"TreeNess" by Simon Haiduk © (symbiosonic.com) – one of the beautiful pieces displayed at the Sheldrake/Purce Vancouver event.
This past summer I had the honour of organizing an evening of presentations by Rupert Sheldrake & Jill Purce in Vancouver. We were grateful for RS and Evolver sponsorship. I hope to post some audio/video footage from the event in the near future.
A heads-up for friends in the New York area: Dr. Sheldrake will be speaking at the New York Open Center tonight at 8PM. Below are some details quoted from his newsletter. I recommend attending his presentations, I find them mind-expanding.
Also included below are his replies to two RS readers, who posted questions in an earlier RS post.
SHELDRAKE IN NEW YORK:
"I will be giving a talk at the New York Open Center on Thursday evening, October 15, on "Morphic Resonance, Collective Memory and Creative Evolution". I will then be teaching at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut, where I am a visiting professor."
"Also, next week is the official release date in the US of my book MORPHIC RESONANCE, which is an expanded and updated version of A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE, the new edition of which was published in the UK earlier this year. In both Britain and America the book is available on Amazon. In the Preface, which is completely new, I give an overview of developments in science over the last 25 years, and show why I think that these changes have made the idea of morphic resonance more relevant than ever. In a new appendix, I summarize experimental research on morphic resonance to date, including the results of several recent projects on morphic resonance in human learning, all of which have given significant positive results. I discuss 10 new tests, including experiments in low-temperature physics, chemistry and cell biology."
2 QUESTIONS FOR RUPERT SHELDRAKE FROM RS READERS & DR. SHELDRAKE'S REPLIES:
QUESTION #1
Submitted by Leon Night on Wed, 07/15/2009 – 09:07.
A question for Rupert:
I have arrived at the conclusion, from having read many of your books and the books of many others, that humanity is indeed approaching a singularity of sorts.
As if all roads actually do lead to the same place, I have been driven to the opinion that all apocalyptic prophecy ever written is pointing to a punctuated evolutionary event, which I would describe as a spontaneous metanoic mutation to unity consciousness driven into existence perhaps by a stressor such as a massive biological die off, or a dramatic visitation by an off planet life form (or a combination of both).
My continuing studies point ever more strongly to the possibility/necessity of this bifurcation, but I would like another’s opinion of my conclusions.
The more I ruminate over all that I’ve read, and all that I’ve experienced, and all that I’ve concluded, the more convinced I become that none of the technologies we create will result in our embarking on the path we need to take in order to survive because of the persistent dualities within politics, and finance, and morality, and religion; in everything it seems–even quantum physics! This base of duality seems to be the preventive barrier to all essential human progress, and it exists and persists essentially as a foundation; as a platform from which our very consciousness begins its essays of the ground around it. We are, it would seem, in a civil war within our own consciousness. Without an evolutionary bifurcation to unity consciousness, how can humanity survive? And since such evolutionary time is not available to us (time is running out for the changes we desperately need to make), isn’t a punctuated mutation to unity consciousness the only possible resolution?
Having read your positions on the “habits (not laws) of nature”, the necessary metamorphosis of any established chreode (sp?) into a new habit of nature, your enlightened conclusions concerning Morphogenetic Fields and their effects on earths biology (and possibly on human psychology) in the areas of both species stability, and species mutation, I believe this question (conversation) would be best addressed to you.
Is a spontaneous metanoic mutation of human consciousness for the purpose of our species survival an appropriate logical posibility, in your esteemed opinion?
Does it not seem to have been foretold in many (if not all) of the mystical traditions?
Are there any other questions on this subject I should be asking here?
Thank you for addressing my question, and thank you for all of your inspiration to date.
P.S. Please pardon the manic construction of this hastily prepared question. Given more time I would have composed it better.
SHELDRAKE: For me the question is whether there is some underlying purpose or unity that goes beyond the merely human and terrestrial. How is our evolution related to the evolution of the cosmos, or at least the solar system and our galaxy? I don't know, but the time scale may be a long one, and I fear that people individually and collectively change their minds in response to crises, not merely in anticipation of them.
QUESTION #2
Animal/Human evolution
Submitted by HughWheir on Wed, 07/15/2009 – 10:52.
Hello Rupert, hope your stab wound is healed and your walk is strong again. My question is how do you envision possible rapid evolutionary mind or consciousness changes in animals. if any, in the coming BIG CHANGE of 2012ish. I have been hearing many stories of direct animal -human mental communication lately and was wondering if you had been hearing the same stories or if you have perceived an increase of animal-human communication events lately?
SHELDRAKE: Yes, fortunately my leg is better and I can walk normally.
I hear many stories of human-animal communication, but can't say that I have noticed an increase lately.
=========================
"TreeNess" by Simon Haiduk © (symbiosonic.com) – Used by permission.
Thumbnail image from Steele Hill / NASA as used in Sheldrake's Vancouver lecture.
