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Foreword

viii

1.

Plants feel

9-19

2.

Plants respond to prayer

19-32

3.

Plants are healed by faith

32-49

4.

Plants respond to music

49-58

5.

Plants think

58-65

6.

Mind over Matter

65-79

7.

Parallels between Man, Animal, and Plant

79-94

"That plants have ESP was known as early as 1748 by Dr. Louis Jallabert, a Swiss scientist."

p. 9

"According to Patrick Geddes, a professor of botany in India who wrote The Life and Work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose (Longmans, Green and Co., 1920), as early as 1904 Bose had shown that the plant kingdom ... is alive with sensibility. ...

By means of his Resonant Recorder, which measured the speed of transmission of excitatory impulse, and the Oscillating Recorder, which traced the throbbing pulsations of the ...plant, he demonstrated the striking similarity of plant impulses to ... the animal ... .

p. 10

A strong ... electrical change ... of the leaf ... He regarded ... to be pleasant ... or painful. ... many scientists and literary men came to see for themselves ... a vegetable ... have feelings! ...

p. 11

Bose’s extensive researches produced intricate apparatus that enabled man to observe and measure the ... feelings in plants which so closely correspond to the animal. ... Bose believed that everything in man was to be found in the plant".

p. 11

Backster’s findings seem to suggest that plants have feelings and some sort of telepathic communication system with other forms of life. ...

p. 12

Once a plant knows you, it doesn’t matter how far away you are – it will react to whatever may be happening to you at the moment. Backster believes now that plants as well as people and animals can communicate with each other on a much higher level than any telepathic form previously known. For example, SOS signals emanated from ... the pant’s fear was picked up by other plants ... . ...

The plant ... now balanced into the PGR circuitry, ...

p. 13

showed a pattern typical of a human when emotionally aroused. ... Intrigued, he determined to find out how a plant could show was he knew was a well-verified pattern of emotional arousal in humans. ...

p. 14

After receiving a modest funding from a private foundation he continued his ... quest and repeated the ... experiments which were later published. The communication link seemed to prevail in every form of life Backster experimented with. ...

p. 15

It was apparent to Backster that plants were capable of establishing a report with their owners or those within their vicinity ... . ... Over the next few years, ... he saw some of the spiritual implications of his work. There seemed to be no double but that his plants were expressing something like love for him. ... It would seem that plants regard humans with more reverence than they do other forms of life ... . ... .

p. 16

... the plants’ ... sympathetic reaction to human life never diminished, no matter how many times the same experiment was repeated using the same plant. ... . ... he had already found that plants can identify the killer of a brother plant."

p. 18

"When a lawn was cut or a tomato eaten, the plants show no sign of distress. Backster thinks that grass and shrubs know they are cut because their owner wants them to be well-groomed, and they are apparently willing ... . ... "There is the view that death could be the best thing that can happen. Vegetation may be more in on this than people.""

"Yet more than 7,000 have written to him requesting further information and more than twenty universities are now ... to repeat his observations and ... corroborate them. Dr Aristide Esser, Dutch-born medical doctor at the research center of Rockland State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York, is one of the scientists who supports Backster’s work. In 1968, he replicated some of his preliminary tests and saw the plants react to emotions. He told Psychic

p. 19

magazine ("Plants, Polygraphs, and Parapsychics," by John W. White, Nov.-Dec. 1972), "I corroborate ... Backster.""

"An experiment with Astara Foundation in Los Angeles had a boomerang effect on efforts to negate : The negative-prayer unit actually grew ... better than control seedlings and ... better than the positive-prayer seeds."

{The prayer-system of the Astara Foundation is based on "Lhama Yoga", a cultivation of S`unyata ("Nothing-ness"). In this peculiar Lha-ma yoga, the moon (at the forehead) is deemed (BNS April 13^th 2009) female and the sun (at the navel) male, a reversal of the usual conventions of tantrik gendre-assignments. Apparently, it is on account of this unconventional reversal that a reversal of prayer-effects would result.}

"About one person in six got a steady reverse result in growth with seedlings that received negative prayer against the control seedlings."

