[Bo Dahlin]

Hello Jacques

I believe that Sheldrake’s morphic fields contain more than ”mental matter”. I know he has done a lot of studies of how certain ”mental forms” are more easily learned the greater the number of people is who have learnt them before. But he applies the concept to the formation of crystals and also to the formation of plants. And – if I understand him rightly – even to the “form” of natural laws, which he considers to be habits of nature, rather than eternal principles.

I adhere mostly to Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science in these questions, which has also a top-down perspective, like the Indian philosophies you refer to. According to Steiner the etheric energy field is the supernatural realm closest to physical plane. In the human being, Steiner calls this level “the body of formative forces” – Bildekräfteleib. It is also the realm of our mental life, where thought-forms appear and disappear. But the etheric realm as such is of course part of all existence, not only of the human being.

So yes, the question is how to study scientifically this level of being, whether we call it etheric, or formative, or morphogenetic. As long as we have not ourselves developed supersensible perception of these forces, we can only study them indirectly, in terms of what effects they have on the visible plane. Again, I think Sheldrake’s research has some interesting approaches to this problem.

As for the quantum particles they are subnatural, or subphysical – “fallen” forms of the etheric. How do we know that they are eternal? Could it not be that we create them by our testing instruments?

[Bo Dahlin]

Hello Jacques, interesting questions and observations. The esoteric notion of a subtle or etheric body could be the first step in widening the scientific world view. I think Kant somewhere says that the lack of a substance that mediates between soul and physical body is a great problem for science. But the etheric body is just that kind of substance. My understanding of its nature comes from Steiner’s anthroposophy. He describes the etheric as a kind of anti-space of “geometrical” or formative forces. However, the notion of “vibrations” seems to me to be a materialistic metaphor that is not really applicable to the etheric. But I may be wrong. Another researcher which seems relevant here is Rupert Sheldrake and his notion of morphogenetic fields, which I imagine as fields of etheric energy or forces. His research has showed the existence of such fields quite plausible.

[Bo Dahlin]

Hello Alex, whatever I do when I try to answer you it turns up as a “Reply to: Jacques Mahnich” – rather frustrating. Anyway, I have some problems in comprehending all your points… the questions who it is that wants to know and why are of course highly relevant from a taoist and zen point of view – but here we are engaged in another kind of discourse, or at least I am. There are levels of knowledge and each level is expressed in a certain kind of discourse. What you are saying seems related to the Absolute, whereas what Jacques and I were saying relates to the Relative, to “form” rather than “Form” one could perhaps say. It seems rather plausible to me that even the old taoists had to descend to the level of form if they wanted to talk about f ex medicine or art, or even alchemy…

My 2 cents…