@rupertsheldrake and I led a Rogation Sunday Pilgrimage yesterday on Hampstead Heath to beat the bounds of the Home Stead as part of this 1500-yr-old tradition, starting at St John’s Parish church with a Rogation service, with music like ‘for the beauty of the earth’ and ‘all things bright and beautiful’, then the mystic Evelyn underhill’s grave and john constable and Harrison the clockmaker, then st Mary’s Roman Catholic Church (I sang a 12th century old English Mary song), then Fenton house, Quaker meeting house (Enya’s How can i keep from singing?), Christ church, vale of health, springetts wood (I sang the title track of this video, Linden Lea, as it’s an orchard), then picnic lunch by the sphagnum bog on Kenwood fields, then the boundary oak and the boundary stones between the ancient parishes of Hampstead and St Pancras, boudicea’s mound, then the boundary along parliament hill before arriving at Gospel Oak church where an old oak must have stood marking the boundary.
It was a joy to be joined by such warm pilgrims, including a leading light of reimagining religiosity for the modern age, @nickcaveofficial among other good people who see something in reviving these ancient traditions.
Simultaneously across Britain, roughly 25 church communities were also celebrating rogation by walking out of their church into the land to ask for blessing on their crops and fields and visiting their local holy places like trees, stones and springs, before having a community feast, funded by @pilgrimtrust
Author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake and our host Dr. Rob Williams dive deep into the subject of evolutionary habits that drive nature and even our own mental activities. #morphicfield #quantumphysics #consciousness #developmentalbiology
Jill’s Upcoming Workshops
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May 16–17: Online Healing Voice
June 19–21: Online Family Constellations
July 24–29: In-Person Family Constellations, Canada
Nov 23–29: In-Person Family Constellations, London
At the "How The Light Gets In" festival of philosophy in London, I took part in a debate called “Mysticism vs Modernity” with the transhumanist philosopher David Pearce and the philosopher Naomi Goulder, chaired by Jay Shapiro. It is now available for free viewing online on the @instituteofartandideas TV platform via the link in my bio.
This is how the organisers described it: “Although there has been a widespread European decline in church attendance, religious belief has not been eradicated and recent surveys show young Westerners are more drawn to mysticism and spirituality than their grandparents. Furthermore critics argue that belief in science and progress itself displays a mystical faith in the power of reason. Should we conclude that we all have to worship somebody or something, whether it be gods, leaders or principles? Will the future be one where we see a return to an open acceptance of mysticism and spirituality? Or is there time yet for reason and science to put an end to religious belief?"
Some breastfeeding mothers report experiencing milk let-down while away from their baby, which later discovered coincided with their baby showing signs of hunger or waking at the same time – despite no sensory contact (no seeing, hearing or routine cues).
We want to hear from you!
This has been described as a kind of non-local connection – the mothers body seem to respond to the baby’s needs at a distance.
We are studying the powerful emotional bond—and possible telepathy—between mothers and their babies.
✅ Who: Currently breastfeeding mothers.
✅ What: A simple experiment that works alongside your daily routines (payment included).
✅ How: Email [email protected] to join.
I’m currently looking for teachers or lecturers who might be interested in collaborating on some very simple attention experiments with their students.
I am exploring Scopaesthesia (the sense of being stared at) and joint attention (whether people can detect when someone else is attending to the same object without using ordinary sensory cues). Both can be tested very easily in pairs, either with a simple app I’ve developed or with printed randomised instructions.
These tests can work well as a short classroom activity or as part of an extra credit project, and they offer students a chance to take part in hands-on research related to psychology and cognitive science. I’m particularly interested in whether people perform above chance, whether their sensitivity can improve with practice, and whether some individuals show a special aptitude.
If this is something you might be open to exploring with your students, please get in touch with my research assistant Georgia Black at [email protected]
Most healing work asks what the past has done to us. Jill's constellation work raises a complementary question: what do the dead still need from the living? In her workshops, something can appear to complete itself not just in the participants but in the ancestors themselves, as though the unfinished is finished, on both sides of the divide. This is not a metaphor; people often report it as a felt reality.
April 25 – May 1: In-Person, London Week
June 19-21: Online Weekend
July 24-29: In-Person, Hollyhock Canada 5 Day
HealingVoice.com
#Ancestors #AncestralWisdom #AncestralHealing #HonoringTheAncestors #SacredTraditions #SpiritualWisdom #familyconstellations
One of the foundational assumptions of mainstream neuroscience is that memories are stored in the brain as material traces, physical structures that encode our past experiences. It seems obvious. And yet, after more than a century of searching, no one has actually found one.
