The Forbidden Theory of Morphic Resonance

Summary

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The Why Files: Operation Podcast

Episode: “The Forbidden Theory of Morphic Resonance”

Date: May 29, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the controversial and fascinating theory of morphic resonance, proposed by biologist Rupert Sheldrake. The host explores whether acquired knowledge or behaviors can be passed between individuals or even across species—not via genes, but through some mysterious field or memory in nature. The discussion moves from animal behavior experiments and urban legends to Sheldrake’s personal journey and the scientific establishment’s fierce opposition to his ideas. Blending scientific history, skepticism, and pop-science humor, the episode investigates if “nature has a memory,” challenging the audience to consider how connected we might all be.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Inheriting Knowledge: The Rat Maze Experiments

• William McDougall’s 1920 Experiment ([00:31]–[08:59])

  • McDougall trained Harvard lab rats to escape a water maze via the dark exit; initial rats needed 165 tries.
  • Successive generations improved rapidly, reaching only 20 tries by the 30th generation, regardless of selective breeding for intelligence.
  • Quote:

    “The slowest learners were producing offspring that learned faster than their parents, generation after generation.” (Narrator/Main Storyteller, [05:43])

  • Standard biology couldn’t explain it; neither could genetics.
  • A Scottish geneticist, F.A.E. Crew, skeptically repeated the experiment with an added control group—seeing the same rapid improvement in untrained rats.

• Replication Worldwide

  • Similar results from scientists in Melbourne: knowledge seemed to spread across continents, species, and generations.
  • Proposed as evidence for more than traditional inheritance or learning.

2. Trans-Species and Non-Biological Examples

• Blue Tit Birds & Milk Bottles ([09:27]–[11:44])

  • Blue tits in Britain learned to pierce milk bottle caps for cream; the behavior spread nationwide.
  • Post-WWII, after the original birds had died off, new generations resumed the behavior immediately when foil caps returned.

• Crystallization Phenomena

  • Compounds that resisted crystallization for years began to crystallize easily everywhere after a single breakthrough (e.g., glycerol, xylitol).

3. Birth of Morphic Resonance: Rupert Sheldrake’s Story ([15:35]–[21:43])

• Sheldrake’s Inspiration

  • Observed bean plants growing toward a support pole that hadn’t been placed yet.
  • DNA couldn’t explain organism development since it doesn’t give the final form.
  • Quote:

    “Maybe nature has a memory. When any system organizes itself... it creates what Sheldrake would call a morphic field, a memory in nature.” (Narrator/Main Storyteller, [18:07])

• Theory

  • Morphic resonance: Patterns, behaviors, and consciousness can be transmitted and reinforced through “fields” that aren’t physical.

4. Scientific Backlash and Suppression ([21:23]–[24:51])

• Hostility from the Establishment

  • Nature editorial called his book “the best candidate for burning” in years.
  • Sheldrake was branded as unscientific, losing funding and academic support.
  • Quote:

    “Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science. And that can be condemned... It is heresy.” (Expert/Scientist Commentary, [21:23])

• Public Fascination

  • The backlash ironically boosted Sheldrake’s popularity and book sales.
  • Survived a stabbing attempt by someone who believed Sheldrake controlled his mind.

• Suppression Continues

  • TED removed Sheldrake’s 2013 talk; “dogmatic censorship” made his message more viral.

5. Testing the Theory: Large-Scale Human Studies ([24:51]–[27:33])

• British TV Puzzle Experiment

  • Two million people viewed a hidden-picture puzzle on TV; strangers later solved the same puzzle much faster, even in different countries.

• Crossword & IQ Test Phenomena

  • Some newspapers found puzzles were solved faster as days went on and more people attempted them.
  • The Flynn Effect: IQ scores rise worldwide even on culture-neutral tests.

6. Paranormal & Animal Studies

• Dogs & Psychic Phenomena

  • Sheldrake documented that dogs could anticipate their owners’ return at the moment of intention, not arrival.
  • Studies on humans’ “feelings of being stared at” showed statistically significant results.

