Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 502
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-1-4422-1390-6 • Hardback • March 2012 • $83.00 • (£64.00) - Currently out of stock. Copies will arrive soon.
978-1-4422-1391-3 • Paperback • July 2015 • $50.00 • (£38.00)
978-1-4422-1392-0 • eBook • March 2012 • $47.50 • (£37.00)
James C. Carpenter is a board-certified clinical psychologist and parapsychologist and has been in private practice for more than 30 years. He is currently Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Research Associate at the Rhine Research Center, where he has also served on the board, including two terms as president. Dr. Carpenter has published numerous research articles, book chapters and professional articles in both parapsychology and clinical psychology and has edited the Bulletin of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology. He has lectured in various public venues on topics related to psychotherapy and parapsychology. He served two terms on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology and has also served on the Board of Directors of the Parapsychology Association. In addition, he is a clinical consultant for the Rhine Center, and provides pro bono services for persons who are troubled by ostensive paranormal experiences.
Read more about the author and book here.
Preface
Section I: A Point of View
1: A New Conception Guided by Two Analogies
2: A Model and a Theory of Psi
Section II: Elaborations of the Model and the Theory
3: A Model of the Mind and of the Place of Psi in Mental Functioning
4: Psi and Consciousness
5: The Vicissitudes of the Extrasensory: To Be Known or Not to Be Known 59
6: Some Implicit Assumptions That Need to Be Changed
7: Psychokinesis: First Sight and First Act
8: Precursors of the Model
9: A Reiteration of Essential Points
Section III: Psi and Other Preconscious Processes
10: Psi and Ambiguous or Unconscious Sensory Information
11: Psi and Memory: Are the Processes Similar?
12: Psi and Memory: How Do They Affect One Another?
13: Psi and Creativity
Section IV: First Sight and Other Research Findings
14: Fear and Psi
15: Extraversion and Psi
16: Other Individual and Situational Factors
17: Two Vexing Problems: Experimenter Effects and Decline Effects
Section V: First Sight beyond the Laboratory
18: Ordinary Nonpsychic Experience
19: The More Psychic Person
20: First Sight and Personal Exploration of Psi
21: First Sight in the Consulting Room
Section VI: Prospects for Parapsychology
22: Recent Research Pertinent to First Sight
23: Applications of First Sight
24: Suggested Directions for Future Research
25: First Sight, Parapsychology, and Other Branches of Science
26: Psi and a New Science of the Mind
Acknowledgments
References
Index
About the Author
"In First Sight, Dr. James Carpenter shows that there is nothing 'para' about paranormal abilities; they are a normal, natural, and vitalpart of the human endowment on which we continually rely. In this important book, Carpenter has given us a new vision of what it means to be human. Highly recommended."
— Larry Dossey, M.D., author, Reinventing Medicine and The Power Of Premonitions
“First Sight: ESP and Parapsychology in Everyday Life is written from James Carpenter’s unique dual perspective as both a respected research scientist and a practicing psychotherapist. It is an exciting and elegantly written book that simultaneously makes a major theoretical contribution to the science of psychic functioning while providing an accurate, non-technical overview of the field accessible to the interested general reader.”
— Daryl J. Bem, professor emeritus of psychology, Cornell University
“Beyond the sixth sense and before second sight there simmers a more fundamental First Sight. In this radical reframing of the meaning and mechanisms of psychic phenomena, James Carpenter proposes that where the edges of mind and matter meet all distinctions between inner and outer, subjectivity and objectivity, disappear. First Sight reigns in this strange place where everyday reality blurs, and it is here where extrasensory perception and other psychic effects suddenly make a good deal of sense. A refreshingly novel approach to understanding psychic phenomena.”
— Dean Radin, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences
"Psychic abilities like ESP are usually treated as great mysteries, either to be desperately and illogically explained away since they don't fit into our predominant materialistic world view, or embraced uncritically as a prop for unexamined personal belief systems. While we still don't have (and perhaps won't ever have) a simple, physicalistic explanation for psychic abilities, we have a lot of psychological data on what effects it and how it fits in with the psychology of our minds. This data has been pretty scattered and unconnected, though, so Carpenter's book is a brilliant integration of what we know. I'm supposed to be an expert on the subject, but I know this book is going to take me in whole new directions!"
— Charles T. Tart, professor emeritus of psychology, University of California, Davis
This book is an extremely stimulating alternative to current models of explanation for paranormal phenomena represent, and the book also offers a wide-ranging. . .overview of selected fields of experimental parapsychological research of the last half century. This alone makes it already a worthwhile purchase that should be in every bookcase a parapsychological interested reader.
— Zeitschrift für Anomalistik
First Sight: ESP and Parapsychology in Daily Life makes an enormous contribution to parapsychology—and an even greater contribution to psychology. It belongs in every medical and psychology library. I would love to use this book as a text in a graduate psychology course. Research ideas and hypotheses jump from the pages. . . . Carpenter’s First Sight is an intellectual tour de force that deserves a place in the pantheon of groundbreaking scientific works.
— Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing
Scientifically minded readers will quickly gravitate to First Sight. Carpenter's thorough and technical analysis on a paradoxical topic sheds refreshing enlightenment not only in the field of parapsychology, but also a clearer understanding of the psychic experience in our daily lives.
— San Francisco Book Review
First Sight surely has a place in the future of parapsychology. . . .[I]t is always impressive, and often intriguing, putting it in a league of its own, but hinting at the possibility that only the more serious and able-bodied academics will take it on. First Sight is handsomely presented; the editing and proof-reading is exceptional, leaving a lot to be desired in other textbooks of the same calibre. It is a top-quality book in more ways than one, and a must for any serious parapsychologist.
— Australian Journal of Parapsychology
• Presents First Sight as a model and a set of theory
• Offers a summary statement of the major ideas involved in the First Sight model and theory of psi and the mind