From a materialist perspective, it makes sense that plants show physical reactions, such as curling up when being touched. But could they have conscious reactions and make decisions beyond these primary responses?
In the 1960s, Cleve Backster founded the theory of Primary Perception – that plants feel pain and have extrasensory perception (ESP).
Backster was a polygraph instructor and interrogation specialist for the CIA. He founded the Backster School of Lie Detection, which is still in operation today.
In this article, we’ll look at some of Backster’s findings, together with what research and traditions think about the mysterious and fascinating world of plants.
Plant souls – History
Aristotle postulated that plants have souls. However, this “vegetal” soul is different from human souls.
Religions like Catholic Christianism also consider plants to have a soul, but in a similar way as Aristotle: the soul is inferior to human souls, and the plant’s purpose is to nourish and give life to other living beings. Hinduism, on the other hand, believes that all living organisms have a soul since everything is consciousness.
Indigenous cultures, like the Mayans and people in the Amazonas, believe that plants have a spirit that can be turned to for guidance and healing. Some well-known plant spirits are the Cacao Spirit and the spirit of ayahuasca. Anecdotally, participants in plant ceremonies have felt the presence of what’s perceived as the spirit of the plant. It is possible to communicate with this non-physical being to get guidance and support in personal matters.
Research on the consciousness of plants
Through experiments in the 1960s, Backster discovered that plants that were harmed showed a change in electrical response. What’s mindblowing is that plants there were merely threatened with harm, that is, receiving the intention of harm, showed a similar change!
The experiment setup consisted of connecting plants to a galvanometer. The plants seemed to pick up on the thoughts of the people present in the room – their electrical response varied depending on whether the thoughts were positive or negative.
An example: in a famous 1966 experiment, Backster connected a dracaena, a common house plant, to a polygraph. He then imagined the plant being set on fire.
The polygraph showed a surge in electrical activity, suggesting a stress response in the plant!
His research was inspired by physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose who showed that playing music for plants impacts their growth. More recently, in 2015, Chowdhury and Gupta summarized a number of experiments on the impact of audio frequencies on plants. Harmonious music facilitated the germination and growth of plants. Conversely, non-rhythmic and inharmonious sounds (such as heavy metal) harmed plant growth.
A disclaimer is in place: scientists have tried to replicate the Backster experiments with little success. His research got a boost in 2006, when an article published in Trends in Plant Science said that plants seem to show conscious behavior, that’s not simply a result of biochemical processes and genetics.
Plant memory
In the experiments, plants did not only show reactions to immediate events – but also to past ones, suggesting some form of memory. He let a plant witness another plant being “murdered” by having a person stomping on it.
Later, six people passed by the surviving plant, one of them being the “killer”. The plant showed a stress response when facing the killer.
Empathy
In another experiment reported in the International Journal of Parapsychology (1968), Backster suggested that plants also showed strong adverse reactions to interspecies violence. The plants showed an electrical surge when live shrimp were dropped in boiling water, and an egg was cracked in their vicinity. Could this imply some sort of empathy?
Recognizing friends
According to a 2007 study on plant kinship, plants react differently to their kins and strangers of the same species. They grew bigger root networks when in a pot with strangers as a way to compete.
Parting Words
Whether or not plants have souls remains a mystery. Plant consciousness and noetic phenomena in the plant realm are considered more controversial than its human counterparts. Even the idea that plants can be sentient, which could be explained within materialism and biology, is viewed with skepticism.
Experiments suggesting that plants may have consciousness make the non-material reality and interconnectedness of all things hard to dismiss. Why? Because plants don’t have a central nervous system like humans, there’s no way of explaining noetic phenomena in the plant kingdom through brain activity and the subconscious mind.
Disturbing for materialists – delightful for explorers of consciousness.
Whether or not plants have souls remains a mystery. Plant consciousness and noetic
noetic
The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is an American non-profit parapsychological research institute. It was co-founded in 1973 by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the Moon, along with investor Paul N.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Institute_of_Noetic_Sciences
phenomena in the plant realm are considered more controversial than its human counterparts. Even the idea that plants can be sentient, which could be explained within materialism and biology, is viewed with skepticism.
Although plants have adaptive responses and interactions with their environment, they lack the neural anatomy and behaviors associated with pain and consciousness . Therefore, there is no empirical or logical evidence to support the idea that plants have a soul or consciousness .
Mountains of research have confirmed that plants have intelligence and even beyond that consciousness by many of the same measures as we do. Not only do they feel pain, but plants also perceive and interact with their environment in sophisticated ways.
They grow like human beings. Their green leaves produce starch. They enjoy the pleasures and suffer the furies of nature just like human beings. Hence, we can say that trees are alive and have souls.
However, this “vegetal” soul is different from human souls. Religions like Catholic Christianism also consider plants to have a soul, but in a similar way as Aristotle: the soul is inferior to human souls, and the plant's purpose is to nourish and give life to other living beings.
One of the earliest experiments was conducted by Cleve Backster, a polygraph expert who in the 1960s, connected a polygraph machine to a houseplant. He found that the plant responded to his thoughts and emotions, suggesting that it could sense them.
Your plants really dislike when you touch them, apparently. A new study out of the La Trobe Institute for Agriculture and Food has found that most plants are extremely sensitive to touch, and even a light touch can significantly stunt their growth, reports Phys.org.
Botanical research has revealed that plants are capable of reacting to a broad range of stimuli, including chemicals, gravity, light, moisture, infections, temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations, parasite infestation, disease, physical disruption, sound, and touch.
While all recognised religions and many philosophical theories suggest that they do, scientists have so far been unable to conclusively confirm this belief. To date, the soul remains an elusive and abstract entity, which theoretically encompasses an individual's personality and consciousness.
The jeevas (souls) are classified into three types — Baddha, Muktha and Nithya. Baddhas are the people who are enslaved to the faculties and caught in the swirl of the sea of samsara, taking repeated births and deaths.
“The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.” With that Hippocratic epigraph Vint Virga introduces us to his personal odyssey illuminating the connections and reciprocal relationships of all living beings.
In what ways do trees have personalities? Peter Wohlleben, forester and author of The Hidden Life of Trees, claims that he has evidence that trees are sentient. Wohlleben says trees can learn, they have a sense of time, and they have distinct personalities.
And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
Trees are good for the environment, but did you know that trees have both direct and indirect benefits to your personal health and wellness? Research studies show links between trees and lowering stress levels, improving blood pressure, shortening hospital stays, and even feeling younger!
Plants are living organisms, which means they grow, eat, move, and reproduce, just like humans and animals do. But there are some big differences in how plants engage with their environments, including how they experience and respond to pain.
They have a programming to live, as does all life. The simple fact that they have cell division, are drawn to light (phototropism) and roots are drawn to gravity (geotropism) and thus to water, shows a drive to live. But "want" implies an intelligence. Plants do not have intellegence as we know it.
Any plant can be grown without soil. Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, beans, potatoes, corn, oats, fruits, flowers, and many others have all been grown without soil.
Photosynthesis is the ultimate source of nearly all energy used in all living organisms. This process is carried out by plants, algae, and bacteria to transform the energy of sunlight into chemical energy that can be stored and used by them and other organisms.
Introduction: My name is Greg O'Connell, I am a delightful, colorful, talented, kind, lively, modern, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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