Nexus - 1105 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

PRIMARY PERCEPTION AND THE BACKSTER EFFECT PRIMARY PERCEPTION THE BACKSTER EFFECT AND Cleve Backster’s 1966 discovery that living cells tune into and respond to their environment as well as to emotions and intentions is still revolutionising our understanding of consciousness and communication. ometimes it happens that a person can name the exact moment when his or her life changed irrevocably. For Cleve Backster, it was early morning on February 2nd, 1966, at 13 minutes 55 seconds of chart time for a polygraph he was administer- ing. One of the world's experts on polygraphs and the creator of the Backster Zone Comparison Test (the standard used by lie detection examiners worldwide), Backster had threatened the subject's well-being in the hope of triggering a response. The subject had responded electrochemically to this threat. The subject was a plant. Since that time, Cleve Backster has conducted hundreds of experiments showing that plants respond to our emotions and intents, as do severed or crushed leaves, eggs (fer- tilised or not), yogurt, scrapings from the roof of a person's mouth, sperm and so on. He's found that if he placed oral leukocytes (or white blood cells removed from a person's mouth) into a test tube, the cells would still respond electrochemically to the donor's emo- tional states, even when the person was out of the room, out of the building or out of the otate state. I've wanted to speak to Cleve Backster since I first read about his work when I was a kid. He sparked my imagination, and it is not too much to say that his observations on February 2nd, 1966, changed not only his life but my own. He verified an understanding I had as a child, an understanding that not even a degree in physics could later eradicate: that the world is alive and sentient. Nonetheless, when I went to talk to him I did not allow my enthusiasm to overwhelm my scepticism. I was excited yet dubious as he placed yogurt into a sterilised test tube. He clamped the tube in place, inserted two sterilised gold electrodes and turned on the recording chart. We began to talk. The pen wriggled up and down, and seemed to lurch just as I took in my breath to disagree with something he said. But I couldn't be sure. When we see something, how do we know if it is real or if we see it only because we wish so much to believe? Cleve left to take care of business elsewhere in the building. I tried to fabricate anger, thinking of clearcuts and the politicians who legislate them, thinking about abused chil- dren and their abusers. The line manifesting the electrochemical response of the yogurt remained perfectly flat. Fabricated emotions either don't count or it's a sham—or some- thing else was terribly wrong. Perhaps the yogurt was not interested in me. Losing interest myself, I began to wander around the lab. My eyes fell on a calender, and on closer inspection I saw it was actually an advertisement for UPS. I felt a sudden surge of anger at the ubiquity of advertisements, and then realised, "My god, what was that? A spontaneous emotion!" I dashed to the chart and saw a sudden spike correspond- ing to the moment I'd seen the calender. Then more flat line. And more flat line. And more. Again I began to wander through the lab, and again I saw something that triggered an emotion. This was a poster showing a map of the human genome. | thought of the Human Genome Diversity Project, a monumental study hated by many traditional indige- nous peoples and their allies for its genocidal implications. Another surge of anger, another dash to the chart and another spike in the graph from instants before I'd started to move. Such are the moments of revolutionary insight. I spoke with Cleve Backster 31 years and 22 days after his original observation, a full continent away in San Diego from the office on Times Square in New York City where he had once worked and lived. Derrick Jensen (DJ): I'm sure you've told this story a million times, but can you say again how you first noticed the reaction in a plant? Interview with Cleve Backster by Derrick Jensen © 1997-2004 Email: derrick@derrickjensen.org Webpage: http://www.derrickjensen.org/ backster.html by Derrick Jensen © 1997-2004 Email: derrick@derrickjensen.org Webpage: http://www.derrickjensen.org/ backster.html NEXUS = 41 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com