Ever have the feeling that you know you’re being watched? Or the feeling of thinking about someone just before they call? Some believe these feelings are merely coincidental or just happenstance, but the fact that they are common and something everyone can relate to, leaves open the possibility that there could be a metaphysical mechanism at play. Now, researcher Rupert Sheldrake says he believes these occurrences are due to a psychic phenomenon that is evidence of a collective consciousness and he’s found this theory to show statistical significance.

Sheldrake is most famous for his theory of morphic resonance, a concept that revolves around psychic capability, which he believes is innate in humans and animals. Morphic resonance states that processes and behavior in nature, particularly learned behavior, can be inherited and transmitted psychically. This theory has made him somewhat of a pariah in the scientific community, which labelled him a heretic for entertaining such a seemingly nebulous concept. Nevertheless, he embraces the criticism and continues to pursue his research.

Sheldrake’s Evidence of a Collective Consciousness

In order to test his theory, Sheldrake conducted experiments on a group of subjects to see if they could accurately predict who was calling them on the phone. He ran the test with two groups of callers – one that was known to the subject and another who were complete strangers. The two groups tested against each other to see if there was a notable link between those with an emotional connection.

Sheldrake’s subjects in each test group consisted of four callers, providing for a one-in-four probability. In the group of callers with a strong personal connection to the subject, out of 332 trials among 37 participants, there was a 53 percent success rate of subjects correctly guessing who was calling — clearly better than mere chance. In the group where there was no familiarity, the subject predicted callers with a 25 percent likelihood – the same as chance.

Sheldrake noticed one area of the experiment that might have been flawed was that callers were given a schedule of when they would be calling and could potentially divulge when they’d be contacting the subject next. But when he looked at the results and controlled for this, he found no spikes in successful guessing. Does this hint at a psychic connection between people with a personal bond?

Sheldrake took the experiment a step further and decided to ask subjects to give their level of confidence on whether they would accurately guess a caller. They could either say they felt confident, not confident, or just guessing. With this factor, results changed dramatically. When subjects felt confident, they responded correctly 82 percent of the time. When they were unconfident they were correct 35 percent of the time, and when they were just guessing their guess was only correct 25 percent of the time.

An interesting factor in the experiment is that subjects were sometimes thousands of miles away from their caller. Sheldrake found similar results when conducting tests regarding premonitions on email and text messages reception. He also says he believes that while there might have been numerous factors skewing the results, intuition could have affected subjects who were told how they were doing. Overthinking can inhibit intuition and therefore in a scenario where a subject wasn’t being tested or didn’t know they were being tested, they would have possibly had a greater likelihood of knowing who was calling.

A Shared Consciousness with Animals?

Sheldrake conducted similar experiments testing the psychic intuition of dogs and whether they know when their owner is coming home. During one experiment to test this hypothesis, Sheldrake found that a dog went to the window looking for its owner four percent of the time she was out of the house, not intending to come home. However, once she started to make her way back home, the dog was at the window 55 percent of the time.

Sheldrake’s original theory of morphic resonance came from an experiment involving mice. The mice were put through a water maze before they progressively learned how to escape quicker. Their progeny, when put in the same maze, learned how to escape in fewer trials, and subsequently, mice on the other side of the world learned how to escape quicker when put through the same test. The experiment showed evidence that a group of mice could genetically pass down learned behavior and that this behavior could also be transmitted psychically throughout an entire species; almost as if it was being uploaded to the cloud where individual members could collectively download it. This is one premise of Sheldrake’s theory and he says he believes it to be inherent in all species.

What is the Collective Consciousness?

A commonly known theory that bears similarity to morphic resonance is the 100^th monkey theory – an anecdotal observation showing signs of psychic learning among monkeys on various islands in the Pacific Ocean. Monkeys on one island purportedly learned behavior from monkeys on another island, once the 100^th monkey learned the behavior. Sheldrake says this scenario is evidence of morphic resonance, but based on an idea of having to reach a critical threshold. He says he sees the process as more gradual; the greater the number of individuals that learn, the easier a task becomes for the species.

Sheldrake’s theory has some basis in Carl Jung’s idea of a collective unconscious. Jung’s collective unconscious is essentially a foundation of archetypes and psychological motifs that are inherent in humans. It differs from our personal psyches and complexes that are developed individually. Jung even referred to it as a, “psychic system of a collective, universal and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals.” Sheldrake expanded on this theory, by postulating that this collective psychic system is growing and learning in real time.

Could this be evidence that as a species we are getting collectively smarter and that our collective consciousness is evolving? Or is technology and the internet a physical extension of what Sheldrake is describing?

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