The Electrodynamic Theory of Life

Facing the vitalism versus mechanism controversy, the investigations carried out by doctors Harold Saxton Burr and F.S.C Northrop in the last century modified and refuted the mechanistic view.

Indeed, towards the mid-1930s, specifically in 1935, two professors at Yale University, Dr. Harold Saxton Burr, professor of pathological anatomy and neuroanatomy, as well as Dr. F. S. C Northrop, published the "theory electrodynamics of life” in a common article appearing in the Quarterly Review of Biology in its tenth number, substantiating the research that led them to discover that all forms of life are surrounded by electrodynamic fields underlying principles that govern the organization of living beings. These fields, corroborated by quantum physics, were called "Life-Fields" or "L-Fields," that is to say "Fields of Life" (or Vital Fields), but usually called "Campos L" in Spanish.

These fields extend to a certain distance from the body, surrounding it like an electromagnetic framework, from birth to death, and enveloping all living matter, from a cell or a seed, to the human body.

Burr theorized that these fields spread throughout the universe, organizing matter before the formation of the physical body. Any element of nature, whether plant or animal, is controlled by electrodynamic fields, since in all systems there are potential gradients and polar differences. These fields that can be accurately measured and mapped are enormously complex, have the same electromagnetic nature as other simpler fields, and obey the same laws. They are part of the organization of the universe and are influenced by forces from space.

These complex organizational fields are also determined by the anatomical components of the body to which they are associated, their orientation depending on the nature of said components. These are authentic molds that contain the molecules and cells of the body in recognizable form, which control birth, life and death, as well as the maintenance and repair of all living matter.

These fields show to have a great difference with the electrical manifestations of the heart and the brain, collected in the electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram. They fluctuate according to mood, with light and darkness, with lunar cycles, with terrestrial magnetism or geomagnetism, with sunspots and with radiation from planets and stars.

Inspection of an L-Field in its early phase can reveal the future shape or layout of the materials it is to mold. When the frog egg is examined electrically, it is possible to show the future location of the nervous system, since the frog's L-Field will determine how the egg will develop.

Measurement of L-Fields is done with special voltmeters and electrodes that reveal different patterns or voltage gradients in different parts of the electrodynamic field. The study of these fields can sometimes reveal anomalies or defects in them.  For example, an L-Field with anomalous voltage distributions can warn about future malformations or diseases, facilitating an advance of symptoms.

Burr believed that these measurements could help detect disease at an early stage when there is a greater chance of successful treatment, and he predicted that in the future, every doctor would have a voltmeter, as it would eventually be recognized that disease arises from an imbalance in the energy fields of man, so it would be necessary to diagnose correctly, to previously measure these fields.

Thus, by discovering that around living beings there was an electromagnetic field that shaped and directed them, Burr and Northrop cleared the way to solve the enigma of the reasons why biological systems tend toward organization and regeneration, while non-human physical systems tend toward  disorder and entropy.

Saxton Burr writes the following in a book published in 1972, a year before his death: “This is a groundbreaking book, the first comprehensive work ever published of one of the most important scientific discoveries of this century, which reveals that all living beings – from men to mice, from trees to seeds – are shaped and controlled by "electrodynamic" fields that can be measured and mapped with standard modern voltmeters. These Life Fields or L-Fields are the basic blueprints for all life on the planet. His discovery, therefore, is of enormous importance to all of us, to each man or woman of that turbule.

This age gives him the controlling certainty that life is not an accident, and that all of us are integrated parts of the universe, subject to its laws and to the participation of its purpose and destiny.  The universe has meaning and therefore, so do we.

Since L-Field voltage measurements can reveal physical and mental conditions, clinicians will be able to use them to diagnose diseases before the usual symptoms develop and thus have a better chance of success with treatment.

These investigations were not immediately accepted by orthodox science due to their connections with the Theosophist theories regarding subtle bodies and the human aura.  However, they were soon recognized as one of the greatest advances in the study of the mystery of life from a spiritual perspective of energies and force fields.

