Rupert Sheldrake on THE SCIENCE DELUSION
The FORTEAN TIMES did a report on radical British biologist RUPERT SHELDRAKE‘s new book, The Science Delusion (Deepak Chopra, 2012).
I profiled Rupert Sheldrake in my first book, Piercing Time & Space (ARE Press, 2005). His ideas are brilliant, unorthodox, iconoclastic. Sheldrake’s body of work on morphic resonance is–well, brilliant, unorthodox, and iconoclastic. It’s a way of looking at species as participating in a dynamic field of information that informs and includes all individual members of the species.
His work fascinates me because I started as a physics major at college and I respect science–but I ground myself in a paradigm that transcends the Newtonian, clockwork universe that still forms the backbone of ‘respectable’ science.
I trained as a healer and spent many years disciplining myself to a practice of meditation, so I have experienced, and continue to experience, phenomena that traditional western science can not tolerate nor acknowledge. There is an intellectual lineage for my experiences. Recently, people like Carl Jung, John Pierrakos, Wilhelm Reich, Ian Stevenson, and Brian Weiss contribute to the body of work in this paradigm that explores high sense perception and the immortality of the soul; the ancient lineage can be found in works like the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
But how do I reconcile my respect for western science–which works, and works well–with my knowing that there is more to reality?
Sheldrake’s work is one path to integration. He’s willing to investigate phenomena rather than simply dismiss them out of hand. And Rupert Sheldrake is a really smart man. I’ve seen him speak and he’s fascinating, both grounded and brilliant. He’s also suffered for his work: a crazed fan stabbed him in the leg. Science isn’t as easy path, especially the way Sheldrake follows it.
Check out the article here.
