The Sentience of Plants

[Guest guest]

Hello all,

 

This is an interesting email from my paleolithic diet friend regarding

the sentience of plants. Emotionally, he'd prefer to be vegetarian, but

he's learned through hard personal experience that vegetarianism is not

an option for him. He has discovered that his loving energy is more

effective in the world when he's physically healthy than when he is

hungry, tired and ill.

 

All things have a short term upon this Earth, and each one has its place

in feeding, AND being fed by, others. This principle is as true of a

carrot as of a rabbit. Our need for balance and vitality is no less than

any other creature, and is no less important to the serenity of the

whole.

 

Love,

 

Ryan

 

Oh man! I'm on a roll today! That was great! This is what a lot of good

meat does for ya!

 

So I've got this one cup (dry) of rice that's been soaking for like four

days already.

 

I've been playing around with my grains of rice... it being a collection

of living beings and all that. Now, I know from my psi studies that

plant life isn't a kind of totally passive vegetable like we've been

taught to assume. Rather, vegetables don't move perceptively but they do

move, and they may SEEM passive but they aren't necessarily brain dead

as the term " vegetable " as applied to a human being is. And this whole

" he's in a coma, brain dead. He's no different than a vegetable. " is

totally bogus, dude! Why, the Time-Life books on all things that fall

into the category " parapsychological phenomena " (say that ten times

fast!) and the book " The Secret Life of Plants " are very good literature

describing the measurable thought activity of our plant friends.

 

For instance, did you know that when plants are hooked up to devices

similar to lie detectors, measuring their electrical field output

similar to our galvanic skin response, kind of like an

electrocardiograph, that they produce reading eerily similar to our own

electro-magnetic field fluctuations? It's true. When a human is told to

enter a room and open an envelope and follow the instructions on the

piece of paper inside interesting things happen... For example, when

there just happens to be an innocent houseplant hooked up to some

electrical sensors in that same room, and the person walks into the

room, as instructed, and opens the envelope and reads the instructions

on the little piece of paper and the instructions are to tear off a leaf

or even whack the plant harshly, or break a branch or even tear it apart

or some other very unkind act to the innocent plant that same plant will

produce electrical activity like a human or other animal that

experiences terror. Isn't that interesting?

 

One time, an experiment had someone interacting with a plant, while that

person was doing something (my memory fails on the specifics, it was

something like watering it or tending to it in some manner I think) the

person monitoring the electrical output of the plant noticed that the

plant, at one specific point in time had simply stopped reacting to the

human in the experiment. Puzzled, the monitor inquired and the human

subject revealed that at that point he had made a comparison and had

evaluated the " quality " of the plant subject as being inferior to the

same kind of plant that it turns out the human subject had at home. Was

the plant in the experiment miffed? Was this plant exhibiting an

emotional reaction?

 

In the exciting experiments with plants it seems that the individual

plants that are maimed can remember, after several weeks which human

being had mauled them in the name of science... and experience fear when

the humans draw near, and show a resurgence of that fear when the humans

are instructed to, once more in the name of scientific exploration, hurt

that plant.

 

Plants can bond with people, just like pets, lovers, family and friends.

An astronaut and a houseplant were monitored during the astronaut's time

in outer space, a distance were radio waves, which are electro-magnetic

radiation, aren't fast enough for the instantaneous communication we

take for granted here on earth. During periods when the astronaut was

experiencing extreme emotions, when the results were compared it turned

out the houseplant had undergone very similar, practically identical

readings, suggesting that the plant was experiencing sympathetic

emotions. Bonded pregnant couples can exhibit this, as nearly 50% of the

men experience sympathetic " birth pains " . Hmmmmm.

 

Sex. Sadness. They register in the bonded plants, almost as if they too

were experiencing these emotions... taking a look at the indigenous

cultures of humans throughout the world, and the ideas of plants as

living, sentient creatures capable of communication akin to conversation

with the shamans, witchdoctors, priests, etc. becomes a lot more

credible in light of hardcore scientific equipment readings measuring

electrical activity. In Ayurvedic medicine the plants are considered

almost as pure nervous systems, with souls, energy bodies and physical

bodies, possessing a heirarchy of living sheaths, just like humans.

Burning bushes... the tree of life... Hmmmm.... Could it be that the

shamanic practices of the world's people, the hallucingenic, psychedelic

trips induced by HERBS, PLANTS, and FUNGI in the aspiring young college

science major's body/brain/mind are real, that the mental experience of

our fellow living beings are actually real? Hmmmm......

 

These things crash through my consciousness whenever I hear the morally

righteous vegans and vegetarians bash the cruel meat eaters for their

unfeeling assault and barbaric practice of eating the flesh of animals

who feel and suffer just as we do. Oftentimes these vegan/vegetarians

eat their plant " food " raw, unaltered, totally living! Not only that,

but many vegan/vegetarians actually brag about what percentage of their

food they consume in its raw, unaltered state! Sometimes they even grind

their " food " up, or blend or " juice " their raw fruits and vegetables!

And they're proud of it! Food for thought... Or food that thinks? This

madness must end!

 

Ryan Darius Partovi is right, we must keep in mind that

vegan/vegetarians often take their convictions and arguments to the

level of a religion, and this extremism has apparently warped their

basic views of sentient, living beings. I would say that, as all animals

that are prey understand in an intimate way, through their millions upon

millions of years of evolution, that intuition, that extra-sensory

perception that allows us, even us humans, to sense when a predator has

set eyes upon us, that instinctual reaction to our environment so keen,

so deep within us that the mundane masses know not how they know when

their heads whip around and make contact with another pair of eyes from

outside our peripheral vision, we all evolve to whatever degree we can

to sense others, it is inherent in the struggle to survive. Even plants,

who do not possess the means to evade their predators, such as giant

grass-eating monsters with eight stomachs and four hard hooves and a

huge, terrifying, gaping maw of a mouth!, these plants know, they just

KNOW what is going on! And, given the evidence that even human beings,

mammals, have skin that can detect different frequencies, actually

discern between different colors of light on the electro-magnetic

spectrum ( " light " as we commonly know it is a form of electro-magnetic

radiation...) on our skin, our epidermis, isn't it possible that plants

can also sense light... and other frequencies of the spectrum of

electro-magnetic radiation? Hmmmm.......

