First Sight: ESP and Parapsychology in Everyday Life
James Carpenter
About the AuthorWould you like to know what we have learned about ESP, how it works, and what it is for? First Sight presents an original, highly integrative theory that normalizes psi by placing it in the context of other non-conscious cognitive processes studied by mainstream scientists. The theory is supported by the literature of experimental parapsychology, and grounded in the latest findings in experimental cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and social/personality/clinical psychology. Readers find the approach at once mind-bending and, once digested, curiously obvious. One basic assumption is that psi is not a scattering of dubious, unpredictable anomalous experiences -- it is an ongoing unconscious process that stands behind every thought and action. Hence, psi is not "second sight," it is "first sight."
Reviews
"Overall, the theory constitutes a transformational contribution to both psi research and the psychology of consciousness."
- Daryl Bem, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University
Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics
Chris Carter
Reports of psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis date back to the beginning of recorded human history in all cultures. Carter shows that replicable evidence of psi phenomena exists. The controversy over parapsychology continues not because ESP and other abilities cannot be verified but because their existence challenges deeply held worldviews. Carter reveals how the doctrine of materialism -- in which nothing matters but matter -- has become an article of faith for many scientists and philosophers, much like the convictions of religious fundamentalists. By outlining the origin of this passionate debate, Carter calls on all open-minded individuals to reach their own conclusions by looking at the vast body of evidence.
Reviews
"Chris Carter is a one-man wrecking crew for the time-worn, tedious, petulant, and often flimsy complaints of the die-hard skeptics. A science of consciousness is doomed to be incomplete without taking Carter's keen insights into account."
- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Words and The Power of Premonitions
Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals
Rupert Sheldrake
Many people who have owned a pet will swear that their dog or cat or other animal has exhibited some kind of behavior they just can't explain. How does a dog know when its owner is returning home at an unexpected time? How do cats know when it is time to go to the vet, even before the cat carrier comes out? How do horses find their way back to the stable over completely unfamiliar terrain? And how can some pets predict that their owners are about to have an epileptic fit?
These intriguing questions about animal behavior convinced world-renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake that the very animals who are closest to us have much to teach us about biology, nature, and consciousness.
Reviews
"Delightful . . . this book will turn our understanding of animals inside out."
— Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep
"Wonderful . . . splendid and thought-provoking."
— Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs
Excerpt From the Book
Appendix from the Second Edition
Controversies with skeptics about the unexplained powers of animals.
The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-on Healing
William Bengston and Sylvia Fraser
Drawing on his 30+ years of research into anomalous healing, Bill Bengston's book challenges us to rethink what is possible in medicine and healing, taking us through his own adventure of discovery. Through ten controlled animal experiments conducted at five university laboratories, Bill found that mice could be completely healed of cancer using a simple hands-on healing technique. He also investigated assorted correlates to healing such as geomagnetic micropulsations and EEG harmonics and entrainment, which further confirmed and deepened the mystery. Though initially skeptical of the astounding results he was seeing, eventually the accumulation of clinical and experimental evidence simply overwhelmed his own disbelief. Regardless of what anyone else might conclude, the rigour of Bill Bengston's research makes the evidence difficult to dismiss.
Reviews
"Very infrequently, a scientist comes along whose work leads to a quantum change in the quality and significance of research in some field. Such a scientist is William Bengston, who is responsible for such a change in the recondite field of anomalous healing. His results are so extraordinary as to eclipse all previous work in that field. Bengston would be a prime candidate for a Nobel Prize in Alternative Medicine, if such an award existed."
- Peter Sturrock, emeritus professor of applied physics, Stanford University
Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience
Pim van Lommel, MD
In this seminal book, the internationally renowned cardiologist Dr. Pim van Lommel offers groundbreaking research into whether or not our consciousness survives the death of our body. Van Lommel describes case studies of individuals who have almost died in coronary care units in modern hospitals, and why their accounts should be taken seriously. He discusses why materialists usually dismiss these events and finds their objections wanting. His discussion of the possible mechanisms involved are profound and wide-ranging, from brain physiology to quantum physics. Van Lommel asserts that no description of consciousness can be complete without taking these extraordinary experiences into account.
