Ever looked up at a gaggle of geese and marveled at their exquisite, coordinated unity? Ever felt the urge to turn around and found that when you do, someone’s eyes have been fixed on you? Both are common experiences that illustrate what cutting-edge biologist Rupert Sheldrake considers the “seventh sense.”
Unlike the sixth sense, which he says has already been laid claim to by biologists working on the electrical and magnetic senses of animals and is rooted in time and space, the term ‘seventh sense’ “expresses the idea that telepathy, the sense of being stared at and premonition seem to be in a different category both from the five normal senses and from so-called sixth senses based on known physical principles.” Though the geese we gaze at have a built-in biological compass that enables them to respond to the Earth’s magnetic field, Sheldrake thinks there’s more than magnetism afoot to keep them aloft and aligned.
The Cambridge-educated “heretical” scientist has, besides a love of plants and animals, a way with words, and has authored a number of award-winning books with subjects as intriguing as their titles. Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals (1999) won the British Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award, while Seven Experiments that Could Change the World (1994) was voted Book of the Year by the British Institute for Social Inventions. Sheldrake is also the author of The Presence of the Past (1988), The Rebirth of Nature (1990) and, with Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna, Trialogues at the Edge of the West (1992) and The Evolutionary Mind (1998). His latest book The Sense of Being Stared At (Crown, 2003) delves into just such senses—phenomena he asserts is worthy of investigation. “I argue that unexplained human abilities such as telepathy, the sense of being stared at and premonition are not paranormal, but a normal part of our biological nature,” he writes. Sheldrake feels that prejudices rooted in the thinking of seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophers have inhibited research and inquiry; “If we only open our minds and make an effort to understand, we will be vastly rewarded with our new knowledge.”
Not only does Sheldrake think we should be looking at heretofore unexamined phenomena but, and he feels strongly about this, we should bring science back to the people, to amateurs like you and me. Explaining that science is founded on the empirical method (on experience and observation), he turns to words again: “…billions of personal experiences of seemingly unexplained phenomena are conventionally dismissed within institutional science as ‘anecdotal.’ What does this actually mean? The word anecdote comes from the Greek roots an and ekdotos, meaning ‘not published.’ Thus an anecdote is an unpublished story.” He points out that courts of law take anecdotal evidence seriously, often convicting or acquitting defendants because of it. He also cites its role in medical research, stating that, “when patients’ stories are published they are elevated to the status of ‘case histories.’ To brush aside what people have actually experienced is not to be scientific, but to be unscientific.”
For the past fifteen years, Sheldrake has focused his scientific interest on how systems are organized, pioneering what he calls the “Hypothesis of Formative Causation,” comprised of “morphic fields” and “morphic resonance.” Thanks to the Power Rangers and other kids’ toys, most of us casually use the word “morph” to mean “change into” or evolve. Precisely, says Sheldrake, whose work takes off from where the now widely adopted biological concept of “morphogenetic fields” (used to explain, for example, how arms and legs can have different shapes even though they contain the same genes and proteins) left off. Sheldrake surmises that the fields evolve along with the systems they organize and coordinate. Since a field is a “sphere of influence,” morphic fields would be those that can change or evolve their spheres of influence. He says there are morphic fields within and around individual cells, tissues, organs, organisms, societies, ecosystems, and so on—fields that are shaped by past events and patterns through an inbuilt memory called “morphic resonance.” This is how, he reasons, instincts and ‘species specific’ abilities develop; the enviable coherence of birds in flight is due to the morphic field that links them and the resonant memory that has evolved through millennia.
