Radionics - It works - but well we don't know how

[alkemical]

I first got introduced to the concept of radionics from DisInfo's DVD (http://www.disinfo.com/site/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=52). Scientist Duncan Laurie (http://www.duncanlaurie.com/) explains how these devices were tested thoroughly by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in the late 1940’s (before they were outlawed entirely) and they *do* work.

From Duncan's Site (http://www.duncanlaurie.com/radionics):

Mind based technologies such as Radionics are explored here as an exciting new medium for art. This site may prove valuable to persons seeking to understand and use subtle energy in their work and lives. The information we provide is especially oriented toward artists, musicians and designers, especially those who are looking for methodologies that further consciousness and nature in their design protocols.

In the technology department we examine the history and applicability of a little understood healing and agricultural technology named Radionics. Radionics has been around for over one hundred years. It employs the use of intention, coupled with design and sometimes electronics to affect change and do work in the real world. You could say Radionics is an Information to Energy technology (termed I>E). It has recently been computerized and is now being used in alternative health clinics, on farms to heal animals and replace pesticides and fertilizer, and for environmental re-certification on a small but significant scale throughout the world.

We have also made our own contributions to Radionics in the area of sonic art. Our effort has been to isolate various forms of subtle energy as they appear in nature and translate them into sound. Of this endeavor, for the last twenty years we have borrowed, developed and combined specially designed sound listening and signal acquisition technology. Together, small voltages from minerals, plants and bio-sensors are acquired, translated into pitch shifts and further mixed and processed as sonic environments in specially created contexts. These sounds are produced in a studio space designed for that purpose using sacred proportions. That building has been placed upon a landscape of surpassing natural beauty and power. All efforts have been made to provide an environment where the acquisition and enhancement of subtle energy signals from nature can be understood and appreciated for the intelligence and insight they offer.

As this site develops we hope to provide detailed information about the technology we have developed for this purpose. We also provide the sounds and signal structure we have been given from nature in readily accessible form. These signals occur on their own as melodies and graphics, and will also be found combined with the music and video of visiting artists. While there has been a diligent attempt to remain true to the spirit of scientific inquiry, we do not claim to be conducting our research at the highest levels of scientific procedure. Rather, ours is an artistic effort born of an intuitive desire to learn more about the hidden forces of nature and the intelligent role they seek to play in human design.

The potential of Radionics as an art tool has yet to be realized.


From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionics#Magical_means_of_operation):

Magical means of operation
Radionic devices do not accord with the theories of biology or physics. They can be described as magical in operation.

The power of radionics is said to lie in the rates or frequencies it measures and then feeds back to the patient. Although a healing substance can be directly used to feed healing frequencies back into the patient, the substance is not actually needed if its healing frequency rate is known.

For the purpose of assessment and treatment, Radionics sees organs, diseases and remedies as having their own particular frequency or vibration. These factors are expressed in numerical values which are known as "rates" and older radionic instruments are provided with calibrated dials on which such "rates" are set for assessment and treatment purposes. Radionic Research Institute

Internally, a radionic device is very simple, and may not even form a functional electrical circuit. In radionics, the wiring in the analysis device is simply used to conduct the frequencies from the well, across the measurement knobs, and to the stick plate. No actual electrical current flows.

A radionic device does not use or need electric power, though a power cord may be provided so that the power line can provide a "base rate" on which the device operates to attempt to heal a subject. Malcolm Rae developed the use of static magnets in radionics, and devised reference (or 'simulator' cards) to speed up the process of analysis and remove the need for many complex dials and settings. [3]

Typically, little attempt is made to define or describe what, if anything, is flowing along the wires and being measured. This energy could possibly be orgone or ch'i, but does not conform to any accepted scientific theories.

[alkemical]

I dunno, i'm just really interested in this.

[clarkster]

i have no idea what it is, or what the article says, or what youre talking about,so ill smile politely and agree...

[alkemical]

I provided links if you wanted to read up on it further.

