On September 8th, SBCC Center for Lifelong Learning (CLL)
welcomes visionary English biologist
and author Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. for
the 35th Anniversary of the CLL’s Mind & Supermind lecture series. Sheldrake is known for his
theory of “morphic resonance” and is named among “The 100 Most Spiritually
Influential Living People in 2014” by Watkins Books, London New Vic Theatre
Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. is a biologist and author of
more than 80 papers in scientific journals and 11 books, including, Science Set Free. He was a Fellow of
Clare College, Cambridge University, a Research Fellow of the Royal Society,
and from 2005-10 was Director of the Perrott–Warrick Project, funded from
Trinity College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute Noetic Sciences Connecticut
Sheldrake’s theories are sometimes controversial, as demonstrated in the discussion of his TEDx talk. One theory posits that people can influence others at a distance just by looking at them, even when all normal sensory clues are eliminated.
The SBCC Center for Lifelong Learning caught up with Sheldrake this week during his Central Coast tour.
SBCC Center for Lifelong Learning (CLL): Are you a scientist? A biologist? A parapsychologist?
Rupert Sheldrake: I am a scientist, and more
specifically a biologist. I started my research career working on the
development of plants and the ageing of cells, then I worked in an
international agricultural research institute in India on crop physiology. In
1981 I published my hypothesis of formative causation in my first book, A New Science of Life, principally about the causes
of form in living organisms, based on my hypothesis of morphic resonance and
memory in nature. I have been doing research on morphic resonance ever since.
As part
of this research, I became interested in the bonds between members of social
groups and realized that the morphic field of the social group could lead to
telepathic connections between members of the group. I then investigated
telepathy in animals, starting from this biological perspective, and later
investigated telepathy and other unexplained powers of humans, particularly
telepathy between mothers and babies and telepathy in connection with telephone
calls. I have also researched the sense of being stared at, which I think is a
normal biological phenomenon that probably evolved in connection with
predator-prey relations. Prey animals that could tell when a hungry predator
was looking at them would stand a better chance of escaping than ones that
couldn't.
Some of
these areas of research overlap with parapsychology, but I am a biologist not a
parapsychologist. Unlike parapsychologists I do not start from laboratory
studies, but from biological phenomena and from natural history.
CLL:
Do
you have evidence for your hypotheses?
Sheldrake: Yes.
For the hypothesis for morphic resonance, several other scientists and I have
tested it in the realms of human and animal behavior over the last 30 years.
This evidence is summarized in the third edition of my book A New Science of Life (2009), called Morphic
Resonance in the US, and I
propose 10 new tests in the Appendix to this book. In addition, there is a
great deal of circumstantial evidence from experiments with crystals, cell
cultures, fruit flies, rats and humans which I summarize in The Presence of the Past (1988; new edition 2011).
For my hypotheses about the extended mind and telepathy,
much evidence is summarized in my papers
on these subjects, and in my books Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and The Sense of Being Stared At.
CLL: What are “morphic fields”? How do they fit into your
hypothesis of formative causation?
Sheldrake: The hypothesis of formative causation states that the forms
of self-organizing systems are shaped by morphic fields. Morphic fields
organize atoms, molecules, crystals, organelles, cells, tissues, organs,
organisms, societies, ecosystems, planetary systems, solar systems, galaxies.
In other words, they organize systems at all levels of complexity, and are the
basis for the wholeness that we observe in nature, which is more than the sum
of the parts.
According to the hypothesis of formative causation, morphic
fields also contain an inherent memory given by the process of morphic
resonance, whereby each kind of thing has a collective memory. For example,
crystals of a given kind are influenced by all past crystals of that kind, date
palms by past date palms, giraffes by past giraffes, etc. In the human realm
this is similar to Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.
In the realm of developmental biology the morphic fields
that shape the growing organisms are called morphogenetic fields; in social
organization they can be called social fields; and in the organization of
mental activity they can be called mental fields. But all these kinds of fields
are particular kinds of morphic fields, and all are shaped and stabilized by
morphic resonance. For a fuller description of the hypothesis of formative
causation see my books A New Science of Life, which
is quite brief and somewhat technical, or my book The Presence of the Past which is longer, but less technical, and more complete.
CLL: What do you enjoy about your work?
Sheldrake: I can work freely and follow up any leads I find interesting because I
work independently. I have been exploring unexplained areas of animal and human
behavior, such as the feeling of being stared at from behind, which most people
brush aside. I have done over 20,000 simple trials that suggest this is indeed
a very real phenomenon.
CLL: Why do you think it is that people seem to
be able to sense when someone is staring
at them?
Sheldrake: This depends on the way in which perception works. I suggest
that when we are looking at somebody or something the image we form is not
located inside our brain but projected out to the place where it seems to be.
In other words, our mind reaches out to touch what we are looking at. This
means that we can affect what we are looking at. So if we look at somebody from
behind, and they do not know we are there, they can feel this unseen gaze if
they're in a sufficiently receptive state. A fuller discussion of this
phenomenon is given in my book The Sense of Being Stared At.
CLL: How can pet owners, students, and other
interested people get involved in your research?
Sheldrake:
In the participate section of my website there are several
online experiments which I invite anyone who is interested to try.
Join visionary biologist, morphic resonance researcher and author, Rupert
Sheldrake, Ph.D., as he discusses research on the extended mind and social
media, Monday, September 8,
2014 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the New Vic Theatre, Main Theatre, 33 W.
Victoria, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101. There will be a VIP reception from 6:30 to
7:15 p.m. The reception includes reserved seating for the lecture, and the
chance to meet Sheldrake while enjoying wine and refreshments. General
admission for the lecture is $10; VIP reception admission is $50. Lecture
registration http://bit.ly/1qlZ5I7;
VIP Meet and Greet registration http://bit.ly/1tyyJUi. For more information, contact infoCLL@sbcc.edu.
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