Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative CausationNew updated and expanded edition of the groundbreaking book that ignited a firestorm in the scientific world with its radical approach to evolution • Explains how past forms and behaviors of organisms determine those of similar organisms in the present through morphic resonance • Reveals the nonmaterial connections that allow direct communication across time and space When A New Science of Life was first published the British journal Nature called it “the best candidate for burning there has been for many years.” The book called into question the prevailing mechanistic theory of life when its author, Rupert Sheldrake, a former research fellow of the Royal Society, proposed that morphogenetic fields are responsible for the characteristic form and organization of systems in biology, chemistry, and physics--and that they have measurable physical effects. Using his theory of morphic resonance, Sheldrake was able to reinterpret the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws, offering a new understanding of life and consciousness. In the years since its first publication, Sheldrake has continued his research to demonstrate that the past forms and behavior of organisms influence present organisms through direct immaterial connections across time and space. This can explain why new chemicals become easier to crystallize all over the world the more often their crystals have already formed, and why when laboratory rats have learned how to navigate a maze in one place, rats elsewhere appear to learn it more easily. With more than two decades of new research and data, Rupert Sheldrake makes an even stronger case for the validity of the theory of formative causation that can radically transform how we see our world and our future. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Chapter 1 The Unsolved Problems of Biology | 5 |
Chapter 2 Three Theories of Morphogenesis | 20 |
Chapter 3 The Causes of Form | 43 |
Chapter 4 Morphogenetic Fields | 65 |
Chapter 5 The Influence of Past Forms | 81 |
Chapter 6 Formative Causation and Morphogenesis | 99 |
Chapter 7 The Inheritance of Form | 110 |
Chapter 11 The Inheritance and Evolution of Behavior | 176 |
Chapter 12 Four Possible Conclusions | 192 |
Appendix A New Tests for Morphic Resonance | 200 |
Appendix B Morphic Fields and the Implicate Order | 249 |
Notes | 266 |
Bibliography | 292 |
| 307 | |
| 311 | |
Chapter 8 The Evolution of Biological Forms | 131 |
Chapter 9 Movements and Behavioral Fields | 144 |
Chapter 10 Instinct and Learning | 163 |
Backcover | 320 |
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acquired characteristics actually atoms behavioral fields biologists biology bithorax Bohm brain C. H. Waddington Cambridge cattle grids cells changes chemical chicks chreodes complex creative crystals depend effect energetic energy entelechy environment epigenetic inheritance Evolution evolutionary example existence experimental explained in terms factors figure final form formative causation genes genetic genome higher-level hiragana human hypothesis of formative implicate order increase influence inheritance of acquired instinctive Journal Lamarckian Lamarckian Experiment laws living organisms London mechanistic theory melting points membranes microtubules molecular molecules morphic fields morphic resonance morphic units morphogenetic fields morphogenetic germ motor fields mutations nervous system normal occur organismic Parapsychology particles particular past systems pathways patterns of behavior phenocopies phenomena physical polymorph possible predictions previous similar problem Protein Folding proteins quantum mechanics random rats result Rupert Sheldrake scientific sequence Sheldrake similar systems spatial species stimuli tion tissues Waddington whole York