Basically - on the DVD -

This guy has these plants hooked up and it seems that these plants some how reflected the environment and it was noted using radiowaves that the frequences, pitches - etc. The PA dept of AG noted that using a radionics machine - they took a picture of a selected area of crops. On one line of crops on this picture, they put pesticides on. Put the picture in the machine. That line of crops had fewer instances of damage due to bugs, etc than the other lines of crops that did not have their picture representation treated.

So PA DEPT AG banned the technology since they didn't know how it worked.

[alkemical]

Any science guys want to take a stab at this?

[Spider]

Any science guys want to take a stab at this?

the thingamabob works in correlation with the doohickey thus canceling out the whatamacallit , and forcing the gadgit to interface with the gizmo ......... rather simple once you look at it this way ;D

[Hotrod]

I provided links if you wanted to read up on it further.

Basically - on the DVD -

This guy has these plants hooked up and it seems that these plants some how reflected the environment and it was noted using radiowaves that the frequences, pitches - etc. The PA dept of AG noted that using a radionics machine - they took a picture of a selected area of crops. On one line of crops on this picture, they put pesticides on. Put the picture in the machine. That line of crops had fewer instances of damage due to bugs, etc than the other lines of crops that did not have their picture representation treated.

So PA DEPT AG banned the technology since they didn't know how it worked.

Wait hold the phone I obviously have misunderstood this. Are you saying that they take a picture of a plant with bug spray on it and put said picture into a machine. The machine then gives off some sort of "vibes" to the real plants and bugs think that the plants have bug spray and dont bother them???

[enjolras]

Any science guys want to take a stab at this?

First off, I'm a bit skeptical. Particularly given the lack of real scientific evidence to support that anything is happening at all.

That said, there is scientific basis for these type of phenomenon. In quantum mechanics we have entanglement. Where two particles (even seperated by large distances) have an effect on each others behavior. In one famous experiment researchers directed two entagled particles in opposite directions through a slit and onto a detector. They found that when one proton was coerced into moving into the upper slit, the other 'magically' compensated in exactly the OPPOSITE manner. The other particle isn't touched, it just always assumes the opposite behavior of its entangled particle... and physical distance doesn't seem to affect it at all.

Now of course the magical nature of entanglement is cause for huge debate in the physics world. There is some question about whether the state of the particles is somehow pre-encoded into the particles, whether it's simply some accident in how we measure the particles state, or whether superluminal communication is taking place (communication faster than the speed of light) between the two particles. The fact is, we really have no idea. As physicists, we're still coming to grips with the probabilistic world view.

However, it does sound similar in some ways to what is being described in radionics. I still remain highly skeptical of the claims, but that doesn't mean science doesn't have pointers in that direction. There are other statistical phenomenon that point to a very strange universe. Like 'the power of positive thinking' and some very real correlations between positive thinking and very physical outcomes. Something that still needs much more study, but there is some evidence to support the notion that positive thinking on its own can affect the world around you. Again, this needs much more rigorous scientific examination.. but it's interesting as all get out.

[ant1999e]

the thingamabob works in correlation with the doohickey thus canceling out the whatamacallit , and forcing the gadgit to interface with the gizmo ......... rather simple once you look at it this way ;D

That's the way I understand it.
Clav, I think your on the wrong message board. That **** just went over all our heads.zowie!

[Spider]

That's the way I understand it.
Clav, I think your on the wrong message board. That **** just went over all our heads.zowie!

great scientific minds ;D

[elsid13]

I still confused on how to make the 1200 stop blinking on the old BETA MAX

[Spider]

I still confused on how to make the 1200 stop blinking on the old BETA MAX

Hammer

[alkemical]

Wait hold the phone I obviously have misunderstood this. Are you saying that they take a picture of a plant with bug spray on it and put said picture into a machine. The machine then gives off some sort of "vibes" to the real plants and bugs think that the plants have bug spray and dont bother them???

correctamundo

[alkemical]

First off, I'm a bit skeptical. Particularly given the lack of real scientific evidence to support that anything is happening at all.

