Adapted from Plant Spirit Shamanism by Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing (Inner Traditions, 2006). http://www.care2.com/
What mind boggling information can a lie detector and interrogation expert tell you about caring for your house plants? A lot, it turns out. He found that plants can read your mind, for one thing: They know your intentions for them, both good and bad. And they react to you emotionally. They might even love you!
Learn more about your house plants from this unlikely source: a scientist whose job was to teach policemen how to use polygraph equipment.
Cleve Backster, the scientist working with the police, decided one day to attach the electrodes of a lie detector to the leaf of a dracaena plant to see if the device was sensitive enough to pick up reactions from a nonhuman subject. After the device was attached to the leaf he thought maybe the reaction would be stronger if he burned the leaf. As soon as he had this thought there was a dramatic peak in the polygraph chart, a trace signature that Backster recognized as fear.
Intrigued, Backster continued his research and the results were always the same: The plants always reacted to his intention before any action was taken. Backster concluded that not only are plants as sensitive as human beings, but they are able to read emotions and intentions, because there is a form of psychic connection, or affinity, between plants and people.
Backster’s other results show that plants have memory, emotions, and very humanlike reactions, as well as psychic abilities. In other experiments, Backster demonstrated the love or empathy between a plant and its owner. One day he accidentally cut his finger and noticed that a plant being monitored was demonstrating a stress reaction of its own, as if it was experiencing Backster’s pain and shock at the sight of his blood.
Using this perceived affinity for the basis for his experiment, Backster walked to a different building some blocks away and directed loving thoughts toward the plant. The polygraph recording showed a heightened trace as the plant picked up his intentions.
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