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"...Far from paranormal, these experiences are rooted in our biology, says Sheldrake, a Cambridge-trained biochemist and maverick thinker who's been called "a scientific heretic who refuses to be burnt at the stake."
He says scientific exploration of these common experiences could lead to a new understanding of human and animal minds -- if science could overcome its dogmatic hostility toward this line of inquiry...
"In my book, what I'm trying to do," he said, "is put forth the scientific evidence."
Sheldrake argues for a new concept of the mind -- one not bounded by the brain, but operating through fields of influence that he believes are present throughout nature. He suggests these "morphic fields" organize the development and behavior of animals, plants, social groups and mental activity, from human and animal telepathy to such everyday mysteries as the synchronized swooping of flocks of birds.
"I don't claim to explain all these things or to understand them," Sheldrake said. "I say, here's what seems to be going on."
For example, he posits that telepathy is a kind of morphic field, a social field that allows distant members of a pack or tribe to stay in contact or warn of danger. As an example he cites wolf packs, which scatter over hundreds of miles to hunt without losing their group cohesion.
"Telepathy depends on social bonds," Sheldrake said, adding that the ability seems to be stronger in animals than in most people.
In the modern world, he said, the most common example is telephone telepathy -- sensing who's on the phone before you pick up the receiver, especially if the caller is a close friend or relative.
He said the phenomenon also occurs with e-mail, a topic he plans to discuss at Microsoft. As of last September he had completed 160 experimental trials of e-mail telepathy, designed to yield a 25 percent success rate through random chance. He said his 43 percent success rate was "very significantly above the chance level."
A common event As the title of his book suggests, the sense of being stared at is the most common "paranormal" event, reported by 70 to 90 percent of the adults Sheldrake surveyed. He speculates that focused visual attention has an effect that extends beyond the eye and brain of the observer.
...Sheldrake, 60, studied philosophy at Harvard and natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he earned a doctorate and became director of studies in biochemistry and cell biology. He spent the first two decades of his career in mainstream academia, studying plant biology. In the 1970s he worked in India as principal plant physiologist at the International Crop Research Instititute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. He also spent time at an ashram.
"I first became convinced that living organisms were organized by fields," Sheldrake said, "when I was doing research at Cambridge University on the development of plants."
While genes and molecules provide the building blocks of life, they don't explain how the parts are assembled to create a living organism, said Sheldrake, who suggests that morphic fields provide the organizational blueprint.
He sees this organizing force as a kind of collective unconscious that allows members of a species to draw from, and contribute to, the collective memory of the species..."
http://www.sheldrake.org/books_tapes/staring_interview_SeattlePI.html
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