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The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God
Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's preeminent biologists, has revolutionized scientific thinking with his vision of a living, developing universe--one with its own inherent memory. In The Rebirth of Nature , Sheldrake urges us to move beyond the centuries-old mechanistic view of nature, explaining why we can no longer regard the world as inanimate and purposeless. Sheldrake shows how recent developments in science itself have brought us to the threshold of a new synthesis in which traditional wisdom, intuitive experience, and scientific insight can be mutually enriching.
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 11, 1990
20 people are currently reading
658 people want to read
About the author
Rupert Sheldrake
64 books693 followersRupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.
Recently, drawing on the work of French philosopher Henri Bergson, he developed the theory of morphic resonance, which makes use of the older notion of morphogenetic fields. He has researched and written on topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, telepathy, perception and metaphysics.
Recently, drawing on the work of French philosopher Henri Bergson, he developed the theory of morphic resonance, which makes use of the older notion of morphogenetic fields. He has researched and written on topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, telepathy, perception and metaphysics.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 1, 2011
Whether Sheldrake is a genius before his time or a crackpot riding the New Age wave doesn't matter that much to me because the book is just plain interesting.
February 8, 2019
Ahead of its time in many ways, with its insights regarding a new way of envisaging our relationship with nature. At the same time, the insights are not overly radical or romanticising of nature. They are good plain, helpful and realistic practical insights we can use to guide us in changing our relationship with the natural world for the better. A lot of background to how we got in this situation, thanks to the prevalence of certain metaphysical approaches is also made clear. This is not an issue we can fight solely on the moral level, by being good people, it has to be realised that much of science is complicit in a mechanistic world view that tacitly and implicitly promotes some of the extremes of capitalist materialism, consumerism, and selfishness. And so we have to be willing to fight this battle on the metaphysical level also and not cede all knowledge and authority here to a handful of scientific experts spouting a conventional and in many cases dogmatic perspective. This is not about being anti-science though, its about keeping our critical faculties awake, so we can be properly aware, this is our only chance to recreate in ourselves a new and healthy attitude to, and relationship with, nature.
October 7, 2020
I have just finished reading Rupert Sheldrake’s The Rebirth of Nature and even though it was published in 1990, over thirty years ago, it speaks to the present moment with even more exigency.
Sheldrake argues persuasively for the sentience of Nature and the urgency of re-connection. He warns that if we continue down this path of economic pillage and industrial rape we will lose the compliance of the natural kingdom, a circumstance I fear has come to pass with COVID. That Nature has soul and sentience is disputed by the mechanistic fraternity and their tenet licences the incursion of corporate industry, a reductive racket built on the premise of infinite growth.
We ignore people like Sheldrake at our peril.
His belief in the sentience of nature is shared by such illuminated minds as Alexander Pope who wrote this in 1711.
“First follow Nature, and your judgement frame
By her just standard which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear unchanged and universal light.”
Universal light, an interconnected field of resonance permeated with collective memory and unrealized potential fuelled by imagination. Sheldrake speaks of a changing model.
Page 70 “For three centuries, from the time of Descartes until 1927, physicists lived under the spell of a powerful illusion. Everything was believed to be fully determinate and hence in principle, though not in practice, entirely predictable.”
But in reality, or at least perceived reality, life spins on a dime, moving with an inherent spontaneity that argues for impulse and curiosity rather than mathematical formulae masquerading as physical law.
Page 71 “And this chaos, openness, spontaneity and freedom of nature provide the matrix of creativity.”
In short Sheldrake argues for mindfulness and sentience in the seemingly inanimate Universe that self-organised via a grid of mathematical equations that predicate growth, infinite growth at that.
But infinite growth is an illusion as powerful as the addiction to money as a measurement for spiritual worth. Many of us are concerned that the unchecked pollution of the earth will have dire consequences.
Page 124 “The realization that we are polluting the earth, upsetting the balance of nature, and changing the global climate points to the same conclusion (that we are all earth’s children). The destructive forces unleashed through economic development and the growth of technology have taken on a life of their own, proceeding in blithe disregard for their planetary consequences. And they have been accompanied by an unprecedented growth in the human population. These processes now seem unstoppable. But our activities are not separate from the earth. We live within her. If we disregard her in pursuit of our human ends, we endanger our own survival.”
