Editing Rupert Sheldrake (section)

==Origin and philosophy of morphic resonance==
Among his early influences Sheldrake cites ''[[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]]'' (1962) by [[Thomas Kuhn]]. He has said the book led him to view contemporary scientific understanding of life as simply a [[paradigm]], which he called "the mechanistic theory of life." Reading Kuhn's work, Sheldrake says, focused his mind on how scientific paradigms can change.<ref name=bio2/>

Sheldrake says that although there are similarities between morphic resonance and Hinduism's [[akashic records]],<ref name=Leviton/> he first conceived of the idea while at Cambridge, before his travel to India, where he later developed it. He attributes the origin of his idea to two influences: his studies of the [[holistic]] tradition in biology, and French philosopher [[Henri Bergson]]'s 1896 book ''[[Matter and Memory]]''. He says he took Bergson's concept of memories not being materially embedded in the brain and generalised it to morphic resonance, where memories are not only immaterial but also under the influence of the collective memories of similar organisms. While his colleagues at Cambridge were not receptive to the idea, Sheldrake found the opposite to be true in India. He recounts his Indian colleagues saying, "There's nothing new in this, it was all known millennia ago to the ancient [[rishis]]." Sheldrake thus characterises morphic resonance as a convergence between Western and [[Eastern world|Eastern]] thought, yet found by himself first in Western philosophy.<ref name=presencepast/><ref>{{cite journal |last=Ebert |first=John David |title=From Cellular Aging to the Physics of Angels: A Conversation with Rupert Sheldrake |journal=The Quest |date=Spring 1998 |url=http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/interviews/Quest.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131022014635/http://www.sheldrake.org/D%26C/interviews/Quest.html |archive-date=22 October 2013 }}</ref>

Sheldrake has also noted similarities between morphic resonance and [[Carl Jung]]'s [[collective unconscious]], with regard to collective memories being shared across individuals and the coalescing of particular behaviours through repetition, which Jung called [[Jungian archetypes|archetypes]].<ref name=presencepast/> But whereas Jung assumed that archetypal forms were transmitted through physical inheritance, Sheldrake attributes collective memories to morphic resonance, and rejects any explanation of them involving what he terms "mechanistic biology."

[[Lewis Wolpert]], one of Sheldrake's critics, has described morphic resonance as an updated [[Hans Driesch|Drieschian]] [[vitalism]].<ref name="Wolpert 1984"/><ref>{{cite news|last=Cape|first=Jonathan|title=The believer and the sceptic|date=18 June 1986|page=11|work=The Guardian}}</ref>