Some Fairly Spooky, Raise-the-Hairs-on-Your-Neck Capabilities

Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals, by Rupert Sheldrake.  Three Rivers Press, Reprint Edition, 2000.  (Other editions are also available.)  You may check-out this book with your Evergreen Indiana card.  Check the online E.I. catalog.  (Also see my previous blog posting, which, frankly, is funnier, but I'm trying to do some serious readers' advisory here, if you please.)

Slobberdogs may seem pretty dense sometimes, especially to us felines, who do not suffer fools gladly.  But they actually have some pretty cool apparently psychic abilities.  (So do we, of course.  People, too, but not so much.  Well, most folks, anyway.)  Some consider these capacities to be almost spooky, and so we include them in our October SpookFest celebration of all things paranormal and uncanny.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge, served as a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and has published a flotilla of technical papers and books. He also studied natural sciences at Cambridge and philosophy at Harvard. He is a scientist with a solid grounding in philosophical thought. This enables him to think beyond the standard limitations of a single discipline, to place scientific theory in a broader perspective. But make no mistake: Sheldrake is first and foremost a scientist, and he fully adheres to the objective, evidence-driven, scientific method.

This reliance on scientific procedures is evident in his many books about morphic resonance, Sheldrake's theory of the interconnectivity of existence and formative causation, the process by which energy systems organize and meaningfully interact. According to Sheldrake, energy fields exist, which he called morphogenetic fields, which are responsible for the organizing characteristics of systems--in biology, chemistry, and physics--throughout the universe. In particular, this theory explained non-sensory capabilities that psychics and mediums apparently possess, and it also answered mysteries of animal migratory and other so-called "instinctive" behaviors. The morphic fields not only shaped the universe; they also informed its inhabitants, providing a universal source of information, much like the Akashic Records of the Theosophists. Suddenly, one could understand extra-sensory perception (ESP): how nonlocality functioned in physics, how psychics could perform successfully in remote viewing experiments, how intuitive archaeology was possible, how psychokinesis could occur, and much more that parapsychologists and psychical researchers have wrestled with for over 150 years.

Morphogenetic fields, and the ways that organisms (and other matter) resonate with them to organize and acquire information through non-sensory means, could explain a commonly observed experience of which many pet owners have attested--namely, the ability that slobberdogs, cats, and other pets or animals appear to have of knowing when their owners (or other significant humans) are coming home at unexpected, unusual times. Sheldrake constructed a series of scientific experiments testing this alleged ability, which the results validated. He theorized that morphic resonance could explain the animals' conduct.

It is a fascinating theory, and, in addition to Dogs That Know, I recommend Sheldrake's other books on this and related subjects [e.g., Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation (Park Street Press, rev. 3rd ed. 2009); The Sense of Being Stared At and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind (Crown, 2003); The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature (Park Street Press, 1995); The Rebirth of Nature: the Greening of Science and God (Park Street Press, 1994); Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: a Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (Riverhead Books, 1st American ed., 1995). Sheldrake has the writer's gift of communicating complicated scientific ideas so that a layperson may readily understand. He will excite and provoke your thinking, which should always be welcome for any reader.  Even slobberdogs.

I've also blogged about this book before (see my previous posting), and that, too, was a funnier take.  Sometimes, it pays to present a more thoughtful column.  People think you're smart if you act like it.

Another of Sheldrake's books along similar spooky, makes-your-neck-tingle lines as Dogs That Know is The Sense of Being Stared At and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind (Three Rivers Press, 2004 and other editions--see citation above).  This title, too, may be checked-out in Evergreen Indiana.  In this work, Sheldrake considers psychic, non-sensory awareness and discusses his experiments to demonstrate the reality and validity of such phenomena. He explains the existence of such capabilities as being part of normal animal biological development, in which energies, including life, are interconnected throughout the universe.

Don't be scared off by all the scientific terminology.  Sheldrake is a master at explaining things clearly.  Even slobberdogs can understand it.  Even Scowl-Face, to move further down the evolutionary ladder.  So you should have no trouble following along with Sheldrake's analysis.

I'm Staring At You Right Now, With What Tober Calls the "Stink Eye,"

Cauli Le Chat

MPL  Roving Reporter

Paranormal News Beat

P.S.  "Doctor My Eyes," by Jackson Browne, was the first single from his self-titled debut album (1972), which is also known as Saturate Before Using because of the words written above his appliqué portrait.  The album cover design was supposed to mimic a water bag.