“’Instinct’ is a vague term for an inherited pattern of behavior—conventional biology holds that instincts are programmed into the genes—I argue that genes are grossly overrated and don’t do half the things they’re cracked up to do,” he quips. “What they do is code for the sequence of animo acids and proteins—they make the right chemicals.” In Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, Sheldrake examines how termites structure their colonies and build arches, noting: “Of course the insects have genetic coding that prompts them to behave in certain ways, but the actual forming of the nest and the coordinating of the colony is accomplished with morphic fields.” For those who find the concept hard to fathom, he offers an analogy: “Just as a magnetic field can influence the pattern of iron filings within it, so a morphic field can influence the behavior and movements of cells within a body or members within a group.” He also maintains that such fields underlie the bonds that form between pets and their owners. And here is his love: pets and people learning from and helping each other. With research assistants posted in a number of places around the world (London, Zurich, California, New York, Moscow and Athens among them), Sheldrake maintains a large database of pet-owners who have participated in “do-it-yourself” experiments that are simple, but rigorous enough to produce evidence he can support. “Hundreds of videotaped experiments have shown that dogs are indeed able to anticipate their owners’ return in a way that seems telepathic,” he claims. Other results indicate that cats, parrots, homing pigeons and horses are also highly telepathic.
While some dismiss his views and conclusions as nonsense, Sheldrake certainly has the academic credentials to command serious consideration of his theories. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge and philosophy at Harvard, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow. Having earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cambridge in 1967, he was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge and was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology there until 1973. As a Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied the development of plants (with an emphasis on the hormones within them) and the aging of cells, while enjoying seven years of stimulating academic conversation and luxurious accommodations. “I lived in seventeenth century rooms in a beautiful courtyard. At the ring of a bell, I would walk across the courtyard, put on my academic gown and sit down at a table furnished with a delicious meal and vintage wine. After dinner we drank port in a paneled ‘common’ room and talked for hours,” he recalls, adding that; “since the fellows of the colleges are from different subjects, I had many valuable opportunities for interdisciplinary discussion.”
The blend of academics and conviviality has served Sheldrake well: As the author of more than fifty papers published in scientific journals, he accepts criticism without defensiveness, stating that; “healthy skepticism plays an important part in science, and stimulates research and creative thinking.” He differentiates an open-minded, healthy skeptic who is interested in evidence from a “Skeptic,” whom he defines as someone committed to the belief that paranormal phenomena are impossible. His extensive website (sheldrake.org) addresses specific comments from several Skeptics. “Click on their names if you want to know what they said about my research on the unexplained powers of animals, and to read my replies,” he suggests. Though he’s been ridiculed by some and teased by others (some of my peers have suggested using telepathy instead of a telephone when I mention I’m going to make a call), many other scientists find his conclusions fascinating and plausible. Quantum Physicist David Bohm sees similarities in Sheldrake’s Formative Causation and his own theory of an invisible “Implicate Order” behind the “explicate”, material world.
At 6’2”, Sheldrake appears lanky, thoughtful and energetic. With vibrant eyes not shielded by glasses, he looks anything but the sci-nerd. Describing himself as being “in the middle” on the intro-extrovert scale, he looks like someone you’d approach at a party, someone with whom you would enjoy an animated, illuminating conversation. If you’re lucky, he might hit the piano, playing, most probably, Bach. If you by chance play yourself, he would be delighted at the prospect of a duet. At home, he enjoys playing games with his sons, who have inherited his love of animals and participate in his experiments. As a youth himself, Sheldrake kept homing pigeons and was “always interested in plants and animals— they turned me on to biology,” he says. “I was also quite interested in chemistry, partly from my own spontaneous interest and also from my father, a pharmacist and a keen naturalist. He had his own scientific laboratory at home and would do amateur microscopic research.” Sheldrake’s younger brother, his only sibling, is an opthalmologist, a visionary in his own right.
Sheldrake’s vision is “to be able to help open up the world of science so that phenomena presently ignored or neglected can be brought within the scope of science.” He hopes that this ‘expanded’ science will give us a better idea of the interconnections between ourselves, plants and animals, the planet as a whole and between ourselves and the Universe. “Such science would not be in conflict with spirituality, but complimentary to it and could lead to a healing of the split between science and religion that has so damaged our civilization.” In his own life, that split has been healed, though it took some time. Raised by devout Methodists in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England, Sheldrake attended an Anglican boarding school and found himself torn between a very Protestant tradition and the Anglo-Catholic “with incense and all the trappings of Catholicism.” The rift between his love of living things and the mechanistic approach to biology he was taught was more intense. His discovery of an essay by the German philosopher Goethe about a holistic science that would focus not on reducing things to their minutiae and that would include direct experience and one’s senses intrigued and inspired him. So much so that he spent a year’s fellowship at Harvard (“where I found they treated me like a child!”) studying the philosophy and history of science. “I read Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and that had a big influence on me, gave me a new perspective,” remembers Sheldrake. From Harvard, it was back to Cambridge, where he did his graduate work and came across the “Epiphany Philosophers,” an eclectic group of philosophers, physicists hippies, healers, mystics and monks. “We lived together in a windmill on the Norfolk coast for a week at a time, four times a year, exploring new ideas in quantum theory, the philosophy of science, parapsychology, alternative medicine and other sixties themes,” he recalls. “We were a kind of Vanguard.”
