Tag: Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock are iconoclasts–figures who dare to speak the radical truth that our culture is most afraid of hearing. They push back against the belief that all the life, intelligence and heart in our world is an illusion created by random chemical interactions. Their views open us to considering the possibility that the magic in our world might be one we subtly engage with instinctively everyday without ever consciously recognizing. They call us toward an obvious natural truth and a simple vision of meaning–that there is a purposeful mystery to the world.

Rupert Sheldrake: Now that science and technology seem to be at the peak of the power, when their influence has spread all over the world and when their triumph seems indisputable, unexpected problems are disrupting the sciences from within. Most scientists take it for granted that these problems will eventually be solved by more research along established lines, but some, including myself, think that they are symptoms of a deeper malaise. Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical. There is no reality but material reality. Consciousness is a by-product of the physical activity of the brain. Matter is unconscious. Evolution is purposeless. God exists only as an idea in human minds, and hence in human heads. These beliefs are powerful not because most scientists think about them critically, but because they don’t. The facts of science are real enough, and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith. The biggest scientific delusion of all is that science already knows the answers. The details still need working out, but the fundamental questions are settled, in principle.