The two authors, a noted Episcopal theologian and a respected biologist, stage a type of friendly written "debate" about angels that is really enlightening and easy to read for clergy, scientists or laity. They successfuly use the writings of three of the world's experts on angels--including St. Thomas Aquinas--to probe and test theories of angels using modern cosmology and physics. Most of their thoughts are truly provocative, profound insights into the nature of the universe, including fascinating ideas about angels as types of hierarchical celestial intelligences with dominion over solar systems and galaxies. My one suggestion for a future collaboration of these two gifted thinkers would be a similar extrapolation of the use of physics and modern cosmology to perhaps understand miracles in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the metaphysics of faith, but also to anyone interested in a new paradigm shift in the conjunction of science and faith.

If you, like me, believe that angels exist but are sick to death of mass-market New Age pablum books on angels, this book is for you. A highly respected theologian (Fox) and an equally respected biologist (Sheldrake) talk about science, nature, and angels, both the good and the bad. I think even an agnostic or skeptic would enjoy this book.

I THINK, THAT THE CONTENT OF THIS BOOK IS VERY HIGH QUALITY, AND I SEND PERSONALLY MY BEST REGARDS TO MR, RUPERT SHELDRAKE AND MR. MATHEW FOX AND I HOPE THEY WRITE MORE ABOUT IT

THANK YOU PEDRO MANUEL DE MELO MARQUES GOMES

"The Evolutionary Mind" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

A Physicist & A Theologin discuss the realms where Science meets Spirit. Fox brings a truly awakened sense of the mystical back into religious understanding and Sheldrake gives the physics behind the 'Sacred universe' & his theories of Morphic Resonance help the modern-scientific listener to reclaim some of the 'sacredness' of nature, mattter & space.

Sheldrake's hypothesis, if correct, would be one of the great scientific discoveries of all time. When I first picked up the book, though I wasn't exactly expecting the author to be a crank, I _was_ expecting him to be a sort of fringe scientist with a very poetic approach to nature.

These expectations were incorrect in two different ways:

1. Sheldrake obviously has an excellent mastery of mainstream science. He is vastly read in the scientific literature and offers plenty of empirical justification for his unorthodox theory. Furthermore, as a professor of philosophy myself, I am deeply impressed by Sheldrake's grasp of key issues of ancient and modern philosophy, which he explains without any trace of either amateurism or pomposity. I do find that the philosophical aspects of the book need to be fleshed out a bit, but Sheldrake's aim seems to have been less systematic than that. Given the swashbuckling nature of his scientific hypotheses, I am a bit surprised at his frequent dismissal of a "metaphysical" approach to the problem of form, especially as he is admittedly unable to tell us much about the _physical_ character of a field. But I don't want to nitpick his philosophy too much, because it is refreshingly broad and deep for a scientist.

2. A more serious problem concerns the disappointingly dry writing style. The book is slow going; the author's prose is anything but glittering. I don't see that this is merely a matter of ornament, either. Darwin, Freud, Lavoisier, and Galileo all wrote irresistibly readable scientific work, and it is my experience that the readability and clarity of these authors has less to do with accidental poetic gifts than with a truly lucid grasp of the inner life of their subject matter. Put differently, even if Sheldrake's theories "turn out to be true", it is unlikely that this book would go down in history as a classic, as its theories are developed with a bit too much vagueness.

There are some books of such obvious world-shaking importance that your reader's adrenaline keeps you awake. This book is not quite one of them. But if you read it, you will find yourself transported into a very different world for hours at a time. It is intellectually liberating, though I think Sheldrake is more of an interesting precursor than a coming scientific Moses.

I strongly recommend mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose and his book "The Emperor's New Mind" for a completely different approach to the conclusion that Mind, at least human sapience, is non-mechanistic in nature, and that current science does not have the facts or theory to explain consciousness at this point in time. He feels, and builds a very strong case for the idea, that quantum physics plays a role in the operation of the brain. I suspect that quantum physics will play an increasing role in the exploration of morphic resonance as well, and that we discover DNA-controlled processes are affected by quantum mechanics.