• Urban Legends and Skepticism

  • Some stories, like the “hundredth monkey,” are wholly invented.
  • Crystallization changes often have conventional explanations (e.g., seed crystals in labs).

7. Critical Appraisal: Science or Pseudoscience? ([27:44]–end)

• Skeptics’ Arguments

  • Epigenetics could explain inherited behaviors: chemical tags on DNA, not mystical fields.
  • Morphic resonance appears to violate conservation of energy.
  • Yet, quantum physics shows non-local information transfer is possible.

• Deeper Philosophical Connections

  • Similar ideas from Jung (collective unconscious), David Bohm, Schrödinger, Planck, Tesla, and Einstein—all describe a fundamentally connected universe.
  • Quote:

    “Every atom in your body was connected to every atom in every animal, every plant, every rock and every planet in the universe.” (Narrator/Main Storyteller, [33:13])

  • Host leaves it open-ended: Empirical proof is lacking, but the hypothesis spurs meaningful questions about our connectedness.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Theory’s Radicalness:

  “Maybe nature has a memory. When any system organizes itself… it creates what Sheldrake would call a morphic field, a memory in nature.” ([18:07])

• Mainstream Hostility:

  “It is heresy.” ([21:23])

• The “Blue Tit” Running Gag:

  • Comic Relief/Sidekick humorously riffing off the bird’s name repeatedly:

    “Do you have any stories about blue bazoombas? Turquoise tatas? ... Denim dumplings? Sapphire sandbags?” ([11:19]–[11:27])

• On Universal Connection:

  “If the smallest things in existence stay connected to each other across any distance then acting like the people around you are separate from you isn’t just unkind—it’s unscientific.” ([33:19])

• Host’s Perspective:

  “I love the concept of morphic resonance, but is it true? ... Now, here’s the core problem that skeptics use. Morphic resonance requires information transfer with no energy cost, and that violates the law of conservation of energy.” ([27:44])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:31: Introduction—McDougall’s rat maze experiment
• 08:59: Replication of experiments by Crew and Agar
• 09:27: Blue tits and spreading learned behavior
• 12:00: Crystallization mysteries
• 15:35: Rupert Sheldrake’s inspiration and morphic resonance
• 18:07: Defining morphic fields
• 21:23: Scientific backlash—Nature’s editorial and “heresy” commentary
• 24:51: Large-scale TV experiment, IQ, and crossword puzzles
• 27:44: Critique, skepticism, and philosophical resonance
• 33:13: Closing thoughts on universal connectedness

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Tone & Language

The episode is light-hearted and humorous, balancing scientific rigor with comic relief—especially around recurring wordplay (e.g., “blue tits”). The host maintains an accessible, skeptical but open-minded tone—scrutinizing claims but reveling in the possibility of hidden connections in nature.

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Conclusion

This episode weaves together hard science, historical experiments, and quirky anecdotes to examine whether knowledge or memory can exist and be shared outside of genes. While most claims in the morphic resonance hypothesis remain unproven and clash with mainstream science, the story highlights the value of challenging dogma and embracing scientific curiosity. The episode ultimately leaves listeners pondering the mystery of connection—across time, space, species, and maybe, consciousness itself.

Transcript

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[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

