Plant intelligence.

It sounds like a far fetched idea, but with the complex life they live (and give) it would be safe to ask, do plants have an intelligence that allows for feelings and senses?

If you have ever lived near crickets, you would know their melody of chirping right before it rains. Some naturalists theorize that this sound is what allows plants to open their breathing pores, (stomatas), on the underside of their leaves so that rain may enter.

But can plants actually hear sound?

Cleve Backster thought so. He’s the former CIA interrogation specialist in the 1960’s that connected polygraph sensors to plants and discovered that they reacted to harm (like cutting their leaves off) and even to harmful thoughts of humans in proximity to them.

Backster decided to attach his polygraph electrodes to the plant in his office, then watered the plant and see if the leaves responded. Finding that the plant had reacted to this, he decided to see what would happen if he threatened it, and formed in his mind the idea of lighting a match to the leaf where the electrodes were attached.

That’s when the unimaginable happened.

The plant didn’t even wait for him to light the match. It reacted to his thoughts and vibration of energy! Through further research, Baxter found that it was his intent, not just the thought, that brought about this reaction.

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He also discovered that plants were aware of each other, mourned the death of anything living. Not only did they mourn, they actually had likes and dislikes. He found that they strongly disliked people who killed plants during scientific research, and extended their energy out to the people who had tended to them, even when those people were far way in either time or space.

He noted the beauty of plants being able to react in the present moment to events that took place many miles away.

So he said plants are psychic, but also since they can anticipate negative and positive events, including weather…they can be seen as prophetic.

How do these psychic and prophetic nature beings react?

Backster found that they just become catatonic. He termed the plants’ sensitivity to thoughts “primary perception,” and first published his findings from the experiments in The International Journal of Parapsychology. His work was inspired by the research of famous biologist Dr. Jagadish Chandra Bose, who had discovered that playing certain kinds of music in the area where plants grew caused them to grow faster.

Dr. Bose, invented an instrument named crescograph for his many experiments on plants. Dr. Bose showed that plants can feel in their own way. He wrote: “Suppose there is a lush green plant and its leaves are a sparkling green in the shining sunlight. We feel like pulling out a leaf to feel it. But we do not think of what goes on inside the plant. Maybe, we feel that the plant does not suffer like us. But the plant does suffer. In fact the pulsation of the plant stops where the leaf was plucked. In a short time the pulsation again begins at the spot, but this time very slowly. And then it completely stops. That spot is as good as dead for the plant.”

The plant has a nervous system.

Dr. Bose also discussed the ‘nervous mechanism’ of plants — the ability of plants to recognize and react to the individual who has committed a violent act, (especially towards a plant), in their presence.

Researchers from Michigan State University have also discovered that plants have a rudimentary nerve structure, which allows them to feel pain. According to the journal Plant Physiology, plants are capable of identifying danger, signaling that danger to other plants and marshaling defenses against perceived threats. Botanist Bill Williams of the Helvetica Institute noted, “plants not only seem to be aware and to feel pain, they can even communicate.”

This research had prompted the Swiss government to pass the first-ever Plant Bill of Rights. It concluded that plants have moral and legal protections, and Swiss citizens have to treat them appropriately.

Now with modern day equipment, plant physiologists are beginning to understand much more about plant movement. That there are even molecular and cellular reasons of the ability of plants to respond to touch.

So what do you think? Are plants more intelligent than we think?

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/news/the-lives-they-lived/2013/12/21/james-gandolfini/

https://books.google.com/books?id=txmK8yDf_MwC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=Burdon-Sanderson+plants&source=bl&ots=DHjV_yC1oO&sig=zd2gb5nzq1J1QFECnElcfaP1wJc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=z1GHVJaSEIyngwSy8IP4CQ&ved=0CGIQ6AEwDw#v=onepage&q=Burdon-Sanderson%20plants&f=false