WE ARE IN THE EARLY MORNING OF UNDERSTANDING
OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE,
AND OUR SPECTACULAR LATENT POWERS.
Marilyn Furgenson
It was my idea to start experimenting with plants after I read about some work with plants and their emotions, done by Cleve Backster.
The results of his research defied belief as far as I was concerned.
However, unlike the far-life readings, these experiments would involve only myself.
Based on his research, Mr. Backster had concluded there was a distinct possibility that plants have emotions. I decided to replicate a few of his experiments. This was something I would have to see in order to come anywhere close to believing.
I hooked one of my houseplants to a G.S.R. (Galvanic Skin Response, also known as a lie detector), which was the equipment Backster had used.
His procedure included "threatening" destruction to a plant hooked to the G.S.R. He reported the plant had reacted, causing the line to make sudden jumps upward and downward on the graph paper coming out of the machine.
When Backster, for example, thought of burning a leaf and there was a definite response it indicated to him that the plant was frightened.
This was intriguing and irresistible. I had to try it.
I found the lines on the graph paper did change from wavy into spikes when I "caused my plant to worry". Sometimes the lines jumped so high the pen literally shot up and off the edge of the paper.
Having forgotten what little Botany I had in school, I became very curious about what could be causing the sharp fluctuations on the graph paper.
I spent several hours at the local library looking through various texts. I eventually came across the word, "auxins".
Auxins, the text informed me, were the electrical charges present in all plant life. Auxins move away from light and gather on the bottom side of the plant leaf, causing it to turn its upper side toward light. Normal auxin flow is 105 millivolts.
As the needle on the G.S.R. held its course at 105 millivolts, I began to concentrate, asking the plant for a change in auxin flow that would result in a voltage change.
It took a little better than a half-hour but I watched the voltmeter very slowly fluctuate between 100 and 110 millivolts.
There was no way in which my thoughts, and the results from the G.S.R., could be construed as anything near a scientific test.
There probably was an explanation for what I had observed. I decided it could be normal for auxin flow to waver between 100 and 110 millivolts.
Just about any experiment, scientific or otherwise, can be picked apart if one tries hard enough.
I was doing and would continue to do a lot of picking apart.
I got my planchette, which was similar to the one used on an Ouija Board, but is heart shaped, with a hole at the "point" of the heart. A pen is inserted in that hole. Instead of pointing to letters, this planchette spelled out words
I sat down in front of the philodendron plant, touched the "lobes" of the "heart" and asked, aloud:
"Is the intelligence aware of this testing?"
The planchette moved:
YES came the answer, and then, NOW YES NOW
And thus began one of the strangest phases in my quest for proof of psychic phenomena.
Pushing every Doubting Thomas twinge aside, I continued.
"Are the variations on the graft paper caused by natural biological functions?"
THIS IS SO
Concern about my mental stability became overwhelming. What was happening right there in front of my eyes flaunted reason and belief.
I decided to try just one more question:
"Is it possible for you to differentiate between my random thoughts and my verbal requests?"
THESE ARE IN RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS OF ALL THOUGHTS RECOGNIZED ATTEMPTS WILL BE MADE TO REFINE
Huh?
There were no capital letters or punctuation whatsoever in the "automatic writing" produced through the planchette. A’s and e’s were mere loops. Words and sentences flowed together but I found the results increasingly easier to read.
I’d resume my experiments with the G.S.R. several times, checking to see just what made the plants "nervous."
In later experiments following the line of Cleve Backster’s reports I found the plant would get jumpy if I pulled a leaf from another plant in the room and tore it to shreds.
I found the plant was soothed by soft music but became quite irritated when I tuned into an "acid rock" station on the stereo.
Despite my thoughts, including the very real possibility that I was controlling the planchette — whether consciously or not — I would keep a journal of all "responses." It didn’t matter if they made sense or not, I would copy every question and every letter of a "response".
Several days later:
"Can you speak to me through the planchette? I wish to communicate. Is this possible?"
YES
"Will you communicate with me now?"
YES
"Can you give me a message?"
WHAT IS WANTED
"Is there communication between plants?"
YES
"How far do your communicative powers reach?"
TO THAT OF THE NEBULIUM
The what?
I’d heard of the nebula and the nebulae but couldn’t recall ever coming across that word. There probably wasn’t such a word, I thought.
I put the planchette aside and opened my dictionary. There was nebula and nebulae — but no nebulium.
My dictionary, I reminded myself, was limited — and I had no encyclopedia.
I called Gundella:
"Do you have a set of encyclopedias?"
She said she did.
"Would you do me a favor? Check to see if there is such a word as nebulium?"
After spelling the word for her, she said she’d look, and call me right back.
A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was Gundella.
"Did you find the word?" I asked.
"Yes, I did. It’s in my Britannica."
Total surprise was my reaction to this bit of news.
"According to my encyclopedia," she continued, "it means the hypothetical rays that travel between the nebulae. Where did you come across that word? I’ve never heard it before."
I explained what had happened.
Her enthusiasm knew no bounds:
"Good grief! Imagine that! You really are onto something, Sundance! I’m so excited for you!"
She was excited. I was bewildered.
"There’s one thing that’s really bothering me," I said, as if my consternation was caused by only one thing.
"What’s that?"
"How come I get the answers in English?"
"That’s not hard to figure out," she assured me. "Remember Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious?"
"Yes."
"I would say the plants are communicating through your collective unconscious. Your subconscious picks it up and it comes through in English, since that’s the only language you understand."
Of course that wasn’t the case with the message in Armenian, but in all this mystification, why should anything make sense?
Over the next several months, I continued my strange "conversations with plants."
If anything, my life would become — in the minds of some others as well as myself — increasingly weird.