Reviews
"Dr. Pim van Lommel's Consciousness Beyond Life is an exciting, informative, and thorough overview of near-death experiences. As one of the foremost experts in the field, his work moves us closer to rational comprehension of human kind's deepest mystery-- life after death."
- Raymond A. Moody MD,PhD, author of Life After Life
A New Science of Life / Morphic Resonance
Rupert Sheldrake, PhD
Why do many phenomena defy the explanations of conventional biology and physics? For instance, when laboratory rats in one place have learned how to navigate a new maze, why do rats elsewhere in the world seem to learn it more easily? Rupert Sheldrake describes this process as morphic resonance: the past forms and behaviors of organisms, he argues, influence organisms in the present through direct connections across time and space. Calling into question many of our fundamental concepts about life and consciousness, Sheldrake reinterprets the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws.
Excerpts from the Book
Rat Learning and Morphic Resonance
New Tests of Morphic Resonace PDF
A Dialogue with David Bohm PDF
The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together
Charles T. Tart
For fifty years, world-renowned transpersonal psychologist Charles Tart conducted scientific experiments at prestigious institutions such as Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, to explore the nature of paranormal phenomena. Copublished with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), The End of Materialism presents an elegant argument for the union of science and spirituality in light of this new evidence, and explains why a truly rational viewpoint must address the reality of a spiritual world.
Reviews
"Can science and spirituality live together without fighting? Is it possible to be a rigorous, rational scientist, and at the same time apply the methods of science to explore spiritual ideas without automatically collapsing everything into mechanistic, materialistic, or reductionistic terms? Why is the data of parapsychology viciously and irrationally attacked by those who imagine themselves to be the defenders of rationality? These are some of the interesting questions addressed in this book."
- Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences
The Spiritual Anatomy of Emotion: How Feelings Link the Brain, the Body, and the Sixth Sense
Michael A Jawer with Marc S Micozzi, MD, PhD
A cutting-edge examination of feelings, not thoughts, as the gateway to understanding consciousness
• Contends that emotion is the greatest influence on personality development
• Offers a new perspective on immunity, stress, and psychosomatic conditions
• Explains how emotion is key to understanding out-of-body experience, apparitions, and other anomalous perceptions
Contemporary science holds that the brain rules the body and generates all our feelings and perceptions. Michael Jawer and Dr. Marc Micozzi disagree. They contend that it is our feelings that underlie our conscious selves and determine what we think and how we conduct our lives.
The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?
Duane Elgin
In The Living Universe, Duane Elgin marshals evidence from cosmology, biology, physics, even his participation in NASA-sponsored psychic experiments to show that the universe is actually a living field of existence and that we are always in communion with that field of aliveness whether we are conscious of it or not. This is a worldview that, as Elgin explains, is shared by virtually every spiritual tradition, and the implications of it are vast and deep. In a living system each part is integral to the whole, so each of us is intimately connected to the entire universe. Elgin eloquently demonstrates how that identity manifests itself on a whole series of levels, from subatomic to galactic. We are, he writes, far more than biological beings; we are beings of cosmic connection and dimension.
Reviews
"No book describes more accurately or guides us more powerfully to the world now waiting to be born."
- Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love
The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Shape Our Lives
Larry Dossey, MD
Reports of future knowing have been part of human history since time immemorial. They manifest in all shamanic traditions, as biblical prophecy, and as folk wisdom in all cultures. Even today, the vast majority of individuals say they have experienced premonitions, even though these experiences are dismissed by skeptics as "mere coincidence." Dossey links these experiences with a variety of modern experiments that confirm our ability to know something before it happens. He proposes biological reasons why this ability is widespread: it provides a survival advantage to those possessing it. Dossey shows how developments in modern physics do not prohibit premonitions, but permits them.