That said, there is scientific basis for these type of phenomenon. In quantum mechanics we have entanglement. Where two particles (even seperated by large distances) have an effect on each others behavior. In one famous experiment researchers directed two entagled particles in opposite directions through a slit and onto a detector. They found that when one proton was coerced into moving into the upper slit, the other 'magically' compensated in exactly the OPPOSITE manner. The other particle isn't touched, it just always assumes the opposite behavior of its entangled particle... and physical distance doesn't seem to affect it at all.

Now of course the magical nature of entanglement is cause for huge debate in the physics world. There is some question about whether the state of the particles is somehow pre-encoded into the particles, whether it's simply some accident in how we measure the particles state, or whether superluminal communication is taking place (communication faster than the speed of light) between the two particles. The fact is, we really have no idea. As physicists, we're still coming to grips with the probabilistic world view.

However, it does sound similar in some ways to what is being described in radionics. I still remain highly skeptical of the claims, but that doesn't mean science doesn't have pointers in that direction. There are other statistical phenomenon that point to a very strange universe. Like 'the power of positive thinking' and some very real correlations between positive thinking and very physical outcomes. Something that still needs much more study, but there is some evidence to support the notion that positive thinking on its own can affect the world around you. Again, this needs much more rigorous scientific examination.. but it's interesting as all get out.





Oh i agree - i think science can explain it. But i've done some research and there is validity - the guy has videos (and if you take duncan at his word) - they are pretty cool. I thought i'd reintroduce this since it's slow.... ;)

[W*GS]

I'm very skeptical.

See

http://skepdic.com/radionics.html

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by Hotrod View Post
Wait hold the phone I obviously have misunderstood this. Are you saying that they take a picture of a plant with bug spray on it and put said picture into a machine. The machine then gives off some sort of "vibes" to the real plants and bugs think that the plants have bug spray and dont bother them


correctamundo

So Radionics is somewhat akin to voodoo?

[alkemical]

I'm very skeptical.

See

http://skepdic.com/radionics.html


I'm not sure it works either. But the PA Dept. Of AG says it does, and they used science.

[alkemical]

So Radionics is somewhat akin to voodoo?

Magic, voodoo, etc - IMO things we don't understand are put here.

If matter is just energy condensed - it is plausible IMO - to manipulate it with ['radio/energy/etc' waves].

[alkemical]

off season bump

[baja]

It absolutely does work.

Ask yourself in a country now controlled by big corporations why is this outlawed. Because it works.

Just by going to the Radionics sites you will be put on a government watch list.

[baja]

You amaze me Josh.

You intuitly are drawn to real and important findings

[alkemical]

Baja,

I'm not worried about being watched. Not that i'm a perfect citizen by gov't standards - but i just feel that i have to do what i have to do.

If that means researching and investigating different areas of tech & magic that correspond to each other - and present it to the mainstream - that's all i can do.

If some people can't stand science, not my problem. If some people can't stand that thousands of year old traditions contain (in different words mind you) the overlays of what today's science is talking about - why not bridge them?

Konx Om Pax

[baja]

Konx Om Pax


Thien Tao, or, the Synagogue of Satan
This parodic essay casts a Crowley character (Master Kwaw) as a Taoist advisor to the Japanese "Daimio" (daimyo) in a time of crisis. Kwaw advises a course of study in which people shall be taught the antithesis of their natural tendencies: the prostitute to learn chastity, the prude to learn sexual expression, the religious bigot to learn Huxley's materialism, the atheist to learn ceremonial magic.

[alkemical]

baja - konx om pax in latin means 'light in extension'. Crowley's use of certain devices in the object listed was a way of breaking from self imposed taboos.

I don't fully agree with crowley - i think sometimes he's a cruel bastard - but in the area he worked in (as you and i know - the rules work for both sides) he was very smart.

I take his devices and make them fit for what i want to do.

But make no mistake, he can be very mean.

[baja]

baja - konx om pax in latin means 'light in extension'. Crowley's use of certain devices in the object listed was a way of breaking from self imposed taboos.

I don't fully agree with crowley - i think sometimes he's a cruel bastard - but in the area he worked in (as you and i know - the rules work for both sides) he was very smart.

I take his devices and make them fit for what i want to do.

