NMR ISSUE 6

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Invocation to the God
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Morphogenetic Magick II
Snake & Sea Horse
Solitary Spring Equinox Rite
The Oldest Magick
The Other Editorial
Tunnels of Set
Why I'm Not a Witch

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Morphogenetic Magick II

What does it mean to me?

Scot Rhoads

"Morphogenetic Magick I" was an attempt to explain in layman's terms Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation (HFC) as described in his 1981 book, A New Science of Life. Unfortunately, the HFC can be nearly as difficult to comprehend as it is significant. Essentially, it states that in addition to the forms of causation that physics now recognizes, there is a non-energetic, probabilistic causation of forms. This is described as fields that are an inherent aspect of forms, just as gravity is an inherent aspect of matter. These fields probabilistically stabilize forms to the degree that the forms' components are similar to the components that generated the fields. Continua of fields along a probabilistic path or channel (a chreode) are responsible for the development of forms (e.g., ontogeny). For those who do not want to go to the trouble of investigating the details and reasoning behind this hypothesis, accepting it involves a great deal of trust, because it fundamentally challenges the mechanistic paradigm which we grew up with.

One of the many ways of expressing the magickal paradigm is that we create our "reality." This is contrary to the mechanistic paradigm in which we are essentially biochemical automatons in a Reality that is already `out there.' Mechanistically, the magickal paradigm is only the wishful thinking of minds that reduce to neurotransmitters crossing billions of synapses in the brain. Magickally, the mechanistic paradigm is an example of our beliefs becoming our "reality." Objectively, the two paradigms are indistinguishable. In application, they are fundamentally different. In the mechanistic case, we learn what the universe is and thus what we can and cannot do. In the magickal case we learn how we create our universe and thus how to do anything we desire. Why would anyone choose to assume that we are nearly powerless biochemical robots rather than potentially omnipotent? There are a variety of answers which might best be summed up as "just because." We choose our paradigms. The universe does not impose them on us. We do not choose the paradigm we grow up with, however, and that is why we may find ourselves stuck in one paradigm or another.

Why would we want to escape our native paradigm? It is very compelling. The mechanistic paradigm is the foundation of a science that has brought us amazing gifts and powers. But if we are dissatisfied with our paradigm, it is time to look for a new one. Many choose metaphysics in many different forms (which I lump together as the "magickal paradigm" in this article). But it is difficult to escape the feeling (and the accusations) that doing so is to reject "Reality." "Fundamentalist scientists" (whose dogmatism precludes their truly being scientists) insist that to adopt an alternative paradigm is to abandon reality for a fantasy. This accusation makes no sense, if we create our reality—except when we have created a reality in which it does make sense. Most of us in the West have created such a Catch 22. We respect the achievements of the science and culture we grew up with; but we are unable to distinguish the foundational mechanistic dogma from the reality. We are told that things work mechanistically and we believe.

Fortunately, Science is not merely a form of mechanism. Until the early part of this century, there were many respected scientists researching non-mechanistic hypotheses. Science is a philosophy of inquiry. This century the mechanistic paradigm has led to impressive and demonstrable discoveries. But now science may be leading us away from mechanism. This does not invalidate previous discoveries, it adds to them and puts them in a different context, just as Einstein did not invalidate Newton's work. Our society has a tremendous respect from science, which we often confuse with the mechanistic paradigm. But we can consciously distinguish between science and mechanism. And we can consciously understand a non-mechanistic hypothesis in scientifically acceptable terms (whatever those are for us). When we do this, we can then potentially escape from the subconscious trap of mechanistic dogma.

The best examples of science that can help us break out of old paradigms are in the realm of particle physics: the "wave-particle duality" of light, DeBrogli matter waves, probability fields for matter that respond to the observer. These at least tell us that the universe is not comprehensible in the way we are used to thinking—and they have complete scientific respectability. But they are on an invisibly small scale; they are not really part of our lives. They can unlock the door to new paradigms, but many need something more to open it. The HFC offers non-mechanistic explanations of forms, which comprise most of our lives. It is, however, only a hypothesis, it can open the door to a new paradigm only for those that want it opened.