{Perhaps about one person in six is using a religious symbolism with an idiosyncratic major reversal, thereby causing prayers to function in reverse.}

p. 33

"Experiments into the telekinetic effect on plant growth had been undertaken ... by such notable men as Dr. J. B. Rhine, but no one had so extensively investigated the phenomenon as Dr. Grad ... a biologist and professor at McGill University".

p. 34

In Hungary, "Oskar Estebany ... discovered his gift of healing ... in 1937. ... Having demonstrated an amazing ability to bring about recuperation in horse and people, ... he learned of a man in Vienna named Rudolph Thetter. Thetter’s method of healing was the same as Dr. Anton Mesmer’s. ...

p. 35

In 1956, after the Hungary battle for freedom against Russia, Estebany and his wife escaped to Canada. ... Dr. Grad’s pioneering project with Estebany was to begin seven years of research with the healer. ...

p. 37

This same "miracle" healing had occurred in a series of experiments with animals prior to the plant project. ...

p. 38

Through the two years of experimentation, and a coordinated research project at the University of Manitoba in 1961, Estebany’s powers to heal persisted, even under the strictest laboratory conditions."

p. 40

"Estebany’s mysterious force ... that caused Estebany’s telekinetic powers was not studied further because necessary instruments had not be developed to detect it."

Mesmer died in 1815 and his followers ... continued his practice."

p. 41

"In 1841 Charles Lafontaine, a French scientist ..., began a series of plant and animal experiments to determine whether or not the body emanations Mesmer described could have an effect on lower forms of life, an effect that could not be caused by the subjects’ willingness. One of Lafontaine’s first experiments brought positive results when he made passes ... . ... One of Lafontaine’s associates, Dr. Picard, obtained similarly striking results with a ... tree."

p. 42

"So long as the human hand held a move, it had an action on the germination and growings of young plants."

p. 43

"In 1843 and for many years to follow Lafontaine successfully demonstrated that such animals as dogs, lions, hyenas, cats, squirrels, and lizards could be put to sleep by making passes over them (L’art de magnitiser [Paris, 1886]). Animals that he had never seen before, who could not have been trained or coached in any way, not only were put to sleep, but painful "piking," pin pricking and shouting, would not wake them until he made passes over them and woke them."

p. 43

"Dr. Edouard Bertholet of Lausanne was another ... . His "meticulous experiments in the mesmerization of seed and plants" are recorded in Raoul Montadon’s book, Les radiations humaines (Paris, 1927). Bertholet ... "... obtained the absolute conclusive results of a considerable fluidic experiorization either personally, or by the collaboration of gifted Madame Issaeff."

p. 46

"Lafontaine’s and Bertholet’s carefully controlled, unique experiments certainly indicated that something emanated from the hands of the healers ... and ... their findings, and the findings of others with equally impeccable credentials ... remained ... historically significant ... scientific investigations".

"experiments ... have given us an understanding of the influence of organism on another that are not caused by {anything which can be detected by} the five senses. We can seen now that our individual ... autonomy ... goes beyond the usual physiological concepts. We may be more sensitive to influences from without than we ever imagined.

The great psychic and seer Edgar Cayce said ... during a trance reading, "For all healing, mental or material, is attuning ... the body ... to the awareness of the divine that lies within ... the body.""

p. 49

Mrs. Dorothy Retallack ..., professional mezzo-soprano singer, ... decided to experiment with the effect of music on plants ... .

p. 51

In all the texts the results were the same. Loud and discordant sounds produced wilting and death. ... Ravi Shankar’s Indian sitar records, Bach, and hymns brought greater growth."

p. 52

"When Cleve Backster heard about Mrs. Retallack’s experiments he felt the plants were responding to her feelings, because he thinks the communication link is in mental imagery, which the plant perceives." {This would seem quite likely.}

p. 52

Dr. T. C. N. Singh of Annamalai University in Southern India began a series of experiments to learn if their was fact to the fable.

p. 53

In 1950 his early results showed music could increase the growth, height, and profusion of leaves ... . Dr. Singh knew the work of Bose .., and was equally interested in exploring the hidden mysteries of the plant world ... . He discovered if a particular tune was played for a particular period each day, the plants responded with faster and healthier growth ... . Indian classical tunes played on the flute or violin were the most effective. He also found that each plant had its own choice in tunes. ...

p. 54

After many years of experimentation Singh and his associate, Ms. Stella Ponniah, a music school graduate and scientist, have concluded that repeated musical stimulation brings about positive changes in the chromosome arrangement of certain plant cells. If ... true, it means that by exciting plants through music, they will transmit the new growth characteristics to their offspring. This has actually been seen ... .

