Morphogenetic Fields
By Barbara Ann Brennan

Rupert Sheldrake in his book, A New Science of Life, proposes that all systems are regulated not only by known energy and material factors but also by invisible organising fields.

These fields are causative because they serve as blueprints for form and behaviour. These fields have no energy in the normal sense of the word because their effect reaches across the time and space barriers normally applied to energy. That is, their effect is just as strong at a distance as it is at close range.

According to this hypothesis, whenever one member of a species learns a new behaviour, the causative field for the species is changed, however slightly. If the behaviour is repeated for long enough, its 'morphic resonance' affects the entire species. Sheldrake called this invisible matrix a 'morphogenetic field', from morph, 'form' and genesis, 'coming into being'. The action of this field involves 'action at a distance' in both space and time.

Rather than form being determined by physical laws outside of time, it depends on morphic resonance across time. This means that morphic field can propagate across space and time and that past events could influence other events everywhere else.

An example of this is shown by Lyall Watson in his book, Lifetide: The Biology of Consciousness, in which he describes what is now popularly called the Hundredth Monkey Principle. Watson found that after a group of monkeys learned a new behaviour, suddenly other monkeys on other island with no possible 'normal' means of communication learned the behaviour, too.

Dr. David Bohm in the journal Revisions states that the same thing is true for quantum physics. He says the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment showed that there would be nonlocal connections, or subtle connections of distant particles. So there would be a wholeness about the system such that the formative field could not be attributed to that particle alone. It could only be attributed to the whole.

Thus something happening to distant particles can affect the formative field of other particles. Bohm goes on to state that 'the notion of timeless laws that govern the universe doesn't seem to hold up, because time itself is part of the necessity that developed.'

In the same article, Rupert Sheldrake concludes 'So the creative process, which gives rise to new thought, through which new wholes are realized, is similar in that sense to the creative reality which gives rise to new wholes in the evolutionary process.' The creative process could be seen as a successive development of more complex and higher-level wholes, through previously, separate things being connected together.

This is an extract from Hands of Light, A Guide to Healing Through The Human Energy Field by Barbara Ann Brennan and is published by Bantam New Age Books. ISBN number 0553345397. You can visit Barbara's site at www.barbarabrennan.com The book is available in the Soothingminds online shop priced £19.99 plus postage.