But make no mistake, he can be very mean.

Kinda like Don Juan Matis.

You have to be "mean" if your goal isto pry people out of the illusion they are trapped in.

The real "Shock & Awe is coming.

The perfect storm that is on the horizon.

[alkemical]

Kinda like Don Juan Matis.

You have to be "mean" if your goal isto pry people out of the illusion they are trapped in.

The real "Shock & Awe is coming.

The perfect storm that is on the horizon.

Even buddha was an asshole. ;)

[alkemical]

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[baja]

That was great Josh thanks for posting it.

[alkemical]

That's the disinfo video that i cited in the original post.

[baja]

Yes I know. I have known about Radionics for a few years now and as I said earlier in the thread I know people that have the machines and they tell me with complete certainty they do work.

[alkemical]

I want to contact Duncan for an interview of my own - i got an idea for a nice story in my 'high weirdness' section of my magazine.

[alkemical]

Tom Bearden - Radionics Action At a Distance Part 1

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[alkemical]

PT II

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[alkemical]

PT III

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[alkemical]

Scientists in Israel have discovered a new way to test for water pollution by "listening" to what the plants growing in water have to say.

By shining a laser beam on the tiny pieces of algae floating in the water, the researchers said they hear sound waves that tell them the type and amount of contamination in the water.

"It is a red light, telling us that something is beginning to go wrong with the quality of water," said Zvy Dubinsky, an aquatic biologist at Israel's Bar Ilan University. "Algae is the first thing to be affected by a change in water quality."

Although most of the earth is covered in water, 44 percent of the world's population live in areas with high water stress, and the number is likely to increase because of factors such as global warming and rising population.

As water sources deteriorate worldwide, the testing of algae could be used to monitor water quality faster, more cheaply and more accurately than techniques now in use, Dubinsky said.

The secret, he said, is to measure the rate of photosynthesis in the algae, meaning the plant's ability to transform light into energy. During photosynthesis, plants also release oxygen into the air.

Dubinsky's technique is easy to perform because of the over-abundance of algae in the planet's water. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from algae.

A prototype tester, that occupies about one square meter of a laboratory desktop, shoots a laser beam at water samples to stimulate photosynthesis in the algae. But not all of the laser's heat is used.

Depending on the condition of the algae and the rate of photosynthesis, some of the heat is shot back into the water, creating sound waves, Dubinsky said.

With a special underwater microphone, researchers are able to analyze the strength of the sound waves and determine the health of the algae and the condition of the surrounding water.

"Algae suffering from lead poisoning, like waste discharged from battery and paint manufacturing plants, will produce a different sound than those suffering from lack of iron or exposure to other toxins," said researcher Yulia Pinchasov.

She said that testing algae photosynthesis can determine water quality more accurately and easily than labor-intensive methods now used like chemical and radioactive carbon testing.

With proper funding, Dubinsky said a commercial product could be ready in about two years.

The team has published its research in numerous scientific journals, most recently in the journal Hydrobiologia.

Article from: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/
idUSLD33620320080814?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

[alkemical]

This fascinating short documentary reveals the work of scientist Cleve Backster, who investigated plants’ “secret lives.” Backster argues that plants are sentient beings, despite their lack of a nervous system; we are merely unable to detect the fact that they are conscious. He attempts to show plants' awareness by hooking garden-variety ones up to a polygraph. The machine records spikes in electrical activity which seem to correspond to Backster's actions. It even jumps when he focuses his mind on a mental image of a burning fire; it seems that the plants could sense Backster’s presence and even his emotions.

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[alkemical]

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2009/02/06.html

Wilcock discussed the groundbreaking research by Russian scientist A.B. Burlakov that suggests an energy field, or "biofield," is feeding life, perhaps causing mass evolution to occur. He shared details from a study by V. Budakovski in which raspberry callus tissue was healed by projecting a hologram of a healthy raspberry plant into the sick one. As further evidence of the transitory and changeable nature of DNA, Wilcock mentioned the work of Dr. Peter Gariaev, who found he could use laser light to turn frog embryos into salamander embryos.

