Summary: theclaim that
plants are conscious is more than a hundred years old; pages 91 to 104
of The Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians
Plant consciousness is nothing new.
I came across the third paragraph of the following passage in October of
last year as I was looking up information on the pyramids in connection with
energy. The following excerpt shows that, well before Clive Backster, Peter
Tompkins/Christopher Bird, Daniel Chamovitz, etc., some had postulated the
possibility of planes of consciousness broader than normally admitted by
mainstream beliefs – a notable exception being Paracelsus (see also the conversation
between Elena Roerich, Bernard Shaw and Jagadis Bose regarding ‘the pain
of carrots and potatoes’ which I mentioned earlier this year).
The passage reproduced below was published in 1918 by the Chicago-based
Advanced Thought Publishing Company under the title of The
Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians and under the pseudonym of Magus
Incognito, generally thought to have been William Walker Atkinson
(1862-1932), and is to be found on pages 91
to 104
of that work.
Please note that the words in bold are not mine; those in green are.
Furthermore, I have left the punctuation as is.
III. The Plane of the Plants
On this plane of
Consciousness are manifested the actions and reactions of the
protoplasmatic cells of which the plants are composed. And on this plane,
as all the other planes of Consciousness, there are to be found high and
low sub-planes and subdivisions of the latter.
At the lower pole of this
plane we find plant-life which is scarcely distinguishable from the higher
forms of mineral life—in fact, as we have seen previously, it is almost
impossible to draw a fixed line separating the two great plane-divisions,
for all planes blend into each other and are linked one with the other on
the lower and higher poles of their activity. We have mentioned the
Diatoms, or “living crystals” which the best authorities regard as the
“missing link” between the two great kingdoms of Life and Consciousness,
but which really are plants rather than minerals. The Diatoms belong to an
order of flowerless plants, a genus of the Algols. They are covered by a
silicious covering which gives them a crystalline appearance. They present
the appearance of crystalline fragmentary particles, generally bounded by
right lines, flat, stiff and brittle, usually nestling in slime in which
they unite into various forms and combinations, and from which they often
again separate. They multiply and reproduce themselves by division and
conjugation.
In 1886, Professor Van
Schrom, of Naples, Italy, was experimenting with the bacilli of the
Asiatic cholera, and was examining the same under his high-power
microscope. He was attracted by the formation of double pyramids of
bacilli in the shape and general appearance of true crystals. These
“living crystals” manifested growth and movement, and seemed to be alive
and conscious. From these experiments he arrived at the conclusions that
all bacteria produce living crystals, and his continued experiments seemed
to verify his contention. These bacteria-crystals are composed of
homogeneous albuminous matter, which at first is colorless and
structureless, and which at a certain stage of their life history seem to
lose their life qualities and to become, to all intents and purposes,
“dead” crystals. These living crystals seem to be impelled by some
inherent force akin to vital action to assume a geometrical figure. And
while possessing these indications of elementary vegetable life they also
exhibit the characteristic qualities of crystals, viz., refraction,
inclusion, absorption, and polarization. Later investigations have
revealed the presence of similar living crystals in the secretions of
living organisms.
That Life is present in
plant-life scarcely anyone is disposed to question, though there seems to
be a desire to deny Consciousness and intelligent activity in the case on
the part of the orthodox scientist. But the more advanced of the workers
in the ranks of modern science do not hesitate to positively assert the
presence of conscious intelligent activity in plant-life, and vigorously
support their contention by logical argument backed up by incontrovertible
facts gleaned in their laboratory experiments. These scientists hold that
the presence of the phenomena of nutrition, reproduction, and of physical
and chemical change due to adaptation is proof positive of the presence of
vital intelligence within the organism in which the former are manifested.
Professor Bieser says: “Adaptation, after all, is the
best evidence of the presence of intelligence or life in forms or units of
matter. Adaptation, also called ‘physiological
adaptation,’ but best called ‘psychological
adaptation,’ is the one weapon by which living organisms fight against
the destructive forces of conditions of nature. In all its forms,
adaptation is the more or less successful co-operation of living organisms
with the laws of nature—it is not the disregard of natural laws. In taking
adaptation as our criterion by which the presence of intelligence is
determined, we find no difficulty in settling the question of the presence
of life. The most perfect automatic machinery has no life, because it
cannot adapt itself in the least to the changing environmental conditions
and thus save itself from annihilation, when necessity arises, by the
performance of simple intelligent acts.”
In their consideration of
the question of the presence of consciousness in the kingdom of
plant-life, the writers divide the manifestations of intelligence into
three classes, namely: Trophoses,
or acts pertaining to nutrition; Neuroses,
or acts pertaining to the nervous system; and Psychoses, or acts pertaining to thought processes.
