I was instrumental in arranging a lecture by Rhine to the student body and accepted his invitation to visit him at his Duke University laboratory, initiating a lifelong relationship (Krippner, 2024).