TEDxWhitechapel Talks

The Science Delusion: Rupert Sheldrake at

The science delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality, in principle. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. The impressive achievements of science seemed to support this confident attitude. But recent research has revealed unexpected problems at the heart of physics, cosmology, biology, medicine and psychology. Dr Rupert Sheldrake shows how the sciences are being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. Should science be a belief-system, or a realm of enquiry? Sheldrake argues that science would be better off without its dogmas: freer, more interesting and more fun.

Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and 10 books, including The Science Delusion. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, a Research Fellow of the Royal Society, Principal Plant Physiologist at ICRISAT (the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) in Hyderabad, India, and from 2005-2010 the Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project, funded from Trinity College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California, and a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut. His website is www.sheldrake.org.

The War on Consciousness: Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock tells the story of his 24-year relationship with cannabis brought to an abrupt halt in 2011 after an encounter with Ayahuasca, the sacred visionary brew of the Amazon. Along the way he explores the mystery of death, the problem of consciousness, and the implications for the human future of a society that wages total war on true cognitive liberty.
Graham Hancock is the author of The Sign and the Seal, Fingerprints of the Gods, Keeper of Genesis, Heaven's Mirror, Supernatural and other bestselling investigations of historical mysteries.

His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages and have sold over five million copies worldwide. His public lectures and broadcasts, including two major TV series, Quest for the Lost Civilization, and Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, have further established his reputation as an unconventional thinker who raises controversial questions about humanity's past. Hancock's first venture into fiction, Entangled, was published in 2010 and his second novel, War God, on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, will be published on 30 May 2013. Hancock maintains an active Facebook presence: http://www.facebook.com/Author.Graham.... His website is: http://www.grahamhancock.com.

Trialogues: McKenna, Sheldrake, Abraham

Trialogues are from a series of lively, far-reaching discussions between Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna, that took place between 1989 and 1998, in America and England. These Mp3’s are generously hosted by Rupert on Sheldrake.org

These three-way conversations began in private after their first meeting in 1982. Encouraged by their similar fascinations and complimentary views, and inspired by the synergy of their ideas and styles and the input of differing areas of expertise, the three friends continued to meet and explore new areas of thought. Throughout their public trialogues, which began in 1989, they maintained the spontaneous, playful and intrepid spirit of their private talks, and were thrilled that these explorations inspired further discussions amongst their audiences. Their trialogues and friendship have been a source of great inspiration and stimulation for their own lives and work.

In their first set of public trialogues, held as a workshop at Esalen in 1989, they explored aspects of the world soul from the perspectives of chaos, creativity and imagination, and discussed many topics including: light and vision; the psilocybin mushroom; the unconscious; entities; the resacralization of the world; the reform of the educational system and the Apocalypse.

Their second series of trialogues examined evolution in all its forms, through new topics that included: grassroots science; psychedelics, computers and mathematics; psychic animals; the World Wide Web; celestial intelligences; the nature of time and the evolving mind.

Edited transcripts of many of their first series of trialogues are published in the book Trialogues at the Edge of the West (later published as Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness), and many of those from their second series can be found in The Evolutionary Mind.

Terence McKenna was an ethnopharmacologist, shamanologist, and author, known for his theories on plant hallucinogens and the novelty wave, and the bardic skill with which he conveyed his ideas. Sadly Terence died aged 53 on April 3, 2000.

Ralph Abraham, PhD, is a Professor of Mathematics, author, and pioneer in the fields of Chaos theory, computer graphics, visual mathematics and dynamical systems.

Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, one of the world’s most innovative biologists and writers, is best known for his theory of morphic fields and morphic resonance.


1. Cast of Characters
An introduction to the first series of public trialogues held at Esalen, California in 1989.

2. The Evolutionary Mind
What could have been the cause for the breakthrough in the evolution of human consciousness around 50,000 years ago?

3.. Consciousness and Machines
A discussion on the evolution of consciousness as it relates to machines. Symbolic logic, nanotechnology and the possibility of a synthetic super-intelligence.