 

Well, that's just my sober understanding of it, from a purely

intellectual point-of-view. We already possess the technology and the

intellectual evidence to prove that even plants exist, on the level of

pure Mind, as sentient entities capable of far greater perception and

character than us disconnected, obscured, confused and disoriented

humans from our insane cultures have at first ignorantly allowed in our

individual minds. I think they deserve more credit. This is how my

intellect, with something as basic as a houseplant, cannot realistically

deny the mystical reality of our living Universe.

 

So this one quart glass pot of rice has been sitting here for a few

days... I've taken it farther then before, certainly farther than any

other rice. Only the sprouted kamut have I taken this far (and it wasn't

even that good/strengthening). Some observations:

 

Soaking is important, re-hydrating the ovums of course allows them to

come to life, water is the basis of life. However, as I can measure

their life speed, the rate at which they live, their metabolism by how

much foam is released and the coloration of the soak water I have found

that the grains, these ovums increase in their metabolism if they are

allowed to breathe air as well as drink water. Instead of just rinsing a

few times, instead of rinsing and allowing to breathe for an hour or two

I have opted to allow this pot of organic short-grain sweet rice to

breathe for several hours, even overnight or while I'm away at work. The

soak water immediately after such breathing sessions is much " dirtier "

than if I just soak and rinse the grains of rice. This makes sense, as

in nature these grains, these seeds, these plant eggs (ovums) aren't

immersed in just water, but exist in the earth's soil and are exposed to

the air in the porous dirt and are (hopefully) allowed to drink the

moisture in the ground.

 

So the breathing thing fits and works. Also, the " dirty " " yucky " " icky "

" smelly " soak water is perfectly nutritious water for my own beautiful

houseplants. And they show it by growing beautifully. The plants know

what to do with the anti-nutrients and enzyme inhibitors released into

the soak water, or maybe its all the bacterial life that lives within

the healthy soil my plants inhabit that does that work in the glorious

cycle of life, three potted microcosms of the

plant/bacteria/fungi/mold/etc life symphony.

 

Not only that, but the glass sauce pot they are in has been getting

awfully warm recently! I know my stove, I've been living in this

apartment for over two years now and I know that the burner my beloved

short-grain rice is sitting on only gets warm when the broiler is on in

the oven, and I haven't been using the broiler! They are warming the

water and the glass cookingware that contains it all by themselves! Now

that's what I call biologically active food! I didn't know they had such

powerful biological activity... My respect has grown even more since

doing this experiment. They are not only alive, they are vigorous and

very active. I wonder if they know... most probably they do, how could

they not? I'm the only thinking mammal that has been living in close

proximity to them and directly involved with their life, actively

changing their water and attending to their living, sentient needs. I

bet they know of my intentions to eat them, to consume their flesh, to

assimilate their physical being into my own flesh and blood. Even these

little things of life can be truly profound.

 

Well, I wonder if the fermented honey is beginning to make it's

influence known in my writing. I've had this honey and fermented

alcohols (the product of micro-organisms!) in my body, brain and mind

since the last sentence of the paragraph before the one preceding this

one... thoughts are blurry... mind is racing, the body temporarily

speeding up on the mixture of alcohols and sugars (both of which are

very valid forms of energy, along with the fatty acids which are the

preferred form of energy by some cells of the nervous system (including

brain) and kidneys and heart). Whoo! Time to go out walking in downtown

Minneapolis, I have a lot of people to observe (and feel?) in this

kaleidoscopic increasingly psychedelic Universe!

 

On that note, before I walk into the jungle of my city (Axle Rose's

" Welcome to the Jungle " breaks into my freshly intoxicated, barbituated

stimlulated* healthy brain) I'm going to describe my glass container of

rice. I see a lot of ovoid ovums, with long tails. The sprouts are about

2-4 times longer than the short ovoid grains... they look like... pure,

living life. The first, miraculous stage of life. Sentient and lively,

packed with enzymes and all the nutrients they need to break through the

layer of dirt... that they were evolutionarily designed to break

through. Of the plant world, of which my body isn't quite as capable of

extracting the most nutrition and energy from, it is this stage that has

the most concentrated biological activity and life force energy. It is

comforting to realize that almost all of the anti-nutrient and enzyme

inhibitors have been released, that practically everything that could

work against my own living organism has been eradicated from these

ovums. It is also very amusing in my quickened inebriated state of mind

to see that they also look like the other side of us humans. They are

the ovums of the plant world, and look strangely similar to the male

gametes of our species... Oh, how the words collide in the roiling

cauldron of my mind! I wonder if there are enzymes still living in this

fermented honey... ahh, rice spermatozoa breathing on my stove and the

nector, the feminine juices of the plant world... the flowers... the

genitals of my vegetal friends... the bees, servants to the Divine...

sucking all the nectar from those beautiful genitals... whose very scent

calms us, heals us, cajoles us into a better place... to be partially

digested and regurgitated as stored food for the young... but extracted

for fermentation, to be eaten and transformed by more primitive

single-celled organisms into the living culture for my consumption...

life!

 

So that's my bowl of rice. A gallimaufry of thoughts for your

consideration.

 

*oops!

 

Sincerely,

 

Axel