Those who find subconscious mechanistic blocks to their metaphysical work, can use the HFC to help over come them. It is possible to express many metaphysical ideas in terms of the HFC. By "translating" metaphysics into science, we can find some validity for it in the terms we are used to. We can open a window in our native paradigm to see that our universe actually includes more than we thought. While we are still afraid of losing our native paradigm, we can do no more than drag in ideas from other paradigms and rephrase and restructure them to fit, creating a kludge of our old paradigm. But as we become more familiar with the new ideas, we become more `bilingual.' Eventually, we can use our `window' not to drag in new ideas, but for us to escape to a freer more inclusive comprehension of the universe. Paradigms are experiential. They are ways of thinking about the world, but are so deep and inclusive that this affects (and reflects) our psychology. When we change paradigms, we change not only our thinking, but also our lives. That is why it is such a difficult thing to do. This is an example of the metaphorical Death and Rebirth. This metaphysical expansion of the HFC can be a first step to this process. But remember that this is not a final goal. It is fine to translate metaphysical concepts into scientific or pseudoscientific terms via the HFC, but the eventual goal is an understanding, or fluency, that needs no translation. (Never the less, I am sufficiently enamored of the HFC that I may refer to it later in the Rose & Quill. Therefore, please feel free to ask questions about it. If I have not made the HFC clear, my references will have little meaning.)

The HFC as outlined in A New Science of Life does not immediately explain much on a metaphysical level. It does echo some concepts, such as the Universe's "memory," and it could readily explain any form of telepathy, but that may be its limit. The key to the usefulness of the HFC involves an irresponsible leap. I stress that most of the uses of morphic resonance fields to explain magick and other metaphysical ideas involve extensions of the HFC that are not scientific. At this point, formative causation is a hypothesis that has yet to be thoroughly tested, much less accepted. Since their existence has yet to be established, no one has even begun to explore the nature of morphic fields. Relating the HFC to magick and the extrapolations of the hypothesis are entirely a priori. This is metaphysical speculation, not scientific. That is why this is an excuse to get rid of "scientific" blocks rather than a reason to do so.

Sympathy

The leap to `metaphysical usefulness' involves Field Sympathy. The HFC likens the interaction of the components of a form with the components of a related form to sympathetic vibration. The matter is said to "resonate" with the field. But how do the fields themselves interact? According to the HFC, they have a linear relationship, such as the continuum of fields in a chreode. Also, they have a hierarchical relationship: the field for an organism incorporates the fields for its organs, which incorporate tissue fields, which incorporate cell fields, which incorporate molecular fields, which incorporate atomic fields. This may proceed upward to include every form in one great `Universal' field. It may also proceed downward to `Subatomic Building Block' fields (perhaps quarks?) which are no more than energy trapped in a tiny morphic field. But any other relationship between fields is unclear. For simplicity, the HFC must assume no other interactions between fields. But that does not rule them out.

Sympathy would be such an interfield interaction. It could be one field expressing itself in new ways (very weird). It might be one field acting as an attraction for another (weird). It may be one field strengthening another (pretty straight forward, but difficult to distinguish from the previous). Sympathy relationships might be natural, or they may have been built up through human associations (which likely play at least some role). Natural relationships could be random, or a function of a "higher order" which we do not directly perceive.

A sympathy between fields may take on a character of its own. When you shine light through a slit onto a screen, it will form a continuous bar of light (unless the slit is very small, but that departs from the simile). When you have two such slits at an appropriate distance, the light waves from each slit interfere. In some places they reinforce one another, causing bright bands; in others they defeat each other, causing dark bands. The character of this interference pattern (bands of light) is different from that of the two individual light sources (continuous light). Similarly, a sympathy between fields (or complexes of fields) may take on a character that appears very different to us. In magick, one works toward a goal that has no mechanistic connection to the magickal acts. When a result is like an interference pattern of fields, it might be that the fields that make it up could appear unrelated to us. Thus, manipulating objects (and their related fields) may have an effect on the `interference pattern’ that manifests as a mechanistically unrelated ("sympathetic") result. Consciousness itself may be sympathy at a certain level of complexity.

