Navigating Consciousness with Rupert Sheldrake

Modelled on the BBC radio series, this long-standing local programme was produced live by a group in Hampstead, London, in 2023. As the castaway  on a theoretical desert island, Rupert could bring with him eight pieces of music (listed below), a few books, and one luxury item.1:07 If you had not been a scientist what would you have been?2:27 Getting to the island4:47 Bach, Mass in B minor (Gloria)7:25 Purcell, Music for a While 16:47 Monteverdi, Madrigal24:33 Beatles, Because36:41 Subbulakshi, Devotional Song45:07 Mozart, Laudate Dominum54:55 Cosmo Sheldrake, Solar Walz1:03:19 Tallis, Salvator Mundi, Hampstead Parish Church ChoirSome music was cut for copyright reasons, or poor audio quality.Here's the playlist on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQNvVzO_W4EzTopdM6ZxrrYBQoIvhxNGe

A lecture for the Psychedelic Research Society at the University of Sussex, Nov 6th, 2023.https://www.facebook.com/sussex.uni.psychesociety/

This was recorded at the Beyond the Brain 2023 conference, by The Scientific and Medical Network: https://scientificandmedical.net/Video is also available here: https://youtu.be/KyNgE6RsGnwIain McGilchrist and Rupert Sheldrake delve into a spectrum of profound subjects, touching upon the essential role of spirituality in human endeavors, the revitalization of spiritual practices, and the fundamental structure of the cosmos. They discuss panpsychism's implications for the interconnection of consciousness and matter, the enduring nature of memory, the archetypal forms that underpin our reality, and the subtle energy fields that animate existence. The conversation also navigates the terrain of values and the purpose they serve in our lives.

Episode 4 of the online course How To Transform the Sciences: Six Potential Breakthroughshttps://www.sheldrake.org/online-coursesAround 2015, scientists were shocked to find that most papers in high-prestige peer-reviewed scientific journals are not reproducible. In one study of papers in prestigious biomedical journals, 90% could not be replicated, and in experimental psychology more than 60%. This crisis partly arises from systematic biases that Rupert discusses in his chapter on ‘Illusions of Objectivity’ in The Science Delusion (2012, new edition 2020; in the US this book is called Science Set Free), including the selective observation and reporting of results, and perverse incentives for scientists and journals to publish striking positive findings. The crisis continues to roll on, as shown, for example, by an editorial in Nature, December 2021, about un-reproducible results in cancer biology.All this is relatively straightforward, but Rupert suggests that some experiments may also involve direct mind-over-matter effects. It has long been known that experimenters can influence their experimental results through their expectations, in so-called ‘experimenter expectancy effects’, which is why many clinical trials, psychological and parapsychological experiments are carried out under blind or double-blind conditions.In most other fields of science, experimenter effects are ignored and blind methodologies are rarely employed. Rupert suggests that in addition to the usual sources of bias, experimenters may also influence experiments psychokinetically, through direct mind-over-matter effects. Scientists may be particularly prone to this source of error because most scientists believe psychokinesis is impossible, and hence take no precautions against it. They practise unprotected science. Rupert proposes experiments on experiments to test for the effects of experimenters’ hopes and expectations.ReferencesReferences____A Dream, or the Astronomy of the MoonJohann Kepler, published posthumously in 1634 by his sonhttps://sheldrake.org/somnium____Rupert's essay The Replicability Crisis in Sciencehttps://sheldrake.org/replicability____Bad PharmaBen GoldacreFourth Estate, 2012https://sheldrake.org/badpharma____Artifacts in Behavioral ResearchRobert Rosenthal and Ralph L. Rosnow, Oxford University Press, 2009https://sheldrake.org/rosenthal____Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility testhttps://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18248____Differential indoctrination of examiners and Rorschach responseshttps://psycnet.apa.org/record/1965-12396-001____A longitudinal study of the effects of experimenter bias on the operant learning of laboratory ratshttps://psycnet.apa.org/record/1965-01547-001____Could Experimenter Effects Occur in the Physical and Biological Sciences?Skeptical Inquirer 22(3), 57-58 May / June 1998https://sheldrake.org/skepticalinquirer98____Quantum‐Mechanical Random‐Number Generator https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1658698------Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University, as a Fellow of Clare College, he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells, and together with Philip Rubery discovered the mechanism of polar auxin transport. In India, he was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, where he helped develop new cropping systems now widely used by farmers. He is the author of more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and his research contributions have been widely recognized by the