Penrose's book is interesting in that he does not have a bit of "New Age" orientation about him, yet he comes to some very similar conclusions about the operation of Mind that Sheldrake finds with the processes of Life.

I feel the two books should be read in tandem.

Sheldrake is adept at drawing theoretical correlations between various realms of science and life itself in a manner that simultaneously alienates both the poet and the scientist. How can you not love that?

Dealing with those thoughts that transcend modern language and modern scientific methodology will appeal to those readers who really want to gravitate to the cutting edge and not miss a beat.

Anything by Sheldrake is worth the price of admission into a world usually not discussed but often experienced.

Stay curious, be patient, and peer into this man's mind. He is willing to venture into those most curious areas of thought and does so with authority and humor.

Alot of "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home" reads as if the author did not speak and write English as a first language. Alot of this book reads like a medical journal. That being said, alot of this book will astound and delight anyone who has even a slight fondness for animals...not just dogs, mind you, but all animals.

Most of the stories in the book are about dogs, but as a cat owner and lover, I was pleased to find enough anecdotes about felines who knew the exact time when their owners were going to come home, who knew the person on the other end of a telephone and who knew that their owners were in some kind of grave physical or emotional trouble. There are pets in this book who, we are told, knew that a human diabetic or epileptic fit was on the horizon and we even read of pets who could sniff out cancerous lesions. There are tales of horses, fish, termites, monkeys and more with telepathic powers.

Pet owners from all over the world were obviously eager to relate their stories to Rupert Sheldrake, even those whose stories are terribly sad in the extreme: animals who, through their own mysterious telepathy, knew of the deaths of people close to them or even of the owners, themselves, who knew, from very far distances, that their pets were in harm's way.

True, some of the stories are weird enough to have been written by the folks living on Planet Xerbo, but enough are them are stimulating and just shocking enough to make believers of us all.

First let me say, parts of the book are rather dry. Perhaps that's the scientist doing his best to provide adequate proof. I found myself wanting to say, come on already... I accept your arguent, give me some more stories.

With that said, I did enjoy the book and find Sheldrake's proof more than adequate. Many animals are sensitive in ways we don't understand.

There was a story, from the book, of someone who was going to commit suicide by overdose. When they went to open the bottle, their springer spaniel jumped in their lap, bearing it's teeth and growling fiercly. The person was so shaken that they put the pills away, at which point, the springer jumped back in the lap and happily lapped at their owners face.

I knew of a young girl who was walking home, down a deserted street, when a sedan approached with a man demanding that she get in the car. She began to walk faster... the car sped up... the demands became angrier... The car stopped, and a man got out and came towards her... She said the only preyer she could think of at the time. "God, please help me." Suddenly two dogs appeared and began barking at the man. Shaken, but not disuaded, he reached for the girl, and a beagle juped up and bit his wrist. That was enough, the man got back into the car and it sped off.

It has been over 6 years since that incident and the girl still goes to the farmhouse near where this happened to visit Molly and Dolly.

By the way, that was not their names when all of this happened... You see, no one had ever seen these two dogs before... before that fateful night when a young girls prayer was answered... by two dogs who appeared from nowhere.

This story was related by Paul Harvey on his program *The Rest of the Story* December 8, 1999

Have you ever found yourself staring at someone and they turn and look directly at you. How do they do that? How do pigeons find their way home from hundreds of miles away? How do some dogs react when their owner merely has the thought of coming home?

Good questions.

This book doesn't provide all the answers, but it establishes the reality which is a significant step.

Sheldrake has spent a lifetime studying animals but looks outside the box of conventional wisdom in this engaging book about family pets. He suggests that the animals we know best, the cats and dogs who live in our homes, can teach us the most. He looks closely at several categories of oft-reported -but sometimes disregarded- types of animal behavior: predicting when their owners will return home, empathy, telepathy, sense of direction, and premonitions. Using replicable and rigorous experimental methods he demonstrates that something indeed is going on here, something they can not be easily described by conventional explanations. Sheldrake posits psychic connections that he calls "morphic bonds" exist among some creatures, including bees in a hive and schools of fish, and may well exist between some animals and the humans closest to them. Sheldrake clearly explains that such bonds do not occur among all pets or even among the same pets in all situations, but they definitely do seem to exist.

