Video & Audio: Rupert Sheldrake on The Evolution of Telepathy - Metadata

Video & Audio: Rupert Sheldrake on The Evolution of Telepathy - Metadata

Creativity and Thought Forms

Have you ever wondered why people come up with the same or similar ideas independently at the same time? One can suppose that there is a foundation of knowledge or events that predispose people working in a similar area to reach similar conclusions. Arguments as to who came up with an idea first, such as that between Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in respect of the natural selection of species, are all too common. It is almost inevitable that once someone has made a discovery, or had an original idea, someone else will have the same or a very similar idea at the same time.

Rupert Sheldrake discusses this phenomenon in terms of morphic resonance, the idea that the ‘laws of nature’ are a habit, and evolution a process involving ‘morphic fields’ that hold and transmit memory from the past to the present. Twin studies are used as another example of connectivity to a field or grid. Sheldrake argues that they have failed to explain similarities and mutual sensibility in terms of memory traces inside the brain. The idea of morphic resonance enables the brain to be seen as more like a TV reciever than a recording system. Memories are not stored in the brain: the brain tunes into them (2011:6). This notion of a ‘field’ is more closely related to string theory and entanglement than to Newtonian physics. A further example sometimes quoted is that of the gregarious blue tit learning to pierce the aluminium tops of milk bottles in the early 1950s. While this can be seen as an example of evolution in process, there is also a suggestion that once blue tits in one area had learnt the trick, those in another area learnt it more quickly. Imitation alone could not explain the speed at which this ability spread throughout the blue tit population. Once someone has had an idea, or practiced a skill, it seems to be easier for others, even distant and unconnected others, to do the same. This is a contraversial idea, and while backed up by anecdotal evidence is could be tested using conventional scientific methods.

Perhaps harder to test scientifically is the assertion from those who claim to transmit information from the astral planes that creativity and thought are very closely linked. The phenomenon of simultaneous discovery and rapid learning at a distance can be explained by the creation of thought forms that take shape in the astral or mental planes (which make up part of the being of all humans, along with the energetic or etheric and physical/material planes), which are then are picked up by those who are receptive to them. People on the material plane may receive an idea or impression in a dream, as a sudden inspiration, or seemingly from some higher part of themselves (imagination, muse, creative impulse). Typical of such discoveries or ideas is that they give the impression of arriving fully formed, almost independent of the recipient, or as the result of a ‘request’ to a higher power.

Bruce Moen, using a form of ‘tuneing in’ to different vibrational frequences through manipulation of brain waves, a technique developed and taught by The Monroe Institute, describes this creative process in some detail. He leans that everything capable of conscious awareness is connected to a Grid, and that there exists what he calls a Planning Centre with conduits of awareness connecting inventions/ideas/prototypes deposited there with people on earth who are receptive, or who are looking for a solution to a problem. One of the easiest ways to transferr the idea to the physical world is via a dream, but it still has to be made conscious, perhaps through the use of memory triggers. The person looking for something might see it themselves while asleep and travelling in their astral body, and be reminded of it by particular events when conscious. The reason so many inventors come up with the same thing at the same time becomes apparent. As Moen’s guide explained, For critical inventions we arrange cross-over points to transmit the idea to as many people in physical reality as we can find who have the capacity to receive it and to be a part of bringing it through’  (1999:115).

Judge Hatch (1846-1912)

The Honorable Judge David Patteson Hatch, writing through the hand of medium Elsa Barker shortly after his arrival on the astral plane, is one of many such communicators to describe the power of thought. Whether he had been aware of Theosophist writings on Thought-Forms published in the early Twentieth Century I don’t know, but his post-mortem view is certainly very similar to that expressed by other explorers of this esoteric world, both then and now. Imagination has great power. If you make a picture in your mind, the vibrations of the body may adjust to it if the will is directed that way, as in thoughts of health or sickness he advises (Barker 2004:24-5). In the astral world both movement and physical creation are through thought, although people often choose to walk from one place to another, and to speak rather than communicate telepathically, at least for a while, out of habit. Judge Hatch decided that he wanted to wear a toga rather than the clothes he arrived in, and was shown by his Teacher how to, create garments such as I desired: To fix the pattern and shape clearly in my mind, to vizualize it, and then by power of desire to draw the subtle matter of the thought-world round the pattern, so as actually to form the garment (p.43). He also discovered that some objects have considerably more solidity and tenacity than others, depending it seems upon the skill of the creator, the matter from which they are constructed and the intention of the creator or creators. The inhabitants of the astral plane (or earth bound travellers such as Moen) learn to create houses, scenery and other objects that can either endure after they have moved on for others to enjoy, or be dissolved at will.

