Nexus - 1105 - New Times Magazine-pages

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DJ: Do plants become attuned over time only to humans, or do CB: I was on an airplane once, and had with me a little battery- they become attuned to others in their environment as well? powered galvanic response meter that I could hook to electrodes. CB: I'll answer that with an example. Often I hook up a plant Thad the aisle seat, and I can still remember the poor guy strapped and just go about my business, then observe what makes it in next to the window. Just as the attendants started serving respond. One day back in New York City I was making coffee. lunch, I pulled out this meter and said to him, "You want to see The coffee maker we had in the lab was a dripolator, where you something interesting?" I put a piece of lettuce between the elec- put a teakettle on, boil the water, pour it in and it drips down. We trodes and when people started to eat their salads we got some normally didn't empty the teakettle but just topped it off later. reactivity, which stopped as the leaves went into shock. Then I This particular day, however, I needed the teakettle for something said, "Wait until they pick up the trays, and see what happens". else and so I poured the scalding water down the sink. The plant | When attendants removed our meals, the lettuce got back its reac- being monitored showed huge reactions. It turns out that if you tivity. The point is that the lettuce was going into a protective don't put chemicals or very hot water down the sink for a long state so it would not suffer. When the danger left, the reactivity time, a little jungle begins to grow down there. Under a micro- came back. This ceasing of electrical energy at the cellular level scope it's almost as scary as the bar scene in Star Wars. Well, the ties in, I believe, to the state of shock that people, too, enter in plant was responding to the death of the microbes. extreme trauma. I've been amazed at the perception capability DJ: Plants, bacteria, lettuce leaves... right down to the bacterial level. One sample CB: Eggs. I had a Doberman Pinscher for a of yogurt, for example, will pick up when " ' while, back in New York, and I used to feed another is being fed. Sort of like, "That one's I couldn t call what him an egg a day. One day I had a plant getting food. Where's mine?" That happens | was witnessing hooked up to a large meter ordinarily used to with a fair degree of repeatability. Or if you display galvanic skin response. This means take two samples of yogurt, hook one up to extrasensory that instead of churning out miles of chart electrodes and drop antibiotics in the other, the perception, because paper, which can get pretty expensive, I could electroded yogurt shows a huge response at the plants don't have most see on the meter any large change in reactivity. other's death. And they needn't even be the This particular time I was feeding the dog, and same kind of bacteria. of the first five senses as I cracked the egg the meter went crazy. I The first Siamese cat I ever had would only to start with. thought, "What's the connection between eat chicken. My partner's wife would cook a cracking an egg, and the plant in the other bird and send it to the lab. I'd put the car- "This perception on room getting all whippy?" That started cass in the refrigerator and pull off a piece each day to feed the cat. By the time I'd hundreds of hours of monitoring eggs. Fertilised or unfertilised, it doesn't matter; the part of the plant get to the end, the carcass would be pretty seemed to take place at it's still a living cell, and plants perceive ft and the bacteria would have started to a much more basic, or when that continuity is broken. Eggs, too, uild up. One day I had some yogurt . have the same defence mechanism. If you hooked up; and as I got the chicken out of primary, level. Thus threaten them, their tracing will go flat on the refrigerator to begin pulling off strips the name, ‘primary you. Then, if you wait about 20 minutes, of meat, the yogurt responded. Next, I put en they come back. the chicken under a heat lamp to bring it to perception . room temperature... RESULTS WITH HUMAN CELLS DJ: You obviously pamper your cat... CB: After working with plants, bacteria CB: I wouldn't want the cat to have to and eggs, I started to wonder how animals eat cold chicken! Anyway, heat hitting the would react. Of course, you can't hold bacteria created huge reactions in the yogurt. your cat or dog still for long enough to do meaningful monitoring. DJ: How do you know you weren't influencing this? So I used scrapings from the roof of a person's mouth. But I was CB: At the time, I was going through a phase where I used pip only able to get short-term readings, nothing long enough to draw switches constantly. I had them set up all over the lab. Whenever conclusions. I thought then that I'd try sperm, which would be the I performed an action, I hit a switch which placed a mark on the _ ideal single human cell, capable of staying alive outside the body remotely located chart. That way I could later compare the and certainly easy enough to obtain. reaction of the yogurt, which I was unaware of at the time, to In this observation, the sample from the donor was put into a whatever was happening in the lab. Once again, when I turned test tube with electrodes, and the donor was separated from the the chicken over, I got these huge reactions from the yogurt. sperm by several rooms. Then the donor inhaled amyl nitrate— DJ: And another when the cat starts to ingest the chicken? you know, poppers, that young people talk about—which when CB: Interestingly enough, bacteria appear to have a defence used conventionally is supposed to dilate vessels and stop people mechanism such that impending danger causes them to go intoa _ from having strokes. Just crushing the amyl nitrate caused a big state very similar to shock. In effect, they pass out. Many plants reaction in the sperm—and when the donor inhaled, the sperm will do this as well. If you hassle them enough they'll go insensi- went wild. tive, almost like a flat line. The bacteria apparently did this, So here I am, seeing single-cell organisms on a human level— because, as soon as the unfriendly bacteria hit the cat's digestive sperm—that are responding to the donor's sensations, even when system, the signal went out. There was a flat line from then on. they are no longer in the same room as the donor. There was no DJ: Dr Livingston, of "Dr Livingston, I presume" fame, was way, though, that I could continue that research. It would have mauled by a lion. He later said that during the attack he didn't been scientifically proper, but politically stupid. The dedicated feel pain, but was instead blissed out. He said it would have been sceptics would undoubtedly have ridiculed me, asking where my no problem to give himself up to the lion. masturbatorium is, and so on. CB: I was on an airplane once, and had with me a little battery- powered galvanic response meter that I could hook to electrodes. Thad the aisle seat, and I can still remember the poor guy strapped in next to the window. Just as the attendants started serving lunch, I pulled out this meter and said to him, "You want to see something interesting?" I put a piece of lettuce between the elec- trodes and when people started to eat their salads we got some reactivity, which stopped as the leaves went into shock. Then I said, "Wait until they pick up the trays, and see what happens". When attendants removed our meals, the lettuce got back its reac- tivity. The point is that the lettuce was going into a protective state so it would not suffer. When the danger left, the reactivity came back. This ceasing of electrical energy at the cellular level ties in, I believe, to the state of shock that people, too, enter in extreme trauma. NEXUS = 43 "I couldn't call what AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com