This is a fun book for animal-lovers, full of engaging anecdotes about dogs, cats, horses, and birds who enjoy strong emotional bonds with their owners that allow them to accomplish seemingly-unbelievable feats. But it is also an eye-opening book, for Sheldrake has applied some scientific techniques to both debunk fraudulent claims and to confirm those that have no conventional explanation. His "morphic bonds" are persuasive, especially to those who have lived closely with animals and observed their behavior in close quarters.

For those new to the works of Sheldrake, this could be the perfect buy.

Yes, it's a repackaged version of what the authorities would consider "Old School." So if you want a book with a cool title, cool cover, and probably one of the more digestible texts of Sheldrake's ideas, (and you don't have any Sheldrake on your shelf) then this would work.

As for complaints by Sheldrake fanatics, hey, at least this is getting those marvelous ideas by McKenna and Sheldrake out to newer and newer audiences!

I read this book while on jury duty. Because I ran out of reading materials, I went back over it and decided to write down some of my favorite quotes. Here is one example, by Ralph Abraham. "I find the whole idea that the world's soul is confined in a space/time continuum of four or ten dimensions extremely claustrophobic." So, you all get the idea. This was not a book to summarize, so I kept writing down quotes and buzz words. What gave me a lot of chuckles were the interspersed references to psychedelic drugs and various qualities of mushrooms, and the use of mushroom examples and so forth. I don't know much about mushrooms, but it helps date these guys, even while they are talking about ten dimensions being claustrophobic. I will say this-- they must have had some good trips.

I don't pretend to understand a lot of their references, mushrooms aside, but it is an easy book to read as long as one doesn't feel the need to follow up every lead and reference. Their approaches seem to be kind of cutting edge, but dated, if there is such a combination. I am particularly interested in Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, which is what led me to the book. My attention span tends to be a little short, so I wanted a kind of breezy overview. Although I enjoyed the book a lot, I don't think I got much out of the morphic fields discussion. So I will look elsewhere for that.

I lent this book to my daughter, who is enthralled by it, particularly since she just took a bunch of final exams, some having to do with statistics and econometrics, so their discussions of modeling were most interesting to her.

And who wouldn't go for the idea of creativity coming out of chaos? Aren't our lives in chaos most of the time anyway? There must be a purpose for it. That's it. I get more creative after every chaotic event!! The discussions about beginnings, endings, various attractors, etc. were really fun to read. Not sure which ones came from their imaginitive minds (resulting from chaos), or their super intelligent brains, and which ones were from the mushrooms.

Oh, here's another Abraham quote I absolutely loved. "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed. There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there's a reflected wave back."

Ok, that was cool!! All things considered, if you have some extra time (either on the beach, or on jury duty) read this book. They weaved in references from all aspects of experience-- mythology, mushrooms, science, waves, psychology, philosophy, history, etc. I love that!! I consider a book a success for me if I get one good idea from it. And I got more than that from this one, although I am not any more inclined to take psychedelics than I was prior to reading the book.

This is a gripping series of conversations between the three authors discussing various aspects of the psyche, the universe, the role of chaos theory in the dynamics of creation and the rediscovery of ancient wisdom. The authors, all three of whom stood at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines, challenge the reader about our current views of reality, morality and the nature of life. The sometimes breathtaking insights emerging from this will not fail to move the reader. The chapters on creativity, the imagination and chaos are amongst the most compelling, and deal with theories like the cosmic imagination as a higher dimensional magnet that pulls the evolutionary process to itself, the Omega Point, and imagination arising out of the womb of chaos. Other fascinating topics include indeterminism in nature, nature's organising fields as mathematical representations, and the encoding of information in crystals and in written language. The chapter "Light and Vision" is one of the most poetic, dealing as it does with physical light and the light of consciousness, the theory that one's thoughts are a measurable field emanating from the eyes, the similarities between electromagnetic and mental fields, the concept of a world soul, and morphogenetic fields as a medium of divine omniscience. Incorporeal intelligence and non-human entities are discussed - are the latter merely inhabitants of the psyche or do they have an independent existence? Scientists and inventors like Kekule, who received answers in dreams, are referenced here. The book concludes with a glossary, bibliography and biographical information about the authors. It is a stimulating text in which the power of the mythical imagination, scientific observation and innovative speculation combine to create a thought-provoking reading experience.