Thus, the "Electrodynamic Field" is comparable to the "Biological Field" of Dr. P. Weiss, to the morphogenetic fields of Professor C. D. Wassermann, to the embryonic fields of Spehmann or to the entelechy of H. Driesch.

Although, all these hypotheses that could be classified as strongholds of vitalism in biology, were not determined in concrete facts or in quantifiable laboratory experiences, as was the theory of the Campos-L.

Subsequently, the "Morphic Resonance" of Ruper Sheldrake, British biochemist, doctor from the University of Cambridge, stands as the modern representation of this vitalist current.

Indeed, in his works, A New Science of Life and Presence of the Past he rejects the scheme of the mechanical universe and believes in the existence of a collective memory within the species. He claims that there is a non-material connection process called "Morphic Resonance" that propagates the memory of nature and determines the evolution of species. He exposes an innovative and surprising hypothesis of "formative causation" that is very interesting, in particular, for certain therapies.

Sheldrake elaborates his theory around the concept of "Morphogenetic Field," typical of organicist philosophy, based on the fact that if these fields exert physical effects that can be measured, predictions can also be made about them, and try to demonstrate them, an essential fact to be able to validate a theory from the scientific point of view.

In light of these assumptions, systems are organized in a certain way because previously similar systems had been organized in the same way. His hypothesis of formative causation proposes that morphogenetic fields play a causal role in the development and maintenance of the forms of systems at all levels, referring, when speaking of form, not only to the external appearance but also to its internal structure. In this way, the formative causation would be the cause or reason of the form through morphogenetic fields, understanding these fields as spatial structures, invisible, intangible, that can only be detected through their morphogenetic effects – that is, that although they are immaterial, they can only be studied by their effects on matter, something like the shadows that carry information from a radio or television program.

Sheldrake explains how, through morphic resonance, the forms of previous systems influence the morphogenesis of similar systems, this resonance acting, along with the energetic one, between systems that vibrate, since atoms, cells, organisms are made up of parts that oscillate in such a way that the shape of one system is made present to any subsequent system of similar shape by morphic resonance.

According to the mechanistic theory, genetic inheritance is due to DNA. According to the hypothesis of formative causation, organisms also inherit the morphogenetic fields of earlier systems not through genes but by morphic resonance. Let's see how Ruper Sheldrake himself puts it: “Morphic resonance is a memory principle of nature. Everything similar within a self-organizing system will be influenced by everything that has happened in the past, and everything that happens in the future in a similar system will be influenced by what happens in the present. It is a memory in nature based on similarity, and it applies to atoms, molecules, crystals, living organisms, animals, plants, brains, societies, and also planets and galaxies. So it is a principle of memory and habit in nature."

The probability of occurrence of a phenomenon increases proportionally to its past occurrence. When chemists get a certain product to crystallize in a certain part of the world, it becomes easier to crystallize it elsewhere. After Harvard lab rats learn to escape from a maze, Melbourne rats learn to escape from a similar maze.

In A New Science of Life he says the following: “The Morphic Fields are fields of form; fields, patterns or order structures. These fields organize not only the fields of living organisms but also of crystals and molecules. Each type of molecule, each protein, for example, has its own morphic field: a hemoglobin field, an insulin field, etc. Similarly, each type of crystal, each type of organism, each type of instinct or pattern of behavior has a morphic field. These fields are what order nature. There are many kinds of fields, because there are many kinds of things and patterns in nature."

Thus, Sheldrake proposes a hypothetical field, which can intervene in form and behavior, ensuring that these systems involve action at a distance both in time and in space through morphic resonance, since physical systems influence each other at a distance without any apparent material connection. These hypothetical spaces are endowed with the property of traversing empty space or even constituting it. Such collective information structures could host what in other contexts are known as Akashic records or common memory files of Humanity, Karl Jung's collective unconscious, Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere, etc.

There is no doubt that the hypothesis of formative causation provides an attractive basis for the study of certain paranormal and spiritual phenomena.

Gloria Acero Muñoz

Philologist and Expert in Radionics.