The Wooing of Divine Love
Sometimes when I hear process theologians speak of God’s luring or wooing presence, I have to ask if this is but a slogan, or if it is something we actually experience — energetically, viscerally, in the immediacy of our lives.
Can we feel the wooing? Can we experience the luring — energetically, viscerally, in the immediacy of our lives?
This is where I find the work being done at the intersection of consciousness and electromagnetism especially helpful — the studies that explore how the heart’s magnetic fields allow us to sense the feelings of others and, perhaps, the intuitive wisdom of the heart.
Might it be that the heart's intuitive wisdom, electromagnetically mediated, is one of the very places where the divine lures are actually felt? I know it sounds wild. But the God who is incarnate in the world is wild, too.
- Jay McDaniel
Can we feel the wooing? Can we experience the luring — energetically, viscerally, in the immediacy of our lives?
This is where I find the work being done at the intersection of consciousness and electromagnetism especially helpful — the studies that explore how the heart’s magnetic fields allow us to sense the feelings of others and, perhaps, the intuitive wisdom of the heart.
Might it be that the heart's intuitive wisdom, electromagnetically mediated, is one of the very places where the divine lures are actually felt? I know it sounds wild. But the God who is incarnate in the world is wild, too.
- Jay McDaniel
The Social Heart
Energy Fields and Consciousness
In physics, it is generally accepted that “distant” particles can act with instantaneous “knowledge” of each other’s state because the order of the whole (the cosmos) is nonlocalized and enfolded into all parts. More recently, it has become evident that the whole of biological life is, in some fundamental sense, present in all organisms, and that it is this “knowledge” of the whole that accounts for their behavior and evolution. There is even compelling evidence that the individual members of social systems are connected to a group field that can be accessed by their brains as implicit “knowledge” of how the social group is organized as a whole.
Such awareness of wholistic order—of the global organization of systems and their relations to their context— is the broader meaning of consciousness we use here. To have consciousness of a whole involves connection to the medium—the field—into which information about the whole is recorded and distributed. This requires an energetic form of information, in which patterns of organization are enfolded into the waves of energy of system activity distributed throughout the system’s field.
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Experiments conducted at the HeartMath Institute have found remarkable evidence that the heart’s magnetic field can transmit information between people. We have been able to measure an exchange of heart energy between individuals up to 5 feet apart. This research shows that when people touch or are in proximity, one person’s heartbeat signal is directly registered in the other person’s brain waves, and elsewhere on the other person’s body. Additionally, we have evidence that when two people are at a conversational distance, one person’s brain waves can actually synchronize to the other person’s heart. Furthermore, when an individual is generating a coherent heart rhythm, synchronization between that person’s brain waves and another person’s heartbeat is more likely to occur. These findings have intriguing implications, suggesting that individuals in a heart-coherent state become more aware of the information encoded in the heart fields of those around them."
- Rollin McCraty, PhD, HeartMath Institute, in Pathways to Family Wellness
Electromagnetic Love
Initial Aims and the Heart's Intuitive Guidance
1. Cardioelectromagnetic Communication and Divine Love
One way of understanding God's love through the lens of what the HeartMath Institute calls cardioelectromagnetic communication. Cardioelectromagnetic communication is the transmission of information through the electromagnetic fields generated by the heart.
According to HeartMath research, the heart’s field can influence the physiology and brainwaves of others, acting as a carrier of emotional information and, in some cases, synchronizing with the heart rhythms of those nearby.
I suggest that this phenomenon may be one way of understanding how we humans are connected with one another and other living beings on our planet, and one way of understanding divine immanence - understood as a force field permeating the universe - communicates with us. We receive “information” from God — what Whitehead called initial aims — through the subtle dynamics of the heart’s electromagnetic field, guiding thought, feeling, and action toward harmony, creativity, and love.
One way of understanding God's love through the lens of what the HeartMath Institute calls cardioelectromagnetic communication. Cardioelectromagnetic communication is the transmission of information through the electromagnetic fields generated by the heart.
According to HeartMath research, the heart’s field can influence the physiology and brainwaves of others, acting as a carrier of emotional information and, in some cases, synchronizing with the heart rhythms of those nearby.
