Psience Quest Interview No. 6: Rupert Sheldrake

Good interview... short and succinct but covering a lot of ground, and some to the point answers. I enjoyed reading that. Sheldrake still has a first rate enquiring scientific mind. Might be he’s a bit more open minded than some would like, and less open minded than others would like. He can stray off into odd areas, but generally it’s a reasonably balanced range of ideas and opinions on what we observe. Thanks for putting the work in to bring us that Will.

If I'd been able to have a few more questions, I would've slipped in one or two about those areas where he's too open or not enough   


(Specifically, some concepts in alternative medicine he's been adjacent to at times.)

Hey Will, thanks for the link. I've think I listened to it a while back but it will be interesting to review it and see how it applies his statement in #6

I have only just discovered this interview - that was quite a catch to get an interview with RS!

I don't know if RS wrote the text above, but it contains what I think is a transcription error:

I think there is good evidence for all these parapsychological phenomena except for the survival of bodily death in reincarnation.  Out of the body experiences do not necessarily prove the survival of bodily death nor do mediumistic communications.  I think this is a subject on which conclusive evidence is always going to be elusive, because it can be interpreted in other ways.

The expression "survival of bodily death" (repeated) doesn't really make sense. It is a pity because it would be nice to get a clearer view of RS's thoughts on the subject.

Interestingly, in the video posted by Typoz RS seems pretty definite that we survive in a dream-like state from which we can emerge.

Also RS seemed to be unhappy with the idea of reincarnation, and wanted to reinterpret the phenomenon as children obtaining access to other person's memories.

I have a gut reaction against taking data and manipulating it to get the answer you want - because that is what materialists are supremely good at. As Alex says, "Follow the data".


Those children state their past lives in the first person, and use expressions such as, "my previous mummy".

[Ninshub]

I think by "survival of bodily death" that he simply means survival of the person in any form once the body is dead. But yes that would seem to contradict what he expresses in that video.