But despite the pleas of a younger generation bannered by the brave Greta Thunberg and supported by the legendary Sir David Attenborough, it seems economic growth is still bastioned over ecological health. As Sheldrake says, how willing you are to accept a mind-driven universe depends on your tolerance of mystery. In a world that is shamelessly self-aggrandizing and run by toxic masculinity as exemplified by the morbidly unimaginative corporates and the stultifying privileged and the psychotically greedy, stone-neck politicians like Trump and Johnson it is difficult to calibrate the vitality of mystery and the power of beauty for its own sake. People who tunnel their lives in ever-diminishing spirals of habitual thoughtlessness may well consider themselves masters of their own domain. And this insouciance masquerading as masculinity and privilege is inhibiting the development of their own souls and denying the greater reaches of sentience and the interconnection of life.
Page 170 “Each of us faced with the mystery of our existence and experience has to try and find some way to make sense of it. We have a choice of philosophies: the mechanistic theory of nature and human life, with God as an optional extra; or the theory of nature as alive but without God; or the theory of a living God together with living nature. Each of these views can be elaborated intellectually, each can be defended on rational grounds, and each is held with deep conviction by many people.”
Or we can tune into that space within where soul chimes with resonance and “feel” what makes sense to us. Our conclusions will doubtless depend on our willingness to entertain and allow mystery.
Page 174 “The earth is all we have – a world of finite resources. We depend on our planet and those resources for our survival. We are part of a fragile interdependent network called LIFE. If our planet dies, we die…The way we live now cannot go on forever. We must change or face extinction.” (British Green Party pamphlet 1989)
1989. How shameful and cavalier that we have carried on rowing down the toxic river of denial.
Page 177 “Faced with the prospect of impending doom, we need a spirit of repentance that is not just individual but collective. The imbalances which threaten our world are not just the fault of a few greedy people in power; we are all part of the economic and political systems that have proved so destructive. At the very least our political and economic systems will have to change radically if we are to live in greater harmony with Gaia. The only question is, how radically?”
I take hope in the fact of this book and people like Rupert Sheldrake that it is not too late to restructure our relationship with the earth. But first, and most pressingly, we must restructure our relationship with money and with each other. It is not enough to simply hat-tip to waste management and consumerism. We have to reduce our consumption of everything and it would behoove us all to learn how to live off the grid and on the land. To understand and respect Nature’s rhythms and cycles and to match our own cycles of rest and activity to hers. As long as we blindly brace a philosophy of rampant growth and retrace the rutted footsteps of generations of worker bee ancestors we will never free ourselves up long enough to observe the mysteries and feel awe.
Sheldrake argues persuasively for the sentience of Nature and the urgency of re-connection. He warns that if we continue down this path of economic pillage and industrial rape we will lose the compliance of the natural kingdom, a circumstance I fear has come to pass with COVID. That Nature has soul and sentience is disputed by the mechanistic fraternity and their tenet licences the incursion of corporate industry, a reductive racket built on the premise of infinite growth.
We ignore people like Sheldrake at our peril.
His belief in the sentience of nature is shared by such illuminated minds as Alexander Pope who wrote this in 1711.
“First follow Nature, and your judgement frame
By her just standard which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear unchanged and universal light.”
Universal light, an interconnected field of resonance permeated with collective memory and unrealized potential fuelled by imagination. Sheldrake speaks of a changing model.
Page 70 “For three centuries, from the time of Descartes until 1927, physicists lived under the spell of a powerful illusion. Everything was believed to be fully determinate and hence in principle, though not in practice, entirely predictable.”
But in reality, or at least perceived reality, life spins on a dime, moving with an inherent spontaneity that argues for impulse and curiosity rather than mathematical formulae masquerading as physical law.
Page 71 “And this chaos, openness, spontaneity and freedom of nature provide the matrix of creativity.”
In short Sheldrake argues for mindfulness and sentience in the seemingly inanimate Universe that self-organised via a grid of mathematical equations that predicate growth, infinite growth at that.
But infinite growth is an illusion as powerful as the addiction to money as a measurement for spiritual worth. Many of us are concerned that the unchecked pollution of the earth will have dire consequences.