When Ms. Ponniah ... performed the intricate Bharat Natyan, a classical native dance, around the plants, their growth pattern and yield increased in the same way as had the musically excited plants."

p. 55

"In 1960, George E. Smith of Normal, Illinois, learned of Dr. Singh’s claims ... . Mr. Smith decided to try the experiments himself. ...

p. 56

finally, for the ripening grain, to "Silver Threads Among the Gold.""

p. 59

As demonstrated by Backster, "A plant’s ability to perceive also seems connected with some sort of reasoning power. ... The ... plant, the "witness," ... could remember. He devised an ingenious means of memory-testing in the plant. Following the conditioned reflex technique of the famous Russian scientist Pavlov, Backster has begun a series of ... experiments to find out if plants can be taught. ...

p. 60

The results are so encouraging, ... his plant-memory findings".

p. 60

"In 1971, ... in Saratoga, California, Dr. Marcel Vogel said, "Plants have measurable psyches; they have though processes, and there are some orders of plants that register every emotional response of people." Dr. Vogel ... says that he can classify plants for personality and sensitivity ... . ...

p. 61

The author asked if this meant that when he programs an experiment, the plants has already received the outcome and it knows what he wants to look for. "Correct. The

p. 62

As the forces emanating from him build up in the plant, the communication becomes stronger and stronger. Now the plant is capable of responding to his thought – and only his. ... He tells us that our thoughts ... can actually be transmitted outside of our bodies. Plants are capable of receiving this ... .

p. 63

If a plant can pick up our thoughts and become responsive to what we are thinking, then this shows ... a wonderful relationship between man and plant. He is convinced that love is the most measurable quality a plant has. ... He says that respect for a plant ... has given him an insight into the highly evolved, though not easily apparent, organic world around us.

With the plant as his instructor, Vogel is attempting to learn nothing less than how the power of thought radiates in space. He now believes he is on the verge of discovering the secrets of mind-to-mind thought transference."

"That plants possess some kind of consciousness was a well-known belief of Luther Burbank. ...

His spineless cacti was no small miracle. How did he do it? He told Paramahamsa Yogananda that he talked to the plants to create to create a vibration of love. He said, "You don’t need any defensive thorns. I will protect you." And in time, the thorns fell away in trust. Dr. Burbank was telepathic and had, he felt, inherited his mother’s ability to send and receive messages. One of his sisters was also able to do this. In fact, she was tested by the University of California and was able to receive messages sent to her telepathically".

"There is "nothing new under the sun" and perhaps not above it either. As in every century past, the unknown was always to some small handful of advanced thinkers".

"Cleve Backster and Dr. Marcel Vogel ... are bringing about a convergence of science and religion in a field called paraphysics. Paraphysics is the application of sophisticated modern methods ... to the study of paranormal phenomena such as meditation and prayer. In this new field ... (the term was coined by a German scientist, Baron von Schrenck-Notzing, in the nineteenth century), the bioenergetic nature of man and the universe is being investigated."

"Logically, then, a force like PK is necessary to will the body to act, an opinion held by the great Plato ... . As Dr. Rhine stated in the Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 7 (1943), "The mind in its domination of the body exercises a causal influence which cannot be otherwise than kinetic. Thus, psychokinetic action ... is the basis on which every man interprets his routine experience of daily life.""

In "his Comparative Electro-Physiology (Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1907), ... Bose considers the ordinary leaf an electric organ corresponding to the strange electric organs in certain fishes."

p. 84

"Bose accomplished a new method for studying the electrical response of vegetable nerve (the fibrovascular bundle withdrawn from the leaf stalk)."

p. 86

"Bose notes in his Plant Response : "As by the nerves of the animal, so also by certain conducting channels in the plant-tissue, the state of excitation is ... transmitted to a distance ... . ... And, ... the velocity of the transmission of excitation in the plant is comparable to that of its transmission in the nerves of some of the lower animals. ... If, then, the characteristic of the nerve be to conduct excitation, it must be admitted that the plant, like the animal, is provided with a nervous system.""

"As ... one of the staff members of the Church of Scientology ..., explained, "... What Mr. Hubbard’s experiments indicate then are that there is evidence of a similarity between the life-force or spiritual entity of plants and that of man ... . ...""

p. 89

"Martin Ebon, an experienced analyst of parapsychological phenomena, and the author of such works as Prophecy in Our Time (1968) and They Knew the Unknown (1971), points out ... the works of the nineteenth-century German physicist-psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), who wrote one of the seminal works on plant psychology."

p. 90

Dr. Ellenberger noted that Fechner underwent a metamorphosis, veering away from physics to philosophy and psychology."

p. 90

"Let us be aware that ... plants ... are soul-ful entities."

p. 91

"a plant has a soul".

p. 92

"the soul-life of plants is more purely emotional than that of animals".

"The internationally known Dora von Gelder Kunz of the Theosophical Society ... told the author, "The theosophical point of view is ... that plants ... share a sort of group soul. ...""