Secret Life of Plants

The Secret Life of Plants

This is a topic that has kept me thinking about it ever since i have read the book "The Secret Life of Plants" by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.
It contains a collection of research about the increddible powers that plants have and the "vibrational connection" between every living thing.

Did you know that plants have emotions ?
They can cry, be happy and even get drunk and hung over.

Experiments have been done where plants could sense enemies approaching a military base.

If i remember correctly, plants could even pass energy to one another on remote.

The book shows that many great minds of the past where involved in this direction of research, like Goethe, Einstein, etc.

Have a look see what you think.

In the study of paranormal phenomenon Plant perception, or biocommunication in plant cells, has come to mean a

belief that plants are sentient, that they experience pain, pleasure, or emotions such as fear and affection, and

that they have the ability to communicate with humans and other forms of life in a recognizable manner. While plants

can communicate through chemical signals, and certainly have complex responses to stimuli, the belief that they

possess advanced affective or cognitive abilities receives little support except in the parapsychology studies

community and among believers in the Gaia hypothesis.
en.wikipedia.org...(paranormal)

Cleve Backster polygraph experiments
www.youtube.com...

I can't believe I hadn't heard about this book before I found it on the shelf. Published in the 1970s, it explores

the relationship between humans and plant life. Numerous scientific studies with lie detector tests, electrodes, and

other '70s high-tech instruments produce astounding results. Plants have feelings: they feel fear, they help each

other, they try to communicate, they like music! Plants can read your mind. Kate, Powells.com
www.powells.com...

The Secret Life of Plants (on wiki)
en.wikipedia.org...

Fantastic time laps docu
Secret life of plants p1
www.youtube.com...

Plant Emotions and mindcontrol
www.raven1.net...

The Secret Life of Plants (Paperback) @ amazon
www.amazon.com...

This is very interesting but how can one believe in this? I mean plants have the ability to feel pain and experience pleasure this is very arguable. I personably have not got a lot of knowledge about this but why has this not been widely publicised?

reply to post by jaamaan


How can plants feel pain or emotions? They don't have a nervous system.

that they have the ability to communicate with humans and other forms of life in a recognizable manner.

How recognizable? Will they call my house at 2 in the morning selling vacuums or will they yell at me for stepping on them by accident?

reply to post by thenormalkidwantingtobesm


It has been widely publicised. I've known this for many, many years.
It's just that such things are somehow drowned by all the "noisier" news in the media.

And it's really not surprising.
Anyone who has had plants in their home - and really cared for them long-term - could tell you many stories about it.

Ficus plants, especially, seem to be highly susceptible. I tried to find as many studies as I could about them after I've seen a certain ficus plant languish after every unpleasant situation in the home where it was growing.
Once, a person who really didn't like plants around her (and the feeling was mutual, I am sure...) suggested - in a verbally very aggressive manner (but without touching the plant) - that the ficus be "dispatched" (= thrown away).
You may believe it or not, but its leaves drooped almost immediately (it was visible by the end of the visit) and it took almost a week for the ficus to recover. And that happened every time that woman entered the house, even though she never mentioned the "dispatching" again.

But most poignant and telling was the time when the home owners really had to take leave of the ficus because they were relocating and the plant had grown into a proper tree. They would not see it grow new leaves in August, as they did every year.

Approximately three weeks before the relocation - it was May - shoots appeared all over the ficus. Four months before its time, it was growing new leaves for the one (its primary caretaker) that it loved more than anyone, it seems, to see them for one last time.

It doesn't matter one bit if anyone believes this or not: it really happened - and that won't change.







[edit on 20-3-2008 by Vanitas]

Thank you all for taking interest in this topic.

Plants do seem to react to things, like they have a nervous system.

I will gather some online information on this and post it here.
It is all widely discussed in the book with proper research behind it.

Check out this video
www.youtube.com...