What does this mean in more direct terms? The HFC states that any matter in the universe will resonate with a given field, but only to the degree that its conditions are appropriate to the field. Matter has to "fit" in a field fairly well to create a noticeable effect. How would something that is not related to a given field react? How would your hand react to the field associated with, say, a character trait? The presumption would be not at all. But perhaps it reacts in a completely different way, one that is characteristic of the hand. Perhaps the lines on the hand are the hand's manifestations of other fields. Through direct sympathy, or sympathy with something else. In any case, if there is a typical pattern to the lines on the hand that relates to a given type of field, you have palmistry.

An example of sympathy may be all things that fall into the category of Air. These things would share this sympathetic vibration to the degree that they manifest the qualities of Air. This sympathetic vibration might be used to draw or manifest other fields and objects that share that sympathy, either by acting upon the mind or the universe directly. Thus you have sympathetic magick.

Earth Magick

Sage is, among other things, a "healing herb." How could the HFC or sympathy explain this? It is possible that sage was originally chosen for some arbitrary reason that did not directly relate to healing. Over the centuries, human usage would have "affiliated" a "healing morphic field" with sage. It may be a field which uses sage in its expression, as a morphic germ (very, very weird). This field might be "imbued" into the plant itself (very weird). It might be associated with the sage field as a "sub-field" or some kind of "ancillary field" (not so weird). It may be a field associated with Man that finds its expression through sage, as an agent that helps to bring the individual into resonance with those who were healed in the past (pretty straightforward). Or it could be some combination of these. Alternatively, there might be an inherent "sympathy" between the sage field and that (those) of healing.

The difference between these explanations is significant. If the healing field and the sage field are associated solely through human agency, we can choose whatever magickal use we want for whatever object. History plays a major role, but anything new we can use as we please. Quartz, for instance, seems useful in any role. If (or when) the relationship is natural, we must discover the magickal uses of any new object (if any), or be aware (on some level) of the "higher order." Also, historical uses may be "wrong," and may even change.

In any case, those things with manifest sympathies would have "magical powers." Sage would help bring about healing; malachite would help bring about prosperity; the musical note `high E' would help bring about healing; repressed anger would help bring about cancer, etc.

Mind Magick

Thought, especially that which involves memory and instinct, seems to be closely associated with morphic fields. According to the HFC, memory is a resonance with the mental state of an earlier experience (or at least the biochemical states associated with it). If you think of a dog, your brain presumably resonates with (and thus to some degree manifests) past states associated with perceiving a dog. But the thought of a dog is different from the experience. You can manipulate the thought in ways that run counter to experience. For instance, you can suspend it in space and rotate it though various axes.

The thought of a dog may have very little detail—it may not even have color, for instance. Even when you picture a specific dog, there will be some details you miss. This blurring of details describes morphic fields (definition of form gets probabilistically "fuzzy") as fields become more generalized—details are left to chance and to "sub-fields" (e.g., a race is a sub-field of a species).

We may not be able to picture the indistinct archetypical mammal or animal or any other such high level abstract field, but we can conceptualize them. We can manipulate these concepts in magick with words or ideas (such as Elements, Tarot, Kabbalistic Spheres, etc.). In the HFC, causation of physical forms would proceed from the higher levels, to the lower. If we can manipulate higher level fields, we can alter or even create a causative influence.

These levels of inclusiveness in morphic fields may parallel magickal `planes.' A plane could be the morphic field that share a similar degree of abstraction inclusiveness/broadness), as mentioned above. An example of such a system is the astral, mental and causal planes. Some types of magickal workings involve creating things (fields) on the causal plane with the goal of manifesting them down through the other planes to the physical. Convergent vs. Independent
Evolution of Thoughts

Did thoughts evolve from the bottom up or the top down? Did Man build an ever more complex vocabulary of thought fields, or did his vocabulary expand to include more fields that were already `out there'? The HFC as it stands would expect thoughts to have little relationship to the objects they represent. The thought of a dog would have evolved over millennia to represent a dog in the person's mind. But the field for the thought and the field for the animal would have no other relation. If there is a sympathy between the fields, this is potentially very different.

