| ||||
|
Arts & Entertainment Books Comics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News  PeoplePolitics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon People is sponsored by Lexus - - - - - - - - - - - - Current Click here to read the latest stories from the wires. - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon People stories, go to the
People home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon People People Feature Nothing Personal People Feature People Feature Nothing Personal - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Rupert Sheldrake: The delightful crackpot | page 1, 2
In 1996, Sheldrake paused in his dogged research to hook up with renegade
priest Matthew Fox and hold public discourses on God (which is you-know-what
spelled backward). After all, the Almighty seems to be where the larger
implications of morphic resonance head. What if morphic resonance encompasses
the narrative direction of our lives? Perhaps destiny is more than just some
literary conceit. Maybe karma is not only instant, but real as well.
Perhaps we can even actually influence God herself as easily as chicks can
stop random-movement robots. Ah. These ideas just bounce off Sheldrake. He doesn't bite. After all, his
God is, well, British. "I belong to the Church of England," he says. He talks
about his beliefs, and he buys the whole thing -- Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
Rupert Sheldrake is only a heretic in the Church of Science. But in the end, Sheldrake successfully defends the profundity of his current
animal work. "The thing about dogs," he says, "although some people might
think this is trivial from a scientific point of view, it's actually exactly
the opposite. Science believes animals and plants are all just unconscious
automatons. The whole of nature is unconscious except for human beings. We're
the only smart guys in the whole universe and somehow figured out how
everything works. And that means through science we can manipulate nature and
improve products for corporations." Then Rupert Sheldrake pauses and says,
"Descartes believed the only kind of mind was the conscious mind. Then Freud
reinvented the unconscious. Then Jung said it's not just a personal
unconscious but a collective unconscious. Morphic resonance shows us that our
very souls are connected with those of others and bound up with the world
around us."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer Sound off - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