It will show plants reacting to death of other species around them.
This man is the front runner of modern (1970's) research into plant reactions.

im not going to go as far as the OP's sources or some other people in saying plants feel pain and emotion, defined as pain and emotion, maybe as something pseudo like but not the same.

there is a strange connection between plants and humans, and it does extend into the plant world a bit, not just the human world. ive been told countless times that when you are growing a garden, to come 'tend' to the garden every day even if it doesnt need watering, because the plants when growing actually "like" human interaction, it stimulates them in some way increasing the growth rate.

i can attest to this as the parts of my garden that get the most attention, meaning the most thought and staring - eyesight, these areas are where the garden is at its' furthest along point in the growth season. the other areas are still growing, but arent as big or quite as far along the path. and i noticed this last year also. its like my mind is causing a certain patch to grow taller, because its getting no other differing treatment.

I suspect this could be an explainable science, that perhaps the human being lets off a certain field of vibration, or of energy, or of magnetism, or something that causes growth in a plant if that human is around that plant very often, every day. It has to be the close proximity of the two, physical distance.. the closeness allows the fields to cause the effect.

[edit on 3/21/2008 by runetang]

Originally posted by runetang

there is a strange connection between plants and humans, and it does extend into the plant world a bit, not just the human world. ive been told countless times that when you are growing a garden, to come 'tend' to the garden every day even if it doesnt need watering, because the plants when growing actually "like" human interaction, it stimulates them in some way increasing the growth rate.


I suspect this could be an explainable science, that perhaps the human being lets off a certain field of vibration, or of energy, or of magnetism, or something that causes growth in a plant if that human is around that plant very often, every day. It has to be the close proximity of the two, physical distance.. the closeness allows the fields to cause the effect.

[edit on 3/21/2008 by runetang]

The book discribes a scientist who created a whole new catalog of plants in his garden shed.
For example he grew catus without needles.
When asked how he did it he told that he had to convince the plant that he would protect it.

I will look up th ename of the man when i am home in the weekend and look him up online for you.

There is also a chapther about the vibrational connection between the plants and between plants and humans.

Try to put two leaves of a plant beside your bed and give one love every day and the other , lets say hate.
See how the life of the two leaves will differ.

Also a look up of the autors proves to be quite intresting

Christopher Bird
en.wikipedia.org...

Here is some information regarding Cleve Backster and his polygraph experiments.

It would never occur to a plant or animal physiologist to test plants for consciousness or ESP because their knowledge would be sufficient to rule out the possibility of plants having feelings or perceptions on the order of human feeling or perception. In layman's terms, plants don't have brains or anything similar to brains.

However, a person completely ignorant of plant and animal science has not only tested plants for perception and feeling, he claims that he has scientific proof that plants experience a wide range of emotions and thoughts. He also claims that plants can read human minds. His name is Cleve Backster and he published his research in the International Journal of Parapsychology ("Evidence of a Primary Perception in Plant Life," vol. 10, no. 4, Winter 1968, pp. 329-348). He tested his plants on a polygraph machine and found that plants react to thoughts and threats.
skepdic.com...

Cleve Backster, who instituted the Central Intelligence Agency's polygraph program in 1948, also has some curious ideas about plants (in particular, that they can perceive human thoughts and intentions), as the following article on Skepdic.com explains:

skepdic.com...

Backster seems to believe that there is a conspiracy in the scientific community to discredit his revolutionary discovery that plants can read human thought. But scientists have been unable to reproduce his results under controlled conditions.
antipolygraph.org...

