Nexus - 1105 - New Times Magazine-pages

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REACTION FROM RUSSIAN & EASTERN SCIENTISTS them to miss this fundamental attunement that is happening all DJ: How has your work been received in other parts of the around us, and only for so long are they going to be able to pre- world? tend it's the result of "loose wires". CB: The Russians have always been very interested. I remem- DJ: If your work were tomorrow to be commonly accepted and ber in 1973 I was asked to be the chair of the man-plant-animal —_ acted upon, not only by people experientially but by the scientific communication section of the first International Psychotronic community, what would that mean? Association meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and a number of CB: It would mean a radical rethinking of our place in the mainstream Russian scientists attended—some claiming that they — world. I think we're seeing it already. There are some places now came all the way down from Moscow to hear my talk and to inter- — where insurance companies are paying for alternative medicines. view me for additional details. I found them very open and And the acceptance of Deepak Chopra, who lectures on the very knowledgeable—not like here, where many people are afraidto —_ things we're talking about here, is a big step. Now that this touch these areas of research. In many ways, they seemed much _acceptance has started—even to a limited extent—it will continue more attuned to spiritual concepts than most scientists in the to pick up momentum. I'm seventy-three now, and even in my West. This may be because of the cor- days I think I'll see a revolution in ner that people in the West have been perspective. put into by organised religion. I went to a meeting in Sri Lanka last I don't believe that organised religion December, which had people from has done a very good job. It's supposed India, Pakistan, a couple of hundred to tell you in a meaningful way where from Taiwan and about that many from you came from, what you're doing here mainland China. Everyone got along and where you're going, and in my beautifully, speaking the common lan- opinion it fails on every one of these guage of alternative medicine. There counts. This leads, so far as I am con- were very few US scientists there, cerned, to our present sorry state where, which is both unfortunate and expected. to take medical care as an example, we We in the United States are holdouts, are faced with an awful lot of people but that will not last much longer. We who are tired of living and afraid of cannot forever deny that which is so dying. And so billions of dollars are clearly there. oo spent to keep them in that state of limbo. They certainly aren't happy, yet they're so unprepared for death, so unassured as to what will happen to them in the dying process that there seems nowhere for them to turn. DJ: How are you treated in the Indian subcontinent and the Far East? CB: Whenever I encounter Indian scientists—Buddhist or Hindu—and we talk about what I do, instead of giving me a bunch of grief, they say, "What took you so long?" My work dovetails very well with many of the concepts embraced by Hinduism and Buddhism. DJ: What are we as Westerners afraid of? CB: Maybe the question is, "Why aren't Western scientists working on About the Interviewer: Derrick Jensen is the author of A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and many other books including, most recently, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control. He writes for the New York Times Magazine, Audubon, Sun Magazine and The Ecologist, among many others. You can read more about him and his work at http://www.derrickjensen.org. Derrick Jensen's interview was first published as "The Plants Respond: An Interview with Cleve Backster" in Sun Magazine, July 1997. About the Interviewee: Cleve Backster founded The Backster Research Foundation, Inc. in 1965 to Cleve Backster and his assistant test the this more?" I think the answer is that if racaeha pantin 68 erceptioncom) expand on his polygraph work which he what I am observing is accurate, many Pe P yperception. started in the late 1940s. Since 1966 he of the theories we've built our lives on need complete reworking. has also been conducting extensive research into biocommunica- I've known biologists to say, "If Backster is right, we're in trou- ion. His work is featured in the bestselling book, The Secret Life " we con ali of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (Harper & Row, ble". It takes a certain kind of character and personality to cope 1973), and The Secret Life of Your Cells, by Robert Stone with that. - . . The big question I think we need to ask our Western scientific (Whitford Press, 1989). His only book, Primary Perception: et . . ar iocommunication with Plants, Living Foods, and Human Cells community is the one the Hindu and Buddhist scientists ask me: (y/hite Rose Millennium Press, 2003) is reviewed in this issue. "What took you so long?" Scientists and that whole community Mr Backster teaches at the Backster School of Lie Detection and in general are caught in a difficult place because, in order to main- _ jg an international speaker on biocommunication. He is on the tain our current mode of scientific thought, they must ignore a leaching faculty at the California Institute for Human Science and tremendous amount of information. And more of this information serves on the advisory board of the Institute of HeartMath in is being gathered all the time. I think we're going to see a shiftin Boulder Creek, Colorado. the near future. People in scientific pursuits are stumbling all He can be contacted at The Backster Research Foundation, Inc., over this biocommunication phenomenon; it seems impossible, 861 Sixth Avenue, Suite #403, San Diego, CA 92101, USA, web- especially given the sophistication of modern instrumentation, for site http:/Avww.primaryperception.com. NEXUS = 47 REACTION FROM RUSSIAN & EASTERN SCIENTISTS AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com