A Heretic for Our Times

by **nomo** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:49 pm

A Heretic for Our Times By Jay Walljasper, Ode. Posted January 21, 2006. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake's theories turn everything we know about the universe inside out. <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/31009/">www.alternet.org/story/31009/</a> Walking to the home of maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake in Hampstead -- London's cozy but glamorous artistic village that's been home to John Keats, George Orwell, D.H. Lawrence and, more recently, novelist John LeCarre and actress Emma Thompson -- I am not surprised to find that his plain brick house looks out on Hampstead Heath. This famous (and still remarkably wild) expanse of grasslands and groves was the spot where Keats met William Wordsworth for long rambles, discussing the passions and ideas that would be immortalized in their Romantic poetry. Sheldrake, one of the world's leading spokesmen for a more holistic and democratic vision of science, might easily be grouped with the Romantics, except that his insights about the world are based on empirical research rather than poetic feelings. Sheldrake's bold theories about how the universe works sparked controversy in 1981 with the publication of A New Science of Life. Actually it wasn't the book itself that brought Sheldrake's ideas to prominence but an incendiary editorial by the editor of the respected British journal Nature, Sir John Maddox, who fumed, "This infuriating tract…is the best candidate for burning there has been for many years." That was quite a lot of attention for a young scientist, especially one who at that time was working as a plant physiologist in India. What so infuriated Maddox was Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance" -- a complicated framework of ideas proposing that nature relies upon its own set of memories, which are transmitted through time and space via "morphic fields". The theory holds that these fields, which operate much like electrical or magnetic fields, shape our entire world. A panda bear is a panda bear because it naturally tunes into morphic fields containing storehouses of information that define and govern panda bears. The same with pigeons, platinum atoms, and the oak trees on Hampstead Heath, not to mention human beings. This theory, if widely accepted, would turn our understanding of the universe inside out -- which is why Sheldrake has so often felt the wrath of orthodox scientists. For the past 20 years, he has pursued further research on morphic fields even though no university or scientific institute would dare hire him. Much of his empirical explorations focus on unsolved phenomenon such as how pigeons and other animals find their way home from great distances, why people experience feelings in amputated limbs, why some people and animals can sense that someone is staring at them. He believes morphic resonance may offer answers to these questions. His experimentation has been underwritten by freethinking funders like the late Lawrence Rockefeller and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, founded by Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Through the years Sheldrake has supported his family largely through lecture tours, which draw curious crowds around the world, and a series of books exploring various aspects of what is often called "New Science." He's written on ecological, spiritual, and philosophical themes, as well as a manifesto on how science could be democratized (Seven Experiments that Could Change the World) and a bestseller on animal behavior (Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home). His current research involves thousands of rigorously empirical tests probing the existence of telepathy. John Maddox nonetheless has continued to accuse him of "heresy," saying he should be "condemned in exactly the same language that the Pope used to condemn Galileo." 'Science is the last unreformed institution' When Sheldrake answers the door, I find a tall, surprisingly youthful man in a golf shirt and Birkenstock sandals with socks who hardly seems a menacing troublemaker out to destroy civilization as we know it. He welcomes me into his home, which wonderfully fits my expectations of what a slightly bohemian biologist's house should look like: shells, antlers, giant pinecones, fossils and exotic-looking houseplants on display in comfy rooms also filled with books, art, musical instruments, oriental carpets and a few patches of peeling paint. Upstairs is his office, which overflows with scientific journals and papers, and a spacious library room crammed with books on every conceivable subject. A corner of the library houses a small laboratory, which was recently commandeered by his teenage sons as a computer center. It's a gorgeous sunny morning and Sheldrake suggests we sit in the backyard, which looks to me like a mini-botanical garden. It turns out that I am visiting on a rather momentous occasion. His three-year appointment to an research post at Trinity College in Cambridge will be announced today. It marks a homecoming of sorts to the place where he studied as an undergraduate, earned a Ph.D. and was named a Fellow of Clare College for seven years, where he served as Director of Studies in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. I ask if his appointment signals a growing tolerance of outspoken ideas in science. Not quite, he explains. It's a unique endowment created in the memory of Fredric Myers, a Fellow of Trinity College who was fascinated by psychic phenomena, although today it is generally awarded to researchers out to debunk the existence of such phenomena. "But it does mean