WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
A friend recently sent me the January 7 edition of the “Financial Times” which contained a book review of “The Science of Delusion” by Rupert Sheldrake. Sheldrake is a biochemist whose field is morphogenesis – the study of how organisms get their shape. Sheldrake’s uses his knowledge of anatomical structure to challenge bedrock scientific premises and argues that the mind’s construct imposes biases upon its interpretation of the outside world.* In sum, humans are incapable of objectivity and we may, according to the author, be interacting with our environment in ways we have yet to understand.
Sheldrake proposes that the placebo effect is evidence of a mind shaping its reality, making a sick body well again. If thoughts can do that, he argues, then they might be capable of other feats, like telepathy.
(courtesy: photobucket.com)
While I hold firm that science, with its presumption of objectivity, is the best guide we have to understanding our universe, I’m inclined to agree with Sheldrake that the cosmos and our place in it is very much a mystery. As to telepathy, I do believe it exists. I have experienced it in ways that cannot be attributed to coincidence only. That the phenomenon is currently unexplainable doesn’t automatically relegate it to the realms of myth or religion. People experience it all the time. Whether they accept or discredit telepathy depends upon their bias. For me the event is a viable mystery like the placebo effect.
One day, perhaps, science will discover the strange connection between mind and matter. Till then, Sheldrake’s book seems a good place to start the investigation.
*The theme of my next novel, out in October, is based upon this presumption.