In 1920, a Harvard scientist put rats in a maze with two exits. One path was well lit but electrified. The other was dark but safe. The rat tried the bright exit. It got shocked. It tried again. It got shocked again and again. It took 165 painful tries, but it finally learned to take the dark path. Fifteen years later and 30 generations later, the rats needed just 20 tries. They were getting smarter. The solution was passed genetically. That's not supposed to happen. A scientist in Scotland tried the same experiment with a completely different set of rats. His rats started at 25 tries, as if they already knew the answer to the puzzle. Knowledge had crossed the ocean and no one could explain how. When we started the WI File store, it honestly felt like we had to learn everything all at once. Merch, design, inventory, payments, shipping, customer emails. Suddenly you're wearing about 20 different hats and every day adds five more things to the to do list. Finding the right platform that actually simplifies all that can be a total game changer for us. That platform has been Shopify. Shopify powers millions of businesses around the world, including household names like Gymshark and Heinz and 10% of all E commerce in the US from massive brands to creators just getting started. Shopify gives you everything in one place. Inventory, payments, analytics, marketing tools. All of it. They've got hundreds of ready to use templates so you can build a professional looking store without needing to be a web designer. And their AI tools help you write product descriptions, create content and improve product photos fast. They also help you reach customers with email and social media campaigns. Plus, Shopify's award winning 24. 7 support is always there. If you get stuck, start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com wai go to shopify.com wai that's shopify.com y. Lamarckism or Lamarckian Inheritance is the idea that an organism can pass on skills it acquired during its lifetime. Like a rat learning to avoid electric shocks or a human learning how to Throw a football. The theory is named for zoologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, who proposed it in 1809. And the theory is supposed to be wrong. Standard biology says that knowledge can't be inherited. Only traits can. Eye color, intelligence, allergies. But not knowledge, not information. Harvard psychologist William McDougall tested this theory in 1920. The setup was simple. Rats and a water maze. He used worcesterrats, common in labs because they're genetically identical, perfect for this experiment. The maze had two ways out. One was brightly lit and easy to find. The other exit was dark. The bright exit delivered an electric shock. The dark exit was safe. And McDougal added a twist. The bright exit moved. Sometimes it was to the left, sometimes to the right. So the rats couldn't memorize a direction. They had to learn one rule. Avoid the light.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Cross over, children. Go into the light. There is peace and serenity in the light.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Rats should naturally avoid the dark and swim toward the way out that they can see. Any animal. Would you would. That's exactly what happened. McDougal's rats swam toward the bright exit, got shocked, swam back and tried again. And got shocked again, sometimes over 300 times. On average, the first generation took 165 tries before they learned. Dark equals safe, light equals pain. Then McDougal bred the rats and tested their offspring. But he selected parents at random. He wasn't cherry picking for intelligence. He just grabbed any two rats and put their offspring in the maze to see how they behaved. According to standard biology, the new generation should start from scratch. They should average 165 tries. So that's not what happened. Generation two did better. 141 tries on average. Generation three, 118. By generation eight, rats were averaging 56 tries. That's when McDougal noticed something strange. The improvement wasn't slowing down, it was accelerating. Eight more generations. The average drop down to 41. Eight more, down to 29. By generation 30 rats were solving the maze with just 20 tries. What took their ancestors? One hundred and sixty five attempts they mastered in 20. They were eight times faster at learning the same task. MacDougall tried to break the pattern. He split his colony and started breeding specifically for slow learners. Taking the worst performers from each generation and and mating them together. These rats should have stayed slow or gotten worse. But they got faster too. Same rate of improvement as the randomly bred line. The slowest learners were producing offspring that learned faster than their parents. Generation after generation. McDougal published his results carefully. No wild claims, no revolutionary declarations. Just the data. 30 generations thousands of rats, every trial documented. He mentioned in his private notes that it looked like Lamarck might have been right. Skills could be inherited, but genetics don't work that way. Except here it was happening in his lab. The rats were inheriting something. Not genes, not training. They were inheriting the ability to solve a puzzle their parents had learned through pain and repetition. Whatever was happening, it wasn't genetics. Because not only were skills being transmitted across generations, they were being transmitted across the entire species, all over the world. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. I'll be honest, I never got a real money education as a kid. I got an allowance, spent it immediately, and nobody explained why that was a problem. Greenlight is what I wish existed back then. Greenlight is a debit card and money app built for families. You could send money quickly to your kids wallets, set flexible spending controls and get real time notifications so you see exactly what's happening before mistakes turn into habits. With cash, you have zero visibility. With Greenlight, you're actually in the loop. The app makes it engaging too. There are games that teach savings, investing and spending without feeling like homework. The chores feature lets you assign tasks, pay when they're done, and streaks keep kids consistent. It connects work to money in a way kids actually get. That's how real life works. Millions of parents and kids already use it. And there's a reason Greenlight is the number one family finance and safety app. Parents stay in control. Kids build real independence every day. They're handling money without guidance and a missed opportunity. Start your risk free Greenlight trial [e-mail] y don't wait to teach your kids real world money skills. That's greenlight.come to get started. Greenlight.come y. F A E Crew was a geneticist at Edinburgh, a pioneer in animal genetics. He thought McDougal was sloppy. So in 1923 he set up his own experiment to prove it. He set up the same water maze, same wister rats, just different genes. But he also added a control Group, something McDougall didn't do. He had a trained line of rats and an untrained line.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Oh yeah, we got a nerd showdown. In one corner, wearing a tweed jacket and horn rimmed glasses, is the shrink William McDougal, aka the Social Psycho, aka Freud Rage. And in the other corner, also wearing a tweed jacket and horn rim glasses, is the geneticist Fae Crew, AKA the phenotype Fu, AKA Genes Wilder. Welcome to the fray in the DNA Let's Get Ready to Rumble Crew expected

