EPIGRAPH
And they ask you concerning the soul. Say, ‘The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little.’ (Al Quran 17:85)
Soon We will show them Our Signs in all parts of the universe, and in their ownselves until it becomes manifest to them that it is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is Witness over all things? (Al Quran 41:53)
Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home (1999)
Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, published in 1999, covers his research into proposed telepathy between humans and animals, particularly dogs. Sheldrake suggests that such interspecies telepathy is a real phenomenon and that morphic fields are responsible for it.[82]
The book is in three sections, on telepathy, on sense of direction, including animal migration and the homing of pigeons, and on animal precognition, including premonitions of earthquakes and tsunamis. Sheldrake examined more than 1,000 case histories of dogs and cats that seemed to anticipate their owners’ return by waiting at a door or window, sometimes for half an hour or more ahead of their return. He did a long series of experiments with a dog called Jaytee, in which the dog was filmed continuously during its owner’s absence. In 100 filmed tests, on average the dog spent far more time at the window when its owner was on her way home than when she was not. During the main period of her absence, before she started her return journey, the dog was at the window for an average of 24 seconds per 10-minute period (4% of the time), whereas when she was on her way home, during the first ten minutes of her homeward journey, from more than five miles away, the dog was at the window for an average of five minutes 30 seconds (55% of the time). Sheldrake interpreted the result as highly significant statistically. He performed 12 more tests, in which the dog’s owner travelled home in a taxi or other unfamiliar vehicle at randomly selected times communicated to her by telephone, to rule out the possibility that the dog was reacting to familiar car sounds or routines.[83] He also carried out similar experiments with another dog, Kane, describing the results as similarly positive and significant.[82]
Before the publication of Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, Sheldrake invited Richard Wiseman, Matthew Smith, and Julie Milton to conduct an independent experimental study with Jaytee. They concluded that their evidence did not support telepathy as an explanation for the dog’s behaviour,[84] and proposed possible alternative explanations for Sheldrake’s conclusions, involving artefacts, bias resulting from experimental design, and post hoc analysis of unpublished data.[70][85] The group observed that Sheldrake’s observed patterns could easily arise if a dog were simply to do very little for a while, before visiting a window with increasing frequency the longer its owner was absent, and that such behaviour would make sense for a dog awaiting its owner’s return. Under this behaviour, the final measurement period, ending with the owner’s return, would always contain the most time spent at the window.[70] Sheldrake argued that the actual data in his own and in Wiseman’s tests did not bear this out, and that the dog went to wait at the window sooner when his owner was returning from a short absence, and later after a long absence, with no tendency for Jaytee to go to the window early in the way that he did for shorter absences.[86]
Reviewing the book, Susan Blackmore criticised Sheldrake for comparing the 12 tests of random duration—which were all less than an hour long—to the initial tests where the dog may have been responding to patterns in the owner’s journeys. Blackmore interpreted the results of the randomised tests as starting with a period where the dog “settles down and does not bother to go to the window,” and then showing that the longer the owner was away, the more the dog went to look.[83]
The Sense of Being Stared At (2003)
Sheldrake’s The Sense of Being Stared At explores telepathy, precognition, and the “psychic staring effect.” It reported on an experiment Sheldrake conducted where blindfolded subjects guessed whether persons were staring at them or at another target. He reported subjects exhibiting a weak sense of being stared at, but no sense of not being stared at,[87][88] and attributed the results to morphic resonance.[89] He reported a hit rate of 53.1%, describing two subjects as “nearly always right, scoring way above chance levels.”[90]
Several independent experimenters were unable to find evidence beyond statistical randomness that people could tell they were being stared at, with some saying that there were design flaws in Sheldrake’s experiments,[11][26][91] such as using test sequences with “relatively few long runs and many alternations” instead of truly randomised patterns.[92][93] In 2005, Michael Shermer expressed concern over confirmation bias and experimenter bias in the tests, and concluded that Sheldrake’s claim was unfalsifiable.[94]
