# Merlin Sheldrake

Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author, and researcher in the field of parapsychology, who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been characterised as pseudoscience. He worked as a biochemist at Cambridge University from 1967 to 1973 and as principal plant physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in India until 1978.Sheldrake's morphic resonance posits that "memory is inherent in nature" and that "natural systems... inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind." Sheldrake proposes that it is also responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms." His advocacy of the idea offers idiosyncratic explanations of standard subjects in biology such as development, inheritance, and memory.