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

his trained rats to master the maze in about 20 tries. And they did. But the untrained rats should have averaged 165 tries. They averaged 25. 30 generations. That's what it took McDougal's rats to crack the maze. These rats had no genetic connection to any of those, and they just needed 25 tries. On day one, we Agar, a scientist at the University of Melbourne, Ran a similar study for 20 years. Same result. Trained and untrained, Related and unrelated. Different labs, different countries, it didn't matter. The knowledge was spreading through the entire species. But it wasn't just rats. For years, milk was left on people's doorsteps. Glass bottles with foil caps and. I can't believe I'm old enough to remember this, but I am. In 1920, in Southampton, England, the blue tip birds learned something useful about milk.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Oh, crap.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Did say blue tit birds?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Yes, sometimes they're called blue caps, but technically they're. Please stop saying

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

hey, hey, hey. We gonna be talking about blue tits and milk for a while?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

We are.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Oh. Oh, baby, it's Christmas morning and Santa's been good to daddy.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Here's what the birds.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Blue tits.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Here's what they learned about milk. Pierce the foil cap, drink the cream. This behavior spread all over Britain. By the 1940s, they were all doing it. Every. Go ahead, Every blue tit was doing it.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Oh, hey, hey, hey. Do you have any stories about blue bazoombas? Turquoise tatas?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

No.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

A couple cans. Periwinkle peaks? Midnight melons?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

No.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Denim dumplings? Sapphire sandbags?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

That's enough. You could argue that the birds were watching each other and learning this trick. But then came World War II. All aluminum was needed for aircraft, so no more foil caps. They used wood or cheaper or harder metal. Blue tits couldn't get through. They only live a couple of years. So by the time the war was over, every bird that had ever pierced a cap was dead. The entire generation that knew the trick, they were gone. But when the foil caps came back, blue tits were piercing them again. Birds that had never seen the trick across all of Britain, all at the same time. This wasn't genetics, memory, or observation. This was a skill somehow encoded into the species itself. But this can happen to nonliving things, too. Specifically, crystals. When chemists synthesize a new compound, Getting it to crystallize for the first time can take months or years. Different temperatures, different solvents, different pressures. The molecules just won't organize. They won't form a pattern. Until one day, they do. And then something strange happens. A compound that resisted crystallization for decades suddenly crystallizes everywhere on Earth. Glycerol was a liquid for centuries. No one could crystallize it. Then in 1867, a barrel crystallized during shipment to Vienna. After that, glycerol crystallized easily everywhere. Xylitol, same story. Decades of failure, then one success, then success. Everywhere. Rats, birds, crystals. They were passing behaviors to each other all over the world. Something had to be carrying this information. Something we couldn't see, something we didn't understand. But in 1981, a young scientist from Cambridge found a pattern. Not only could species pass information anywhere around the world, they could pass information anywhere through time. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. May is mental Health Awareness Month, and it's a great reminder that a lot of people are carrying around way more than they let on. Some days you feel focused and motivated. Other days your brain decides that 3am is the perfect time to replay every mistake you've made since middle school. I've been there. That's where BetterHelp can really help. BetterHelp is online therapy with access to over 30,000 licensed therapists worldwide. They match you with a therapist based on your needs and preferences, so you can focus on actually talking through what's going on instead of trying to figure out everything by yourself. And for a lot of people, it's not even just one thing. It's just the constant pileup, deadlines, family responsibilities, trying to keep everything moving while you're pretending you're not exhausted. I get it. You tell yourself, I'll deal with it later, and then later turns into months or longer. BetterHelp has helped more than 6 million people around the world. You fill out a short questionnaire and if the match doesn't feel right, you can switch anytime. You don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] yfiles that's betterhelp. Betterhelp.com yfiles. In 1973, Rupert Sheldrake sat in his Cambridge lab staring at a bean plant. It was doing something that shouldn't be possible, according to everything he knew about biochemistry.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Hang on, hang on. The guy was called Rupert Sheldrake?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Yes. Why?