If the thought of a dog evolved from the bottom up, it grew from the reactions of Man in the presence of Dog. It represents Man's reaction to Dog. If the thought evolved from the top down, Man's mind acquired the ability to perceive (or sympathize with) the morphic field of dogs. In the former case, the thought resonates with Man's mind, but with nothing outside of that. In the later, the thought itself is a kind of morphic field. It may or may not be the morphic field associated with dogs, but it is intimately connected—perhaps in a sense echoic. Thus, when you manipulate your thoughts of a dog, you may, directly or indirectly, manipulate the field. Any or all thoughts may be expressions of and manipulation of morphic fields.

Suppose you thought of a dog with the head at the wrong end. That might affect the field for dogs, but this field is so well established that the effect would be meaningless. Additionally, you would have to imagine the whole developmental chreode that would lead to such an animal. Creating such a dog would be especially challenging magick. A more feasible task might be drawing a dog to you. If you imagine yourself with a dog, you create a field on a higher level than the previous. It uses more things that are already `there,' thus requiring less manipulation of matter. More important, there is no powerful field to work against. Additionally, you have placed yourself as a morphic germ (in the "form" of yourself and a dog). Thus, if you encounter a dog, there should be a higher chance that it will remain with you, actualizing the morphic filed you have created. If you add to that (consciously or not) the chreode of a dog coming to you, there may already be many animals which conform to the beginning states of your chreode, broadening your sphere of influence. This may be one way that magickal "drawing" can work. Visualization and ritual would be ways of strengthening these fields and chreodes as much as possible.

Visualization clearly fits in with the creation of a morphic field. If thoughts are intimately related to fields, the better you "think" of something, the stronger the field you influence or create. Other magickal practices could help through sympathy, either building the field of the desired goal, or in a round about way (e.g., enhancing the process of creating the morphic fields). Magickal symbols, tools and correspondences could be attractors/sources (if their influence is independent of Man) or inspirers (if they work through Man) of helpful fields. Or these things may aid the mind in manipulating fields.

Astrology

Astrology may be an outstanding example of sympathy between otherwise totally unrelated fields. The fields associated with the relative positions of the planets could relate to fluctuations in fields that affect life on earth. This relation may be direct, or they could be connected through intermediary fields, or they may both be very different expressions of the same field, or they may relate through a "higher level" field. The relationship may be natural, or somehow imposed or created by Man. Whatever the nature of the relationship, astrology may be describing sympathy between morphic fields.

Spirits, Gods and You

Sympathetic relationships of fields can be very complex. Ceremonial magick presents a mind-numbing array of correspondences and earth magick offers a sea of magickal objects. The complexity of sympathy may take a more qualitative turn as well. Perhaps elementals and spirits, which seem to have their own consciousness, are interrelated (or interacting) fields. The consciousness may be an "illusion" created by the complexity of the interrelationship, or it may be that "intelligence" may be a complex relationship of fields. It is also possible that these intelligences are anthropomorphically imposed on or inspired by the mind's perception of some groups of fields—or they may be natural. (In any case, our humanity seems to at least color our perception, for instance, when some see human shapes.) The gods themselves may be extensions of this principle (though many seem to evidence even more human influence in their character, either in our perception or directly upon them). It could also be that anthropomorphic gods are easier to perceive (or create). In any case, the intelligence that we see, may well be of a nature similar to the interference pattern of light discussed above.

The human "soul" may also be a sympathetic interrelationship of morphic fields. Alternatively, the soul may be a field that is influenced by all the fields in one's life. If this field can associate itself with future bodies, you have reincarnation. Evolution may, at least in part, be the soul becoming more complex and inclusive. If the soul were an expression of an interrelationship of all the fields in the Universe (like a point in a hologram), evolution would be the soul becoming more focused or controlled. When we learn to be all-inclusive, or when we develop total control, that may be "reaching godhead."