I suggest that this phenomenon may be one way of understanding how we humans are connected with one another and other living beings on our planet, and one way of understanding divine immanence - understood as a force field permeating the universe - communicates with us. We receive “information” from God — what Whitehead called initial aims — through the subtle dynamics of the heart’s electromagnetic field, guiding thought, feeling, and action toward harmony, creativity, and love.
2. The Mission of HeartMath
The mission of the HeartMath Institute reads:
“to help people bring their physical, mental and emotional systems into balanced alignment with their heart's intuitive guidance. This unfolds the path for becoming heart-empowered individuals who choose the way of love, which they demonstrate through compassionate care for the well-being of themselves, others and Planet Earth.”
One striking feature of this mission is that, for those at HeartMath, the word “heart” is not used merely as a metaphor for the seat of emotion or consciousness. They are speaking of the literal, cardiovascular heart — the physical organ within the human chest.
According to their research, the heart’s magnetic field, the most powerful generated by any organ in the body, extends at least two feet beyond the physical body. This field, measurable with sensitive instruments, appears to carry emotional information that others can sense — whether the energy is coherent and positive or chaotic and negative.
Additionally, they propose that the heart provides intuitive guidance to the person in whose body it resides — a subtle, embodied intelligence that supports decision-making, emotional regulation, and relational connection. In this view, the heart is not just a biological pump but an electromagnetic center of wisdom and resonance, constantly communicating with the brain, the nervous system, and the energetic environment that surrounds us.
“to help people bring their physical, mental and emotional systems into balanced alignment with their heart's intuitive guidance. This unfolds the path for becoming heart-empowered individuals who choose the way of love, which they demonstrate through compassionate care for the well-being of themselves, others and Planet Earth.”
One striking feature of this mission is that, for those at HeartMath, the word “heart” is not used merely as a metaphor for the seat of emotion or consciousness. They are speaking of the literal, cardiovascular heart — the physical organ within the human chest.
According to their research, the heart’s magnetic field, the most powerful generated by any organ in the body, extends at least two feet beyond the physical body. This field, measurable with sensitive instruments, appears to carry emotional information that others can sense — whether the energy is coherent and positive or chaotic and negative.
Additionally, they propose that the heart provides intuitive guidance to the person in whose body it resides — a subtle, embodied intelligence that supports decision-making, emotional regulation, and relational connection. In this view, the heart is not just a biological pump but an electromagnetic center of wisdom and resonance, constantly communicating with the brain, the nervous system, and the energetic environment that surrounds us.
3. Overlap with Process Theology
Are these ideas scientifically valid? That question belongs to the scientists. What is clear, however, is that they are deeply interesting and that they overlap with process-relational philosophy in profound ways.
First, they suggest strong connections between physical energy and emotions, corresponding to Whitehead’s idea that energy itself is a form of feeling and that there can be a “vector transmission of feeling” from one actual entity to another, both within the body and beyond it.
Second, they provide a compelling way of understanding what process philosophers mean by initial aims. These are inwardly felt possibilities, derived from the Soul of the universe — from God — which, if actualized, bring about the most harmonious and fulfilling “satisfaction” available in a given situation.
These possibilities are not received as clear, distinct ideas formulated by a detached intellect. Instead, they are intuitively felt — subtle, inward movements of the heart that guide thought, feeling, and action, carrying the emotional tone of divine desire. They are what a God of love seeks for us, and in some mysterious way, we feel not only the possibilities but also God’s own yearning that they be realized. We feel God’s feelings through them.
First, they suggest strong connections between physical energy and emotions, corresponding to Whitehead’s idea that energy itself is a form of feeling and that there can be a “vector transmission of feeling” from one actual entity to another, both within the body and beyond it.
Second, they provide a compelling way of understanding what process philosophers mean by initial aims. These are inwardly felt possibilities, derived from the Soul of the universe — from God — which, if actualized, bring about the most harmonious and fulfilling “satisfaction” available in a given situation.
These possibilities are not received as clear, distinct ideas formulated by a detached intellect. Instead, they are intuitively felt — subtle, inward movements of the heart that guide thought, feeling, and action, carrying the emotional tone of divine desire. They are what a God of love seeks for us, and in some mysterious way, we feel not only the possibilities but also God’s own yearning that they be realized. We feel God’s feelings through them.
