STARTLING NEW RESEARCH FROM THE MAN WHO "TALKS" TO PLANTS, by Janice and Charles Robbins

Here's another piece from National Wildlife magazine, about former CIA interrogation specialist and polygraph innovator Cleve Backster. Backster was a pioneer in the movement to explore plant consciousness and ESP, and the authors mention previous coverage by National Wildlife from 1968. Backster would also feature in the smash hit 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.

In this article, Janice and Charles Robbins describe some testing by Backster including plants recoiling at a murderer - a murderer of plants, that is, as Backster has a volunteer destroys one unlucky plant and then records the reactions of other plants to this person's presence. At the end of the article Backster describes another attempt at unmasking a real murderer via plant ESP that didn't pan out. Chicken eggs are also hooked up to the polygraph electrodes. Backster and the Robbins assure us that this is all very scientific and thorough.

More than fifty years later, sadly, lie detectors and plant ESP are looking a little less reliable than Backster's "slam dunk" claims. A recent New Age scam podcast with some mainstream cachet has featured plant ESP in an episode, but the subject is mostly confined to the New Age ghetto and the "human potential" hopes of yesteryear, when it seemed like all it would take is a breakthrough here or there to unleash all the power of the universe.

This article is also available to read and download at archive dot org.

From National Wildlife magazine, Vol. 9 - No. 6, Oct/Nov 1971.