Research by Michael Levin has shows that flatworms can be induced to grow two heads by applying an external electrical field, demonstrating the power of field effects to dramatically alter biology despite an organism having the same genome. More recently, he showed that "embryonic cells can self-assemble into new living forms that don’t resemble the bodies they usually generate, challenging old ideas of what defines an organism." "Rules operating above the level of genes appear to specify biological form..."
Both these examples are consistent with the findings of epigenetics (literally: above-genes), which tell us that behavioral and environmental factors can be translated into heritable traits. They are also consistent with a theory of self-organizing informational or directive fields, such as the morphic fields Rupert Sheldrake has postulated and studied. Sheldrake proposes that morphic fields influence the characteristics of similar organisms even when they are not in physical contact.
In the context of human beings, such fields would be part of the energetic and informational bodies of human anatomy in the 5 bodies model.