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

That's the kind of name that's gonna cost you a fortune in lunch money.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Yeah, I don't think there was a lot of bullying going on at Cambridge.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Ah, wake up. Human wedgies are universal. I bet even Stephen Hawking had to eat his own tighty whities from time to time. Any shadow nose things all day.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Anyway. Bean plants are like vines. They can't stand on their own. They need a structure to grow around. A wall, a fence, a tree. He was growing plants using pots and small wooden poles for support. Same method every time the plant sprouts, grows toward the pole and starts climbing. But this particular bean plant was doing something very strange. It was growing toward a pole that wasn't there yet. It was growing to where the pole would be in the future. Now Sheltrake was a serious scientist. Cambridge Fellowship, Harvard, PhD in biochemistry, director of studies at age 31. His research on plant hormones is still in textbooks today. But this bean plant was bothering him. Plants don't have eyes. They don't have nervous systems. The support pole wouldn't be installed for another two days. Yet the beam was already changing its growth pattern, already preparing to climb something that didn't exist yet. He'd seen this before thousands of times. Every biologist had. They just didn't talk about it. DNA doesn't actually contain the blueprint for what an organism becomes. An acorn has the same DNA in every cell, but those cells grow into roots or leaves, branches. They organize themselves into a tree. And nobody can really explain how they know to do that. Think of DNA like Lego bricks. A Star wars set and a castle set use exactly the same pieces. The only difference is the final shape. A fruit fly, a banana, even a human being share most of the same DNA. But they develop into completely different organisms. The final shape isn't in the DNA. Something else is guiding the process. One night, walking home along the river, Cam Sheldrake had a moment of clarity. Maybe nature has a memory. When any system organizes itself, a crystal forming, a plant growing and animal learning, it creates what Shelgerik would call a morphic field, a memory in nature. A similar system can resonate with that field and access that memory. Meaning a bird learning to pierce the foil, crystals learning to form. And the more that memory is accessed, the stronger it gets. And it influences everything that comes after across space and time. No physical connection required, because that memory is now part of nature. All of nature. Everywhere. Forever. In 1974, Sheldrake moved to India to work at an agricultural institute. That was his day job. He spent his nights at a monastery. And for 18 months, between prayers and meditation, he wrote a book proposing that the universe has memory. He called it A New Science of Life. He published it in 1981. The most important science journal in the world responded by calling for his book to be burned. The theory of morphic resonance cost Shell Drake his career. And a few years later, it almost cost him his life. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you. I had no idea how much money was just quietly leaving my account every month. Random subscriptions, impulse purchases, all the little charges that quietly pile up. That's when I started using Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you track subscriptions, organize your spending, set budgets, and actually see your full financial picture in one place. The subscription tracker alone was eye opening. I found things I completely forgot I was paying for, which Rocket Money helped me cancel in just a few taps. I also like that Rocket Money sends alerts for large purchases and upcoming bills, giving me a sense of financial security. And if you're trying to save for something specific, their goals feature is incredibly useful. In fact, users who create a financial goal with Rocket money save over $70 on average within the first 30 days. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. [e-mail] thew files that's rocketmoney.com theiles rocketmoney.com theiles. September 1981. John Maddox, editor of Nature, then the most prestigious science journal in the world, wrote an editorial about Sheldrake's book. He called it the best candidate for burning there's been for many years. Nature publishes Nobel laureates Einstein, Watson and Crick. Darwin calling for book burning was unprecedented in modern history. Of the journal, Maddox compared the book to Hitler's Mein Kampf and its potential for damage. He wasn't calling Sheldrake wrong, he was calling him dangerous. Maddox even said, shell, Drake's not a real scientific theorist. It's not even a theory. It's an exercise in pseudoscience.

