Morphic Resonance

Rupert Sheldrake via Wikipedia

Morphic resonance is a concept forwarded by the English biochemist and New Age figure Rupert Sheldrake.

Morphic resonance suggests that species draw on a collective memory when learning new behaviors. Morphic resonance is non-local and, Sheldrake says, independent of space and time.

According to the theory, Sheldrake says it should be easier to solve “today’s crossword [puzzle] tomorrow” because the mental work of the first day would add to a type of collective data bank that crossword puzzlers would unconsciously draw on during the second day.

To that effect, Sheldrake performed controlled experiments and found a 20% increase in efficiency during the second day of crossword puzzle solving.

In Sheldrake’s own words, morphic resonance is “The means by which information or an activity pattern is transferred from a previous to a subsequent system of the same kind…These influences are assumed not to fall off with distance in space or time, but they come only from the past, not from the future.”¹

Sheldrake’s theory does not consider the idea that the future (or many futures), along with other places containing, perhaps, different time frames (such as heavens and hells) exist and influence the present. As such, his theory could be described as partially and not fully independent of space and time.

Although Sheldrake’s theories might seem a bit limited for, say, advanced parapsychology investigators, he has managed to get something of a following in New Age circles. And because he emphasizes a scientific approach to parapsychology, this is a good thing, to be sure.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and widening humanity’s perspective concerning our place in this essentially mysterious universe will likely happen step by step.

—

¹ Rupert Sheldrake, Dogs that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, New York: Crown, 1999, p. 305.

Search Think Free » Causality, Morphogenetic Fields

On the Web

• “Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance” by Rupert Sheldrake

Related Articles

• (9/2010) Telepathy: Time In A Bottle, It’s Real (basilandspice.com)
• Electronic Life Makes Evolving Art (tech.slashdot.org)
• 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors director talks game inspiration, hope for 3DS sequel (gonintendo.com)
• Alternative Medicine and Healing Movie, The Living Matrix, Coming to Kitsap County on Oct. 30 (kitsapsun.com)
• List of Greek Roots and Meanings with Word Examples (socyberty.com)

Add more, report errors or voice your opinion by posting a comment