The Dog Who Came in from the Cold by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General & Literary Fiction, General, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Fiction
ISBN: 9781846971617
Publisher: Birlinn, Limited
Published: 2010-08-15T20:42:50.811000+00:00

Terence smiled. “Of course you have, Berthy. Your morphic field is part of the human morphic field. All the experiences of mankind are …” He waved a hand in the air, in the direction of Cheltenham. “All our experiences are out there in the vast morphic field made up of all our memories. You’re part of that.”

“Sounds somewhat Jungian to me.”

Terence’s eyes shone with enthusiasm. “But of course it is! That’s exactly what it is. Jung talked about the collective unconscious. That’s the same thing, really, as what Rupert Sheldrake talks about.”

“Rupert Sheldrake?”

Terence paged through the magazine. Coming to a photograph, he showed it to Berthea. “That’s him. That’s Rupert Sheldrake. He wrote a jolly clever book, you know. A New Science of Life. He says that each species has a collective memory, and this collective memory influences how we behave.”

Berthea stared at her brother. She had often wondered at how little he was able to remember other than this sort of thing. “Can you give me an example?” she asked.

“Yes, I can,” said Terence. “And it’s a really exciting example. You know that during the war—”

“Which war?” interrupted Berthea. “We’ve had so many.”

“The big one,” said Terence. “The Second World War. During the war, there was no aluminium for the tops of milk bottles. So they had to use a different system, and that was jolly bad news for the sparrows, who had got used to pecking off the tops of the bottles and having a sip at the cream on the milk.”

“Can’t have made themselves very popular,” said Berthea.

Terence ignored this. “Well, for six years or however long it was there were no foil caps like that. So all sparrows forgot how to do it because the sparrows that would have remembered those foil bottle tops were dead. There was a whole new generation of sparrows that knew nothing about how to get cream by pecking at the tops.”

Berthea’s eyes glazed over.

“And then,” Terence continued, “when the war was over, they brought back those foil bottle tops. And you know what, Berthy? You know what?”

She forced herself to concentrate. “No. What?”

Terence paused for dramatic effect. Then, with the air of one revealing a resounding truth, he said, “The sparrows immediately knew what to do! They pecked at the bottle tops straight away!”

“Their collective memory?”

“Of course,” said Terence. “What else could it have been?”

“Smell,” suggested Berthea. “They smelled the cream.”

“No,” said Terence abruptly. “Impossible. It was morphic resonance. They picked it up from their collective morphic field. It’s in Rupert Sheldrake’s book. You read it for yourself.”

Berthea stared up at the ceiling. “But if it’s part of our collective memory,” she said, “why would I have to look it up? I’d know it.”

Terence frowned. “You’re being very unhelpful, Berthy. You’re just trying to wind me up. You’re a naughty old psychologist!”

“Psychiatrist,” said Berthea.

“Same difference,” said Terence, pouting.

“No,” said Berthea, “it isn’t. The difference is MB, ChB, MRCPsych. That’s the difference.”

Chapter 41: May Contain Nuts

Terence left Berthea with a strict

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