I will be getting a salary for the first time in 25 years and money to do my research," he says with a sincere grin.. "But in the field of biology the holistic approach I advocate is more remote than ever. Funding drives most research toward biotech projects." "Science is the last unreformed institution in the modern world today," he adds in a matter-of-fact rather than harsh tone. "It's like the church before the Reformation. All decisions are made by a small powerful group of people. They're authoritarian, entrenched, well-funded and see themselves as a priesthood." Sheldrake's views are widely shared by many people -- indeed by so many that it's seen as a looming problem in Britain and Europe as the public increasingly looks upon science as a tool of corporations and big government, not an institution that benefits average citizens. Kids seem less inclined to pursue careers in the field and taxpayers are growing reluctant about financing research. "If science were more responsive to democratic input, this would look different," he says. He points out that popular programs on television dealing with scientific themes focus primarily on four topics that interest people: 1) alternative medicine; 2) ecological issues; 3) animals; and 4) parapsychology. But very little scientific funding goes toward research in these areas. He wonders what would happen if people could participate in choosing the kind of research they fund with their tax money? That's the idea behind Sheldrake's recent proposal to let the public vote on how to spend one percent of the overall science budget -- an idea greeted with even more horror than morphic resonance in some scientific circles. But other scientists are giving it serious consideration as a way to win back the public's trust. More than a symbolic gesture, this would actually add up to quite a sum of money to initiate interesting new research that the scientific establishment won't sanction. Sheldrake notes that independent scientists, including Charles Darwin, have been responsible for many important breakthroughs because they probe for answers in ways quite different than their well-funded peers in universities, research institutes or corporations. But looking around Britain today the only other independent scientific researcher Sheldrake can think of is James Lovelock, who conceived the revolutionary Gaia Hypothesis, which posits that the earth is a living organism. The power of public participation Public participation is essential to Sheldrake's own research because otherwise he couldn't afford to do it. Right now he's enlisting people worldwide to study email telepathy ( the ability to know who's emailing before you get a message). His website (www.sheldrake.org) offers all the details necessary to conduct your own telepathy experiments and to report the findings. Eighty percent of the population reports experiences with telephone telepathy (email telepathy's older cousin), he explains. In the controlled experiments he's conducted, where subjects choose which of four close friends is phoning, they're right 42 percent of the time -- significantly higher than the 25 percent that would occur by random chance. "I think we all have a capacity for telepathy," Sheldrake notes. "But it is really a function of close social bonds. It doesn't happen with total strangers. At least not in an experimental setting. And of course some people have a better sense of telepathy than others, just the same as with the sense of smell." He hopes the on-line experiments can identify individuals with particularly strong telepathic skills, who can then be studied further. "What I am interested in are the mysteries of everyday life -- a lot of these simple things are not being investigated," Sheldrake says staring up at the sunny sky with that "lost-in-thought" look you typically associate with scientists. A few moments later he pulls his attention back in my direction, smiles apologetically and continues. "I prefer to explore things that people know in their lives or the lives of their friends. I am interested in science that is rooted in people's experience. Indeed, the word empirical means experience." By now the two of us have been talking in his garden for several hours and Sheldrake picks up a garden hose to water several tall exotic-looking plants. I meanwhile silently marvel at the tenacity he's shown in keeping his research going all these years and the gentle spirit he possesses in the face of hostility toward his work. John Maddox has said he practices "magic instead of science" yet Sheldrake brings up Maddox with almost fondness -- perhaps because the scathing editorial in Nature turned The New Science of Life into a bestseller and launched Sheldrake's career as an independent scientist. It's time for me to go, and a taxi is honking in front of the house to take me to Paddington Station, but I must squeeze in one more question. "How do you refresh yourself, renew your creativity and stay calm in the face of so much criticism?" Sensing my anxiety about missing the train, he efficiently ticks off three answers in the methodical manner you'd expect from a former science whiz kid. "One. Playing the piano, usually Bach. Two. Meditating. Three. Taking walks, usually out on the heath." After a hearty handshake I jump into to the cab and, watching Hampstead Heath disappear through the back window, decide that I sold Rupert Sheldrake short earlier today. Comparing him to fellow Heath hikers Keats and Wordsworth, I viewed Sheldrake as a cool and rational man of science while they were warm and passionate poets. But I can see now that, even as a dedicated scientist, Sheldrake possesses a poetic imagination in how he thinks about the world and how he lives his life.

