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Vol. XIX, No. 1
17
As a magnet possesses a field, Sheldrake believes, every organism, from the lowest bacteria to the conceivable and the inconceivable universe, possess morphogenetic fields. Matter manifests in forms Morphogenetic fields are the hidden blueprints of these forms, which come to fill the universe of our senses. Thus the morphogenetic fields are sort of potential DNA information hiding the outlines of the forms which matter coine to manifest in the course of its unfolding evolution. Form (fields) precede matter
In this evolutionary cosmos of fields and self-transcendence, Sheldrake argues, there are no eternal physical or mathematical laws : what are there are but forms, patterns, structures, harmony, self-organisation. A brick uncovered by an archaeologist may give many clues about the town or civilisation buried under the soil but it cannot give a picture of the form, the architectonics of that buried place. The study of morphogenetic-or morphic-fields looks at the forms, the growth pattern, the evolution of organic units in a self-organising universe.
Morphogenetic fields in this view are then extremely condensed forms of memory codes. A human being has different ranges of memory-conscious memory, subconscious and unconscious memory. Much may have been forgotten by the person, e.g. the first of one's life. But all events are held in passive memory; and much can nevertheless be traced through different psycho-retrieval methods. Beyond individual memories there are then the prehuman and pre-historic memories. Our cells retain ontogenetic and phylogenetic memories of billions of years and retrieve them for every day use in the form of unconscious habits, instincts, likes and dislikes.
So a baby sucking on mother's breast unconsciously experiences pre-human suckling in the very instinct of its inclination for breast-feeding, even bottle-feeding; similarly people sitting around a fire or even around a lit candle in
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