Morphogenetic Fields and Akasha
(A conversation between Dr. Rupert Sheidrake,
Dora Kunz, Dr. Renée Weber, and Will Ross.)
INTRODUCTION
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, author of A New Science of Ufe, explained th
basic concept of his theory. Besides the already known fields of sciencE
such as the gravitational fields, Sheldrake has hypothesized morphc
genetic fields or M’fields. He says these fields are invisible organizin~
structures that mold or shape things like crystals, plants, and animak
and also have an organizing effect on behavior. In other words, this fieh
becomes a kind of blueprint that regulates and organizes subsequen
units of the same type. Subsequent units tune” into (or ‘resonate” with)
and then repeat, the previously created ‘archetype which can operat
across time and space. Stated another way, as each new unit is formec
and shaped, it reinforces the M-field and the “habit” is established. Thi.
theory extends all the way from molecular crystals to complex livinc
organisms. An important point is that it becomes progressively easieranc
faster for subsequent units of whatever species we are discussing to adop
the st’ucture. Eventually, the structure appears inherent and virtuall,~
changeless.
Sheldrake first discussed the conventional genetics programmin~
and DNA doctrine According to this, the way in which organisms develol
is somehow ‘programmed” into their DNA. He then argued that DNI
indeed codes the sequence for amino acids, which form protein. But fron
the fri-fields standpoint, the form and organization of cells, tissues, organs
and organisms as a whole are governed by a hierarchy of morphogenh
fields that are not inherited chemically but are, instead, given directly b~
morphic resonance from past organisms of the same species.
To clarify this idea Dr. Sheldrake used the analogy of a television set
Imagine a person who knows nothing about electricity. He is shown
television set for the first time. He might at first think that the set act uall~
contains little people, whose images appear on the screen. But afte
looking inside and finding only wires and transistors, he might hypothe
size that the images somehow arise from complicated interactions amonc
the components of the seL This theory would seem particularly plausibli
in light of the fact that the images become distorted or disappear whet’
components are removed. If it were then suggested that the images in fact
depend upon invisible influences entering the set from faraway, he might
reject iL His theory that nothing comes into the set from the outside would
be reinforced by the discovery that the set weighs the same whether
turned “on” or “off”
This point of view may resemble the conventional approach to
biology, where wires, transistors, etc., correspond to DNA, protein mole-
cules, etc. Sheldrake agrees that genetic changes can affect the inheri-
tance of form or instinct by altering the “tuning”orby introducing distor-
tions into the ?eceptiorL” But genetic factors by themselves cannot fully
account for the inheritance of form and instinct, any more than the par-
ticular pictures on the screen of a lv set can be explained in terms of iLs
wiring diagram alone
Because, in Sheldrake’s view, the human nervous system is also
governed by M-fields. the same principle would hold true for human
beings This would have great implications forour understanding of how
and why people learn. Learning of this kind would thus bea kind of basic
species inheritance, more or less automatically ‘remembered’ It would
not be located in the individual brain at all, but given directly from species
structure through morphic resonance The cumulative experiences ol
humankind would thus indeed include the arc hetypical fomis described
by Jung.
— RALPH H. H4NNor’~
Dora Kunz The question under discussion is whether there is an~
relationship between the concept of morphogenetic fields and
Akasha. According to my understanding of M-flelds, memory plays an
important part in the concept, and I wonder if that might bea possible
link with the concept of Akasha. Perhaps we could begin by defining
the M-fields, and then discuss the role of memory.
Rupert Sheldrake M-flelds are form-shaping fields: morpho — form,
genesis — coming into being. They are fields concerned with the
coming into being of form, and they are responsible for shaping and
ordering systems of all levels of complexity— atoms, molecules,
crystals, cells, organs, organisms. The structure of morphogenetic
fields is given by the actual forms of previous systems, by means of
morphic resonance, the process by which like acts upon like. Morphic
resonance means the M-fields contain, as it were, a crude or collective
memory — the species — which is inherent to the field.
The idea of a memory that accumulates through time is essential
to this concept. As I understand the idea of Akasha it includes a kind
of memory of everything that happens, but it is not clear to me
whether the Akashic record is thought of as a kind of gigantic memoiy
bank. If it is thought of in that way, there is the question of how an~
given organism, a rabbit for instance, can retrieve information from
the memory bank of the Akashic record. Normally, in order to retrieve
memory from a library or an information bank, it is necessary to
know how to obtain access to a particular memory. I think that it
happens through morphic resonance, the tuning of like to like, if
the Akashic record is a sort of generalized, nonspecific memory
bank, the question is, how can you get anything out of it? If it comes
out on the basis of similarity to what went in, however, then the idea of
the Akashic record is similar to morphic resonance. What this means
is that there is a direct link from a thing in the past to a similar thing
here in the present, the only difference being that the Akashic record
is the storage device.