Most people have had the experience of waking soon before an alarm clock goes off and some can even wake before a specified time without an alarm. The usual assumption is that this depends on an exquisitely sensitive time sense, but Rupert argues that it may be explained better in terms of presentiment, or ‘feeling the future’, or even in terms of an ‘extended present’. We already know that our sense of the present is not a mathematical instant, but has width, and perhaps it widens over ranges of seconds to include portions of the near future, Presentiment is now a well-established phenomenon in laboratory experiments, carried out at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Cornell University and elsewhere, and may be widely distributed among people and non-human animals. It could play an important part in everyday life, and become especially significant in fast-moving sports like downhill skiing, tennis and ping pong. Some people may make use of this ability in day trading where they make decisions on movements of the markets over very short time periods, sometimes only a few seconds. Rupert discusses how this ability could potentially be trained, enabling airline pilots and racing drivers to be better prepared for potential accidents, and helping some people to get rich quick – as some day traders already have – by using intuitive abilities that cannot be duplicated by computers. References____An Experiment with Timeby John William Dunnehttps://archive.org/details/AnExperimentWithTimeEbook____Listen to the Animals: Why did so many animals escape December's tsunami?https://www.sheldrake.org/tsunami____Predicting the unpredictable; evidence of pre-seismic anticipatory behaviour in the common toadhttps://www.sheldrake.org/toads____Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Homehttps://www.sheldrake.org/dogs____Unconscious Perception of Future Emotions: An Experiment in Presentimentby Dean Radin, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 163-180, 1997https://www.sheldrake.org/RadinPresentiment

Esalen, California, 1992. A cultural history of utopianism. Surges of utopian renewal. The trinitarian utopian model. Are the utopian and millenarian movements tendencies of the European mind in reaction to Christianity? Millenarians are dominated by the apocalyptic idea. How have these trends influenced the trialoguers? The Marxist utopian model. Scientific utopianism. Liberal political utopianism. New age and psychedelic utopianism. A mathematical utopia. 2012 - the end of history? What is the connection between the Archaic Revival and the Timewave? Is millenarianism an anti-progressive force? Origins and end-points. Utopianism is reasonable if we can change our minds. Our role as care-takers of the world. Is time speeding up? A fractal model of time. A model of history that shows catastrophic transformations to new equilibria. Self-fulfilling prophecies. Does the Omega Point concern the entire cosmos or is it limited to human destiny on earth? A vision of a world revived through animism, mathematical vision, stellar communication and psychedelics. Questions and answers: Large scale vacuum fluctuation. The birth of universe. Life after death. Ralph considers new forms of trialoguing and teaching the trialogue idea. Related BookChapter 10 of The Evolutionary Mindhttps://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-evolutionary-mind

A seminar at Cambridge University, June 2023

Hazelwood, Devon, England, June 1993Ralph tells a fractal story and explains how fractal models can illuminate our understanding of the world. Applying fractals to individual psychology.. The need for chaos and disorder in the personality. Multiple personality 'dischaos'. A 'sandy beach' model of the mind. Therapeutic strategies to increase chaos. The need to restore pantheism. A mathematical model for monogamy. Order and chaos must be balanced. Multiple attractors at the end of time. A polytheistic psychology. The unity within polytheistic systems.. Cultures and individuals need fractal rather than rigid boundaries. A fractal cosmos. The mystery of the Holy Trinity. The loss of unity through rigid boundaries. How can we fractalize our boundaries and create unity? Psychedelics, meditation, travel, tantra and chanting. Returning to the pre-verbal mode of expression. What about people whose boundaries are too low already? The cure to boundary anxiety can be found within. Is there any culture that has managed to avoid 'dischaos'? Questions and answers: The Aristotelian perspective of modern science needs to be balanced by the Platonic. Maths anxiety. Chaos is a kind of order and vice versa. Jung's deconstruction of Yahweh. The sacred trinity of the goddess. Recovering the aboriginal state of consciousness. Cultural taboos.Related BookChapter 7 of The Evolutionary Mindhttps://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-evolutionary-mind

Esalen, California, 1992. The ancient view of the universe as alive. The anima mundi. The fall into the deterministic and mechanistic worldview. How this view is now being transcended. The recovery of the sense of the life of nature and of the heavens. Creativity and morphic resonance in nature. Resacralizing the earth through seasonal festivals and pilgrimage. Linking astronomy and astrology and resacralizing the heavens. Is the universe somehow conscious? Contacting celestial intelligences. Elizabethan star magic and the concept of the great chain of being. Are the contents of our imagination somehow real? Organismic philosophy and the re-infusion of spirit into nature. Re-animating the cosmos. The different levels of intelligence in the universe, and possible techniques for communicating with them. Channelling the stars. A synthesis of astrology and astronomy. Guiding intelligences. Questions and answers: The need to engage with the environment. Light and energy as a manifestation of spirit. Various ways to invoke stellar deities. Long barrows. The feeling of reverence for the heavens. The sky as teacher. The consciousness of the sun. Imagination as the source of creativity in nature. Renaissance magic. Related BookThe Evolutionary Mindhttps://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-evolutionary-mind