[Expert / Scientist Commentary]

You see, Sheldrake's is not a scientific theory. Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science. And that can be condemned, but in exactly the language that the popes used to condemn Galileo. And for the same reasons. It is heresy.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Professors curious about morphic resonance went silent. Graduate students were warned away. Research funding dried up. But the more the establishment attacked Sheldrake, the more people read his work. The book burning editorial made Sheldrake's book a bestseller. He became the most talked about biologist in Britain overnight. Not for science, but for the attempt to suppress It. But the worst attack on Sheldrake wasn't intellectual. April 2, 2008. He was giving a lecture in Santa Fe. A man in the audience rushed the stage with a knife. He stabbed Sheldrake in the leg. Then security tackled him. The attacker told police and a reporter afterward that Sheldrake was using him as a subject in telepathic mind control experiments for five years. The wound was serious, but Sheldrake recovered, and days later, still using a walker, he gave a talk titled Science and hope. In March 2013, Sheldrake gave a TEDx talk called the Science Delusion. He challenged what he called the ten dogmas of modern that nature is mechanical, that matter is unconscious, and that mind is nothing but brain activity. That kind of stuff. Well, TED removed the Talk from their YouTube channel. Bloggers campaigned against it. TED consulted what they called a science board, but they never told us who was on it. The talk was about scientific dogmatism. The response was dogmatic censorship. But the attempts to silence Sheldrake kept backfiring. The banned TED Talk got millions of views on other channels. The stabbing made international news. Every attack made more people ask, what are they so afraid of? Then a British TV broadcaster had an idea. They would test morphic resonance on the largest scale ever attempted. So now there were 2 million people about to test this theory on live TV. In 1984, British television ran an experiment. They showed viewers a puzzle, one of those hidden pictures where you stare at random dots until an Image appears. About 2 million people watched. Then researchers tested people who hadn't seen the broadcast. Some were in different cities, some were in different countries. They solved that specific puzzle through faster than a control group tested before the broadcast. And not a little faster. Much faster. Those 2 million people who watched the show gave nature a new memory, a solution to that puzzle. Sheldrake said this could apply to crossword puzzles. He said crosswords should get easier to solve as the day goes on. As more and more people solve the puzzle, they're creating and reinforcing amorphic memory. That new memory makes the puzzle easier for everyone. Trying the puzzle for the first time.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Oh, maybe that's why I'm so naturally great with women, huh? I don't even know Moriarty. Men historically put up numbers that would make Wilt Chamberlain jealous.

[Expert / Scientist Commentary]

Okay, gross.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Thanks. Thanks. Great interjection. Some newspapers tested the puzzle theory. The London Evening Standard found their puzzles were solved 20% faster in the evening after thousands of people spent the day solving them. Then there's the Flint effect. Since the 1920s, IQ scores have risen worldwide by about 3 points per decade. Every generation scores higher than the last on the exact same tests. Experts credit better nutrition, better education, better test taking skills. But the gains show up even in pattern recognition tests that don't rely on education at all. Morphic resonance says as more humans master cognitive tasks, those tasks become easier for everyone. Sheldrake's most famous research involves dogs. He documented over 200 cases of dogs that go to the door or window when their owners decide to come home. Not when they come home, when they decide to. Owners came home at random times in unfamiliar vehicles. The dogs still knew. One dog, a terrier named J.T. was tested over 100 times. Within 10 seconds of his owner leaving work, J.T. went to the window. 85% of the time the owner was four miles away. Then there's the sense of being stared at. Sheldrake ran 25,000 thousand trials. Subjects guessed whether someone was looking at them from behind. They guessed right 55% of the time should be 50% now. 5% might not seem like much, but with that huge sample size, it's significant. We've all had that feeling where we know someone's looking at us. The book lifetide, released in 1979, is about monkeys on Kushima Island. One learned to wash sweet potatoes in the ocean. Other monkeys gobbied her. Once a hundred monkeys learned the trick, monkeys on other islands started washing potatoes too. Just like McDougal's rats, knowledge had jumped across the ocean. We've got rats and monkeys teaching each on different islands. Dogs and plants that can predict the future. People solving puzzles faster as the day goes on.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

