I ’ve always found the concept of morphic resonance fascinating,” says Nigel Planer, thoughtfully. “I read Rupert Sheldrake’s earliest books in the 1980s, and thought the idea would be a useful one to expand upon.”
Sheldrake’s theories still make for interesting reading. For the uninitiated, morphic resonance is the proposition that collective memory is inherited via “morphic fields” that dictate behaviour.1 It’s the reason, suggests Sheldrake, that birds fly south for the winter and humans celebrate Thanksgiving and Passover every year: “The past becomes present through a kind of resonance with those who have performed the same rituals before.”2
It’s a concept that provides the inspiration for Nigel’s forthcoming novel, . By mentally attuning himself to the echoes of the past, the titular hero – a 21st century London teenager – is able to transport himself back to 1910, where he begins to unravel the family mystery surrounding his absent mother. “I wanted to remain vague about the actual process of time travel,” continues Nigel. “So I picked on morphic resonance as the vaguest thing I could think of! I tend that time travels, because the science goes out of the window. But with a concept like morphic resonance, even though it’s derided as being pseudoscience, it’s something that’s still on the of scientific explanation. Which is great for fiction. It makes things just that little bit more believable. Whereas if you’re going to make a great big statement – ‘Oh yes! Every time I put on this magic sock, I find myself in mediæval Italy!’ – that requires a different stretch of the imagination.