D.K. Perhaps we should consider what the word Akasha means in
Indian philosophy, because there is a difference.
Renée Weber ft is associated in Indian philosophy with space — that
which radiates in all directions. The idea of Akasha is, first of all,
associated with sound as a primary Element. This fundamental
relationship of Akasha with sound not only establishes resonance as a
primary factor in the development of the senses, but also in the
development of form. This is implied in the Biblical statement, “In the
beginning there was the Word and the Word was from God.” Sound
connects wjth vibration and what is interesting is that the theory of
morphic resonance requires a kind of attunement of vibratory simi-
larity. So in that sense there would be another link between morphic
resonance and Akasha.
R.S. Presumably Akasha means space, and if so, something in
space, a rabbit for instance, is vibrating: it is breathing, its heart is
eating, it is twitching its ears, and soon. It is moving in manydifferent
ways; it is not a static form. Since this whole pattern of activity of the
rabbit is occurring in space, which is also in Akasha, perhaps th
Akasha is being imprinted with that form and that pattern of vibration
in the place where the rabbit is.
R.W. The only part that worries me is when you say “in the plac
where the rabbit is.” Do you think that Akasha, being a field, is s
strict]y tied in with locality?
R.S. Well, fields have a dual nature, One aspect is that they an
extended, and the other is that they are related to localities. If Akash
means space, and the rabbit is in a particular place in space, this mus
mean a modification of the Akashic field in that place. Similarly, th~
gravitational field is extended through the whole universe, but it i:
highly modified in the presence of matter. The gravitational fielc
around the earth is different from what it would be in the middle o
intergalactic space, precisely because the earth is here.
R.W. Yes, the Akasha has to be modified by the presence of matter I
it is to be capable of recording anything.
I am going to shift our focus for a minute. As I think of other fields,
other planes of nature, such as the emotional field (you used the word
“astral” field) or the conceptual or mental field, it appears that they
have their own characteristics which the organisms display, but in
turn the organisms also affect the field. If at a given place in the
emotional field there is a lot of violence, the emotional field at the
moment stores or amplifies it. There is a replay back and forth. In
other words, we take on the characteristics of the field, but it also is
amplified by our thoughts and feelings. Would Akasha work in a
similar way?
D.K. I suppose if we talk about space and relate it to fields, Akasha
would encompass all of the fields, even the gravitational.
R.S. I presume so. I don’t think it would be meaningful to say that
the gravitational field is the same as Akasha.
D.K. ft can’t be. Would it be a component of it?
R.S. You see, I don’t know exactly what the Akasha is. We are trying
to discover what it is. One possibility is that it is a kind of field of fields; a
field which includes all others. If the Akashic field is the field of all
possible kinds of space, including the space that is curved by the
9ravitat]onal field, that which is modified by the electromagnetic field,
he space that is affected by thoughts and emotions, the internal
space of consciousness — all possible kinds of space that there are,
~hysical, mental, emotional, and intentional — then it would be a kind
if field of fields which would include all other fields.
1 also like the theosophical idea of the group soul. You see, I am
not sure that I believe that we are reincarnated. I think it may happen
ccasionally to some people, but not as a general rule. I’m afraid that I
have a heterodox view. I think we are influenced by a large number of
nfiuences from past lives through, for example, the collective uncon-
~cious, but not that there is necessarily a one-to-one relationship. I
have no way of knowing, for example, that I was an Indian peasant five
hundred years ago, and a Greek fisherman before that, and so on
I-laying no experience of previous lives, I do not see any reason wh~
we have to assume that there has been such a direct one-to-on~
connection, rather than multiple influences working from past lives oi
people now dead. If I am influenced by hundreds, thousand, million~
of people in the past, in one sense lam all those people reincarnated.
realize that the usual theory of reincarnation is that each of us is born
in a sequence of linear births in time, but I don’t see any reason to
believe it myself.
R.W. As we have not defined Akasha, but circumscribed it, I would
like to ask if it is in the phenomenal woi]d.
RS. We are suggesting that it is the ground of phenomena, that at
phenomena must occur as appearances within space. Even hallu
cinations or dreams are phenomena within some kind of space. lr
dreams we can move around, see people, and so on.