by **marykmusic** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:52 am

More proof that "science advances one funeral at a time." --MaryK

by **sceneshifter** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:09 am

'how rarely do we ever really think' - someone, a woman, in the very good 'the quotable woman' by elaine partnow - this book is an education - an eyeopener - nowhere else will you find so much feminine intelligence - and on things men never think about

by **finishedqq** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:29 am

I saw a TV documentary on Sheldrake, starting with a positive attitude. He came across as the very worst kind of English public school upper middle class snob, really awful. The family sang medieval English plainsong vocal harmonies at breakfast !!! There is no evidence that any of his theories have a scientific basis and other researchers were unable to reproduce his results even with the same dogs.

by **finishedqq** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:50 am

I suspect he based his morphic resonance theories on alice bailey's concept of the etheric body. Bailey is an uber nazi to some folks round here .

by **marykmusic** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:43 pm

Hey, I don't like Bailey or anyone else (Blavatsky et al) in that club, but to me there's a lot of Jane Roberts' Seth in this work. "A panda bear taps into the panda bear information system" kind of thing. We are all a product of whatever system we tap into... that's why I don't DO Bailey. --MaryK

by **nashvillebrook** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 2:30 pm

his concept of morphic fields 'resonates' with so much 'occult' stuff. what if thoughts are things. and have a form that interacts with our brains? hmm. no memory trace has ever been identified in the brain... why not? many of our culture's best ideas seem to have emerged fully-formed simultaneously in different parts of the world. what's up with that? good question. he takes tests it... if thoughts are things that people have unconscious access to, it would follow that it would be easier to learn things that are well established in the 'morphic field.' so, he looks at the QWERTY keyboard. qwerty keyboards were designed for typewriters, so that common letter combinations wouldn't catch on each other as they hit the page. so, you didn't want a 't' and an 'h' to come from the same side of the keys. there's no reason a qwerty keyboard should be easier to learn that one that is arranged any other way -- but it is. in experiments, people learn qwerty way quicker than keyboards arranged in ABC... format.

by **finishedqq** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 3:32 pm

I strongly dislike Sheldrake and I believe he is also held in total contempt by scientists. In my opinion quite correctly because he tried to use his position as a biologist to pass off a lot of nonsense (morphogenesis) as a scienctific theory which it absolutely isn't.

by **Moddey Screbbagh** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:56 pm

