Overview

In Charles Richet: A Nobel Prize Winning Scientist's Explorations of Psychic Phenomena, author, Carlos Alvarado, presents a collection of previously published scholarly papers about Richet. Charles Richet (1850-1935), the distinguished French physiologist who won a Nobel Prize for his work on anaphylaxis, was a renaissance man. In addition to physiology he wrote poetry and plays and took an interest in many topics including pacifism, eugenics, philosophy, psychology and psychical research, which he referred to as metapsychics--the subject of this book. Richet, in his role of psychical researcher, investigated ESP, mental and physical mediumship, survival of death and hypnosis. While never publically accepting survival and communication with discarnate entities, he became fully immersed in the phenomena and wrote in a letter to British physicist, Oliver Lodge, who had accepted it, ""Without being resolutely spiritist in the sense of Conan Doyle and Allan Kardec, I gradually get closer to your ideas. I say to you--which is absolutely true--that your deep and scientific conviction had great influence, a very great influence."" Chapters include Richet's ESP experiments where he used statistical evaluation in a bid to establish differences between scientific and non-scientific approaches to the subject--a novelty at the time. Also discussed is his defense of psychical research and a commentary on his celebrated and influential book Traité de Métapsychique (Thirty Years of Psychical Research). The book has an extensive notes section and appendices, which contain Richet's observations about mediums Leonora Piper and Marthe Béraud, his use of the term ""ectoplasm,"" and a reprint of his essay characterizing metapsychics as a science.

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9781786771117

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Charles Richet belongs to that most select group of individuals, including Marie Curie and William James, whose genius flowed over disciplinary borders and whose insatiable interests included psi phenomena. Richet ... finds a splendid chronicler in Carlos S. Alvarado, our foremost contemporary historian of parapsychology. Etzel Cardena, PhD, Thorsen Professor of Psychology at Lund University, Sweden, and co-editor of Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21st Century and Varieties of Anomalous Experience.

""Charles Richet belongs to that most select group of individuals, including Marie Curie and William James, whose genius flowed over disciplinary borders and whose insatiable interests included psi phenomena. Richet ... finds a splendid chronicler in Carlos S. Alvarado, our foremost contemporary historian of parapsychology."" Etzel Cardeña, PhD, Thorsen Professor of Psychology at Lund University, Sweden, and co-editor of Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21st Century and Varieties of Anomalous Experience.

Author Information

Carlos S. Alvarado has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Edinburgh, and holds masters degrees in parapsychology (MS, John F. Kennedy University), and in history (MA, Duke University). His work has centered on studies about the history of psychical research, and on survey research (on out-of-body experiences and other psychic experiences). Alvarado is a Research Fellow at the Parapsychology Foundation, and Adjunct Research Faculty at Sofia University (formerly Institute of Transpersonal Psychology). He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Near-Death Studies and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, and he is Associate Editor of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and the Book Review Editor of the Journal of Parapsychology. Alvarado is also the recipient of the 2010 Parapsychological Association's Outstanding Contribution Award, the 2017 Parapsychological Association's Outstanding Career Award, and of the 2010 Harold and Sherry Crasilneck Award for Best First Paper on Hypnosis published in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. Regarding publications, Alvarado is one of the editors of Research in Parapsychology 1993 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998), and the author of booklets for introducing parapsychology to the general public (Getting Started in Parapsychology. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 2002; Apuntes para una Introducción a la Parapsicología. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1999). He has published over 340 articles in publications such as: Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, History of Psychiatry, Journal of Psychology, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Journal of Scientific Exploration, and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.

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