D.K. I suppose hallucinations occur within the space of the mind
R.S. Yes. I am defining the space of the mind as a kind of space. ThE
Tibetans talk about the continuity between the space of the mind anc
physical space. I am delighted with the Tibetan concept of space, for
as I understand it, there is a similarity, indeed an analogy, betweer
mental space and physical space. They don’t separate the two in thE
way that we are used to. Since Akasha is part of Eastern thought, I’
seems necessary to include mental space within Akasha. Therefore
all appearances — even hallucinations — occur within Akasha.
But even if we take the physical universe alone, there isa sense ir
which consciousness ranges through it. Now that we have theorie~
about stars being in distant galaxies, and measurements of the re
shift and the spectral lines and the receding universe, the very fact tha
we can look at stars through telescopes and saythattheyarea millior
or a thous~and light years away means that consciousness is rangin~
through space and creating this vast universe. You may say that thE
universe is there independently of our consciousness. But we do havE
a growing consciousness of a universe, infinitely vaster than ii
appeared to people a few thousand years ago. So in a sense when w~
study distant galaxies our consciousness is ranging through space
RW. In fact, it has been observed that many people who are no’
mystics but just ordinary people actually experience a sense of ex
panded consciousness by looking out into the heavens and seeinç
this limitless sky, which seems to be not just a symbol but a rea
experience of the expansiveness of space.
Will Ross The Theosophical Glossary defines Akasha in this way
“The subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades at
space; the primordial substance. - . - It is to Ether what Spirit is to
Matter, or Atma to Kama-rupa. It is, in fact, the Universal Space ir
which radiates the First Logos, or expressed thought. This is why it i~
stated in the Puranas that Akasha has but one attribute, namel)
sound, for sound is but the translated symbol of Logos — ‘Speech
in its mystic sense.....
D.K. I should like now to ask how Akasha, according to this defini-
tion, is related to the M-fields?
R.S. If we define Akasha as the space within which all possible
forms and appearances come into being, subjective and objective,
physical and mental, then clearly everything that happens in terms of
form, whether mental or physical, must be within Akasha. There is
nothing that can be outside it, by definition. All physical fields, like the
gravitational and electromagnetic fields, must be within the Akashic
field. Therefore the M-field must be embedded within the Akashic
field.
W.R. I think Akasha might be the total background, but ldon’tthink
it is at all synonymous with a field as commonly understood.
R.S. I was thinking of it as a kind of field of fields. A field is con-
tinuous extension in space, according to modem physics, and as
such fills all space.
D.K. Because Akasha relates to space and the fields are in space,
Will thinks of it as the all-encompassing background, whereas you
think of it as an all-encompassing field.
*R.S. Let me ask Will how he sees the background working. lf the
background is modified by that which is within it, then it has to take on
form, pattern, and differentiation. Now the universal space or back-
ground exists all through the universe, including where I am sitting
right here. Therefore, the presence and form of my body must be
affecting Akasha, and consequently it must undergo a kind of modifi-
cation as a result of my being here.
W.R. I assume that all manifested things undergo modification. This
is the essence of manifestation, isn’t it?
R.S. So insofar as Akasha is manifest, it would undergo modifica-
tion.
W.R. That’s right.
R.S. So you think of it not as an undifferentiated background of
manifestation but rather as something which is included in all mani-
festation.
W.R. Yes, I think modifications take place in something, arid that is
Akasha.
R.S. in that sense we could describe it as a field, because a field is
not a perfectly uniform background. A field is a spatial extension, a
spatial continuum with modifications.
W.R. Of course, I do tend to think along those lines. Really, when
Einstein was looking for a universal field, he was looking for Akasha.
R.S. If we say that Akasha is a kind of fundamental field, a field
which includes all other fields, that would be saying much the same
thing.
D.K. What do you think the role of the M-field is?
R.S. I think the role of the M-field is in the development of formal
patterns of atoms, molecules, crystals, cells, tissues, organisms, and
also patterns of behavior.
RW. This is the part where I think the theory is not clear. I can see
that its function would be developmental, but in this process an
important step is missing: How does the organism arise in the first
place? Once you have the organism, the M-fleld’s role becomes clear.
But the field does not provide the original information for the organ-
ism to know what it is to be, so that it can then feed it back to the field.
The question that keeps coming up over and over is, What is its func-
tion except as a kind of replicator? It is not the originator of the forms.
