479

The Impossible Exists

Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum 89 (1996), pp. 479-482.

Discussions

Giuseppe Sermonti

The Impossible Exists

About the ‘Seven Experiments’ Suggested by Rupert Sheldrake

Dear Rupert,

I am sincerely convinced that the “seven experiments” you suggest

may change the world or, better, our view of the world. They can
endow it with an enchanted and magic ‘aura’ that modernity hardly
misses. The dog Watch (or Don) which goes and meets his master
every day, even when he changes, without announcing it, the return
hour, touches me. With carefully controlled observations, the circum-
stances of such mysterious ‘resonances’ can be investigated, the trivial
explanations ruled out, and the “coincidences” made significant.

I am however reluctant to believe that one or more experiments

can solve the enigmas, providing physical, although eccentric, expla-
nations to the matters. Let us assume that one can conclude that the
dogs experience some unknown Y radiation whose physical nature
could eventually be ascertained. This would not add fascination to the
strange communication at a distance between man and dog. On the
contrary, it would be transferred from the enchanted to the foresee-
able.

Once the paranormal is transferred to the normal, with the placet

of physics, the experience of the ultrasensitive dog would lose all its
fascination (and sensitive dogs would be used by the army or the po-
lice).

What kind of answer can you eventually expect from your (zoo-

Giuseppe Sermonti

480

logical) experiments? Not a physical explanation, which would be
reductive, nor one multiplying the sensorial or conceptual perform-
ances of the animals, which would be only quantitative. I think that
you promote the experimentation with the secret hope that it verifies
and substantiates the experiences, but eventually leaves them unex-
plained, since explaining something means to refer the unknown to
the known. The true success of the experiments would be the demon-
stration that the surprising facts do actually occur, but they are not
explainable, but, perhaps, in the context of a new paradigm, as that of
morphic resonance. Thus the experiments would result in the raising
of man towards metaphysics, or, using a less agreeable term, the “par-
anormal”.

Your researches are of the same kind as the studies made by C.G.

Jung on “significant coincidences”, wherefrom he deduced the con-
cept of “synchronicity” and Kammerer that of “seriality”. For these
Authors the key was to establish significant connections which could
not be physical.

Your predilection to stay at the edge of the problems is evident

from your considerations on birds’ migrations. You quote the case of
the little bird which orientates itself by looking at the circumpolar
constellations. Such recognition (although physical and rational) in-
creases the wonder of the phenomenon, since the mysterious ability to
perceive “home” at a distance becomes an ability to organize systems
of stars mentally, and that not by innate instinct, rather through the
memorization of the circumpolar rotation, an ability that anthropolo-
gists have never granted to the “primitive” man. You object that birds
migrate even with covered sky and leave aside their fascinating role of
little geometers and astrologers, which is all but trivial.

The world of the white ants (termites), which perform coordinate

work, even when separated by a plate of steel, looks as the most con-
vincing expression of your “morphic resonance”. However, you note,
termites don’t transmit each other their learnings, they rather share a
general project, prefixed and centered over the queen. If she dies the
project fades instantly. An “organisative field” exists, which does not
proceed from insects, but such that they are embedded in it, therefore
something differing from morphic resonance.

481

The Impossible Exists

Personally I think not so important to “explain” the world of ter-

mites, as much to ask termites to explain us our world.

I agree with your project to invite lay-men to perform experi-

ments. This is the real way to teach people reading the world. I would
not worry however to look for “explanations”, because explanations
only shift problems (although, admittedly, a shifted problem may be-
come a sublime problem).

It is a commonplace that reality is nothing but a chance in the

vastness of the possible. I would not dare to state that also the impos-
sible exists (and its detection requires the kind of experiments you
suggest), and the possible is a limited area of the impossible. If this
will turn to be the case, we would feel free from the boundaries of a
conventional legislation and thus the world, actually, would change.

It is ‘impossible’ that the dog perceives the intentions of its owner

at a long distance; it is ‘impossible’ that the bird finds its nest with
closed eyes after having travelled thousands of miles; it is ‘impossible’
that the termite knows what her sister does beyond a steel plate. But
all that takes place, and may be experimentally proved. The world is
less trivial and much wider and wonderful than our reasonable expec-
tations.

Yours,

Giuseppe

The Italian text of this letter is published in this issue after a short com-

ment to the Italian edition of R. Sheldrake’s Seven Experiments that could
change the world. The English edition is published by Fourth Estate, London
(£ 6.99), the American edition by Riverhead Books, New York ($ 24.95).