Research into plants and their unique and mysterious properties is nothing new. Even in the days of Aristotle philosophers and scientists were already spending much mental energy trying to understand the world of plants. Many astounding discoveries have been made particularly over the last century but sadly much of the information gets discredited by “The Establishment” for a variety of reasons. Well established educational institutions, universities, science institutions and similar groups are amoungst the first to discredit any discoveries that do not fit into their own neat and tidy concepts of how the world works.
The industrial revolution and more recently the fertilizer and pesticide producers have played their part in discrediting the maverick scientists and their work because of money! Fortunately, those who seek the truth are made of stern stuff and research goes on regardless. The space in this article is woefully insufficient to mention many of the astounding facts about plants and plant research but here are just a few to spur your imagination.
The death cries of the common cabbage.
The field of plant research was launched into the limelight in 1966 when scientists announced that they had recorded the death cries of a common cabbage. It created an instant “buzz” in the western world and it was reported that housewives across America were seen talking to their plants. So, what had happened? Cleve Baxter, America’s leading lie-detector specialist who had worked for the CIA as a polygraph specialist for many years, on an impulse, attached an electrode of one of his lie-detectors to one of his house plants, a dracaena. He wanted to see if he could detect an emotional response when he poured water on the plant’s roots. He was astounded to see that as the plant sucked the water up its stem the polygraph needle drawing the response graph dipped downwards, similar to a human having a pleasant emotional experience.
Can plants really read your mind?
Baxter was spurred on to perform numerous other experiments finding his plants reacted in almost predictable ways, showing trauma when leaves were injured or the plant damaged in any way. A further unexpected breakthrough occurred one day when Baxter was sitting near his plants. It was time to continue his experiments. His next experiment would involve burning the leaf of his beloved dracaena to test the response. The moment he thought about the task ahead, the dracaena registered a traumatic response via the graph needle. He realized that the plant could actually read his mind!
Continuing with his work Baxter then discovered that plants not only react to their own trauma, they also react to the death of any live cell in their vicinity. He dumped a small number of live brine shrimp into boiling water and plants in separate rooms showed a violent reaction.
The silent witness.
Another truly remarkable experiment conducted by Baxter involved a number of assistants one of whom, chosen at random and in secret, was given the instruction to mutilate a plant in front of another plant wired to a polygraph. A bit later the assistants were paraded in front of the test plant. It showed little reaction until the perpetrator was placed in front of it where upon it reacted as if it were very afraid. The plant was not only able to recognize the perpetrator of the crime but was also able to react in what we would call an appropriate manner. If it had legs it would have run and hid away.
Baxter is also credited with discovering the phenomenon of “fainting” plants. One day while a group of visiting scientists were looking at his “talking plants” they all suddenly seemed to “go to sleep”. They simply just switched off and the polygraph needle registered nothing. After asking the visitors numerous questions, Baxter finally worked out that one of the visitors’ job required her to destroy plants for scientific research. That Baxter’s plants could even recognize the lady’s job is remarkable, but their fainting response to extreme trauma is very strange and as yet unexplained. The plants recovered after a few hours.
Russian plant experiments.
Similar experiments were being performed in the Soviet Union at about the same time and experimenters achieved similar results. Russian scientists took two similar plants and sealed one in a glass jar. They only watered the unsealed plant but the plant inside the jar continued to grow and somehow did not lack any water. They found they had to give more water than normal to the unsealed plant. Somehow the plants exchanged water but not via the air because one was sealed in glass. They deducted that plants must be able to use a system of transfer that we do not have the instruments to analyze or detect yet.
The establishment skoffs at the idea that plants have intelligence because they say that plants have no brains. Modern science is based around measuring things. If it can’t be measured then it cannot possibly exist. But our ability to measure things is limited by the quality of our measuring devices, and to deny the existence of something just because it cannot be measured or understood is very narrow minded. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Humans have five senses, it is estimated that plants have more than twenty senses, including the ability to sense moisture and gravity.
Plants are music critics.
Plants don’t have ears, but they react very selectively to music. Experiments conducted in the USA in the late 1960’s by researcher Dorothy Retallack, showed that plants exposed to rock music tended to grow away from the source of the sound and when exposed to what was called acid rock they leaned even further away and died in just a few days.
They grew towards the speakers when exposed to soothing music and leaned as much as fifteen degrees towards the speakers when exposed to classical music particularly that of the composer Wagner. By far the most astounding results were achieved when they were exposed to the sitar ragas or spiritual music of the Indian instrumentalist Ravi Shankar. The plants even enveloped the speakers with their tendrils as if they simply could not get enough. These plants also showed vastly improved growth and general health.
The ideas that plants can sense our emotions or have powers of reasoning of some sort may seem like the stuff of fairy tales, but the scientific proof exists and it is very compelling. Interestingly, even though plant experiments have been repeated successfully in many places around the world, sometimes they do not repeat successfully for some scientists. Researchers believe that the INTENT of the researcher is a key factor. If the person doing the experiment believes that it will not work then it will not, regardless of how accurately the experiment has been repeated. Perhaps this explains to some extent the phenomenon we call Green Fingers, why plants grow so well for some people and not well for others.
We walk past plants everyday without paying them any real attention. To many of us plants and trees are just green stuff, simple and fairly primitive organisms that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. But, if we start to acknowledge that there is so much more that we DON’T know about plants than what we DO know perhaps we, as a society can begin to treat plants with the respect that they deserve. Hug a tree today, it may do your more good than you would ever think.
You can see original footage of many of the above experiments on Youtube. Just search for Cleve Baxter or Russian plant experiments. I also recommend that anybody interested in this subject should read the book “The Secret Life of Plants” by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Byrd – ISBN 0 14 00.3930 9. I welcome any correspondence. Email me on info@cybersmith.co.za