Rupert Sheldrake - Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance

Here are some links to articles by Rupert Sheldrake. He poses mechanisms for understanding how levels of reality fit within each other and operate as an organic whole.

http://seekeraftertruth.com/2009/05/12/rupert-sheldrake-mind-memory-and-archetype-morphic-resonance-and-the-collective-unconscious/
"In this essay, I am going to discuss the concept of collective memory as a background for understanding Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious only makes sense in the context of some notion of collective memory."
"....... the universe is more like an organism than a machine. The Big Bang recalls the mythic stories of the hatching of the cosmic egg: it grows, and as it grows it undergoes an internal differentiation that is more like a gigantic cosmic embryo than the huge eternal machine of mechanistic theory. With this organic alternative, it might make sense to think of the laws of nature as more like habits; perhaps the laws of nature are habits of the universe, and perhaps the universe has an in-built memory."

http://seekeraftertruth.com/2009/05/12/rupert-sheldrake-prayer-a-challenge-for-science/
"Morphic fields are organized in nested hierarchies . For example, there are morphic fields surrounding the atoms in our bodies, which are within the higher level morphic fields of molecules, organelles, cells, organs and limbs, all of which exist within the morphic field associated with the entire body. The body field, in turn, would be within the field of relationships that constitute a family, within a larger social group. Societies, in turn, are embedded within ecosystems, and ecosystems within the planetary system, “Gaia”. And by extrapolation, we could extend the series of nested morphic fields until we reach out beyond planetary, solar system and galactic limits to encompass the entire universe."

http://www.intuition.org/txt/sheldra1.htm
"And you see, even if he could evoke memories by stimulating part of the brain, it doesn't prove they're stored there. For example, if I stimulate the tuning knob of your TV set and it tunes on to a different channel, it doesn't prove that all the programs on that other channel are stored inside the bit that I've stimulated, namely the tuning knob, and it could be that it's just simply part of the receiving or tuning system. I think the brain is like a tuning system, and that we tune in to our own memories by a process of morphic resonance, which I believe is a general process which happens throughout the whole of nature."

http://seekeraftertruth.com/2009/05/12/rupert-sheldrake-society-spirit-ritual/
"I want to explore some ideas about the social and cultural aspects of morphic fields and morphic resonance. A familiar comparison might be that of a hive of bees or a nest of termites: each is like a giant organism, and the insects within it are like cells in a superorganism. Although comprised of hundreds and hundreds of individual insect cells, the hive or nest functions and responds as a unified whole."