Reviews
"The long-awaited seminal book on this topic. A crowning achievement."
- Marc Ian Barasch, author of Healing Dreams
The Spiritual Brain
Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary
In this book, neuroscientist Beauregard and journalist O'Leary mount a sweeping critique of a trend in the pop science media to explain away spiritual experiences as a brain artifact, pathology or evolutionary quirk. Beauregard and O'Leary also offer compelling evidence that these experiences have a nonmaterial origin.
Reviews
"A very important book, clearly explaining non-materialist neuroscience in simple terms appropriate for the lay reader."
- Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, Research Psychiatrist, UCLA
"The Spiritual Brain is a wonderful and important book...a necessary read for both the scientist and the religious person."
- Andrew Newberg, M.D. Associate Professor of Radiology and Director of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania
"A refreshing antidote to the arguments offered by some scientists who insist that their minds, and yours, are meaningless illusions."
- Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences
The Emotional Lives of Animals
Marc Bekoff
Bekoff has spent many years studying social communication in a wide range of species, and in this book he shows how animals display wide range of emotions, including joy, empathy, embarrassment, anger and love. Emotions have evolved as adaptations, and they serve as a social glue to bond animals with one another. His conclusions have powerful implications for the way we treat and interact with animals.
Reviews
"As a boy studying Buddhism in Tibet, I was taught the importance of a caring attitude toward others. Such a practice of nonviolence applies to all sentient beings -- any living thing that has a mind. Where there is a mind, there are feelings such as pain, pleasure, and joy. No sentient beings want pain; instead all want happiness. Since we all share these feelings at some basic level, as rational human beings we have an obligation to contribute in whatever way we can to the happiness of other species and try our best to relieve their fears and sufferings. I firmly believe that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes, therefore I welcome Marc Bekoff's book The Emotional Lives of Animals."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The Trouble With Physics
The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
By Lee Smolin
In this stimulating book, Smolin argues that physics is losing its way in a plethora of untestable theories and speculations, such as superstring theory, which have come to dominate the field; young physicists are often penalized for following other paths of exploration.
Reviews
"A splendid, edifying report from the front lines of theorectical physics . . . A wonderful gift."
- The San Francisco Chronicle
"An uncommonly clear and confident account . . . Even those who differ with many of Smolin's contentions can applaud his bringing physicists' anguished night thoughts into the clear light of day."
- Tim Ferris
"If you want to think in new ways about the interconnected universe around you, read Lee Smolin's provocative, inspiring book."
- Margaret Geller
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
John Gray
Gray, an atheist, attacks secular humanism, liberalism and Marxism, all of which he sees as Christian heresies. He argues that the Western tradition, including Platonism, Christianity and secular schools of thought take for granted that humans are radically different from other species. He paints a pessimistic picture of humanity when what he sees as illusions have been abandoned.
Reviews
"There is unlikely to be a more provocative or more compelling book published this year than Straw Dogs . . . Gray is one of the most consistently interesting and unpredictable thinkers in Britain."
- Jason Cowley, The Observer (London)
"At once daunting and enthralling, Gray's remarkable new book shows us what it would be like to live without the distraction of consolations."
- Adam Phillips
Opening to the Infinite
Stephan A Schwartz
Schwartz, an anthropologist, explorer, and consciousness researcher, shows the relationship of nonlocal awareness to spiritual practice, creativity, and the modern mental art known as Remote Viewing, a field in which Schwartz is a pioneer. The book is an exploration of the infinite reaches of the mind, and how scientifically validated protocols can be used to explore these dimension of human experience. Opening to the Infinite is highly practical; it discusses ways one can put these abilities to everyday use in fields as diverse as business, medicine, and crime-solving.