This book is a dialog between the defrocked Catholic Matthew Fox and scienctist(of morphic resonance fame) Rupert Sheldrake. In it they discuss both science, religion and spirituality(mostly Echart and Hildegard) and how they intersect at points as I understand it.

Do they do a good job? yes and no. Yes in that both are sincere in their efforts. Sheldrake stands out as the better of the two intellectually. No in that Fox falls down in several areas.

1. He commits a serious epistemological error by confusings metaphysical levels of the spirit and soul with material levels of existence. For Fox A = C this is a big no no. Angels are not atomic paritcles and the soul is not the body. Reification is plain wrong.

2. He bases the bulk of his newly created theology on selected portions of Eckhart, Hildegard and Rumi. This is dangerous, since these were mystics of a high order their writings were never meant to be read as one reads a newspaper or literally as Fox wants to do. Also none the people he mentioned were rebels like himself. These mystics worked within the religous framework of the time. To try to create an exoteric framework from esoteric writings which is what Fox has done is fraught with problems, especially when you are not their equal.

This is my biggest problem with Fox. Instead of trying to show the reader the differences between science and religion he's trying to peddle his new religion of creation spirituality. Which is gnosis without gnosis in disguise.

3. As for Fox's understanding of Catholic or Christian religion in general, he has blinders on. Especially when he comments on the great Cathedrals of Europe. He fails to understand or evem see their symbolism, instead he find's solace in their crypts of all places - this is neurotic. This man loves being in the dark and would like to see all new churchs built underground. His attitude is positively Manichean in nature.

Sheldrake also confuses the readers with his understanding of science in general. Science deal with the quantitative and measurable aspects of materialism. It cannot deal with qualities nor with metaphysics. To use science to justify religion is sloppy thinking and equivalent to building a house on shifting sands.

So my rating is:
** stars
-1 star for lack of a index and specific sources for the quotes Fox used.
-1 star for sloppy epistemology and for Fox trying peddle his new religion instead.
-1 star for using on the back cover "institutionalized science and mechanistic religion" it should mechanistic science and institutionalized religion. Religion may be dull at times but never a machine

The book fails in trying to bring together the strands of science, religion or spirituality. Which nobody has ever really done well. Read E.F. Schumachers "Guide for the Perplexed" which is a must and then Hossein Nasr "Man and Nature". Another good one is Huston Smith's "Postmodern Mind". For a real study on spirituality get Evelyn Underhill's "Mysticism" she's a beautiful writer and very well studied on this topic.

I've read this book twice and have underlined a lot of it. I've recently shared it with friends and have discussed some of the concepts the authors describe so well. The idea of the body is in the soul, the soul as field, the connectivity through grace...these are powerful, transforming thoughts. Thank you Matthew for another fine book.

Well, ran into some deep space in this one. This cosmic equation seems to have some real balence. But as you know love is all there really is> Author write me. Enoch

Wouldn't it be more useful for Sheldrake to figure out why having a seven-year-old stare at you quietly while you sleep is likely to wake you up within one minute?

