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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity


 

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's
Theory of Morphogenesis:

What is a Morphic Field?

 


 

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Editor's note: The following is a transcription of Dr. Sheldrake's lecture, "The Biology Of Transformation: The Field," which might be viewed on Youtube.

 

 

I’m going to speak today about morphic fields. [These] are the self-organizing fields at all levels of complexity. They underlie the organization of minds, of bodies, of crystals, of plants, of molecules, of stars, and of galaxies. They’re the fields that give things their shape, their form, their organization...

“Morphe” means “form"...

They’re like invisible plans or blueprints...

[Morphic fields are quantum fields of probability.] Nature is very unpredictable. That’s why, even with satellite photos, the weather forecasters don’t always get it right, because the weather is a chaotic system. It doesn’t obey simple deterministic principles; nor do breaking waves, nor do nervous systems, nor do biological organisms. Everything’s probabilistic. If you look at all the particular leaves on a particular tree, they all have the same genes, they all have the same morphic fields, and yet every leaf is different, the vein pattern is different; they’re even different on different sides of the same leaf. They all have the same general form, the same probability structure, but they’re individually different. Morphic fields impose pattern on probabilistic processes; they impose pattern on developing organisms; they impose pattern on the activity of the nervous system. So, they underlie behavior, as well, and underlie social organization...

 

Editor’s note: To restate: “Morphic fields" are a kind of "architectural plan" bringing shape and form to all entities in the universe, both inanimate and living. While "morphic fields" can be applied to organic structures, most often the term "morphic fields" will refer to the inanimate -- stars, galaxies, atoms, molecules -- while "morphogenetic fields" will denote the "coming into being" of shapes of animate entities. However, "morphic fields" also applies to the behavior, instincts, and social activity of living entities. In Dr. Sheldrake's "The Presence Of The Past," he links all this with "the hypothesis of formative causation. According to this hypothesis, the nature of things [i.e., shapes, behavior, mind patterns] depends on fields, called morphic fields."

 

 

an afterlife entity, with ordinary language, speaks conceptually of morphic fields, hidden creative blue-prints

The following is channeled information via the mediumship of William W. Aber, the Psychic Research Society, as reported in “The Rending Of The Veil” (1898), compiled by J.H. Nixon. Testimonies were offered by numerous spirit-persons by means of full-form visible materialization. Spirit William Denton communicates:

"Friends, I have been here some time, and, so far, I have failed to find that man [a sky-entity on a throne] you call God. I find law, law of Nature. Nature is inherently endowed with power and wisdom to take care of herself.

"Where did she get the wisdom?

"From the eternal life of the illimitable realm of spirit ether. Nature was always endowed with innate self-acting intelligence, and always will be. Law of Nature, or simply Nature, expresses all there is of creative energy.”

 

 

Editor's last word:

In a lecture on the teachings of Kant, Professor Daniel Robinson said there’s something built into human nature that responds to beauty, harmony, etc., without appeal to utility or material advantage. I believe that this unseen attractor, with which we comfortably resonate, is a morphic field, a “blueprint,” one akin to aspects of ultimate destiny. See the articles on the meaning of beauty.