God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-Healing Connection
Jeff Levin, PhD
Social epidemiologist Dr. Jeff Levin founded the medical-academic field now called "the epidemiology of religion," which demonstrates that religious involvement is a significantly correlated with health and well-being. Levin's research shows how religion's emphasis on healthy behaviors and supportive relationships influences overall health, and how the optimism and hopefulness of those who profess faith promote the body's healing responses. This book is an important contribution in overcoming the traditional barriers between spirituality and health.
Reviews
"Jeff Levin writes with incredible clarity, style, and passion. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the religion-health connection, especially those wondering if such a connection exists at all."
- Harold G. Koenig, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, and author of The Healing Power of Faith
The Non-Local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind
Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafatos
Classical physics states that physical reality is local, or that a measurement at one point in space cannot influence what occurs at another, distant point. However, since 1990s experiments have been conducted in which subatomic particles, traveling in opposite directions, respond simultaneously: when a change is made in one of them, the other changes instantly and to the same degree, even though they are separated by meters to miles.
These results indicated that the particles are "entangled" and that they communicate with each another instantly "in no time." The revelation is that physical reality is non-local --a discovery that historian Robert Nadeau and physicist Menas Kafatos view as "the most momentous in the history of science." The authors explore the implications of non-locality, including its relevance to that most remarkable aspect of humanity: consciousness itself.
Reviews
"Nadeau and Kafatos supply plenty of food for thought: the apparently recondite concept of non-locality, they suggest, has consequences everywhere."
- Publishers Weekly
Cells, Gels and The Engines of Life: A New, Unifying Approach to Cell Function
Gerald Pollack
This book describes how cells work. It challenges the current wisdom of cell function, and presents a new, simpler approach to fundamental processes such as movement, transport, division, and communication, based on sound physical principles. The book is profusely illustrated with many color figures. It is written for the non-expert in an accessible, often humorous style.
Reviews
"Full of deep physical insights into biological structure / function relationships. I found it refreshingly iconoclastic, sensible, and believable."
- Peter Basser, Chief, Tissue Biophysics and Biomimetics, National Institutes of Health
"Cells and Gels reads like a detective story. I could not stop reading until the plot resolved."
- H. Ishiwatari, Dean, Grad School Health Sciences, Suzuka University, Japan
Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science
Halton Arp
The assumption that cosmological redshift corresponds to the recessional velocity of distant stellar objects lays at the foundation of big bang cosmology, the expansion of the universe, dark energy, dark matter and other widely accepted theories. If this assumption were proven false, it could transform astronomy dramatically and shift our collective conception of the universe. In Seeing Red, Dr Halton Arp aims to do just that, sharing observations from his many years as a distinguished astronomer and showing that extragalactic redshifts are not caused by an expanding universe. As might be expected, Dr Arp met with stringent opposition after proposing such "sacrilege", which threatened dearly held beliefs. What he suffered at the hands of his fellow astronomers as a result, which has fostered many comparisons to Galileo, is a topic Dr Arp also discusses. Are academic scientists simply fulfilling their skeptical duty, or are they, in a very human way, Seeing Red?
Reviews
"This book lays down a lifetime of seeing the world differently, looking at alternative explanations for a complex, beautiful universe."
- Sky & Telescope, June 1999
"You will very likely come away doubting what you thought you knew of the large-scale structure of the universe."
- Tom Van Flandern
Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine
Larry Dossey, MD
New York Times bestseller
Physician Larry Dossey provides the first in-depth look at the empirical evidence for the distant effects of healing intentions, often referred to as prayer in religious traditions, and as caring, love, and compassion in secular areas. He examines experiments in both humans and non-humans, including microbes, plants, and chemical reactions. The impact of this book in medical education has been extraordinary, inspiring the majority of U.S. medical schools to add this body of inquiry to the medical curriculum. Dossey develops a view of consciousness that is nonlocal -- mind unconfined to specific points in space and time.