4. History, Fractals and Change
The fractal idea of history, and millenia as the plateaus of history. These bifurcation periods as opportunities to influence the creation of the future.

5. Creativity and the Imagination
The crisis in science: collision between the permanent and evolutionary views of the nature of reality. A wide-ranging discussion in two parts.

6. Creativity and Chaos
The chaos revolution, chaotic attractors and indeterminism in nature. A comprehensive discussion in two parts.

7. Chaos and the Imagination
How can chaos theory and full access to the imagination aid us in our understanding of the world and in the creation of our future? A discussion in 2 parts.

8 Light and Vision
How is our own vision related to light, and how is the perception of the world soul related to light? A discussion in 2 parts.

9 Entities
Are disincarnate and non-human entities mental projections or non-physical, autonomous entities? How do they relate to the world soul and how can we interpret their messages? A discussion in 2 parts.

10 The Unconscious
What is the nature of the unconscious, and how can we access its restorative powers? A discussion in 2 parts.

11 The Resacrilisation of the World
In what ways can we bring the sacred back into the world? A discussion in 2 parts.

12 Education in the New World Order
How could the educational system be reformed and resacralized? A discussion in 2 parts

13 The Apocalypse
This investigation into apocalyptic messages starts with the question of whether they are self-fulfilling prophecies or intuitions of instability.
A discussion in 2 parts.

14 Grass Roots Science
The trialoguers discuss the need for a new grassroots model of science.
A discussion in 2 parts.

15 Saving the World
The trialoguers address the problem of over-population and resource depletion.
A discussion in 2 parts.

16. Gender Issues
Exploring gender issues and ways to heal society.
A discussion in 2 parts.

17. Cannabis
The trialoguers discuss cannabis and its potential as a tool for cultural evolution.
A discussion in 2 parts.

18. Crop Circles
An in-depth investigation into the mystery of crop circles.
A discussion in 2 parts.

19. Psychedelics and the Computer Revolution
The cultural impact of psychedelics and the computer revolution.
A discussion in 2 parts

20 Fields, Brains and Chaos
Rupert and Ralph explore fields and the memory process
A discussion in 2 parts

21A Report on Crop Circles
Further explorations into the crop circle mystery.

22. Psychedelics and Mathematical Vision
Exploring the connection between mathematical vision and the psychedelic experience. (2 parts).

23. The Immediate Future and the Millennium
How can society be reconstructed and improved? (2 parts).

24. The Heavens
Rediscovering a sense of the life of nature and of the heavens. (2 parts).

25 Utopianism and Millenarianism
The ongoing cultural impact of utopianism and millenarianism. (2 parts).

26 Hazelwood Introductions
The three friends describe each others’ lives and work.

27 Homing Pigeons
Homing pigeons and the extraordinary implications of unexplained biological mysteries. (2 parts).

28 Time
New ways of understanding the nature of time. (2 parts).

29 Fractals
How fractal models can enhance our understanding of the world. (2 parts).

30 Angels, Entities and the Heavens
Recovering the links between heavenly states and the physical heavens.

31 Hawaii
In Hawaii, the trialoguers explore what Hawaii can teach us about evolution. (2 parts).

32 The World Wide Web
A trialogue from 1994 on the transformative potential of the World Wide Web (2 parts).

33 Scepticism and the Balkanization of Epistemology
A trialogue on finding the middle ground between unanchored speculation and dogmatic skepticism (2 parts).

34 Morphogenetic Family Fields
An investigation into telepathic bonds within social groups and the nature of the fields that may underlie these connections (2 parts).

www.EROCx1.com

2012 Message of Hope: Global Meditation

We are arranging a monthly world meditation, visualization and prayer across the whole wide world to heal ourselves and the planet and lift the consciousness of every being. Join us in global meditation! You can meditate on the first Sunday or at the New Moon in every month, or both. We do this because the NEW MOON is an unbiased celestial event strongly linked to our psyche happening at the same global time all over the planet, unlike the calendar event that is bound to the western calendar. But now you can choose.

