This book is more like a text book than a casual read; but don't be put off. Every page has knowledge and ideas distilled from Gurdjieff's teachings. But the book is pure Charles Tart. I recommend starting right at the beginning and enjoy. Get your highlighter and pencil to write your own comments in the margin and highlight passages of pure wisdom.

There is a logical method for each chapter and if you follow it through, it will really open your eyes. This was a break-through book for me. The book talks about how we are put in a conscious trance since birth and own true essence is suppressed in order to fit and cope in our culture. And how this creates a false personality in ourselves that we have to feed and thus takes energy away from our true selves. Tart talks about how we have created a simulation of the world as we se it and not how it is. There are chapters on Emotions and Defense Mechanisms we employ to protect our conditioned self. Then Tart moves into chapters on how we can self-observe ourself and start to wake from our sleep. There is just too much here to talk about in a few paragraphs.

It is one of the few books I can truly say that I reference in my life on a frequent basis. It was originally published in the late 1980's then went out of print. I am so glad to see it available again. The people of the world need this book. Buy it and you won't regret it.


Tart Showed Me The Masses Are Robots   January 24, 1999
 42 out of 52 found this review helpful

"Waking Up" by Charles Tart was a book read ten years ago which has stuck with me since and I have referred to him in countless conversations with my W. Va. peers since. Such was my original zeal for this book that I bought two copies but, unfortunately, gave them both away and now have none - but I do have sublime memory of its insights. I remember being particularly pleased when Tart referred to one of my all-time favorite philosopher/psychologists Gurdjieff. If I remember correctly, Tart, like Gurdjieff, said we are all in a concentric trance due to our conditioning. But we *think* we are awake. Rather like the recent Jim Carrey film, "The Truman Show," where, to his horror, the protagonist wakes up to the fact that he is living in a 24-hour soap opera bubble. Tart would have no trouble envisioning such a thing. Tart spoke of levels of objective reality and higher levels of introspection which almost no one reaches. I liked this book because it pointed out the hopelessness of trying to communicate with the "rats in their mazes" who, utilizing defense mechanisms that operate at levels below conscious awareness, will never develop sufficient insight to "wake up" to any degree. Tart recommends meditation, going within, similar to Zen. But since so few people are even intellectual and can question their culture and "think about their thinking," it's no wonder these books get lost. Tart's depth of insight is profound. For the intellectuals seem to think they can to the instinctuals and emotionals and hit home - but you must, as Tart says, get beyond even the philosophical level to realize there is no communication. As Gurdjieff pointed out, you can only understand one level above you - and that is extremely difficult. I like books on the hopelessness of the human race because it's a waste of energy and time to have hope where there is no hope. Schopenhauer spoke of the "uselessness of striving and the inevitability of defeat" and how "only youth is happy, youth who cannot see..." It's not that Tart doesn't pint to the possibility of WAKING UP!, it's just that most have no idea they're asleep and victims of false maps of reality by the media, groups, institutions, corporations, etc. It's only when the robot realizes it's a robot and becomes skeptical and questions its conditioning and thinking that there is any hope in finding Truth and Reality. Tart lights a candle in the darkness but it must quickly go out. For the masses believe they are all right and doze on forever. Heaven help anyone who tries to wake them up! For those like Tart who light the candle will be consumed in its fire.


intro to mindfulness, his next book on it is much better   January 30, 1999
 32 out of 37 found this review helpful

I was initially attracted to this book by its promising title, but it is really very slow getting off the ground. One could easily skip way ahead to the useful chapters on self-observation and self-remembering, and the ties to the Gurdjieff work. He actually covers alot of the same ground but much much better in Living the Mindful Life---a book I highly recommend for those interested in mindfulness and Gurdjieffian self-development.


Learn to stop being a robot!   February 15, 2004
 17 out of 18 found this review helpful

He explains how most people are caught in what he calls "consensus trance", or ruled by mechanical patterns of thought and behavior that amount to a great injustice to ourselves. Among other things, he goes over the different types of defense mechanisms we like to use, described in a way that makes them familiar. I've done just about all of them, and quite often.

Unlike other authors, he's interested not only in pointing out the problem but also in what can be practically done about it, which the second half of this book is about. This is now one of my few favorite books.


WAKING UP IS HARD TO DO   November 11, 2006
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

Ever since I plowed my way through P.D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous, which deals with the ideas of Gurdjieff, I've wanted to know more about "waking up." Gurdjieff taught techniques for becoming more self-aware, what he called waking up, through working on yourself mentally. I found the concepts in the Ouspensky book very rough going, difficult to grasp and even more difficult to put into effect. So when I saw Charles Tart (whose name I recognized from other books on parapsychology and altered consciousness) had written a book on the very concept put forth by Gurdjieff, I was ready to see if I could make any more sense of these ideas.

Charles Tart's book is an easier read; it sticks to the main idea, that most people go through their day in a kind of trance. Most of us use "false personalities" for the various situations we encounter on a regular basis. This certainly rings true. Just think about the outward manner you assume on a job, or at a socially obligatory party. Is that the real you? Tart calls "the real you" your essence. False personalities may serve a purpose, but what if we begin to lose our real self and live only in false personalities? While wanting to "fit in" as much as I need to in order to earn a living and be reasonably well regarded by others, I've also always wanted to preserve that part of me that really is me.

This book provides some techniques for working on yourself so you do not live your life in what the author calls concensus trance. You need to gain self-understanding and self-awareness. You need to study yourself and your reactions to different situations. I find it a bit ironic that self-awareness requires opposite techniques from meditation. Tart suggests that you constantly scan with your eyes to take in the scene around you and be aware of everything. In meditation, you shut out what's physically around you and go inward.

Tart obviously thinks highly of the Gurdjieff concepts, but he goes beyond them in this book. He feels there are some omissions in the pure Gurdjieff work and one of these is compassion. He does say that when you live with your authentic self, you are likely to become more compassionate, but he also recommends the techniques of Sogyal Rinpoche for developing empathy and compassion for others.

If you want to "wake up" you cannot do so by reading a book. You must do the work. As I was reading in this book about altered states I recognized some congruence with my own experiences. A year and a half ago I had eye operations that removed cataracts on both eyes. I was so amazed at the beauty of the world as seen through my new eyes that I began to notice everything and feel almost constant joy at the sight of the most ordinary things. Trees became breathtaking in their majesty, landscapes and sky like the most precious artworks, and the colors of a room in my house so vibrant when the morning sun shone through the window that it took my breath away. This experience has stayed with me, but I now have to sometimes make myself remember to look -- really look -- at everything.

The author explains that some experiences cannot be described and the actual sense of "waking up" cannot be communicated. What a book can teach you is that there are people who can feel the difference between "asleep" and "awake." I liked the distinction of the three brains -- the intellectual, the body/instinctual and the emotional. They all matter, but most of us are stuck in the intellectual. Really life-changing experiences always involve more than the intellectual brain and that is why reading this book cannot change your life, but it can let you know that it is possible to change your life.