Intentional Extension
Rupert Sheldrake's latest book extends the research of his previous two books Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and Seven Experiments That Could Change the World. It also draws theoretically on his earlier work, especially The Presence of the Past. Rupert's basic thesis is that of the extended mind, which is not for him a metaphor but a descriptive attribute: 'our minds connect us to the world around us, just as they seem to do'. He argues for this view against the prevailing materialistic orthodoxy that mind or consciousness is confined to brains, which logically entails that much of the research data he discusses in the book cannot actually happen and the evidence must be dismissed out of hand.
This situation will be familiar to many readers of this review and is rooted in the presuppositions of science that have developed since the 17th century and which defined themselves over and against religion. Rupert discusses the origins of this view in a novel manner through a consideration of the evil eye and witchcraft, both of which came to be regarded as outmoded forms of superstition. It is understandable that the rise of scepticism should have been linked to witchcraft, but this has spilled over into attitudes towards the sense of being stared at. Rupert rightly points out that there is an important distinction between being rational and rationalism, which 'is both a belief system and a social movement' - and one identified with the public image of academics in general and scientists in particular. Science is not (or should not be) an ideology, but it is a method of enquiry that can be applied to the phenomena treated in his book. This is exactly what Rupert does, which makes him truer to his calling as a biological scientist than many of his critics: 'I believe that it is more scientific to explore phenomena that we do not understand than to pretend that they do not exist'. Skepticism technically refers to enquiry and doubt, not 'denial and dogmatism'.
The book is divided into three parts: telepathy, the power of attention, and remote viewing and foreshadowings of the future. All three parts cover anecdotes, laboratory evidence and Rupert's own research. He begins with a definition of the 'seventh sense' as being in a different category from the five normal senses and the sixth sense of animal electric and magnetic fields. The section on telepathy covers picking up thoughts (including tunes) and intentions, and contains some startling data about telepathic experiments with a language-using parrot in New York. The parrot scored 23 hits out of 71 trials, which confirmed the hypothesis that the parrot picked up the owner's thoughts far more often that chance would allow. Owner and parrot were in different rooms and both were recorded on synchronised cameras. Telepathy also seems to occur between therapists and clients, and within sports teams or pairings.
There is a chapter on telepathic 'calls', which contains new research on such calls from hungry babies to their nursing mothers (who sometimes wake just before their babies); these also occur between animals and humans. The common feature here is that 'the great majority of telepathic communications occur among people who have strong emotional bonds'. The next chapter surveys experiences of distant deaths and distress, going back to the early work of the SPR. According to Rupert's studies, animals are more sensitive to the distant death or distress of their owners than the other way round (211 vs. 38). This points in the direction of Rupert's argument that there is an evolutionary ancestry to the development of a telepathic faculty, which one can appreciate more clearly when considering group animal or bird behaviour or the effect of the gaze in the predator-prey relationship. It is also interesting in this respect to note that the most striking cases of telepathy invariably involve distress or even death.
Effects of intentions at a distance include anticipation of a person's return or arrival, transmission of sexual desire, and thinking of people whose letter then arrives. More modern instances of the same phenomenon are telephone telepathy (thinking of someone just before they call) and email telepathy. Rupert found that the former was very common (80 - 95%) and was able to set up experiments to test both kinds. Preliminary results are significant, and interestingly the results were positively correlated with a higher degree of confidence on the part of the percipient.
The work on the sense of being stared at is essentially about the power of attention, which implies that some positive influence does emanate from the starer. Rupert reports on his own work in this field (readers can do experiments for themselves, following the protocol in the Appendix), but also accounts from long lens cameramen and professional surveillance experts, who say that it is important not to stare at people as they tend to look round - exactly the basis of Rupert's research. He points out that the power of the gaze - for both good and evil - is taken for granted in traditional societies, but that our current Western scientific theories of vision based on 'intromission' (i.e. receiving impressions and not sending them out) rules out the sense of being stared at on theoretical grounds.
The third part begins with the history of remote viewing experiments, much of which was sponsored by the CIA from the 1970s onwards, and was declassified in the mid-1990s. True to his profession as a biologist, Rupert looks at animal premonitions, for instance of earthquakes, avalanches and even fits and comas. In his database of human forebodings, 76% are about dangers, disasters or deaths, which follows the same pattern as telepathy. He reports some striking cases just prior to September 11th, where he collected 57 seemingly relevant accounts. His explorations of precognition extend to the well-known waking a couple of minutes before alarms go off, another phenomenon on which Rupert has carried out some preliminary research. He also points out the survival value of waking up just before an impending danger.
The last two chapters consider a range of theoretical explanations for the phenomena examined in the course of the book. He introduces a novel biological metaphor of the pseudopodium, which is found even in the simple amoeba. He speculates that intentions and attention from our minds resemble pseudopodia extended in time and space and interacting in morphic (formative) fields, which may be mental, emotional or social in nature. These morphic fields are rooted in the brain but extend beyond it into a field of interconnectedness, an approach consistent with other field theories in science. Ecological and social interconnectedness is intensified by emotional bonds, which are strongly associated with instances of telepathy.
Even if Rupert's theory of morphic fields does not turn out to be the definitive explanation, he is surely thinking along the right lines. For a start, he takes the data seriously and tries to formulate his theory in this light, while some kind of field seems to provide the most plausible type of explanation. His genius lies in taking well-attested anecdotal phenomena like telepathy, the sense of being stared at and anticipating alarm calls, then put them to the scientific test. In doing so his work not only extends - indeed stretches - the mind, it extends science in new and creative directions.