The manifestation of
Trophoses, or acts pertaining to nutrition, is apparent even in the case
of the lowest forms of plant-life. Even the lowliest vegetable cell takes
nourishment and replaces the waste products of its system by fresh
material taken into its system. These activities require a very simple
nervous system, often practically no nervous system at all. But,
nevertheless, in every act of nutrition there
is manifested not only the presence of Life, but also conscious activity
of a certain degree. Even the lowest forms of plants are able to
distinguish perfectly between nutritive and non-nutritive particles of
matter. Most plants possess no nervous system, at least none yet
discovered by science, but, nevertheless, they manifest characteristic
Trophoses corresponding in degree
with their necessities, but seldom exceeding those necessities.
Other plants, however,
have a comparatively highly developed nervous system, or something
corresponding to it, and manifest Neuroses, or acts pertaining to the
nervous system, of a comparatively high degree. This is true of the
“sensitive plants,” and certain other plants of a high development in this
direction. Some of the orchids, and a few
other plants, manifest Neuroses indicating clearly the presence of
consciousness and a degree of intelligent activity.
Still higher in the scale
we find certain species of plants manifesting true Psychoses, or acts
pertaining to thought processes, although the latter are of a
comparatively low order as compared to those manifested by the higher
forms of animal life. With this class of manifestation the average student
is not so well informed, and, therefore, it has been thought well to
direct your attention in the following pages to these fascinating
phenomena of plant-life. We think that a careful consideration of the
facts now about to be presented to the student will bring to him a clear
realization of the presence of actual
conscious activity in the kingdom of the plants, and will cause
him to accept the statement of that eminent authority, Professor Bieser,
who has said: “While we believe that the intelligence of man, animals and
plants is essentially the same in kind, we know that it differs enormously
in degree and form. Even among men this degree of intelligence varies, but
this is because some individuals by nature see but a little more clearly
their needs than others, and live under more favorable circumstances— that
is all!”
Dr. J. E. Taylor, an
authority on the subject of plant-psychology says: “Perhaps one reason why
plants are usually denied consciousness and intelligence is because in the
structure of even the highest developed species we find no specialized
nervous track along which sensations may travel, or where they can be
registered as in the case of the ganglia and brains of the higher animals.
But it should be remembered that none of the creatures sub-kingdom of the
Protozoa (the lowest of the grand divisions of the animal kingdom) possess
nervous structures, whilst many of the next more highly organized animal
sub-kingdom, the Coelenterata, have no trace, and the rest but a feeble
development. Yet we do not deny these lowly organized animals a dim
and diffused consciousness, or even the possibility of their
structures being so modified that they can profit by experience, and thus
develop that accumulated experience of their kind that we call
‘instinct.’”
Darwin, speaking of the
wonderful sensitiveness of the root-tip of plants says: “It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having
the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts
like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated
within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense
organs, and directing the general movements.” Professor Cope says: “We can
understand how by parasitism, or other means of getting a livelihood
without exertion, the adoption of new and skillful movements would become
unnecessary, and consciousness itself would be seldom aroused. Continued
repose would be followed by subconsciousness, and later by
unconsciousness. Such appears to be the history of the entire vegetable
kingdom.”
Dr J. C. Arthur, in his
interesting work entitled “The Sagacity and
Morality of Plants,” says: “I have tried to show that all
organisms, even to the very simplest, whether plant or animal, from the
very nature of life and the struggle for its maintenance, must be endowed
with conscious feeling, pleasure and pain being its simplest expression. I
have been told in Java, as one walks through a tangle of sensitive plants,
they will drop down in their deprecating way for yards on either side, as
if suddenly aroused into life, only to be again transformed into lifeless
sticks by some unseen power. * * * The physical basis of life, Protoplasm,
is the same for plants as for animals. The first differentiated or
modified form of this we meet is the curious animalcule called Amoeba. As
we watch its movements we cannot refrain from ascribing to it some dim
consciousness of the life it leads. But amoeboid structure is common even
in the lowest kinds of plants, and amoeboid movements can be seen in some
of its tissues. Witness also the habits and intelligent movements of the
zoospores of sea-weed and many other Algae, and the locomotion of the
antherozoa of mosses, ferns, etc. Not many years ago these objects were
classed as animals, and nobody doubted these so-called animals behaved
consciously and intelligently. * * * Nothing
can be more marked than the likes and dislikes of plants. Human
beings can hardly express the same feelings more decidedly. There is
perhaps even a ‘messmateship’ among plants,
which inclines species to prefer to grow in company. Hosts of
common plants perform actions which, if they were done by human beings,
would at once be brought into the category of right and wrong. There
is hardly a virtue or a vice which has not its counterpart in the
actions of the vegetable kingdom. As regards conduct in this
respect, there is small difference between the lower animals and plants.”