Hello all, I am frequently surprised by how angry some become when a seemingly unorthodox opinion stakes a claim to be science. It seems the gatekeepers are quite vigilant in the world of natural science and they do a good job maintaining the “canon” of what is “legitimate” or not. Sheldrake may be something of an irritant: he is no doubt very pleased with himself, he takes great pleasure in anything that serves to “epater les bourgeoisie” and he is a pretty terrible writer. Most certainly, he is no threat to the pursuit of natural science as we know it and no sillier “blurb” on the back cover about how the book should be burned was ever written (now that I have Jeff on the brain I wonder if that comment was made to sell books rather than to stop the book from being sold). But why, if you don’t find his ideas very useful or interesting for your life, can’t you close the book and move on, just like you could go back to Yeats if you don’t like Ashbery? By the way, “morphogenesis” is not a discredited theory, but the term used to describe the process of embryonic development…it undergoes “morphogenesis.” The term pre-dates Sheldrake by generations. Much of Sheldrake’s thinking verges on mysticism, and this is also what bothers many, I presume. How to evaluate a mystic? One useful idea, I have found, is what does a mystic gain by lying? (Apart from those obvious hacks who will say anything to sell more books and get rich – but it is probably incompatible to be rich and a true mystic.) (But here I have to bring Jeff in and I suppose acknowledge that a lot of ritual abuse is performed in light of so-called mysticism. Of course I am naïve but would think that a true mystic could not abuse or torture, but many will no doubt think this is B.S.) On the other hand, what can one gain by lying about doing “normal science” in the sense that T.S. Kuhn wrote about? A lot of publications, promotions, research grants. Hell, you can lie your way to become a national hero (e.g. in Korea)…just don’t get caught. But if you become a mystic by intensely studying nature, like Agnes Arber did, for example, in all likelihood you will at some point cease being a scientist and instead become something of a mediocre philosopher. Or the fool on the hill. As it turns out, the role of development in evolution has been in the ascendancy for some time now since Sheldrake’s book came out, and this branch of biology, with the silly moniker “evo-devo,” is getting a lot of press. Much of what Sheldrake was arguing does apply to these efforts, which is not to say that the mechanisms he proposes are correct. He should get some credit however for anticipating an area of science which is now enthusiastically being worked through. When his first book came out developmental biology did not have any of the cache it now enjoys. I would think some RI’ers might rather like thinking about some of the ideas he speaks of. Similarly here in this thread why is Theosophy summarily brought into the discussion only to be linked to Naziism and then thrown out? I know nothing of Alice Bailey and certainly if she was an anti-semite then good riddance, but we are being a little simplistic if we bring her into the debate and then dismiss everything associated with her. Certainly as thinking adults we can discuss a way of looking at the world that imports some eastern mysticism and attempts to wed it to western Christianity. If much of it seems dated now and silly, so what? People create solutions to problems that pose themselves at the moment, and these people and their thoughts are riddled with contingencies. I would think we could pinpoint areas where this way of thinking crosses over into hate if they exist, rather than throwing the whole thing out. I am by no means an expert here, but I believe the leader of Theosophy in Germany itself, Rudolf Steiner, who then left that group to found his own movement, Anthroposophy, was despised by the Nazis…and much good has come out of the efforts of his disciples (Waldorf schools, organic agriculture etc.) Also, are we to throw out Heidegger, Gottfried Benn, Knut Hamsun? Be on the lookout for ideas that cross over into hate, explore what may have led them to be duped by a malicious movement, scrutinize their statements of refutations yes….but throw out everything they wrote as tainted because of the association? Well you can, but I would hope to learn something from it, and would hope that fellow RI'ers out there could sift the good from the bad for the rest of us. Also, the idea of an “etheric body” cannot be attributed to Alice Bailey, or to Theosophy, but itself is quite old, and I think any attempt to suggest it has anything to do with Naziism would be quite far fetched. Part of the problem may be that there is a curious inversion at play in much contemporary discourse regarding attitudes toward “the truth.” While academic cultural critics (who have almost exclusively left-wing politics) have thrown out as obsolete the idea of one Truth that is verifiable and knowable by all, the typical liberal blogger clings desperately to this idea: witness the “truth of 9-11” movement, and they detest statements by the right wing nuts about “creating our own reality.” “How can they --- the repubs – lie all the time and nobody says anything?” one wonders. Thus it is odd that statements made many years ago by a leftist pragmatist philosopher like Richard Rorty can sound positively Bushian today: “truth is what you can get away with” and “take care of freedom and the truth will take care of itself” (I believe the latter quote is a paraphrase of Orwell). Now we have our matriarch of truth Oprah chastizing a writer of a poorly written partly fictional memoir for not telling the "truth." Apparently an aboutface (that probably serves to sell even more books for the guy and get a greater audience for her show) inspired by Michiko Kakutani's simplistic anti-multiple realities piece in the NYT. Why can't people realize in this instance that all memoirs are part fiction, just as all good fiction is partly true. A guy who claims to have had a root canal without anesthesia is clearly lying to some extent...if it is presented as truth, then this weakens the book and I for one, would stop reading it then and there and move on. If it is presented as fiction, well maybe then the character could be worth spending some time with... What I have found of interest in Jeff’s blog is an apparent strong desire to keep an open mind about what is going on in the world, to explore a number of at first glance wild theories, and to examine phenomena that probably have no rational explanation, at least with our current mental equipment. This in my opinion is one of the few areas where one can explore the idea of multiple realities from a left-wing perspective. In this sense I would have thought that Sheldrake’s ideas, and also Theosophy (minus the anti-Semitism of course), might receive a more thoughtful discussion than the dismissals offered in this posting and elsewhere on this blog. Most of us obviously lie somewhere in the middle of the line that connects the Madonna and the whore; but at any given moment, we may trend towards one extreme or the other. The tolerant religious accept, in spirit, both slut and saint; the modern liberal ironist throws out these imprecise categories, puts cruelty first, and asks “has this person’s actions lessened the suffering in this world?” It’s a totalitarian state, and I am thinking of Stalin’s targeting of Anna Akhmatova, where both extremes, and indeed possibly everything in between, are called into question and viewed as suspect, where some topics are labeled off limits for discussion, and where people, some of them good, some of them bad, most a mixed bag, are brought down in a frenzy of name calling and spite. Well, we don’t have Stalin to worry about anymore. For now, it may be no worse than to be thought of as someone to stop talking to at a party, figuring you probably are about to don a tinfoil hat and have a drink with Elvis. But as Jeff and a few others have shown, it could get much, much worse. Anyway, kudos to nomo for the posting. Keep 'em coming. Amietes sinceres, Moddey