The astral plane on which Judge Hatch found himself was, he was sure,  a place in space. Like other such communicators he understood the astral planes as a sphere surrounding the earth, interpenetrating it but of a finer vibrational frequency. When one sleeps one can come out into this finer world of the mind and imagination and see things that exist, or have existed, in the material world also (p.24). The lower planes appear to contain replicas of everything that exists on earth, or rather vice versa as it is the astral world that appears the more real and solid, and which precedes the material. On finer strata is the world of patterns (the Focus Level 15 described by Moen, on which he discovered the Planning Centre), the paradigms - if that is the word - of things which are to be on earth (p.31). Judge Hatch found here future inventions – in advance of what exists on earth, but as we can see with the advantage of time, not so far in advance as to be of no use to those on earth. Gradual discovery and development evidently continues on the astral planes much as it does on the material level: I saw forms of things which, so far as I know, have not existed on your planet – inventions, for example. I saw wings that man could adjust to himself. I saw also new forms of flying-machines. I saw model cities, and towers with strange winglike projections on them, of which I could not imagine the use. The progress of mechanical invention is evidently only begun (p.31).

Wings of Love (peace and protection) Besant and Leadbeater 1925

A final thought on thought: There was a discussion on BBC Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth' on 30^th April on the process of simultaneous interpretation. One interpreter commented on how much easier it was to follow an extemporaneous talk than a prepared lecture. In the former case she could pick up the thoughts as they were forming in the speaker's mind, whereas with a written text, orally delivered, the thinking had already been done, and it was therefore harder to pick up the thoughts of the speaker. It was not a matter of the language or register but of the immediacy of the thought. To Theosophist writers Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater this would have been self evident, as they were well aware of the materiality of thought and its transmission and reception. It is a consistent message that what we think is not a private matter, it communicates to those around us whether we are aware of it or not. Interesting!

Another version of this blog exists at: http://exploringtheafterlife.blogspot.com/

(I accidentally erased this version, rewrote it with slightly different material and then managed to recover the older version. The joys of computers!).

References

There are numerous accounts of post-mortem adventures communicated telepathically, or by other means, such as automatic writing, to those still living on earth, from the earliest historical records to the present. Their message is perhaps surprisingly consistent – allowing for the fact that differences are often accounted for by the fact that each one inhabits a different sphere according to their level of development, and that the power of thought and expectation enables people, at least initially, to create the afterlife world they expect to find on passing over. Judge Hatch’s experiences are taken from Elsa Barker, Letters from the Afterlife: A Guide to the Other Side, (Beyond Words: Hillsboro, Oregon, 2004. Originally published as Letters from a Living Dead Man, Rider, 1914).

The idea of thought having a physical form, visible in the astral world and to clairvoyants on earth, is often found in channelled and esoteric literature. One of the most succinct expressions of this idea is by the Theosophist writers Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, in Thought-Forms (with colour and black and white illustrations). (A Quest Book, Theosophical Publishing House: Wheaton, Ill., Madras, London, 1980. Originally published in Adyar, 1925).

Bruce Moen was deeply influenced by the pioneer of conscious astral exploration, Robert Monroe. He has published a series of books on his travels to different zones or planes of consciousness in his Exploring the Afterlife Series. The passage referred to is from Vol. 3, Voyages into the Afterlife: Charting Unknown Territory (Hampton Roads: Charlottesville, Virginia, 1999).

Descriptions of morphic resonance and possible explanations for the phenomenon are given in Rupert Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature  (Icon Books: London, 2011) as well as elsewhere in Sheldrake's work.

The Logic of the Gift

The Las Casas Institute in Oxford organised a symposium The Logic of the Gift on 12th December 2011. It was based around Catholic Social Teaching and in particular Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which includes the term 'the logic of the gift'. A distinguished line up of theologians, philosophers, social scientists,  and people from the world of business were asked to contribute insights from within their own disciplines. For some reason (I'm not sure how my name came up as I'm not a Catholic, nor a specialist in economic anthropology) I was asked to talk about the issues from the perspective of social anthropology, being given the title by the organiser, Richard Finn OP, Gifts and Local Kinship: questions and insights from anthropology. It was an enjoyable day, with a fair amount of talking past as well as to each other, but always a pleasure and a challenge to be with people who care about what they are doing, and who try to connect their personal and academic lives.