There is no time left to be complacent. The world is changing now. Not tomorrow. Be part of the change for good. The love. Not the fear. Let go your attachment to the old world and embrace the new.

Learn to meditate for free! Ten day course: www.dhamma.org/

The most important thing is that everyone is aware of the day being a World Meditation Day with people meditating all around the world at this day. Be it at the same global time, or different times during the 24 hour period. If you don’t sit in meditation you can spend the time sending love and positive feelings to your surroundings.

DATE 1: First Sunday of every month.

Anytime during the Sunday will be fine, but the core time is 7 – 8 in the evening, local time.

DATE 2: New Moon of every month.

Anytime during the New Moon day will be fine, but the core hour STARTS at the New Moon global time.

Use the New Moon calendar to find the next new moon or look at the list to the right.

Use the timezone converter to find your local time.

PLACE: Your home, a church, a mosque, a classroom, outside, wherever you are.

WITH: Your group, your self, friends, family, collegues, anyone.

HOW: Anyway you want. Check out our meditation page for a guided audio meditation, and links for how to meditate and different approaches to this.

Join the Choice Point Facebook community

Dr Rupert Sheldrake - Paranormal Science

From Chris Brauer Media Project
Paranormal Science

You can tell by the way he theatrically rolls up his sleeves when finished the lecture and ready for questions. He secretly loves the controversy.

Two men in crumpled jackets settle deep in their chairs in the third row and can be overheard: "we've come to refute him". A young couple playfully join in the fun near the back: "Am I staring at you? ... Yes? ... No? ... Am I staring at you? ... Yes? ... No?"

Enter the world of Morphic Resonance -- the theory that all species draw upon a collective memory -- and you enter the world of Dr Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist with a bulging academic resume and one of the world's most influential paranormal researchers.

The basic theory follows up on Carl Jung's notion of a collective unconscious, but extends it beyond humans to all living matter. Dr Sheldrake believes that memory is inherent in nature and that the brain emits morphic fields of mental activity, not unlike the way magnetic or gravitational fields extend out from the surface of objects. The fields of our minds extend out from our brains and we are in constant contact with the sum of all this activity, we simply don't often recognize it.

Through morphic resonance, the patterns of activity in self-organizing systems are influenced by similar patterns in the past, giving each species and each kind of self-organizing system a collective memory. This memory manifests itself in habits, not laws which are inherently human, and a natural selection of habits occurs over time resulting in not just biological but social, cultural, mental and cosmic evolution.

Dr Sheldrake's rigorous intellectual defense of these theories, most recently in a convened session at Goldsmiths College, University of London as part of the Whitehead Lectures on Cognition, Computation and Creativity, makes it more difficult to dismiss than traditional paranormal fare. Tune into his debate with Professor Lewis Wolpert at the Royal Society of the Arts in 2004 for a sample and see if you'd like to go head-to-head with the Harvard/Cambridge scholar.

But a lot of resistance remains to the metaphysical, not traditionally scientific, grounding of Morphic Resonance. Probably the most famous scientific application has been Dr Sheldrake's studies of people being stared at and how we are aware of this phenomena without traditional sensory input.

He finishes his Whitehead lecture giving a robust history of western thought from the greeks to present. His description of global scientific/philosophical history is engaging and descriptive. The world is in the midst of a huge clash between the "two tectonic plates" of understanding, those who see the world as always changing and those who see it as always staying the same. "Every government in the world" has followed on Thomas Hobbes and self-interested cooperation. A few hands dart up and others are more slowly raised from the audience of assembled academics.

"So you obviously don't believe in life on other planets or surely we would know all they know through morphic resonance and would therefore have nothing to learn?"

"Very good question." ... Rupert Sheldrake takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves ...

Dr Rupert Sheldrake website