Part Six: Cyber-Shamanism: The Fusion of Modern Technology with Ancient, Plant-Based Shamanism
By Zoe Seven
The Secret Consciousness of Plants
In the mid-sixties, a scientist by the name of Cleve Backster, the world’s leading liedetector examiner at the time, revolutionized and shocked western science by documenting that plants are a conscious species capable of emotions and decisions – much like human beings. His experiments with plants and resulting findings made headlines around the world press and became known thereafter as the “Backster Effect.”
As the story goes, one night on a whim, Backster decided to attach the electrodes of one of his lie-detector machines to a plant he had in his lab. Then, when he thought of burning one of the leaves, and before he could even light up a match, he was shocked. The tracing pattern on the graph jumped – the plant sensed the threat of being burned! But that’s not all. In a later experiment, Backster brought a colleague of his to demonstrate his discovery. However, this time he really wasn’t intending to burn the leaf. He was just going through the motions. And to his surprise, the needle on the graph didn’t move… After thinking it over, he wondered if perhaps the plant was somehow sensing his intent...
The second time around he was actually going to burn the leaf but the plant reacted. Backster concluded that the plant was able to differentiate between real intent and make believe intent. Indeed, this experiment further concluded that plants could think, make decisions, and even receive and pick up thoughts telepathically. He even found the same reaction even if the leaf was separated from the plant itself! So, during the next few months, Backster collected a large number of polygraph paper charts that tracked the behavior and reactions from a wide variety of plant species.
Another experiment by Backster demostrated that plants displayed memory. In this experiment Backster had two plants set up in his lab. One was attached to his galvonametter and the other wasn’t. He then instructed one of five of his students to walk over to the plant which wasn’t attached to anything and destroy it. Immediately, the plant that was attached to the machine reacted, and its reaction was recorded on the graph paper. Following this, Backster had all five of the students enter the room one by one. When each of the students came near the surviving plant the graph showed no activity. However, as soon as the culprit entered the room, the plant’s polygraph’s reading went of the chart! Apparently, the plant that was still alive was able to recognize the electromagnetic field of this person.
In yet another trial, Backster noted that there is a bonding between the plant and its keeper. And, as it turns out, this bond is unaffected by distance. For this experiment Backster traveled fifty miles away from his laboratory and tracked his plants reaction when he was on his way back. As he approached it, he was later able to correlate that his plants had indeed perked up and showed definitive signs of activity when he neared the lab. What this demonstrated is that plants apparently establish a link with their caretakers and are able to maintain this attunement regardless of space. Another possible explanation might be that these carrier waves work beyond our known electromagnetic spectrum.
This spectrum may be the same as the one proposed by British biologist, Rupert Sheldrake. In his books, Sheldrake postulates that morphic fields are invisible fields of information that carry behavioral and genetic information, which all species including plants tune in to and use in order to grow, develop, and even behave. This may suggest that all plant life, for example, is organized by fields that carry the genetic information of a specific species. And such a field must cover entire locations where specific species of plants grow. This may be one of the explanations of why some plants grow in some locales and others don’t. Therefore, said morphic fields may play an organizing role in all of nature.
As it turns out, everything in existence is created and designed from these blueprints or morphic fields, which in turn are encoded with specific information of how to build everything from what constitutes matter (i.e., subatomic particles, atoms, etc.) to organisms (i.e., proteins, cells, etc.). Therefore every thing in existence, be it living organisms such as plants, animals, people, or ‘non-living’ objects such as stones and metals, is emitting and also capable of receiving what can be described as informational or morphic fields. Therefore, at some level everything in the universe is alive and conscious.
Talking from personal experience I feel that when I’m under the influence of a teacher plant I sometimes access a field of information – perhaps one that has been accessed by some shamans – in which various “shamanic techniques” (for lack of a better term) are seemingly given to me. Perhaps I am tunning in to the morphic fields that house information about shamanism and its various techniques. (In talking about this a few months ago with a dear friend of mine, Pablo Amaringo, a Shipibo shaman from Peru, I mentioned how some people get annoyed when I start talking about my experiences and compare and even think of myself as a shaman, given my work and experiences while having no formal “shamanic instruction” from a “real shaman”, and he said: “Next time that happens ask them who do they think taught the first shaman?” Indeed.)
Another ability of plants is that they react to sonic frequencies and have preferences over styles of music… Dorothy Retallack, a professional organist from Denver, ran a series of experiments for her biology class, including one where she played music for plants to gauge their reactions (they were later observed by way of time-lapse photography). During this particular experiment, speakers were placed near the plants and, when they were exposed to rock music, for example, they leaned away from it. Whereas, when they were exposed to classical, Indian, or Tibetan music, the plants leaned towards the speakers. (This may explain why I have had excellent results when combining hemi-sync CD’s and tapes featuring music embedded with psychoactive frequencies together with salvia divinorum, magic mushrooms, and even ayahuasca. Because I have to admit that my most memorable experiences occured to me while combining technology together with plants.)
Copyright: Zoe Seven, Author and AVS Journal, Michael Landgraf, Publisher (2006) Granada Hills, CA. All rights reserved.