[gyldenlove]

This fascinating short documentary reveals the work of scientist Cleve Backster, who investigated plants’ “secret lives.” Backster argues that plants are sentient beings, despite their lack of a nervous system; we are merely unable to detect the fact that they are conscious. He attempts to show plants' awareness by hooking garden-variety ones up to a polygraph. The machine records spikes in electrical activity which seem to correspond to Backster's actions. It even jumps when he focuses his mind on a mental image of a burning fire; it seems that the plants could sense Backster’s presence and even his emotions.

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That experiment has been tried by other people and found not to be reproducable. Readings on a polygraph hooked up to a plant can be caused by sound, turbulence, changes in local salinity due to osmosis.

When tried with an EKG people have found that no signals can be detected. In most of these experiments the plants aren't physically isolated leading to a LOT of polution. If you leave the plant sitting in a room and people move around you get readings as well.

[alkemical]

That experiment has been tried by other people and found not to be reproducable. Readings on a polygraph hooked up to a plant can be caused by sound, turbulence, changes in local salinity due to osmosis.

When tried with an EKG people have found that no signals can be detected. In most of these experiments the plants aren't physically isolated leading to a LOT of polution. If you leave the plant sitting in a room and people move around you get readings as well.

Duncan Laurie reproduced some results.

[alkemical]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5595619/Plants-talk-to-warn-each-other-of-threats.html


Plants 'talk' to warn each other of threats
Plants can "talk" to each other to warn their neighbours of potential threats, scientists believe.

[gyldenlove]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5595619/Plants-talk-to-warn-each-other-of-threats.html


Plants 'talk' to warn each other of threats
Plants can "talk" to each other to warn their neighbours of potential threats, scientists believe.

Chemical signaling is not really talking, cells can do that. If one cell suffers an insult it will send out signaling chemicals to warn other cells of the insult which can upregulate expression of repair mechanisms.

[alkemical]

i know that, but i'm sure you still haven't looked at duncan lauries experiments.

[orinjkrush]

11 dimensional string theory. the universe resonates.

[cutthemdown]

If Radionics works we should all be focusing the CHI to heal the Broncos throughout the yr.

What you do is build a good machine, put some of Marshalls blood in it, and then think good thoughts.

[alkemical]

11 dimensional string theory. the universe resonates.

The work of Masaru Emoto is interesting when you look at it with the ideas of radionics:

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/e_ome_home.html

Water crystasl from the tap water which participants offered prayer to at the Vancouver seminar on Aug 15th

before offering prayer 2

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/image/20080815_vancouver/Resized/before2.jpg

after offering prayer 2

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/image/20080815_vancouver/Resized/after2.jpg

[baja]

The work of Masaru Emoto is interesting when you look at it with the ideas of radionics:

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/e_ome_home.html

Water crystasl from the tap water which participants offered prayer to at the Vancouver seminar on Aug 15th

before offering prayer 2

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/image/20080815_vancouver/Resized/before2.jpg

after offering prayer 2

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/image/20080815_vancouver/Resized/after2.jpg

Josh check this I Pro water device out It is the real deal and life changing....

Let me know what you think;

http://www.mybiopro.com/Products.aspx?ID=davidsmart

[alkemical]

baja - i will. im working via my phone - so ill do it tomorrow mrning at work.

i also have been working on a few interesting things you will be interested in.

[alkemical]

Radionics, or Black Box Dowsing (http://www.kookscience.com/2010/radionics-or-black-box-dowsing/)

The essence of Radionics was perhaps best summarised by Brian Wilson, formerly of the Beach Boys, in the classic 1966 pop hit “Good Vibrations”, in which he sang: “I’m pickin up good vibrations, oom bop bop, good vibrations, she’s giving me excitations, oom bop bop, excitations.” It is this detection of vibration, and manipulation of the resonance rates, that forms the basis of Radionic practice.

“Now, hold it right there!” demands the cranky curmudgeon kook. “Detecting vibrations? How is that any different from dowsing?”