Page 124 “The realization that we are polluting the earth, upsetting the balance of nature, and changing the global climate points to the same conclusion (that we are all earth’s children). The destructive forces unleashed through economic development and the growth of technology have taken on a life of their own, proceeding in blithe disregard for their planetary consequences. And they have been accompanied by an unprecedented growth in the human population. These processes now seem unstoppable. But our activities are not separate from the earth. We live within her. If we disregard her in pursuit of our human ends, we endanger our own survival.”
But despite the pleas of a younger generation bannered by the brave Greta Thunberg and supported by the legendary Sir David Attenborough, it seems economic growth is still bastioned over ecological health. As Sheldrake says, how willing you are to accept a mind-driven universe depends on your tolerance of mystery. In a world that is shamelessly self-aggrandizing and run by toxic masculinity as exemplified by the morbidly unimaginative corporates and the stultifying privileged and the psychotically greedy, stone-neck politicians like Trump and Johnson it is difficult to calibrate the vitality of mystery and the power of beauty for its own sake. People who tunnel their lives in ever-diminishing spirals of habitual thoughtlessness may well consider themselves masters of their own domain. And this insouciance masquerading as masculinity and privilege is inhibiting the development of their own souls and denying the greater reaches of sentience and the interconnection of life.
Page 170 “Each of us faced with the mystery of our existence and experience has to try and find some way to make sense of it. We have a choice of philosophies: the mechanistic theory of nature and human life, with God as an optional extra; or the theory of nature as alive but without God; or the theory of a living God together with living nature. Each of these views can be elaborated intellectually, each can be defended on rational grounds, and each is held with deep conviction by many people.”
Or we can tune into that space within where soul chimes with resonance and “feel” what makes sense to us. Our conclusions will doubtless depend on our willingness to entertain and allow mystery.
Page 174 “The earth is all we have – a world of finite resources. We depend on our planet and those resources for our survival. We are part of a fragile interdependent network called LIFE. If our planet dies, we die…The way we live now cannot go on forever. We must change or face extinction.” (British Green Party pamphlet 1989)
1989. How shameful and cavalier that we have carried on rowing down the toxic river of denial.
Page 177 “Faced with the prospect of impending doom, we need a spirit of repentance that is not just individual but collective. The imbalances which threaten our world are not just the fault of a few greedy people in power; we are all part of the economic and political systems that have proved so destructive. At the very least our political and economic systems will have to change radically if we are to live in greater harmony with Gaia. The only question is, how radically?”
I take hope in the fact of this book and people like Rupert Sheldrake that it is not too late to restructure our relationship with the earth. But first, and most pressingly, we must restructure our relationship with money and with each other. It is not enough to simply hat-tip to waste management and consumerism. We have to reduce our consumption of everything and it would behoove us all to learn how to live off the grid and on the land. To understand and respect Nature’s rhythms and cycles and to match our own cycles of rest and activity to hers. As long as we blindly brace a philosophy of rampant growth and retrace the rutted footsteps of generations of worker bee ancestors we will never free ourselves up long enough to observe the mysteries and feel awe.
Read
December 30, 2024Has more history and less science and spirit than his other works
January 24, 2025
Coninx vond het ma zweverig
July 24, 2014
Quel bonheur quand un grand savant, ici le britannique R.Sheldrake, lève le nez de sa paillasse (ou descend des hautes sphères de la recherche) pour non seulement enrichir notre culture générale scientifique mais aussi, replacer la science dans son contexte spirituel et sociétal. Ici, Sheldrake montre comment la définition scientifique de la nature comme objet inerte et soumis que l'homme n'aurait qu'à exploiter voire à détruire coïncide avec le protestantisme rationalisateur qui réduit la dimension "supra-rationnelle" de l'homme à une toute petite partie de son être (son âme spirituelle) et du coup retire le divin de tout le reste de la création ; et avec les prémisses de la révolution industrielle. La nature devient donc une pure ressource, un pur matériau inanimé, sans âme et sans vie propre. Mais tout cela est à son tour dépassé par les avancées de la science elle-même : mise en évidence du rôle fondamental de l'Energie, des champs, de la transformation continue de tout ; et découverte des mondes ouverts par la physique quantique. Il est donc temps de dépasser la vision de la nature comme pure "chose" pour finalement se réconcilier tant avec le ressenti subjectif de chacun (besoin de se "ressourcer" dans la nature, lien avec les animaux) qu'avec le constat qu'existent depuis toujours des "lieux sacrés", des sites particulièrement chargés. L'auteur formule une hypothèse audacieuse, celle des résonances morphiques, sorte de savoir commun partagé par tous les membres d'une espèce même sans contact entre eux, et qui ferait que quand l'un des membres commence à agir d'une façon innovante, les autres se mettent à le faire plus fréquemment et plus facilement. On n'est pas obligé d'y adhérer, même si les découvertes récentes en épigénétique, postérieures au livre, apportent de l'eau au moulin de notre auteur. Le tout s'achève par un hymne à l'écologie. Ruper Sheldrake allie l'originalité et le caractère un peu mystique, voire animiste, du propos avec un art consommé de la démonstration implacable et une parfaite clarté d'expression. J'adore (et je vais vraiment lire Ralph Waldo Emerson).