1995, Esalen InstituteThe apocalyptic tradition: paranoid self-fulfilling prophecy or an intuition of instability? Stripping the provincialism from apocalyptic messages. Apocalyptic scenarios, including the 'God-whistle' theory. The ecological catastrophe as the appropriate interpretation of the Apocalypse. Steering the Apocalypse toward a tolerable conclusion. The power of faith. Big Bang cosmology as a projection of the Judaeo-Christian model of history. The fate of the sun. The projection of the Apocalypse in 2012. Ecological catastrophe and forces of novelty that may create planetary metamorphosis. Global crucifixion. The recovery of Eden. The personal apocalypse: a glimpse of post-mortal life. Interplanetary morphic resonance. The green version of the apocalyptic vision.Related BookChaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousnesshttps://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/chaos-creativity-and-cosmic-consciousness

The Scientific and Medical Network (SMN) is a worldwide professional community and membership organisation for open-minded, rigorous and evidence-based enquiry into themes bridging science, spirituality and consciousness. It promotes a cultural shift in our understanding of reality and human experience beyond the limits imposed by exclusively materialist and reductionist approaches. 2023 is the Network's 50th Golden Jubilee.https://scientificandmedical.net/

Hollyhock, 2008Andrew Weil, MD, is a world-renowned pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, an approach to health care which encompasses body, mind, and spirit. Rupert and Andrew had a series of conversations over eight years at Hollyhock, on Cortes Island, BC, Canada. In this talk they discuss Rupert's stabbing in Santa Fe, epigenetics, the broken US healthcare system, fasting, laughter yoga, Dr Weil as a brand, and many other topics still relevant today.

Hollyhock, 2011Andrew Weil, MD, is a world-renowned pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, an approach to health care which encompasses body, mind, and spirit. Rupert and Andrew had a series of conversations over eight years at Hollyhock, on Cortes Island, BC, Canada. In this talk they discuss the rise in gluten sensitivity and autism, amongst a variety of medical mysteries. 

Part of an online course on potential scientific breakthroughs:https://www.sheldrake.org/online-coursesIn this talk Rupert discusses new ways in which the hypothesis of morphic resonance can be tested, including with holistic quantum systems like Bose-Einstein condensates, with new materials like high-temperature superconductors, through experiments on cellular adaptation to toxins and heat stress, in experiments on learning in non-human animals, including nematode worms and fruit flies, and with popular online puzzles like Wordle.The implications of these tests, if successful, would be very far reaching, and could lead to new understandings of physical phenomena like the melting points of crystals, which would depend on influences from previous similar crystals, rather than on timeless laws. In biology, morphic resonance from past organisms would play an essential role in heredity, in addition to genes and epigenetic modifications of gene expression. In humans, collective memory would facilitate learning and problem-solving, and morphic resonance would underlie what the psychologist Jung called ‘the collective unconscious’._References_Mind, Memory, and Archetype: Morphic Resonance and the Collective Unconscioushttps://sheldrake.org/memoryRat Learning and Morphic Resonancehttps://sheldrake.org/ratsThe Flynn effecthttps://james-flynn.net/The Sound of a Hidden Orderhttps://www.nature.com/articles/498041aA reprogrammable mechanical metamaterial with stable memoryhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03123-5Evidence for unconventional superconductivity in twisted trilayer graphenehttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04715-zAntiferromagnetic half-skyrmions and bimerons at room temperaturehttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03219-6Conditioned aversionhttps://dictionary.apa.org/conditioned-aversionAn Experimental Test of the Hypothesis of Formative Causationhttps://sheldrake.org/roseSteven Rose's 'A hypothesis disconfirmed' refuted by Ruperthttps://sheldrake.org/rose-refutedThe Hill Effect as a Test for Morphic Resonancehttps://sheldrake.org/essays/the-hill-effect-as-a-test-for-morphic-resonance