The practitioner answers that in the mechanisms and healing purposes we find radionics distinguished from the older forms of dowsing and radiesthesia, and that it is on the “circuit” we best attune ourselves to the subtle energies of life. In our continuing work to better explain and understand the meaning of this answer, we have looked to Albert Abrams, his inheritors, and their stated purposes, exploring and elaborating on the science of Radionics. This article represents the current state of our efforts, and, as always, we at the Kook Science Resistance leave it to you to judge the truth for yourself . . .

[Cont'd @ Source]

[alkemical]

http://hyperritual.com/blog/dreaming-radionics-renaissance/

I have been reading The Secret Art: A Brief History of Radionic Technology for the Creative Individual, which makes a case for art as radionics (you can read the book’s excellent intro, here), and musing about how open-source and accessible development tools such as Processing and Arduino could facilitate a new era of designs in radionic and psionic machines. The idea is not new to me—I have been mulling it for a few years now—but as my Automagica Theoretica course comes to its official end this week, I am thinking much more about it.

I would love to see online, collaborative communities emerge around this sort of thing. Like the community of psionic machine enthusiasts that developed in and around Astounding Science Fiction (and later, Analog) in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, but more distributed and accessible. I would love to see it be open-source. Perhaps an interactive catalog of designs, like SourceForge for software, or Open Design Engine for open-source hardware (congratulations to those guys for a successful Kickstarter, BTW). Arduino lets you add knobs, buttons, and switches to pretty much anything—from cigar boxes to t-shirts. Or how about “soft” radionic devices running on our mobile telephones and tablet computers? My imagination boggles at the variety of apps one could develop for these media.

Who’s with me?


***Embedded links @Source

[alkemical]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/12/the-joy-and-pain-of-plants/

The Joy And Pain Of Plants

Posted by JacobSloan on December 1, 2011

plants The Smart Set looks at the fascinating work of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, a pioneering scientist who believed that plants can feel excitement and pain, tremor in fear, react to soothing and harsh treatment, and communicate, just as we do:

In a room near Maida Vale, a journalist for The Nation wrote around 1914, an unfortunate creature is strapped to the table of an unlicensed vivisector. When the subject is pinched with a pair of forceps, it winces. It is so strapped that its electric shudder of pain pulls the long arm of a very delicate lever that actuates a tiny mirror. This casts a beam of light on the frieze at the other end of the room, and thus enormously exaggerates the tremor of the creature. “Thus,” the journalist concluded, “can science reveal the feelings of even so stolid a vegetable as the carrot.”

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, the aforementioned carrot vivisector, was a serious man of science. Born in what is today Bangladesh in 1858, Bose was a quintessential polymath: physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist. He was the first person from the Indian subcontinent to receive a U.S. patent, and is considered one of the fathers of radio science, alongside such notables as Tesla, Marconi, and Popov. And, like many scientists of weight, he has become popularly known for his more controversial pursuits — in Bose’s case, his experiments in plant physiology.

Perhaps it was his work in radio waves and electricity that inspired Bose’s investigations into what we might call the invisible world. Bose strongly felt that physics could go far beyond what was apparent to the naked eye. Around 1900, Bose began his investigations into the secret world of plants. He found that all plants, and all parts of plants, have a sensitive nervous system not unlike that of animals, and that their responses to external stimuli could be measured and recorded. Some plant reactions can be seen easily in sensitive plants like the Mimosa, which, when irritated, will react with the sudden shedding or shrinking of its leaves. But when Bose attached his magnifying device to plants from which it was more difficult to witness a response, such as vegetables, he was astounded to discover that they, too, became excited when vexed. All around us, Bose realized, the plants are communicating. We just don’t notice it.

The more responses Bose got from his plants, the more encouraged he became, and the more detailed his efforts became. Bose discovered that an electric death spasm occurs in plants when they die, and that the actual moment of death in a plant could be accurately recorded. As Sir Patrick Geddes described in his 1920 biography of Bose, the electromotive force generated during the death spasm is sometimes considerable. Bose calculated that a half-pea, for instance, could discharge up to half a volt. Thus, if 500 pairs of boiling half-peas were arranged in series, the electric pressure would be 500 volts, enough to electrocute unsuspecting victims. The average cook does not know the danger she runs in preparing peas, Bose wrote. “It is fortunate for her that the peas are not arranged in series!”