From 1974 to 1978 Sheldrake was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, where he worked on the physiology of tropical legume crops, and remained Consultant Physiologist until 1985. For a year and a half, Sheldrake lived at the ashram of Father Bede Griffiths, a Christian Benedictine Monk in South India, where he wrote A New Science of Life, considered his “magnus opum.” But again, life wasn’t all work and no play: It was in India that he met his wife, Jill Purce. Both were speakers at the International Transpersonal Association’s 1982 conference on Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science: her lecture addressed ancient wisdom; his, modern science. The blend has been working for them ever since. The couple now lives in London with their two teen-age sons, three cats, a goldfish and a guinea pig.
Like Dr. Candace Pert, the endocrinologist credited with the discovery of the opiate receptor in the brain, Sheldrake has concluded that the mind is not confined to the brain. While Dr. Pert focuses on the chemical proof that neuropeptides are found throughout the body, Dr. Sheldrake suggests that minds involve extended fields of influence that stretch out beyond brains and bodies entirely, connecting thoughts and intentions, as well as creating the “memory” in nature. “I think morphic resonance works directly across time rather than being stored in a place, as on a CD or hard-disk,” notes Sheldrake, who finds the spiritual concept of askashic records to be “like an etheric filing cabinet” and “too specialized, too localized.” He does find the concept of an “etheric (or “energy) body” congruent with his theories, though. “Morphic fields can be of many types, and a morphogenetic field is one that organizes and, to a degree, animates bodies,” he explains.
The idea that inheritance doesn’t come through genes alone is one that carries over into the aging of cells. Though his research on cellular aging, culminating in an article in Nature magazine was done before he formulated his current theory, Sheldrake finds it applicable. “A lot of information is inherited through morphic resonance rather than through genes,” he states. “Since these fields contain an inherent memory, they can evolve and change.” A vegetarian for 25 years (mostly for ethical reasons), he feels we can influence the aging process through diet, exercise and meditation, but cites the accumulation of defects in cells as ultimately irreversible. “We can’t reprogram our cells completely; though we can slow the aging process, I don’t think we can completely reverse or stop it. Aging is a mechanistic process that works against morphic fields.” Realistic and practical, Sheldrake is somewhat understated, but can deliver a punch when necessary. He muses that; “there’s a lot we already know, but we’ve been educated to reject our own experience. I think it’s better to pay more attention to what we see in our animals and experience ourselves and not be frightened off by the dogmatic, mechanistic and materialistic attitudes that still prevail in the scientific and medical worlds.”
Currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in San Francisco, Sheldrake sees one effect his “fields” have as “influencing personal responsibility and intentions.” Noting that social fields can build upon the energy within and around them, contributing to group actions such as “mob violence,” he cautions that; “morphic resonance is morally neutral. We need to realize that our thoughts and intentions are influential and take responsibility for how things are evolving on the planet. Right now the biggest spreading habit in the world is growing consumerism…kids everywhere want to mimic kids in the U.S. But think what could happen through prayer and meditation groups!”
For Sheldrake, things are evolving very nicely, thank you. More books are planned, including another with theologian Matthew Fox, with whom he wrote Natural Grace: Dialogues on Science and Spirituality and The Physics of Angels (both 1996) and one detailing the results of his experiments. He is content to be living as balanced a life as one can in this hectic world, and is happy with his role of being in the Vanguard of scientific research and discovery.