July 24, 2008
I really like this guy. I think he is a biologist. It is definitely a critique on modern science and it's shortcomings of thinking holistically. He explains his theory of morphic resonance, which I enjoy and relate to. He provides examples of such. It's like the 100th monkey principle, with more examples and expanded upon.
September 9, 2013
Blending science and mysticism with a brief history of the relevant threads, this book fails to be convincing for those uninitiated into its perspectives. Nevertheless since I like my scientists to speak poetically and my mystics to speak the language of science I found it an enjoyable read.
August 14, 2011
thought provoking
October 12, 2009
A scientific perspective on mother nature different to the vitalist and mechanistic views
December 2, 2025
This is a wonderful book that challenges the widely adopted (or accepted) narrow "truth" called scientism. Again, stop viewing non-human life forms through an anthropocentric lens. If this planet is to survive the onslaught of human ignorance, universal compassion needs to be adopted worldwide. Everything has a purpose, we are all connected and the almighty human species needs to realize this. We are but a tiny thread in the web of life. Be humble.
This quote by Henry Beston can perfectly be applied to all life forms:
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
This quote by Henry Beston can perfectly be applied to all life forms:
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
January 14, 2020
British ecologist Rupert Sheldrake challenges the mechanistic model of nature and the universe, arguing that all of the cosmos is alive. "All nature is evolutionary," he writes. "The cosmos is like a great developing organism, and evolutionary creativity is inherent in nature herself.” Here is a passage that I have found especially powerful: "It is important to recognize the reality of our own direct experiences of nature in the wilderness, in the countryside, in forests, on mountains, by the sea, or wherever we have felt ourselves to be in connection with the great living world. In its stronger forms, this sense of communion has the force of mystical experience, of illumination, surprise, and joy. But when we return to our everyday lives, we have a strong temptation to dismiss such experience as merely subjective, something that just happened inside us and did not involve any real participation in a life greater than our own. I think we should resist this temptation. Our direct intuitive experiences of nature are more real and more direct than mere theories, which go in and out of fashion."
May 31, 2018
Easily one of my top ten favorites of all time, just because it is so refreshing have this combination of focus on our planet, our relationship to the planet, and our relationships within the planet. "We live within her and depend on her life." There is so many ideas! And so many small meditations you slip into after thinking about for a while, like what morphic field has influenced me to have become who I am now, or our idea of the feminine in nature and how wickedly people have chose to frame it. An excellent way to ask better questions in the hopes of finding your answers.
February 8, 2025
Loved this book . Undoubtedly nature is a mother. It was hard to read. Needed to pull out a dictionary and reread parts to comprehend it. And I am of a tad bit higher than average intelligence. Still 5 stars
April 19, 2018
Lots of great points and introduces the reader to the idea of morphogenesis. I have quoted the book significantly, so if anyone is interested in any of the gems I found, feel free to read those.
July 7, 2019
Why is this info not more widespread???
August 9, 2025
An overall solid book that critiques the mechanistic/physicalism-based worldview of nature & reality at large.
I find his advocation for an updated version of an animistic type of metaphysics & socioecology both fascinating & frustrating simultaneously. Fascinating because viewing nature as "alive & a living organism" aligns with process philosophy/metaphysics as popularized by the 20th century philosopher & mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (whom Sheldrake has named as a big influence on him & his work). However, I found it frustrating that he didn't mention process philosophy much in the text at all (only one mention of Whitehead & one mention of process theologian John B. Cobb).