Omniscience

If a thought of something is a sympathetic resonance with the field of the thing you are thinking of, then what governs what fields we become in sympathy with? Experience tells us that when we come in contact with something, when we experience it physically, we develop a sympathy with it. But through pictures, for instance, we can develop an awareness of other things without directly experiencing them. This is more than merely an awareness of the film, for when we see a film (at least a good one), we have more of an experience of being there, than of watching a two dimensional audio-visual representation. And when you actually see the thing filmed, it is often familiar in more than an audio-visual sense. Perhaps films can be vehicles for sympathy, either by acting as a `vector' of sorts ("carrying its vibration"), or by offering some kind of direct access to the field of the filmed object. This "access" may be simply opening the consciousness to accept a new sympathetic tie, or strengthen a latent tie. It might be possible to strengthen such ties (or at least increase our awareness of them) through no outside influence at all. If so, this would be in tune with the metaphysical teachings of one's ability to know the Universe simply through introspection. It also reflects one of the above concepts of the soul: as an interrelationship of all the fields in the Universe.

More Magick

If detectable fields become affiliated with other objects through contact or proximity with the thing manifesting the field, you have psychometry.

If certain fields can predictably effect random events, you can develop divination (geomancy, tarot, etc.).

If these fields reveal themselves in our unconscious, you have dream and meditation (etc.) interpretation. If you look farther, you can interpret everything in your life (asleep and awake) in a symbolic context. If something happens in a dream, you ask what it "symbolizes," or what it tells you about things in your life. If something happens at work, you can ask the same question. This can easily go too far though, most often the answer is that it tells you nothing (but it does not necessarily mean nothing). It is often rewarding, however, to interpret the significance of persistent or compelling acts or occurrences, for instance: a habit, synchronisitic events, and a personal disaster.

Colors, herbs, numbers, symbols, magickal tools, dreams, expectations, beliefs, palmistry, astrology, psychology, ad infinitum all reflect other things in the universe. They all have correspondences; they are all used in creating nonphysical changes. It is possible that each thing in the universe reflects or sympathizes with every other thing to some degree, like the grains of a hologram. If we are aware of these connections, we can take advantage of them. In fact, the "awareness" itself make (or even be) this connection.

Further Extrapolations

In so many discussions of "energy" in magickal writings, it seems clear that it is not entirely kinetic, potential, electrical, magnetic or any of the other forms of energy that physicists recognize. Some things, like auras, may have a physical aspect to them (which shows up in Kirlian photography), but for the most part, the word "energy" seems to be a metaphor. It is possible that "energy" refers to manipulating or creating morphic fields (or perhaps a similar nonphysical causative agent).

It is also possible that morphic field influence extends across time. The HFC already assumes that past fields affect the present. It is possible that present fields affect the past and that future fields affect the present. The genesis of a completely new structure or idea (rather than altering old structures) may be examples of this. This may explain "concurrent `past' and `future' lives." Divination may be a way of making these "future" fields comprehensible to us now. But predictions are not fated—we influence which fields come into manifestation. This influence may be yet another aspect of magick (or perhaps the whole story). There may be an infinity of fields to choose from. Our Universe, matter and time, may be the choices we make among these fields. If we can make this choice consciously, we have the infinite power to create that metaphysicians promise.

Perhaps there is a continuum of morphic fields in the universe. Very common forms would be as mountains in a probabilistic landscape where the number of forms representing them measures the strength of fields. There is variation in the forms, giving "slope" to the probability peaks. But if the probability for every conceivable form (even those as yet unmanifest) never equals zero, then everything is possible. The Universe is infinite possibility and forms are imposed upon this (perhaps arbitrarily). This basic state of infinite possibility in the Universe could be the original Chaos from which the universe we see has manifest.

The Holographic Universe

Many of the ideas in this article relate to the key metaphysical paradigm of the holographic universe: each thing, according to its nature, reflects/manifests everything in the universe. Mechanistically, this makes little sense. In the context of morphic field sympathy, we may have a real understanding. If each form feels an influence from every field, then all the information in the universe is contained in every form. If each field feels an influence from every other field, then all the information in the universe is available to any intelligence. If fields are manipulable, then the universe is manipulable.

Remember that this variety of speculations is merely a set of examples of possible relationships of some metaphysical concepts with the HFC. It certainly proves nothing. Feel free to develop your own explanations (or even better, bypass them entirely). But if part of you wants to believe that magick can't work and this blocks your success, remember that none of ideas can yet be proven wrong. Give magick a fair chance.