Cleve Backster and the detection of evidence suggesting Universal Consciousness in plants, foods, and human cells 

Editor's prefatory comment:

The proposition that all aspects of the universe harbor some degree of consciousness goes back a long way. It might strike us as a belief of primitive peoples. However, noted scientists, such as Cambridge biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, give this notion – called “panpsychism” ["pan" means "everywhere" and "psyche" means "mind"] – a good measure of credence. When I learned of his support for this idea it didn’t sit well with me. But I had no idea of the empirical research backing up this view.

It is generally unknown that this entire area of investigation concerning some degree of consciousness in all living things - and the non-living, as well - has been studied by scientists during the last few hundred years. Materialists censor this information as it threatens their paradigm of the primacy of matter, but the mounting evidence, dramatic and profound, won't go away.

In this series of “afterlife” articles, there are many sensational items concerning gifted mediums and the like, but the information on this page, to my way of thinking, supersedes all that. The evidence for a degree of awareness in all of creation speaks to the hegemony of consciousness in terms of defining reality. It's the salient feature. And if it’s something that inheres, not only to humans and animals, but also to plants and metals, molecules and atoms, stars and galaxies, if it serves as the ubiquitous building-block of Nature, then why should we consider it a strange thing if human consciousness survives this mortal shell?

the secret life of a stone 

The Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants, and Phenomena (1900), by C.W. Leadbeater:

“The ordinary objects of the physical world form the background to life on certain levels of the astral plane... For the sake of illustration take a rock as an example... When regarded with trained sight [of the advanced person in Summerland] it is no mere inert mass of stone… the vibrations of its physical particles are perceptible … also in constant motion … the universal life is seen to be circulating through it and radiating from it … an aura will be seen surrounding it.”

#60 In these writings we speak, not only of survival of consciousness but, Universal Consciousness, a singular pervasive reality, a quantum-based consciousness as 'ground of all being,' a lattice-work of interrelated 'one life.' But what does this mean in practical terms concerning the objects and entities around us in our daily lives?

“Cleve Backster (1924-2013) was the world’s foremost expert in lie detection using the polygraph machine. An interrogation specialist for decades with the CIA and FBI, he later ran his own school for lie detection, training police and security forces on how to use the lie detector.”

In his office one day, he was watering a plant and, on a whim, decided to attach the plant to the polygraph. As a result, by this chance event, he discovered that plants respond to human emotions, intentions, thoughts, and other events in their immediate environment.

'the Eternal is One, there is nothing else': the parable of the two whirlpools

Elenchus. Our statements concerning “the Eternal is One, there is nothing else” are not easy to understand.

Kairissi. Which is why quantum mechanics’ assertions are also non-intuitive; that, consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being in the universe, and that everything derives from Universal Consciousness.

E. It’s not intuitive because pretty much everyone is a materialist at heart. It’s really hard not to be; I mean, trees and tables, people and pineapples, all seem very solid to us. And not just solid, but they definitely seem to be “out there,” separate from ourselves.

K. It’s a hard sell to suggest, as the quantum experiments indicate, that everything is connected.

E. Moreover, mind does not live in a little house called the brain, but instead, the brain, the whole body, all people and the entire universe, exist within mind, within Universal Mind.

K. We’d like to report to our readers that we’ve encountered what is probably the best analogy to explain “the Eternal is One, there is nothing else”…

E. … and also that everything comes from, is made of, consciousness, Universal Consciousness. Let’s introduce Dr. Kastrup:

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, PhD philosophy, PhD computer science, for many years worked at CERN, the large hadron collider in Geneva.

E. Given Dr. Kastrup’s credentials, he’s probably the leading spokesman in the world today in terms of explaining the fraudulent doctrine of the primacy of matter.

K. He’s very hard to argue against. His erudition and sharp angle on logic reminds me of this:

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944), On The Art Of Reading: "A very well-informed person is an object of terror." 

E. This quote makes me smile, and readers will want to get Kastrup’s books for the full account, but for our purposes here let’s focus on his brilliant analogy of the two whirlpools:

K. Each human being corresponds to a different whirlpool; each person with his or her particular points of view and field of personal consciousness.

E. But here's where the fun begins. The whirlpools are not exactly stand-alone entities. These "bodies" are not substantive at all but only apparently so. And they might seem to exist "separately" in a vast ocean but, in reality, are connected, as each merely expresses, in a unique way, the underlying medium which is the ocean.

K. Each whirlpool is made of the same water, comes from the same source; so it is with apparently individual human minds.

E. Kastrup points out that these whirlpools-as-people are neither truly separate nor substantive but are "just undulations - disturbances - of the medium," be it the ocean or Universal Mind.

K. His thought-provoking definition of reality is a collection of "excitations" of Universal Consciousness.

E. This "parable of the two whirlpools" helps us visualize the meaning of "brains exist within consciousness" rather than "consciousness existing within brains."

the awareness of plants and streams creates an interactive environment

Editor’s note: The awareness of plants, and even water, heightened on the other side, might create decorative landscaping which, in a sense, is alive. From the following report we learn of a kind of interactive environment:

“Life Beyond The Veil” (1922), Rev. G. Vale Owen, channeled testimony from his mother via automatic writing, as she speaks of the gardens around her house, or, rather, as she states, "a series of houses, each house allotted to a certain class of work," both charitable and educational:

The grounds are very extensive, and all have a kind

of relation to the buildings, a kind of responsiveness.

For instance, the trees are true trees and grow much

as trees do on earth, but they have a kind of respon-

siveness to the buildings, and different kinds of trees

respond more to one house than to the others, and

help the effect and the work for which that particular

house was raised. So it is with the grouping of trees

in the groves, and the bordering flower-beds of the

paths, and the arrangement of the streams and [water]falls

which are found in different parts of the grounds.

All these things have been thought out with marvel-

lous wisdom, and the effect produced is very beautiful.

As a footnote, Vale's mother offers this: 

[Common things]

take on a very different aspect here from what

they did as viewed from the earth plane, and an

aspect, I fear, which to those still on earth will, in

many cases, at least, wear a semblance of unreality

and romance. And the least things here are fraught

with so much wonder to those who are newly come

over that until they have divested themselves of the

habit of thinking in three-dimensional terms, they are

unable to progress very far. And that, believe me, is

a matter of no little difficulty.

Editor's last word:

See channeled testimony indicating that plant life is eternally preserved, transitions to the other side.