A lot of people dunk on/disrespect Sheldrake & say he's "woo" because they simply don't understand the fact that he's advocating for process metaphysics/process philosophy (even his son Merlin is a process philosopher). He didn't mention process metaphysics in his later book, Science & Spiritual Practices either for whatever reason. I think if he was more explicit in his subscription to process metaphysics, he wouldn't get so much flak from laypeople as Whitehead really challenged physicalism via critiquing the Bifurcation of Nature.
I read Sheldrake's later book, Science & Spiritual Practices first before reading this one & it's obvious he was drawing upon his earlier work in this book when he wrote Science & Spiritual Practices a few years ago.
Overall, I think his Science & Spiritual Practices book is a more practical & updated version of this text & recommend reading that over this book (he advocates for a non-physicalist version of panpsychism in that book & briefly touches upon philosophy of mind). However, this is a good text if you're interested in getting a better understanding of Sheldrake's overall philosophy & his advocation of a modern, animistic type of metaphysics.
I find his advocation for an updated version of an animistic type of metaphysics & socioecology both fascinating & frustrating simultaneously. Fascinating because viewing nature as "alive & a living organism" aligns with process philosophy/metaphysics as popularized by the 20th century philosopher & mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (whom Sheldrake has named as a big influence on him & his work). However, I found it frustrating that he didn't mention process philosophy much in the text at all (only one mention of Whitehead & one mention of process theologian John B. Cobb).
A lot of people dunk on/disrespect Sheldrake & say he's "woo" because they simply don't understand the fact that he's advocating for process metaphysics/process philosophy (even his son Merlin is a process philosopher). He didn't mention process metaphysics in his later book, Science & Spiritual Practices either for whatever reason. I think if he was more explicit in his subscription to process metaphysics, he wouldn't get so much flak from laypeople as Whitehead really challenged physicalism via critiquing the Bifurcation of Nature.
I read Sheldrake's later book, Science & Spiritual Practices first before reading this one & it's obvious he was drawing upon his earlier work in this book when he wrote Science & Spiritual Practices a few years ago.
Overall, I think his Science & Spiritual Practices book is a more practical & updated version of this text & recommend reading that over this book (he advocates for a non-physicalist version of panpsychism in that book & briefly touches upon philosophy of mind). However, this is a good text if you're interested in getting a better understanding of Sheldrake's overall philosophy & his advocation of a modern, animistic type of metaphysics.
February 6, 2016
Morphic ressonance theory: I will never be the same again , after getting in contact to that .Sheldrake allowed me to cross the gates of understanding of our life in planet Earth . that´s the truth. At the first part , is possible to understand the rise of mecanicist science step by step , changing gradually the vision of alive nature along the timeline. The influence of Protestant reformation and its open way to skepticism is a point that took my attention. At the second part . becomes clear how matematic approach cant predict the changing universe , and fields vision is introduced. The third part was the most interesting for me , bringing the revival of animism theory and the greening of God. One of the remarkable chapters for me was about the memory of sacred times and places: I always behaved myself connected with that reality. Definitely , "Rebirth of naure" is included on my list of favourite books.
January 25, 2017
A great book to get you thinking and a great book which just might become an early marker for a paradigm shift in the way that science is thought about. If the mechanistic model of the universe and life on earth leaves you searching for more meaning, this book offers just that. However Sheldrake is an academic and some of his more literal accounts to support his theory go way above my head. Nevertheless, his metaphors help and his bravery in confronting the establishment make me feel there is something highly significant being worked out by him.
April 22, 2008
The addition of purpose to our planet is science deviation in the extreme. Sheldrake almost pulls it off. An important, but flawed book. Sheldrake is rushing to synthesize and should slow down a bit (my offered opinion).
January 29, 2020
His theory of morphic fields seems to be an amplification of Jung’s collective unconscious, where there is some type of “memory” separate from organic brain memory. His theories about “creativity and habit” also amplifies memetic theories.
June 24, 2013
Some really interesting ideas. I had started this book a while ago and decided to finally finish it. Well worth the second look.
November 7, 2012
this is the book of my life...
May 23, 2013
great book, highly recommend. he's not too nutty.
August 29, 2014
Provocative premises, elucidated with charm and humility
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews