We are continuing our meditations on The Physics of Angels. Rupert Sheldrake tells us that:

Instead of everything being explained in terms of smaller bits and ultimate particles—which was the way science worked in the modern era—we can now think of the universe holistically, organized in a series of levels of organization in a nested hierarchy or holarchy. At each level, things are both wholes and parts.
Atoms are wholes consisting of subatomic parts, themselves wholes at a lower level. Molecules are wholes made up of atomic parts; crystals are wholes made of molecular parts. Likewise, cells within tissues, tissues within organs, organs within organisms, organisms within societies, societies within ecosystems, ecosystems within Gaia, Gaia within the Solar System, the Solar System within the Galaxy, and so on—everywhere there are levels within levels of organization, each system at the same time both a whole made up of parts and a part within a large whole.
At each level, the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
Rupert suggests that
…this wholeness depends on what I call a morphic field, an organizing field that underlies the system’s structure. Morphic fields are structured by morphic resonance. They have memory within them. Indeed, they are the bearers of the memory inherent in nature.
At each level of organization, morphic fields animate the organisms, giving them their habits and their capacity to organize themselves. In this sense, molecules, stars, and galaxies are alive, not just microbes plants, and animals.
And if they are alive, are they conscious? Do they have minds or intelligences associated with them?
Consider levels of organization such as Gaia, or the solar system, or the galaxy. If the fields that organize them are associated with spirit intelligence, or a consciousness, then we are talking about superhuman consciousness. If a galaxy has consciousness, spirit, or mind, that mind is going to be inconceivably larger in scope than that of any professor at Harvard or intellectual in Paris.

I responded that
In the first century, when the Christian scriptures were written, the number one question going around the Mediterranean basin was this: Are the angels our friends or our foes? Everyone believed in angels in Greece and Rome; they were a part of the accepted cosmology. But the question was, Can we trust these invisible forces of the universe that are moving planets and the elements? How trustworthy is the universe?
The answer from the Christians was that the Cosmic Christ rules over the angels, thus the universe is trustworthy.
Adapted from Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake, The Physics of Angels, pp. 15-22.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: Choir of angels, detail from “The Assumption of the Virgin” by Francesco Botticini, c. 1475. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Does it alter your way of looking at the world to recognize “Nested Hierarchy” and “Holarchy” and angels overseeing cosmic processes and Christ (or Buddha or Image of God) overseeing angels?
Recommended Reading

The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science & Spirit Meet
By Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake
When was the last time a scientist and a theologian discussed angels together? What are angels? Many people believe in angels, but few can define these enigmatic spirits. Now visionary theologian Matthew Fox and acclaimed biologist Rupert Sheldrake—pioneers in modern religious thinking and scientific theory—launch a groundbreaking exploration into the ancient concept of the angel and restore dignity, meaning, and joy to our time-honored belief in these heavenly beings.
23 thoughts on “Angels, “Nested Hierarchy/Holarchy” in a Trustworthy Universe”
Matthew, Today you ask us the following Queries for Contemplation: “Does it alter your way of looking at the world to recognize ‘Nested Hierarchy’ and ‘Holarchy’–a whole that is also a part–like a molecule which is a whole but it is also a part of an atom. And Rupert suggests that “…this wholeness depends on what I call a morphic field, an organizing field that underlies the system’s structure. Morphic fields are structured by morphic resonance. They have memory within them. Indeed, they are the bearers of the memory inherent in nature.” “Does it alter your way of looking at the world, to recognize angels overseeing cosmic processes and Christ (or Buddha or Image of God) overseeing angels?” In the first century, as you pointed out, the question was are the angels friend or foe. Angels figure into the gospel stories from birth narratives to comforting him in Gethsemane to being at his resurrection and ascension. Satan was also there during Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. But “Be careful to entertain strangers for some have entertained angels unaware” (Hebrew 13:2).
Maybe they do not fly with wings–maybe they are interdimensional beings that can just go in and out of different times and places…
Can we TRUST? This seems to me, to be the quintessential question within all cosmology stories. Humanity continues to struggle with this question, within ALL of its relationships. Why? What is it that has made humanity so fearful of trusting? What is the root cause of this distrust? Yet at the same time, there is a deep soul need, want and desire to trust… which leads to the question… trust in what, in whom… where do we place this trust… how do we awaken to and access this inherent trust and the beauty, mystery and goodness of this? My sense is that we simply have to lean into living the questions themselves, and that in doing so, we somehow get a little glimpse of the answers.
Jeanette: Thank you so much for you reflection/question.
I strongly relate to the answer to your “Why?” i.e., your suggestion that we must “lean into living the questions themselves”. It reminds me of Einstein saying that he trusts more in people who have good questions than those who claim to have all the answers.
It seems serendipitous to me that you use of the phrase ‘lean into’. I just bought a small painting titled “Lean Into”. It is a depiction of sunflower which represents Ukraine. I see it as the artist’s reference to Zelensky and the Ukrainian people in their resistance to Russia’s ‘plutonium’ Putin. So I searched online for the meaning of ‘lean into’ and found this in the online Urban Dictionary:
“The act of embracing something, or a situation, by using it to empower yourself. To “lean into” something is to own it, to cast off disparagement. You move forward and deal with it with unhindered confidence, casting off concerns and cares… The phrase may have risen itself from the physical act of bracing yourself against an impacting force, in the same way a person may tighten their stand against an incoming tidal wave. “https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lean%20into%20it
Gwen
Thanks for sharing the definition of “lean into,” and your synchronistic moment of the painting of a sunflower, titled the same. The sunflower is a good metaphoric symbol for this “leaning into”, in relationship to my comment posted, regarding the transformative process of learning to trust.
Wonderful point on trust, Jeanette, and it’s relationship to “lean into,” which is another term for dependency, and describes its action toward another. In the literature on the emotional development of infants there is a syndrome called “anaclitic depression” whose symptoms are the result of being deprived of a healthy dependency (primary attachment) to the mothering one. The condition has its parallel in spiritual development as well, as you may discover in googling the term. I believe the word “anaclitic” derives from the Greek, meaning “to lean,” and is much related to trust, foundational to early childhood development, the capacity to trust in others later on, and the capacity to determine, as Einstein asked, if the universe is “friendly” (can be trusted as ‘Gaia,’ a term with maternal connotations and resonances). Thanks for your entry today, Jeanette.
Thank you, Jeanette and Gwen. I so agree. “My sense is that we simply have to lean into living the questions themselves, and that in doing so, we somehow get a little glimpse of the answers.” And “It reminds me of Einstein saying that he trusts more in people who have good questions than those who claim to have all the answers.”
Very wise. I gave up churches long ago—but never the Quest, the Seeking, and my eternal question, “Who Are You?”
What’s not to trust ??? Fallible human beings. And until the human heart changes there will always be people who are untrustworthy.
I love this message of truth. The circles within circles. The heirarchy reminds me of a teaching from Meister Echhart which landed non my heart and it seems to align with the “holyarchy” which you share in this meditation. “Nature looking after the good of the universe intends the generation of everything and destruction in order to assist generation. It’s first intention is the preservation of the universe”. This is from Eckharts Sermon 5. The destruction today from humanity is so loud, I wonder much louder it needs to be before more are awakened and can see the inter relationships and greater community to re align ourselves with the “good of the universe”, an alignment with the flow of nature.
Amen, Karen !!!
P>S> to Jeanette:
Plutonium Putin is like the fallen angel Lucifer. He is falling from the consciousness of the Light/Seventh chakra.
The mystery of God of course continues on our spiritual journeys. This is why for me personally and for many mystics in our past and present human history our faith/trust is so important in a Loving Intelligent Creator that is an intimate part of all of us living beings (physical and non-physical; spirit light beings and Angels… ), immanent and transcendent, co-Creating and co-Evolving with-in All of our Diverse Creation, our spiritual multi-dimensions and our multiverse Cosmos… The growing evolution and consciousness of our eternal unique souls reassures us that we’re not alone in this mysterious and sacred evolutionary process of Our Loving Oneness since our Loving Creator, Intelligent Cosmic Consciousness, and Source is the Ground of All Being and non-Being ~ Beloved Cosmic Christ Consciousness….
🔥❤️🙏
It’s possible to connect some dots (holons) here as they relate to the interconnectivity of Matthew’s DM’s of late, and his notion, along with Sheldrake, of a universal nesting hierarchy of forces. This is particularly so as to what energizes them in a manner (synthesis) consistent with science (physics) and Scripture. God is light. Light is electromagnetism, which exists on a continuum of vibrating energy, and energy fields (auras). In turn, this dispersed energy creates organizing morphic fields that give body, shape, form, and life to all things. That is, this omnipresent light is intelligent, and has properties of consciousness and personhood, as in the case of Christ, “in whom all things consist and are held together” and who “fills all things.” Meaning, there is a organized and organizing cosmic hierarchy, holarchy, or spectrum of light in which all things consist and cohere, and that global religions call called ‘’God.” Science calls it light, or electromagnetism, whose chief property as a model for causation is “attraction.” As with magnets, things are more lured and drawn to each other, and God in them, than driven. And what things that other things are drawn to usually exceeds them, fulfilling them to the degree they refashion themselves to its likeness. The entire universe is thus animated, as everything reaches (is drawn) toward the better in an effort to acquire for itself its virtues, say as athletes seek out opponents who play better, or coaches that know more than them; or as kids are drawn to slightly older playmates; or as dogs prefer human company to their own kind. Everywhere things admire the compelling lure because of its manifest superiority. Ditto ourselves re: the person and teachings of Jesus, and those of Matthew Fox and others. We live in an electric universe of light that in its organization is like a nesting pyramid (holarchy) of magnets. Those on each tier are attracted to the tier above while being empowered by that tier to attract the magnets below, that seek to “lean into” them. At the apex stands the only completely actual reality there is, the divine Prime and Unmoved Mover. Long before Aquinas, Jesus, and the mystics, such was Aristotle’s model of the universe, whose causation throughout is downward in a hierarchy (or holarchy) — from superior to inferior, from what is more to what is less. Gos is light, we are light brings as are angels, and we live in an electromagnetic universe in which all things consist and cohere by it.
Joe, You wrote today: “It’s possible to connect some dots (holons) here as they relate to the interconnectivity of Matthew’s DM’s of late, and his notion, along with Sheldrake, of a universal nesting hierarchy of forces.” I appreciate you “connecting some dots” for us, however I felt that Matthew made his ideas on nested holarchies quite clear… at least for me.
If the sun is conscious, then certainly the Earth is conscious; and that makes it much easier to believe that Mother Earth is fighting back against the ravages of humankind’s defilement of her. As Peter says in “Puzzles and Borderlines,” “The fiery storms outside were not enough. The storms had to come into your bodies. Pestilence. Like the death of the first born. Frogs and locusts, weren’t enough, neither was darkness. It isn’t God who caused those by the way, as I said. What did? The earth itself? These cataclysmic events have always existed, but they’ve been happening in such quick succession. You have to have noticed the difference. Use whatever name you like, but something is fighting back—or bringing you a message. Think of it as a letter from Mom. It’s time for a complete about-face. A metanoia. A complete change in one’s way of thinking.”
💜🔥🌈
Yes.
Gaia will win.
She will reorganize what’s left and return to full glory.
Maybe she’s learned never to allow the dominance of any evolving creature similar to “human” to survive again.
Michele, Thank you for sharing that! I agree with you wholeheartedly !!!
I can’t get the video to play. Is anybody else having this problem?
I skipped ahead a couple of minutes in the video and it began playing. Then I moved back a couple of minutes and Matthew’s video played. 🙂 By the way, you can find “Puzzles and Borderlines” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELMnjsWfxWo&t=227s
I wonder how we can apply these ideas of Angels or divine intelligences to politics and economics. What first comes to mind is how we cannot trust our economy. We know intuitively in my opinion that the economic system in the political system cannot be trusted because the values are so out of line with the intelligence of God, angels and the biosphere. This is why it is so hard to organize a movement to change the system.
This has to be done on an individual basis; and individuals of like mind generally join together for a common cause. Have you looked at the Transition movement? (Search “Transition Town.”) If this movement could become the common theme, we would back off the present rape-based economy to one separate within itself based on self-sufficiency and community sharing.
The only thing that can stamp out the evil of the plutocracy and the slavery it demands of the consumer is not to spend money on the Stuff it constantly tells people will make them happy if they will only tithe to the billionaires in order to get it!
Stop spending money and live free.
Olive, As Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” But it says he walked away because he had many riches (See: Mark 10:17-27). I like how you challenge us , like Jesus, but in our time and our situation: “The only thing that can stamp out the evil of the plutocracy and the slavery it demands of the consumer is not to spend money on the Stuff it constantly tells people will make them happy if they will only tithe to the billionaires in order to get it!” We are paying our tithes to the billionaires and making them rich at the expense of… possibly our own souls.