Morphic Field

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The term "morphic fields" or "morphogenetic fields" was coined by the biologist Rupert Sheldrake. In A New Science of Life (1981) Sheldrake presents his Hypothesis of Forming Causation or Morphic Resonance, which postulates the existence of so-called morphogenetic fields which influence the development of form in nature.

The biologist Adolf Portmann also expressed basically similar ideas on shape formation in plants and animals . And there are similarities to the anthroposophical idea of a shape-forming formative forces body or etheric body of all organisms and to certain views of Goethean Science. Ultimately, the concept stands in the tradition of Vitalism, but expands it to a much more comprehensive regularity and places the emphasis not on energy but on formation in the sence of an informational field, which in many respects has a greater explanatory value.

Since the first proposal in 1981, Sheldrake's hypothesis has undergone various extensions. For example, morphogenetic fields should not only extend to forms, but to the “laws” of nature themselves, which thus become "habits of nature". With the morphogenetic fields Sheldrake gives an extended meaning to a term from developmental biology coined in the 1920s. Following on from the morphogenetic fields, Sheldrake investigated the extrasensory abilities of humans and animals.

Sheldrake's model of morphogenetic fields' has found a very broad acceptance in philosophically open-minded circles, especially in the 90s in the so-called New Age movement, and has since served – also independently and outside the scientific version presented by himself – as a popular explanatory model for many connections between spirit and nature.