Charles Upton, born in San Francisco, California in 1948, is a poet (a protégée of the Beats), a veteran of the peace movement, an activist, and a lifelong student of metaphysics and world religions. His entire formal education, from nursery school through high school, was provided by the Catholic Church. He has published four books of poetry and many others in the genres of metaphysics, mythopoetic exegesis, spiritual psychology, Islam, Sufism, and "metaphysics and social criticism."