First Sight - A model & theory of Psi

This is has been mentioned a few times by Tom Butler but I don't think it was brought up in its own thread ->

First Sight is a model & a theory of Psi

Jim Carpenter

First Sight is a model of psi and a theory of how psi works (Carpenter, 2004; 2005; 2008). It asserts that every person, and indeed every living organism, exists in ongoing, active commerce with an extended reality far beyond ordinary physical and perceptual boundaries. We then employ this engagement unconsciously at every moment as a part of the holistic process of construction that leads to all experience and all action. Other implicit processes such as subliminal perception and procedural memory are also known to contribute to the construction of experience and behavior (e.g. Bargh, 1989; Schacter, 1997) and psi processes are presumed to function similarly. Since this psi-engagement permits access to information well before it could possibly impinge upon sensory perception, psi is not spoken of as second sight (something occasional and derivative) but as first sight. The essence of the First Sight modelcan be summed up in two basic premises:

1. It is in the basic nature of an organism that it participates actively, continuously and unconsciously in an extended universe of meanings. This universe of participation is far broader in time and space than the organism’s immediate boundaries.

2. All experience and all behavior are constituted perpetually out of unconscious psychological processes. These processes are carried out purposefully on multiple sources of information including psi information.

I'll also post some stuff out of the book that jumps out at me from time to time...

Author Interview on the book's site

I would only add that it was a confirming experience to think through and write First Sight. I had to review and digest a lot of research and try to hold it up against my theory in the hope that it would organize the findings. This process was confirming because I found that it did! For many years I have conducted research and pondered the research of others with a sense that it was very interesting but also somewhat unruly and unpredictable. Now with what I think is a better theory, I have had the exciting experience of knowing ahead of time much better what the results will be of my own and others’ research. Now once I know what a study is measuring and how, I can predict pretty well what the results will be. Psi makes sense. It adds up. This is a new experience for me and a big relief. It seems clear to me that we are on the verge of learning more and more about how psi works.

Can't watch it here, but Jim Carpenter talks about First Sight on the Rhine Center Vimeo Channel

Jim Carpenter Discusses his theory of First Site at the Rhine:

https://vimeo.com/user1733869

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Jim Carpenter Explains His research on the First Sight Model of ESP:

https://vimeo.com/42706615

Not directly connected to First Sight, but you can see the parallels in Jim Carpenter's discussion on how we treat psychosis ->

Spiritual emergency

After decades of practising as a psychotherapist, I am convinced that our treatment of psychosis is thoroughly wrong-headed

Should we even think of acute psychosis as a disorder? Actually, I no longer think so. I like the term used by the transpersonal psychiatrist Stan Grof: spiritual emergency. Acute psychosis is certainly terrible and dangerous. It can feel unbelievably awful; some people kill themselves when gripped by it, and a very few kill others, too.

Grof’s term implies that this kind of radical breakdown is a terrible bid for self-healing by a person whose life has come to be completely unliveable. It often erupts when some unbearable catastrophe unhinges a person (in Martha’s case, it was the death of her eldest child, in about the most horrible way that one could imagine).

Grof thinks that the healing must involve a new integration of deep, inner parts of the person and deep, transpersonal forces beyond the person. It involves new connections between the secret self and others – between the conscious self and the self beyond consciousness nowadays referred to as ‘spiritual’. When this new integration happens, it is pale and misleading to call it a ‘remission’. It is a remarkable achievement. Like the sobriety of a recovering alcoholic, it is always a work in progress. A post-psychotic man told me recently, looking back on himself before his madness: ‘It had to break down. I was too arrogant. I couldn’t see it, but it wasn’t working, it all had to change.’ At present this man is a successful artist and a leader in a vital artistic community.

This is has been mentioned a few times by Tom Butler but I don't think it was brought up in its own thread ->

First Sight is a model & a theory of Psi

Jim Carpenter

I'll also post some stuff out of the book that jumps out at me from time to time...

A much longer (50 page) examination of the First Sight Theory/Model

Jim Carpenter

ABSTRACT: The First Sight model presented earlier (Carpenter, 2004) is developed further here. The essential elements of the model are summarized and the place of psi functioning within the context of other preconscious psychological processes is emphasized. In particular, the hypothesized posture of unconscious focus toward or away-from extrasensory content is discussed in the context of the constructs of assimilation and accommodation as they are understood to function in the formation of perceptions and judgments. Three areas of experience are picked as being especially pertinent to seeing the interplay of psi processes with other preconscious processes: subliminal or suboptimal sensory perception, memory, and acts of creativity. Pertinent research in each area is summarized with some syntheses offered. The model’s utility is evaluated in terms of three criteria: its congruence with some major findings in parapsychology, its ability to shed light on the apparent disparity between parapsychological phenomena and everyday experience and common sense, and its capacity to harmonize the findings of parapsychology with our larger scientific understanding of reality. Some directions for future research that are implied by the model are outlined.