Morphogenetic fields
Whàt?! Morphogenetic fields. Apparently known in biology for already about a hundred years and in the 1980s given new force by Rupert Sheldrake. Who with his calmness and beautiful British accent can explain this in such a simple way.
We are taught that it is our DNA that rules the game. But, your arm and your leg have the same DNA, same compounds, same chemicals. Why is an arm an arm and a leg a leg?
This is explained by morphogenetic fields. They are fields of information giving shape to things. They make sure bone cells become bone cells, a finger is a finger and a human a human being.
Then Rupert Sheldrake came along and posed some interesting additional ideas that are now cooking in my brain, that is, in my and the whole of mankinds morphic (knowledge and memory) field. I will do my best to explain..
Another idea from the sciences (quantum physics) is that matter is not as solid as it seems, it is a vibrating chaos with dormant within it all possible possibilities. And something has to 'decide' for that matter what possibility to take form of.
Morphogenetic fields are vibritory patterns of activity that can be the organising principle imposing patterns on this probabilistic nature of matter.
But, the morphonenetic field is also probabilistic in nature, so a probable form, working probabilisticly on probabilistic events.
Ohlalaa...
And then morphic resonance is introduced...
Rupert Sheldrake introduces the idea that the laws of nature aren't fixed laws, but are evolving habits. Which, keeping in mind that the universe is still expanding, growing evolving, seems a plausible idea. Why would we have fixed, unchanging natural laws in a world, a universe in change?
Also proposed is that nature has a stored memory. It stores it's learning process, it's evolution. The more something is learned or done the stronger a habit grows. Over time they can become so strong, they seem like fixed laws.
For example:
If I create a puzzle today and you'd be the first to make it, you will get faster each time you make it, because you learn, you remember. The first time you might take an hour, the 10th time 30 minutes.
But it is not only you who has access to this memory and learning process of making the puzzle. If we give your neighbour that puzzle after you have made it 10 times, your neighbour will (unknowingly) access your stored learning process (field) and will be faster as you were the first time they make the puzzle, or even start off when you stopped and complete it in half an hour the very first time.
This has been tested in less happy ways, by inducing mutations in flies, making rats get out of a maze etc. And it shows that generation after generation mutations or fastness of escaping increases.
Another phenomena is the IQ test. This test has been done for about the same way for decades and the results get higher without solid proof that people are actually getting smarter. Rupert proposed that people are just getting better at doing test due to the stored memory.
And then, mr Sheldrake connects this all to spirituality and the performance of ritual. And here, for me, it get's really beautiful! This is my take on it:
By performing an ancient ritual you basically connect yourself, invoke, a specific morphogenetic field. A stored memory or learning, that organises, gives direction to the probabilistic nature of matter and therefore: life.
A field that thereby actually also helps you to learn, make progress or change your life faster and connects you to likeminded people (strenghtening, rooting yourself) accross all space and time, because it connects you all the way towards when the ritual was performed for the very first time (and maybe also towards all of those who will perform it in the future).
In this way your community, support system, can be way greater than you might think!
As you can see when googling Rupert Sheldrake, his ideas are often labeled as pseudo scientific and new age. But for me it all still sounds like magic. Humans also once discarded the idea that the earth was round and called it heretic.