I scanned through your link. Vipassana is covered in chapter 7. That book is actually not the sequel, but more like a previous version of the same material. Altered States of Consciousness could be considered a sequel to States of Consciousness.
The one thing which he presents very clearly is the different mechanics of the different schools which he classifies as concentrative (e.g. concentrating on a mantra like in Transcendental Meditation) and opening up (e.g. as is done in vipassana or in Zen). There is a third category, expressive (e.g. this is done by the Whirling Dervishes) which he mentions but I have not seen him describe those methods in as much detail. These catagories were introduced by Naranjo and Ornstein in On the Psychology of Meditation (out-of-print, can be hard to find, and is not often referenced).
Tart has his own theory for what consciousness is, what an altered state of consciousness is, &c which I do not endorse. I feel it is too simplistic. And his teaching device of the “simulator” may induce groans—he does not demonstrate any mastery of the AI or robotics literature if you ask me.
Nevertheless, on the narrow topic of meditation, he is about the closest thing to an accessible western expert that we now have.
Oops. After checking, I find gwern has the sequence correct and my posts have an error. States of Consciousness is the sequel to Altered States of Consciousness. The one at gwern’s link has the most up-to-date data.
A quasi sequel seems to be online here: http://www.druglibrary.org/special/tart/soccont.htm
Anyone know of any online copies of the original?
I scanned through your link. Vipassana is covered in chapter 7. That book is actually not the sequel, but more like a previous version of the same material. Altered States of Consciousness could be considered a sequel to States of Consciousness.
The one thing which he presents very clearly is the different mechanics of the different schools which he classifies as concentrative (e.g. concentrating on a mantra like in Transcendental Meditation) and opening up (e.g. as is done in vipassana or in Zen). There is a third category, expressive (e.g. this is done by the Whirling Dervishes) which he mentions but I have not seen him describe those methods in as much detail. These catagories were introduced by Naranjo and Ornstein in On the Psychology of Meditation (out-of-print, can be hard to find, and is not often referenced).
Tart has his own theory for what consciousness is, what an altered state of consciousness is, &c which I do not endorse. I feel it is too simplistic. And his teaching device of the “simulator” may induce groans—he does not demonstrate any mastery of the AI or robotics literature if you ask me.
Nevertheless, on the narrow topic of meditation, he is about the closest thing to an accessible western expert that we now have.
Oops. After checking, I find gwern has the sequence correct and my posts have an error. States of Consciousness is the sequel to Altered States of Consciousness. The one at gwern’s link has the most up-to-date data.