In The Sense Of Being Stared At Rupert Sheldrake publishes more results of investigations announced in Seven Experiments That Could Change The World (1994). His New Science of Life (1981), in which "morphogenetic fields" function as the organizing primal material principle in a novel theory of evolution, promotes the idea of an oak seed developing into an oak tree (rather than into something completely different) out of mere habit. Thus Sheldrake endows the material world with an intelligence that keeps alive by projecting memories of itself into the future, claiming by the same token that the laws of nature are neither eternal nor immutable but rather acquired and in constant process of adaptation.
Sheldrake's tenets hit the world of the hard sciences like a bombshell, and he has been busy providing proof for his thesis of interwoven memory fields ever since. Thus he became involved with pets and others animals, subjects he is particularly fond of since their perceptions are incorruptible. Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home (1998) lead him to a series of other applications, where a projection of the senses into the future was involved. The mental sensor seemingly responsible for these feats he calls the "seventh sense" or "extended mind". The result of his latest research does not only encompass a discussion of telepathy but also of the human eye and its unchartered perceptions. Analogous to Albert Hofmann?s sender-receptor conception of reality, the exchange of energy and information reaching and leaving the eye are paramount to visual activity. Or why would most of us feel when we are being stared at?
Some further questions are: do you know who it is when your phone rings? Do you wake up before your alarm clock sounds? Are you or your pets prone to forebodings? Are you a woman who starts lactating when her baby is about to cry for milk? What is a mental field? How does the mind send and receive mental impressions? There is no doubt that the traditional sciences fail to explain these experiences in a satisfactory manner.
"Clues lie disregarded all around us," Sheldrake announces. Entertaining as always, he leads us to a telepathic parrot, introduces us to dogs, cats, horses and their owners as well as showing us many humans whose emotional bonds have unexpected side effects.
The good news in all this: the phenomena discussed by the author are universal, and he makes good headway in demonstrating that Darwinists inhabit a racist victorian suburb rather than living on the 8 Mile of quantum reality. The bad news: it takes a long trip across the land of statistical probability for you and I to get there!

Renegade biologist Rupert Sheldrake analyzes in depth an experience that many of us have had at some point - a strange compulsion to look up or behind, only to see someone staring intently at us. In his latest installment Sheldrake discusses a variety of anecdotal and experimental evidence that establishes the reality of the phenomenon, and attempts to explain it with his theory of the 'extended mind' - the idea that our minds are not confined to our brains, but may extend into our environment. Needless to say, Sheldrake's work is a challenge to scientific orthodoxy, making Sheldrake the modern equivalent of a heretic. Shortly after publication of his first book, Nature magazine, one of Britain's leading scientific periodicals, called it "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years." In an interview broadcast on BBC television in 1994, John Maddox, the former editor of Nature, said: "Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science, and that can be condemned in exactly the language that the Pope used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reason. It is heresy."

However, Sheldrake follows an impeccable scientific approach. The writing in this book is very clear, and the evidence for the reality of the phenomenon is very impressive. The empirical sections of the book are the most persuasive. His theoretical explanations will likely generate the most controversy among those scientists and philosophers who are willing to drop their prejudice and concede the reality of the sense of being stared at.

Sheldrake combines his theory of the 'extended mind' with his idea of morphic fields - regions of influence not currently recognized by mainstream physics, but (it is argued) necessary to explain the growth and regeneration of organisms. Those readers interested in this will want to read Sheldrake's best and most important work, The Presence of the Past.

Where this explanation of ESP in terms of fields may falter is that all of the other fields recognized by physics decline with distance. Parapsychology experiments have demonstrated that ESP is not affected by distance, or by shielding of any sort. Explanations of ESP in terms of electromagnetic fields, for example, have been convincingly falsified by such experiments. Morphic fields, if they exist, must have very different properties from the known fields if they are to explain ESP. Some physicists feel that the non-local quantum mechanical effects that have been corroborated in physics experiments may more plausibly explain ESP. If there is any shortcoming to this book, it is that related profound issues - such as the mind/body problem or the implications of quantum mechanics - are dealt with only briefly. Again, this is not true of Sheldrake's masterwork, The Presence of the Past.

So, readers who wish to delve more deeply into Sheldrake's theories know where to look. Sheldrake is a bold scientist, one who never lets convention or dogma interfere with his explorations.

As Sheldrake writes in the Introduction,

"I believe it is more scientific to explore phenomena we do not understand than to pretend they do not exist. I also believe it is less frightening to recognize that the seventh sense is part of our biological nature, shared with many other animal species, than to treat it as weird or supernatural."

Sheldrake is a daring and imaginative theorist, and his ideas deserve to be taken seriously. This is an important work, well-worth reading.

