Morphic Fields The Hidden Influences Shaping Our Reality

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake coined the term "morphic field" to describe a proposed field that exists within and around not just living organisms but everything, including atoms, places, and social groups. This field is believed to influence form and behaviour.

These fields are said to have the ability to transmit memories, behaviour, and information from one entity to another through a process known as "morphic resonance." This would mean, for example, that if one rat learns how to navigate a maze in London, rats elsewhere might learn it faster simply because the information has been added to the species' morphic field.

The cornerstone of Sheldrake's theory is the concept of "morphic resonance," a process whereby self-organising systems, from crystals to human societies, inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind. Sheldrake suggests this resonance transcends time and space, allowing information to be accessed outside the conventional bounds of space and time. This mechanism could be likened to quantum entanglement, where particles remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, no matter the distance separating them.

Sheldrake proposes that morphic fields provide a kind of blueprint or guiding template for the development and behaviour of living organisms. This would mean that the traditional DNA-centric view of biological development is incomplete. DNA provides the building blocks, while morphic fields organise those blocks into specific forms and behaviours.

But what does this have to do with the paranormal? Well, this ability to transfer information across time and space beyond the conventional limits of distance and sensory mechanisms could explain phenomena like extra-sensory perception (ESP). ESP refers to the ability to obtain information without the use of the known five senses or previous experience. This includes phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

If two people share a strong emotional or biological connection, their morphic fields might be more closely linked, making it easier for thoughts and feelings to 'resonate' between them. This could explain how one person can telepathically receive thoughts or emotions from another without direct communication.

Similarly, clairvoyance could be the result of information about distant or unseen objects being stored in the morphic field. A clairvoyant might be able to tune into this field to gather information beyond the reach of their immediate senses. Because morphic fields are said to transcend time, it could also explain precognition, where individuals sense future events, as they might be accessing future patterns already present in the morphic field.

In ghost hunting, the concept of morphic fields has been used to suggest that emotional or traumatic events can leave an imprint on the surrounding environment - a theory often used to explain hauntings. This could mean that what ghost hunters might be detecting or experiencing are not spirits of the dead but rather strong emotional imprints left in the morphic field of a place.

The idea of morphic fields extends beyond just living things, suggesting that places could have a field that would influence the structures, patterns, and even the behaviours or feelings of individuals within that space. Because these fields carry information, not energy, and they are cumulative, this means that they build on what has happened in the past through a process called morphic resonance.

Morphic fields might even provide an alternative explanation for certain types of paranormal activity, such as residual hauntings. A residual haunting is said to be a playback of past events rather than intelligent contact with a spirit. If morphic fields exist, then the field of a location could be responsible for these repeating ghostly phenomena.

Taking the idea further, it could be that when the physical body dies, a morphic field could theoretically continue in a non-physical form. This would essentially be a 'soul, consisting of the personality and memories of a person. This could potentially explain phenomena such as spirits or ghosts. People who report encounters with the deceased might be sensing or interacting with these fields.

Morphic fields around living beings shouldn't be confused with auras, which are said to be colourful, luminous fields or halos that some people claim to perceive around others. Morphic fields are also distinct from the phenomenon of Kirlian photography. Named after Semyon Kirlian, who developed it in 1939, Kirlian photography is a technique that captures the electrical coronal discharge around an object, typically a living organism. This photographic process involves placing the subject on a photographic plate connected to a high-voltage source, creating an image that shows a glowing contour around the object, which some believe is the object's life force or energy field. Although both auras and Kirlian photography are very similar to the concept of morphic fields, they are not considered to be part of the same phenomenon.

Although the concept of morphic fields is interesting and has huge implications for various paranormal phenomena, it's far from a proven science. Most of the work gone into proving the existence of morphic fields has been carried out by Rupert Sheldrake himself and has been met with significant skepticism from the mainstream scientific community, who argue that his experiments often lack rigorous methodological standards and fail to provide conclusive evidence.

He's conducted various experiments, notably on the phenomenon of telepathy in animals. His experiments, such as those testing the ability of pets to know when their owners are coming home, are designed to demonstrate the transfer of information through non-traditional means, which he attributes to morphic resonance.

If these fields do indeed exist, it may be that they are currently undetectable by our existing scientific instruments. By focussing on trying to prove that morphic resonance exists rather than trying to detect the morphic fields directly, Sheldrake's experiments have the best chance of success.

During the experiments, if certain phenomena are consistently observed that do not fit within the current scientific framework and these phenomena align with the predictions made by the theory of morphic resonance, then this could confirm the existence of morphic fields.

The idea of morphic fields is highly speculative and not widely accepted in the scientific community. One of the primary arguments against morphic fields, aside from the lack of empirical evidence, is that morphic fields challenge the foundational principles of biology, chemistry, and physics as we understand them. They suggest that biological development and behaviour are influenced by non-material fields without clear mechanisms, contradicting the well-understood notion that DNA shapes such things.

As with all things paranormal, morphic fields are a matter of personal belief and interpretation. While interesting and significant to paranormal research, the concept of morphic fields is not widely accepted, and since it is so hard to prove, it isn't likely to be accepted as a fact any time soon.