David Jay Brown, who conducted some of the experiments for Sheldrake, states that one of the subjects who was reported as having the highest hit rates was under the influence of the drug MDMA (Ecstasy) during the trials.[95]
The Science Delusion (Science Set Free) (2012)
The Science Delusion, published in the US as Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery, summarises much of Sheldrake’s previous work and encapsulates it into a broader critique of philosophical materialism, with the title apparently mimicking that of The God Delusion by one of his critics, Richard Dawkins.[96]
In the book, Sheldrake proposes a number of questions as the theme of each chapter that seek to elaborate on his central premise that science is predicated on the belief that the nature of reality is fully understood, with only minor details needing to be filled in. This “delusion” is what Sheldrake argues has turned science into a series of dogmas grounded in philosophical materialism rather than an open-minded approach to investigating phenomena. He argues that many powerful taboos circumscribe what scientists can legitimately direct their attention towards.[97]: 6–12 The mainstream view of modern science is that it proceeds by methodological naturalism and does not require philosophical materialism.[98]
Sheldrake questions conservation of energy; he calls it a “standard scientific dogma,”[97]: 337 says that perpetual motion devices and inedia should be investigated as possible phenomena,[97]: 72–73 and has said that “the evidence for energy conservation in living organisms is weak.”[97]: 83 He argues in favour of alternative medicine and psychic phenomena, saying that their recognition as legitimate is impeded by a “scientific priesthood” with an “authoritarian mentality.”[97]: 327 Citing his earlier “psychic staring effect” experiments and other reasons, he says that minds are not confined to brains and that “liberating minds from confinement in heads is like being released from prison.”[97]: 229 He suggests that DNA is insufficient to explain inheritance, and that inheritance of form and behaviour is mediated through morphic resonance.[97]: 157–186 He also promotes morphic resonance in broader fashion as an explanation for other phenomena such as memory.[97]: 187–211
Reviews were mixed. Anti-reductionist philosopher Mary Midgley, writing in The Guardian, welcomed it as “a new mind-body paradigm” to address what she called “the unlucky fact that our current form of mechanistic materialism rests on muddled, outdated notions of matter.”[99] Philosopher Martin Cohen, a famous critic of esotericism in science, wrote in The Times Higher Education Supplement that “[t]here is a lot to be said for debunking orthodox science’s pretensions to be on the verge of fitting the last grain of information into its towering edifice of universal knowledge”, while also noting that Sheldrake “goes a bit too far here and there, as in promoting his morphic resonance theory.”[100]
Bryan Appleyard writing in The Sunday Times commented that Sheldrake was “at his most incisive” when making a “broad critique of contemporary science” and “scientism,” but on Sheldrake’s “own scientific theories” Appleyard noted that “morphic resonance is widely derided and narrowly supported. Most of the experimental evidence is contested, though Sheldrake argues there are ‘statistically significant’ results.” Appleyard called it “highly speculative” and was unsure “whether it makes sense or not.”[101]
Other reviews were less favourable. New Scientist‘s deputy editor Graham Lawton characterised Science Set Free as “woolly credulousness” and chided Sheldrake for “uncritically embracing all kinds of fringe ideas.”[102] A review in Philosophy Now called the book “disturbingly eccentric,” combining “a disorderly collage of scientific fact and opinion with an intrusive yet disjunctive metaphysical programme.”[103]
Science and Spiritual Practices (2017)
Reviews for the book were mostly positive. Kirkus Reviews described it as a “grounded and inspiring approach to appreciating the benefits of both science and religion”.[104] Adam Ford, reviewing the book for the Church Times, describes it as a “useful and very clear introduction to the practice of meditation” combined with a how-to guide on the “healing and happiness-creating power of gratitude”.[105]
Publishers Weekly reviewed the book as having “accessible suggestions” and “clear arguments”, while noting that “a few fuzzy moments, including reliance on many…overly speculative accounts” do not prevent the work from being “otherwise convincing” and “a good case for reincorporating bygone spiritual habits.”[106]
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