by **finishedqq** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:55 pm

Sheldrake is a rascal who thought he could take Bailey and Blavatasky's etheric double concept and by a sleight of hand present it as science. I have little doubt Blavatsky will be proved somewhat correct but Sheldrake brought 'spiritual science' into disrepute. I think of him as the thinking women's Uri Geller, a conjurer and nothing more. Sorry for the Bailey/Nazi reference, it was deliberately designed to deflect a lot of predictable responses on this forum. I do know a lot about Ms Bailey, in fact my whole world view was based on her idas for a number of years. I turned away when I discovered Agni Yoga. Bailey is a trap for the overly mentally focussed individual. Many thought she was a fraud and I now do also. She based her ideas on Leadbetter I believe. I must say I do not have an open mind on ocult matters of the Jeff kind. The Buddha was once told by a woman that she was haunted by the ghost of her dead husband. He said 'ask him how many coins you have in your drawer ?". The ghost never returned. There is so much healthy spirituality without getting involved with the phantoms of the individual and collective unconscious. The Bhagavad Gita is all anyone needs. If they're desperate, they can read the letters of St. Paul. Just my view, everyone has their own history. Eckhart Tolle, Ramana Maharshi and the whole panoply of modern advaita vedanta are worth exploring. The occult including Robert Monroe who jeff sems to like and I read avidly as a teenager because of my more or less nightly Astral Projection are dangerous because they are not controlled. Like Monroe my experiences eventually went bad and I wanted desperately for them to stop which they did in time.

A Heretic for Our Times

A Heretic for Our Times

Re: A Heretic for Our Times

Re: A Heretic for Our Times

twat

alice bailey

Re: alice bailey

i love sheldrake

science

"science" and "truth"

rascal

Who is online