The logical problem runs even deeper. Any retrieval system capable of finding a stored memory would itself need to recognise what it's looking for, which means it would need its own memory. And that memory would need its own retrieval system. This regress has no bottom. Philosophers call it the homunculus problem, and it remains unsolved.
In episode 9 of my Dispelling the Dogmas of Science masterclass, I examine the evidence from Pavlov's dogs to Lashley's rats to the remarkable case of moths that retain learned behaviours after their entire nervous system has dissolved during pupation, and ask whether the question "where are memories stored?" is even the right question to be asking.
This is episode 9 of a 12-part series I'm sharing as a bonus for supporters on Substack and to Members on YouTube at the Supporter level or higher. I'll publish the remaining episodes over the next few months.
LINKS IN BIO
—Spring Festivals and Easter— In many cultures there are festivals around the time of the March equinox. In some cases, as in Northern Europe and Iran, with the Nowruz festival, they are associated with themes of new life as the growing season begins. In others, as in India, they are associated with the harvest of crops that have grown through the winter season.
The God who revealed himself to Moses and who guided the Jewish people on their journey through wilderness to the Promised Land was a desert god. But his character changed after the people settled in Palestine, and Yahweh took over the role and functions of the indigenous vegetation gods. The agricultural festivals were reinterpreted in terms of Jewish history. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel put it,
... continue reading on my Substack, link in bio Linktree
/p/spring-festivals-and-easter
Many mothers describe moments where they seem to sense when their baby needs them, even when they are apart and no obvious sensory cues are present.
These experiences raise interesting questions about the connection between mothers and babies, which might be suggestive of telepathy. Research into telepathy has often suggested that it occurs most strongly between individuals who share a close emotional bond, and the mother–baby relationship is among the closest of all.
As part of ongoing research into possible mother–baby telepathy, we are inviting breastfeeding mothers to take part in a simple study. In particular, we are interested in mothers who have noticed unexpected milk let-down while away from their baby, and later discovered that their baby became hungry or distressed at the same time. We are also interested in mothers who have experienced milk let-down shortly before their baby wakes, without hearing the baby or following a predictable feeding routine.
The study involves being away from your baby for short periods of time that fit within your normal schedule, and noting the timing of any let-down sensations. During this period, your baby would be with their usual caregiver, and we would compare the timing of any let-down sensations with your baby’s hunger cues or waking.
Participants will receive a payment for taking part. If you are interested in taking part and:
• are currently breastfeeding,
• have experienced unexpected milk let-down while separated from your baby,
• and have noticed that these let-downs coincide with your baby waking or showing hunger cues…
Please email my research assistant Georgia Black at [email protected] for further information.
I suggest that minds are not confined to the insides of heads. I think they extend beyond brains in at least seven different ways. I start with the obvious and undeniable extension of minds through culture.
1. Culture
All cultures and languages, all arts, all technology, all science, all buildings and furniture, all cities, all temples and churches, all tools and machines, all clothes and all meals are in minds before they become objective, external realities. Books, smartphones, social media, the buildings around us, gardens and the landscape shaped by farming are all products of minds and extensions of minds, and in turn affect our minds. Our minds dwell in a cultural world which is an externalisation of many minds, within which we all exist like fish in the sea. This is all so obvious we usually take it for granted.
We are not the only animals that modify the world around us through our minds, or in a mindlike way. Beavers build dams, weaverbirds nests, termite colonies mounds and spiders webs. But we do it on the largest possible scale. Our minds affect all life on Earth.
2. In bodies
Our minds extend throughout our bodies.
Materialists assume that all our experiences are inside our brains; they think that if you feel a pain in your big toe, the pain is not really in your big toe but in your brain, which produces a sensation of pain which is, in some mysterious way, “referred” to the toe.
By contrast, I am suggesting ...
... continue reading on substack, link in bio
/pub/rupertsheldrake/p/seven-ways-in-which-minds-extend
My wife Jill Purce's family constellation work shows that the morphic field is not an abstraction, but something that can be directly experienced. In her workshops, people tune into family members they have never met, and lives can change as a result.
See her website for details about upcoming Family Constellations workshops:
• April 25 – May 1: In-Person, London Week
• June 19-21: Online Weekend
• July 24-29: In-Person, Hollyhock Canada 5 Day
#Ancestors #AncestralWisdom #AncestralHealing #HonoringTheAncestors #SacredTraditions #SpiritualWisdom #familyconstellations