Bose was determined to show other serious scientists not only the wonders of plant perception but “the marvelous resemblance there is between the reactions of plants and animals.” His 1902 paper “Responses in the Living and Non-Living” contains a whole chapter comparing the electrical impulse response of frog, lizard, and tortoise skins to the skins of tomatoes and grapes. He found little difference. Bose would write that plants grew more quickly when exposed to nice music and gentle whispers, and poorly when exposed to harsh music and loud speech. Over years of research, Bose found that plants were visibly reactive to all manner of stimuli: flashes of light, changes in temperature, plucking, pricking, screaming. Plants became numbed by drugs and drunk from alcohol.

Bose is long dead, but plant physiology has become a well-respected scientific pursuit. There are now plenty of scientists who, over the decades, have given further weight to Bose’s theories that plants may not be as different from animals as previously thought. Elizabeth Haswell, assistant professor of biology at Washington University in Saint Louis, along with colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, recently wrote a review article about mechanosensitive channels in plants for the journal Structure. The article was called “Mechanosensitive Channels: What Can They Do and How Do They Do It?” In it, Haswell writes about how she has been experimenting on Arabidopsis plants to understand plants’ responses to gravity, and touch, and us. This fact alone is, admittedly, of little interest to the average person. But one wonders why Haswell’s rather scholarly article got picked up by press around the world. Why, in March of this year, The New York Times published a piece called “No Face, but Plants Like Life Too?” Why a big science news story last year was a BBC News report titled “Plants can think and remember.” Why, nearly 100 years since the publication of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose’s “Researches on irritability of plants,” plant physiology is news.

Plants respond to environmental factors. We’ve known this for a very long time. They will turn toward or away from the sun; they will sway with a passing breeze. But more and more, science has been telling us that the awareness goes much deeper, that plants have a kind of sentience. Does that mean they have consciousness? If they have consciousness, can they suffer? And if they suffer, and we are sometimes causing their suffering, do we want to stop? Can we? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — it’s our Golden Rule. As Bose showed, plantss reactions to unpleasant stimuli is very similar to our own. If we can call this pain, as Bose does, how can we accept the harm we cause when snipping a flower off a bush simply for decoration, or rolling around in the grass to play? Should we start eating only food that we can pluck from a tree without damaging the tree itself, or better still, that falls off the tree of its own accord? Food that is already dead?

Plants respond to environmental factors. We’ve known this for a very long time. They will turn toward or away from the sun; they will sway with a passing breeze. But more and more, science has been telling us that the awareness goes much deeper, that plants have a kind of sentience. Does that mean they have consciousness? If they have consciousness, can they suffer? And if they suffer, and we are sometimes causing their suffering, do we want to stop? Can we? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — it’s our Golden Rule. As Bose showed, plantss reactions to unpleasant stimuli is very similar to our own. If we can call this pain, as Bose does, how can we accept the harm we cause when snipping a flower off a bush simply for decoration, or rolling around in the grass to play? Should we start eating only food that we can pluck from a tree without damaging the tree itself, or better still, that falls off the tree of its own accord? Food that is already dead?

It’s easy to accept that an animal is happy when we are nice to it. It’s less easy, though not impossible, to accept that a plant grows measurably better when we are nice to it. Harder to take seriously is the idea that grass feels pained by our walking feet. Harder still, the idea of a sad rock. The further things get away from their likeness to humanity, the more difficult it is to empathize with them, and therefore to feel that we should care.

But before we dismiss Bose as completely crackers, it’s important to understand the true implication of his work and that of Haswell, et al. Bose’s message isn’t that our care for the world must be based on the assumption that all things have a fundamental humanness. It is that existence and awareness are deeply connected, and that dismissing the fundamental unity of matter is dismissing a fundamental truth about life. Most of us will still keep eating our veggies in good faith. But will we ever approach our salad in exactly the same way again? Or, for that matter, our fork?