Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, once a prominent and well-respected biologist, has been an outsider to the scientific establishment ever since the publication of his groundbreaking book, A New Science of Life. In 1981 the book and its theories came uder fierce attack by the scientific establishment, led by Sir John Maddox in an unsigned editorial at Nature, noxiously titled “A book for burning?”

At the core of his work is a hypothesis he calls formative causation, which describes a non-mechanistic universe governed by laws which themselves are subject to change. But perhaps even more controversial than his ideas are his methods, which democratize science into the hands of laypeople. In Sheldrakes’ world, science is a practical approach to investigate the world. He publishes simple experiments like a recipe in a cookbook, allowing each person to decide for his or her self rather than to rely upon confirmation by experts.

The popularity of his work and the success of his experiments are proving hard to ignore. This past summer, the Journal of Consciousness Studies dedicated in an entire issue to his controversial work, Sheldrake and his Critics: The Sense of Being Glared At—itself a pun on his work.

His current research is focused upon simple, common experiences that sit outside the scrutiny of normal scientific investigation: human-pet relationships, telepathy, and the sense of being stared at. The following are experiments that anyone can participate in to help with his research.

1. Email Telepathy Experiments (see also the plans for School Teachers and Group Leaders)
2. Online Staring Test
3. Can you wake a sleeping animal by staring at it? If you believe so, email here to take part in further experiments.

An exhaustive collection of articles, videos, audio, lectures, interviews, and related materials are available at Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s website.