4. Heart’s Intuitive Guidance and Initial Aims
In this light, the phrase “heart’s intuitive guidance” beautifully captures what it feels like to be open to God’s initial aims. The suggestion that these divine possibilities may, in some way, be electromagnetic does not diminish their mystery; rather, it offers a bridge between the spiritual and the physical, connecting the divine lure with the embodied dynamics of the human heart.
For process theologians, it would be misleading and reductionistic to identify God’s initial aims exclusively with the dynamics of the heart’s electromagnetic field, since these aims can also be felt independently of any specific physical medium. Still, it is reasonable — and imaginatively rich — to see the cardiovascular electromagnetic field as one of the channels through which divine guidance is experienced.
As we learn to feel with help from the heart's intuitive wisdom, we grow into what the HeartMath Institute calls “the way of love” — a path that fosters well-being for ourselves, for others, and for the planet. And as we do so, we awaken to a deeper Love (with an uppercase L) — a Field of Love that underlies the entire universe, present within the dynamics of the physical world even as it transcends them.
For process theologians, it would be misleading and reductionistic to identify God’s initial aims exclusively with the dynamics of the heart’s electromagnetic field, since these aims can also be felt independently of any specific physical medium. Still, it is reasonable — and imaginatively rich — to see the cardiovascular electromagnetic field as one of the channels through which divine guidance is experienced.
As we learn to feel with help from the heart's intuitive wisdom, we grow into what the HeartMath Institute calls “the way of love” — a path that fosters well-being for ourselves, for others, and for the planet. And as we do so, we awaken to a deeper Love (with an uppercase L) — a Field of Love that underlies the entire universe, present within the dynamics of the physical world even as it transcends them.
5. God as a Field of Love
By a Field of Love, I mean the God of open and relational (process) theology. The word field does not imply that God lacks consciousness or intention; rather, it points to the reality that God is non-localized — more like a pervasive field, present everywhere at once, than like a bounded particle moving through space.
Concepts from physics, such as electromagnetic fields, provide metaphors for imagining God without resorting to static images of solid, bounded objects. God is real, but not solid; present, but not confined.
And we, too, are real but not solid. Our existence extends beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies — into our relationships, into the world, and into the feelings of God. Likewise, God is relationally expansive, dynamically present throughout the cosmos, experiencing the world in all its beauty and pain. This is what Whitehead means by "the consequent nature of God." It is God, not only as a field of force, but also a field of deep listening which 'feels the feelings' of each and all in a sympathetic way.
In this sense, though God does not have a physical heart, the divine reality enjoys a kind of heart-wisdom — a wisdom that feels, that responds, that resonates in the depths of every becoming moment.
6. Beyond Electromagnetism
When we allow ourselves to be guided by heart wisdom, we participate in what Whitehead calls the creative advance into novelty in a positive way. The initial aims of God and the heart’s intuitive guidance converge, inviting us into alignment with a Field of Love — a presence that is cosmic and intimate, spiritual and physical.
The power of this kind of guidance is persuasive not coercive, invitational not controlling. We can fall short of the guidance, even as it is within us as our own heart wisdom. We can sin - and we do so all the time. When this happens, we fall short of our own deepest potential, which is to be channels of the divine love and, ultimately, at one with it in a kind of mystical union.
The good news is that the Love never gives up on us or on anybody, in this life or in the next. When our physical hearts fail, when they no longer emit fields of force, there is still a field of force at work in the universe and in us, as we journey into other dimensions of the extensive continuum. Heart wisdom surpasses its electromagnetic medium. The wooing of divine Love, by whatever medium, has no constraints and, say process theologians, infinite patience. On the matter of divine patience, let Whitehead have the last word:
"Another image which is also required to understand his consequent nature is that of his infinite patience...The sheer force of things lies in the intermediate physical process: this is the energy of physical production. God’s role is not the combat of productive force with productive force, of destructive force with destructive force; it lies in the patient operation of the overpowering rationality of his conceptual harmonization. He does not create the world, he saves it: or, more accurately, he is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness."
AN Whitehead, Process and Reality