Are disincarnate and non-human entities mental projections or non-physical, autonomous entities? What can we learn from them? Their variety and persistence in human history. Early modern science and angelic communication. The shamanic model. The aversion to the irrational in Christianity and science. The need to analyze the entities' messages. A mathematical model of body, soul and spirit. Entities as inhabitants of the spiritual domain of the logos. The evolution of their multifarious representations. The dogma of purgatory. Contacting these entities through dreams and psychedelics. The deepest layers of the faery tradition. Metaphors of light? Entities as artificers and their use of language. Is the world soul behind these entities? Corn circles. The call to prepare language for these encounters. Experiential contact with the celestial sphere. The humanist illusion of self-sufficiency, leading to societal possession. Mammon. A celestial battle on earth? Redirecting attention to the positive forms. The ultimate partnership - reconnecting the Gaian and celestial spheres to the human spirit. Where could the new alchemical kingdom be?From the book:Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness first published as Trialogues at the Edge of the West, Chapter 6. https://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/chaos-creativity-and-cosmic-consciousness0:00Terence12:40Ralph18:17Terence20:55Ralph23:20Terence26:05Ralph30:41Terence31:22Rupert35:10Terence39:54Rupert... 

1995, Esalen InstituteThe idea of an attractor for the entire cosmic evolutionary process. The role of the attractor in chaos dynamics. Motivation and attraction. The value of spoken language. Mathematical modelling. The relationship between mathematical models with chaotic behaviour and the chaos in life. Idolatry and models becoming reality. The feminine aspect of creativity.Related BookChaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousnesshttps://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/chaos-creativity-and-cosmic-consciousness

1995, Esalen InstituteThe chaos revolution, chaotic attractors and indeterminism in nature. The emergence of form from the field of chaos. The formative process in cooling. Is the mathematical realm of the world soul in co-evolution with ordinary reality? The potential of mathematics to aid us in our own evolution by extending our language for dealing with complex systems. Visual intuitions and the Butterfly Effect.Related BookChaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousnesshttps://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/chaos-creativity-and-cosmic-consciousness

The second of a series of six talks on potential scientific breakthroughs:https://www.sheldrake.org/online-coursesRupert proposed a new hypothesis of cellular rejuvenation in an article in Nature in 1974, and in 2023 published a review article entitled ‘Cellular Senescence, Rejuvenation and Potential Immortality’ in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, summarising results of recent research, which support his hypothesis. In this talk he gives an overview of this hypothesis, which applies to cells of all kinds, including bacteria and yeasts as well as plants and animals, and he shows how it sheds new light on the nature of stem cells. In mammals, embryonic stem cells have a special property that enables them to divide indefinitely without senescing and Rupert suggests that cancerous transformations involve the hijacking of this embryonic stem cell system. He suggests ways in which this hypothesis could be tested, and shows how it could lead to new approaches in cancer therapy – by blocking the rejuvenative system that cancers have acquired. If this system were inhibited, then cancer cells might senesce like most other somatic cells and become less virulent. References____Sheldrake, R. (1974). The ageing, growth and death of cells. Nature, 250, 381-385.https://www.sheldrake.org/ageing____Sheldrake, R. (2022) Cellular Senescence Rejuvenation and Potential Immortality. Proceeding of the Royal Society B, 289, 20212434https://www.sheldrake.org/immortality____Nine open questions suggested by the cellular rejuvenation hypothesis, and ways of answering them empirically (Supplementary to the above paper in Proc. Royal Soc. B)https://rs.figshare.com/ndownloader/files/34255402

This is an extract from Rupert's workshop with Brother David Steindl-Rast at Hollyhock, Cortes Island, BC in August, 2011.

After more than a hundred hours of private conversations on Zoom, Rupert and physicist turned neuroscientist Alex Gómez-Marín meet in person to discuss some of their favourite themes.In this new installment, Rupert and Alex reflect on the scientific enterprise itself. Starting by acknowledging that new paradigms are near but never quite seem to make it, they address some of the deep reactionary forces that oppose such changes. This leads beyond the naïve understanding that science is just about data; core assumptions can make evidence irrelevant. Science must then be observed also from a sociological and historical perspective – the politics of knowledge are at stake. Deeper roots may be found in The Reformation: the current dogmatic materialist worldview is a kind of amnesic Protestantism squared. The conversation then leads to the obvious but non-trivial point that scientific facts are literally made, involving a consensus amongst experts who share the same model of reality. Other models (and other experts) are excluded. In that sense, Science (with capital S) is probably too Catholic. The future scientist will not have an easy time. And yet, all those minority reports are of majority interest.This conversation was held on December 8th 2022 at Rupert’s house in London.Dr Alex Gomez-Marin, PhD, is a Spanish theoretical physicist turned neuroscientist. He was a research fellow at the EMBL Center for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. He is currently the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, as an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. He is also the director of The Pari Center in Italy. https://behavior-of-organisms.org