RS. With reference to the organism, if we take any particular
species, say chickens, there are millions of hens developing this very
minufe all over the world from eggs. The tuning system is the hen’s
egg; it is what the chicks are coming from. The chick comes from the
egg and the egg comes from the hen; both are part of an ongoing
system. Insofar as the M-field is accounting for repetition, the problem
is associated with the first of any specie~. Now the vast majority of
organisms we see around us are of course not the first of their species.
In fact, I doubt if any of us has ever seen the first of a species. So this
theory is able to account for the vast majority of cases of morpho-
genesis.
Now the question of where the first ones come from involves the
appearance of a new field within Akasha. When we ask, What is the
ground of this new field? Where does it come from? there is a wide
range of possibilities. You could say that Akasha itself is the ground of
the new field, give ita creative role. Then it becomes somewhat like
the idea of sunyata, the creative void.
R.W. I think the most theosophical view would be that the form is
within the matter itself, because the matter is always at the same time
conscious and creative. One doesn’t need to add another principle,
because the whole universe is evoMng and expressing itself. So the
first form of any species would arise from within the system itself, and
then feed back and forth perhaps in the way you have suggested.
R.S. To get back to the question of the function of the M-field, once
the first organism of any species has appeared, the function would be
to store the pattern associated with that, and then feed it back and
forth. You could say it becomes like a giant thought form.
W.R. It becomes a feedback system.
R.S. The essential feature of M-flelds is this feedback element. The
reason they differ from the Platonic archetypes, for example, is that
the archetypes are regarded as completely fixed. They have always
been, they always will be. The Platonic archetypes are imperfectly
reflected in the changing forms of the world. It is a one-way relation-
ship, because what happens in the world is a matter of indifference to
the archetypes. One could say thatthe Platonic archetype of a chicken
existed at the moment of the Big Bang twenty billion years ago, and
that it will exist in twenty billion years’ time when it can no longer
perform any service, since chickens will have long since vanished
from the earth.
R.W. There are two things 1 would like to say. First, we are not sure
that Plato used the archetypes in that rigid a way, and second, is there
any real difference between them and what you have described? Let
us say that dinosaur M-f,elds are still with us. How do these differ?
R.S. I would say the dinosaur fields are here and now, but they didn’t
exist before the dinosaurs appeared. The differences between my
model and the usual mechanical description (whose background is
heavily Platonic) is that ordinary conventional science would say that
the first time a new crystalline compound comes into being, the form
is completely determined by the socalled laws of nature, the mathe-
matical formula, and so on. The laws are fixed; they are pre-existing.
What I am saying is that there is a feedback process. This turns out to
be experimentally testable.
R.W. Theosophically, there mustbesomething of the kind,because
otherwise the whole phenomenon of being-in-the-world, of develop-
ment and evolution, would lose its meaning. Time feeds back on the
so-called timeless. It is a multidirectional affair; there is a two-way
mirror.
W.R. It is life which is evolving. The M-fields are concerned with the
forms which that life evolves, a change in the forms which are part of
the living process.
R.W. I suppose from what Rupert is saying that the retrieval system
is connected with the pattern of vibrations and the similarity, almost
like a magnet.
R.S. Yes, a rabbit embryo will tap into the rabbit M-field. But if we
think of Akasha as including a cosmic memory, then the normal laws
of memory and association, etc., would automatically be taken care
of. The normal ways in which we think of memory working are through
things like association, contiguity, or some kind of similarity. If we
smell an odor, it recalls to us circumstances associated with smelling
it before, and if it was a rather unusual experience,just catching a whiff
of that perfume might evoke a whole scene. if we talk of Akasha as a
cosmic memory, then it would be evoked by similarity. if morphic
resonance is an aspect of this, then a rabbit embryo would be rabbit-
like, and an association would bring in the memory of rabbitness,
rabbit form from previous rabbits — all of which would be within the
Akashic record and cosmic memory. The result would come to much
the same thing, but the phenomenon would occur within a very
different framework.
W.R. H. P. Blavatsky says in one of the commentaries on Stanza I in
The Secret Doctrine, “The man strong in yoga can merge his soul
with the Aiaya of the universe.” This is really the memory of the whole
universe and, again, is the description the Buddhists use with regard
to the Buddha just before he achieved Enlightenment
R.W. This brings in the question of time. Don’t you think “the man
strong in yoga” lives in the timeless present where everything is now?
W.R. No, I don’t think so. I think that as long as there is manifesta-