Neither a skeptic nor a believer in science, the author was searching for an opponent to box with -- more like friendly sparring. His theory of morphic resonance states that all matter and energy is governed or shaped by some sort of evolutionary habit or cumulative memory. If his perspective were broader he would fit in with David Bohm and other science mystics, but Rupert chose to fence himself in the "little science" surrounding pet dogs, homing pigeons, migrating birds, termite colonies, phantom limbs, evil eyes, and the placebo effect. Why Rupert thinks that clearcut experimental results in these areas of anecdotal, imaginative tall tales would support his morphic field theory, I haven't a clue. What is more likely is that these animals and insects have the hidden ability to detect Gaia's gravitational curved space (much like air and ship LORAN navigators read lines of position).

The author was forever hinting that chaos theory, Jung's collective unconscious or other ideas would someday reveal the whole story without telling what that would gain us (for instance, if we accepted that the fundamental constants were slightly variable). Although I would encourage new viewpoints such as morphic fields to shape the matter of the universe, I was left with the impression that this writer bit off way more than his dog could chew.

I thought that this book gave an intriguing insight into our world, and that it brings up topics that i would never have even thought about had i not read this book. 5 stars for Rupert Sheldrake. He has an unparalleled mind when it comes to evolutionary science

This is quietly on of the most influential books of the century. It is accelerating the rightfull and belated death of Scientism, the AMA, and the FDA.

Sheldrake's original idea expounded in his earlier : "A New Science of Life" is further investigated here, I say investigated rather than developed because he seems to have taken a step back towards the view of the science he purports to have surpassed. The idea of morphic resonance is very interesting indeed, however the use of the field concept is much the same as the fields proposed in physics. One feels Sheldrake is making use of such devices because a new idea is not at hand whereas a truly new approach would revitalise this idea of morphic resonance and perhaps consider the whole rather than a piecemeal approach such as fields which act like pieces, the common use prevalent in physics with the possible exception of quantum theory.

In this aspect I agree with the previous reviewer but on the other hand there are some really fascinating ideas present, the basic one being morphic resonance, and the habits of nature. There certainly is a fair bit of experimental evidence to support at least a deeper investigation of these ideas rather than the usual "crank" reaction of mainstream science which of course considers it heresy. Crucial to such an investigation would be a device capable of measuring this "field" or at least the effect on the formation of structures such as crystals which Sheldrake notes should provide an interesting test of his ideas.

I believe Sheldrake does not take enough care to avoid a certain feeling of uncertainty and even at times a sense that there is something not quite solid about the reasoning. I also believe this was not his intention and that his ideas have great worth and deserve the most serious consideration.

Sheldrake's ideas, while controverial are an excellent place to add to anyone's ongoing exploration of Metaphysics. I agree with a previous reviewer in that these ideas can be interpreted using old terminology. Instead I have found it better to synthesize Sheldrake's excellent works with David Bohm, and any other relevant source I can find. Where do these Morphic fields come from? That is the truly interesting question.

I felt compulsed to write a 5-star review after seeing only 3 reviews, all of them giving 3 or 4 stars to this classic masterpiece. Hey, don't get it wrong! this is a superb book you can't put down once you've started. I have read it twice and intend to translate it into Estonian.
Although, yes, only maybe a quarter of orthodox biologists can stand Sheldrake's name, the implications of his theory - if correct - are enormous. It would thoroughly change our present understanding of the concept of memory, which means that we need new fields of science - physical semiotics, for example. It would push the "borders" of semiotics to include the very first particles after the BB. Followers of C.S.Peirce would drink lots of champagne and would celebrate the victory. It would also require a radical revision of the ideas of evolution.
So - yes, yes, this IS a popular half-science-fiction book, easily dismissed by orthodox scientists. However, several of Sheldrake's examples are convincing and his theoretizing makes sense. So, I prefer to keep Sheldrake's ideas in "Interesting unsolved cases" drawer. Sheldrake is very much like Ken Wilber. "Serious" philosophers don't call Wilber a philosopher, but an "interesting individual". I would take it as a compliment.