I just like blue tits and milk, okay? Hey, hey. Didn't Luke Skywalker drink that stuff in the Last Jedi?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

I don't know what you're talking about. I never heard of that movie.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Fair enough.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

I love the concept of morphic resonance, but is it true? Well, let's start with the bad news. That famous monkey story that's completely made up. Bly Watson took real observations from primatologists and added a little fiction for fun. The crystal formations have a conventional explanation, too. When scientists first synthesize a new compound, it resists crystallization. After one lab succeeds, others find it easier. Sheldrake says it's morphic fields. Chemists say it's seed crystals. Microscopic traces on clothing, in beards, on shared equipment that ship between labs. And once the crystals exist anywhere, they exist everywhere. No mysterious fields required. That one is a stretch for me, but that's the official scientific view. Now, the crossword puzzles and TV experiments are interesting, but the effects are small and the methods are contested. So they can go either way. It's not the smoking gun that Sheldrake needs. But then there are the rats. MacDougall's data is real. Crew replicated it. Agar replicated it on a separate continent. Rats got smarter across generations with no physical contact. Critics explain it like early generations of rats were stressed by inexperienced researchers who didn't handle them properly. So as the researchers got better at handling them, the rats did better on the test. Now, I think the skeptics lose that one, especially when we consider something discovered decades after MacDougall died. Epigenetics. This shows acquired traits can chemically tag DNA and pass information to offspring. So the effect might be real. The cause? We still don't know. The dogs anticipating their owners coming home is Sheldrake's strongest published work. Critics have found methodological problems, but defenders have replicated the results. That one is still being debated, and every dog owner has thoughts. Now, here's the core problem that skeptics use. Morphic resonance requires information transfer with no energy cost, and that violates the law of conservation of energy. Physics has rules, but not all physics. Not quantum physics. Two particles separated by any distance, a room, a galaxy, it doesn't matter. They respond to each other instantly. This was confirmed in the 1980s. That's an instant transfer of information that ignores the law of conservation of energy and ignores the speed of light. And nobody knows how this works. In the 1930s, Carl Jung proposed a collective unconscious, a shared reservoir of human experience running beneath individual awareness. Physicist David Bohm said all points in space are fundamentally connected. Erwin Schrodinger, one of the architects of quantum mechanics and famous for the cat, argued that individual consciousness is just an illusion, that there's only one mind. Max Planck, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein all arrived at the same place from completely different directions, Some through mathematics, some through watching rats learn mazes, some through quantum theory itself. All of them looked at the universe and landed on the same word. Connected. Maybe the laws of nature are fixed, written into the fabric of reality before the first star formed. Or maybe the universe creates memories that strengthen through repetition, always evolving. We can't prove it either way. But there is one scientific fact that nobody can deny. A long time ago, every atom in your body was connected to every other atom and every other person on Earth. Every atom in your body was connected to every atom in every animal, every plant, every rock and every planet in the universe. And if the smallest things in existence stay connected to each other across any distance, then acting like the people around you are separate from you isn't just unkind, it's unscientific. Thank you so much for hanging out today. My name is A.J. that's Echofish. This has been the why Files. If you had fun or learned anything, he'd appreciate it. If you hit like subscribe, comment, share. That stuff really helps us out. And like most topics we cover on the channel, today's was recommended by you. And if there's a store you'd like to see or learn more about, go to the why files.com tips hop on Discord, email us, send a chat. There's a lot of ways to get a hold of us. We're always looking for topic ideas. And remember, the why Files is also a podcast. You can take us on the road. You get to hear the same videos we play here. Plus there's some bonus content, like the stuff that's really not allowed here. It's called the Y Files Operation Podcast and it's available everywhere. And if you are listening on an audio platform right now, do me a favor and hit the buttons, the follow, the like, the thumbs up, the ratings, the star, all that stuff that really makes a big, big difference. I'd appreciate it. Now, if you need more WI files in your life, I'd suggest you stepped on my joke, buddy. If you need more wafiles in your life, check out our Discord. You know how many people are on there? Give me a second. Wrapping it up. There are about. I'm leaving it in. There are about 100,000 members on Discord now. So 24, 7, there's someone on there hanging out, talking about the same weird stuff, stuff we do here. It's a great community, it's a lot of fun and it's free to join. And speaking of 24. Seven, make sure you he's just flapping around like. Like a fish on. On the deck of a boat. You good, buddy? Yeah. Check out our 247 stream on the wifi house backstage. There's a link down below over there. We run episodes back to back with some fun content in between and the live chat. It's hilarious. The people over there have created an incredible community. If you enjoy the stories I tell on the WI Files, check out my other show on the channel called the Basement. It's a conversation show where I chat with the interesting people behind the episodes. Experts on fun topics like the Knights Templar time travel, moon landing hoax, JFK UFO technology, quantum consciousness, all kinds of random stuff. And if there's someone you'd like to see on the show, let me know. I'm always looking for good guests. A special thanks to our patrons who made this channel possible. And every episode of the why Files is dedicated to my Patreon members. I couldn't do any of this without your support. And if you'd like to keep us going, support the channel. Join this crazy community. Become a member on Patreon for as little as three bucks a month. You get access to perks like seeing videos, early commercials, exclusive merch, and at least two private live streams every week, all just for you. And the whole Wild Files team is on the stream, not just me. So you get to see Gino, Victoria, Mary Jane, Hybrid, Jen, whoever. I'm forgetting them. So every. You get to meet everybody. All our cameras are on, but also you can turn on your camera, hop up on stage, ask a question, tell a joke, talk about anything you want. It's a great way to get to know us as people. I think is the best perk there is. Another great way to support the channel is grab something from the wifi store,

