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| Flower girl bhumi-devi (Getty Collection) |
Plants have senses that put humans to shame. Not only do they hear and smell, they can also sense the presence of water, and even sense an object within their space. [This was suspected, scientifically verified, and largely ignored long ago from a series of botanical experiments published in The Secret Life of Plants.] Now new research suggests that plants can actually learn and remember.
The Secret Life of Plants
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| Glorious Bhūmi (Gaia) blooms each spring, Landmark Nat'l Park, Mt. Rainier (13som) |
Even on the subordinate levels of the life scale, there is profound consciousness -- an awareness that binds all sensitive things together.
The Secret Life of Plants: A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual relations between plants and man (
Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird) was published in 1973.
The book forwards the idea that plants are sentient, despite the absence of a physical nervous system and brain. This sentience is testable through changes in a plant's conductivity, as measured with a polygraph, a technique pioneered by Cleve Backster. The book also summarizes Goethe's theory of plant metamorphosis.
But the book is about much more than plants. It delves deeply into such topics as the aura, psychophysics, orgone, radionics, Kirlian photography, magnetism/magnetotropism, bioelectrics, dowsing, and the history of science. It served as the basis for the 1979 documentary of the same name, with a soundtrack especially recorded by Stevie Wonder.