But over here, the idea occurred to me, the idea occurred to me - and only the idea - "I know what I am going to do: I am going to burn that plant leaf, that very leaf that's attached to the polygraph."
Now I didn't have matches in the room. I wasn't touching the plant in any way. I was maybe five feet away from the desk. I was essentially away from the plant.
The only new thing that occurred was my intent to burn that plant leaf.
Right here, split second-wise, was when I thought of burning that plant leaf and the image entered my mind. I wasn't using words at all.
And up that the thing went into a wild agitation.
Now this was very late at night and towards morning. The building was empty and there was just no other reason for this reaction. This had been going along at a fairly stable level all the way up to this point.
So this amazed me.
This, I would say, would be a very high quality observation, and my consciousness hasn't been the same since. And this happened in 1966.
I thought, "Wow! This thing read my mind!" It was that obvious to me right then.
josesilva.info...

an interesting book to read would be:

The cosmic serpent (Dna and the origins of knowledge) by Jeremy Narby


Deals with similar issues and also Ayahuasca and how messages can be transferred between plant and human.

Very good book.

For anyone who can remember back to the mid, to late seventies, this perhaps, is the book which ignited the frenzy which lead to everyone nurturing and talking to their house plants, treating them with tender loving care, as though they were human.

I had completely forgotten about that period of time and this fad, until I encountered your thread.

Originally posted by jdposey
For anyone who can remember back to the mid, to late seventies, this perhaps, is the book which ignited the frenzy which lead to everyone nurturing and talking to their house plants, treating them with tender loving care, as though they were human.

Yes

Exactly.

Like i said, i will look up some individual researchers from the book and post some google results on them.

There is also a great time laps video made, inspired on the book, i posted it in the OP.

Luther Burbank. he is the man who created needles catus spiecies by convincing them that he would protect them.

Luther Burbank Documentary
www.youtube.com...

IMHO, humans are too quick to assume they know everything about everything. We tend to be very presumptuous about our knowledge once we have a little bit of it. It's really pretty arrogant. That's why I try not to speak in absolutes. When I do I usually end up having to eat my words.

To me there is no doubt - plants have emotions. Just that those are "plant" emotions. Plants communicate with each other - but it is "plant" communication". I am trying to say - do not mammalize (if there is such a word?) or humanize them. I am yet to find plant with good sense of humor ,after all..
As for energy... What kind of energy? How it is measured? In Kcal?
Plants are life forms, not some astral beings (who knows, maybe they are?) as i see the species.

I like topics like this because I have always two points of view.

I've heard stories about this before and I have tried experiments for a science fair project in school back in 1994. I tried this with music, how it effects a bean plant to grow with Classical, Frank Sinatra and Slayer. I don't have the results, but I do remember that it did effect in some way. Maybe it has to do with the same theory as the one about the water molecules or crystal molecules I don't remember quite well but I know that I saw it in a documentary.

My other point of view is that it sounds like a fad that society always goes through. Humans seem to yearn some sort of magical mystical power or some sort of well being. I've seen it happen with movies like "The Secret" and books like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". People go through fads then forget them. Anyways my 2 cents.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge

Zero, watch Part 3 of the video posted. I think you'll be surprised. I just was. In the last ten minutes I've developed a whole different outlook on the plant world.

reply to post by Sleuth

The cat did that!!!!He messed up with experiment. He left without the cat,after all. So the cat was moving the plant camera (you can see that it moving, while the guy is walking).
Seriously , i do not trust this movie. It is an easy experiment, so if it was true - it would be widely accepted. Since this movie, as i understand, never was aired, someone shot it for different purposes.
Here is what i dug on the net,you probably will like it....
www.raven1.net...
It was trendy in those days, even Hubbard is mentioned. And E-meter.
Must have looked like this...
img412.imageshack.us...
Not buying it.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge

What I'm saying is that I realized I should have a more open mind about the subject. These are living things and we can't be presumptuous about what we do and don't know about them.

Everything living an even non living. responds to Negitive an positive energy. Its how things are naturaly.

Im pretty sure ( this isnt about plants ) that they had some experiments with ice crystals an while they were forming they had more then two experiences running at once, an some people were nice an happy to their dedicated station where their crystals and some were unpleasant and mean to theirs,

the Positive re-enforced crystals grew very uniformed an like what many would think they natural look like,

But the Negitive re-enforced crystals grew malformed an mis-shapened.

This could all be evidence that theirs a un measured energy forced around all matter.....