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

grab a heck of a T shirt, pull one of these. Just some coffee bikes. Stick your fist in. Oh, what do you for your blue tits now? Whatever you want. Whatever you want to put. Yeah, put it. I can't get. Honey sh. My feet squeezy. Okay, I can't. I can't do it.

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

But if you're gonna buy merch, make sure you become a member on YouTube. Hear me out. YouTube members get 10% off everything in the Wildfowl store. So if you're gonna spend 40 bucks on t shirts or fistable coffee mugs. If you know, you know. If you're gonna spend 40 bucks over there, join on YouTube, get the code, it pays for itself and then just cancel if you want. The code is there to save you money, not make me money. In fact, all that revenue goes to the team. I don't touch it. So thank you for that.

[Comic Relief / Sidekick]

Yeah, keep that secret close to you blue titch, would ya?

[Narrator / Main Storyteller]

Those are the plugs. And that's gonna do it. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.

[Paranormal / Conspiracy Rapper]

A secret code inside the Bible said I was I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music so I'm singing like I should but then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth, my friends and it never ends no, it never ends. I feel the crab cat and got stuck inside Mel's home with MKO truck I feel only 2 aware did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone on a film set with the shadow people

[Paranormal / Conspiracy Singer]

there

[Paranormal / Conspiracy Rapper]

The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man I'm told and his name was cold But I can't believe I'm

[Paranormal / Conspiracy Singer]

desperate Up with the fish Handle fish on Thursday night Wednesday J2 and. All through the night.

[Paranormal / Conspiracy Rapper]

The mothman sightings and the solar storm still come to have got the secret city underground, Mysterious number stations, Planet Surf, O2 Project Stargate and what the dark watchers found in a simulation don't you worry though the black Knight satellite it

[Paranormal / Conspiracy Singer]

shows me so can't believe I'm dancing with the fish Handle fish on Thursday night with AJ when the W on through the night I am what it was to just hear the truth. On Thursday nights when they change you and the weapons are me all through the night high. Love to dance on the dance floor because she is a camel Camels love to dance when the feeling is right Always in time. Foreign.

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