One of the most elementary
manifestations of consciousnesss, and conscious action, in plant life is
what has been called “the gravity sense,” or the sense by which the plant
recognizes the “up and down” direction of growth. The
germinating seed always sends its roots downward, no matter how the seed
may be placed in the ground. This cannot be held to result merely from
the action of gravitation, for the sprouts move upward and away from the
centre of gravity just as truly as the roots move downward and toward
it. Experiments have proven that this “sense of direction” is as
much a true sense as that of any of the special senses of the lowly animal
life-forms. The experiment has been tried of turning around a sprouting
seed, the result being that in a day or so the roots will be again found
to be turning downward and the sprouts turning upward. A French botanist,
named Duhamel, once placed some beans in a cylinder filled with moist
earth. After they had begun to sprout, he turned the cylinder a little to
one side. The next day he turned it a little further in the same
direction. Each day he would turn it a little more, until finally it had
described several full circles. Then he took out the plant, and shaking
off the clinging earth, he found that the beans’ roots and sprouts had
described circles—two perfectly formed spirals being shown, one of the
tiny roots and the other of the tiny sprouts. The roots in their constant
endeavor to move downward had formed one perfect spiral, while the sprouts
in the constant effort to rise upward had described another perfect
spiral. No amount of effort will cause the roots of a plant to grow
upward, or its sprouts to grow downward. Each, root and sprout, has its
own “sense of direction” to which it faithfully and invariably responds.
In the same way, and from a similar cause, the tendrils of climbing plants
will faithfully move toward the nearby support, and if they are untwined
they will return during the next night to the old support, if possible. Moving pictures, carefully prepared, and taken
over a long period, show that the movements of these tendrils to be akin
to the movements of the limbs of an animal—the feelers and graspers of
the octopus for example.
Not only have the roots of
plants the general “sense of direction” which causes them to grow downward
in spite of all attempts to prevent them, but they have also the “sense
of moisture,” which causes them to seek the direction of water.
Many plants also turn their leaves and blossoms to the light, no matter
how often they are turned in the opposite direction. Potatoes in dark
cellars will often send forth their sprouts twenty or thirty feet in the
direction of light which shows through a tiny crack in the wall. Likewise,
plants possess the “sense of taste” to
a very high degree in some cases. By means of this sense they are able
to detect differences in substances, and to choose those substances
which are conducive to their nutrition. They are able to distinguish
between poor and rich soil, and also between different chemicals of
differing nutritive values. They
always move their roots in the direction of the best food supply, and
also toward moisture. Not only do the roots of plants move in the
direction of water, but instances have been
cited in which the leaves of plants will bend over during the night and
dip themselves in a vessel of water several inches away. Insect-eating
plants
recognize the difference between living animal substance and bits of
inorganic matter or vegetable substance, casting off the latter two as
if in disgust. Experiments have been made of placing a bit of cheese in the reach of such plants, when,
though cheese is of course unfamiliar to them, they will seem to recognize
its nitrogenous nature and will devour it as readily as they will a piece
of flesh or the body of an insect.
Many students are
doubtless familiar with the instance of the “sensitive plants” which
exhibit a marked degree of sensibility to touch. Many insect-eating plants
manifest an equally high degree of sensitiveness, though of course in a
different direction. The leaves of the Venus’
Fly Trap fold upon each other and thus capture the unfortunate
insect which has been tempted into the trap by the sweet juice which
appears upon the leaf as a dainty bait. The folding of the leaves follows
the alarm given by the three sensitive bristles or hairs which act as feelers which sense the presence
of the insects. Bits of earth, or raindrops,
are recognized as “not-food” by these feelers, and no closing of leaves
result from their presence on the leaves. Other
plants are very sensitive to degrees
of light, and they close at certain hours, the time varying
according to the species of the plant. It was formerly held that this
sensitiveness to light was merely a chemical response to the presence of
light, but recent experiments have shown that such plants, when placed in
a dark room, will continue this closing for several days, in a gradually
lessening degree, thus indicating the presence of a “habit” within their
consciousness, which “habit” indicates the presence of “mind” even more
forcibly than does the closing itself. Certain ferns will wither if their
fronds are touched too often.
In the case of seeds, the
presence of consciousness and mental
operations are manifested. Not only in the process of sprouting,
but also in other processes, does the seed show signs of life and mind. Certain seeds are carried to their future abode by
means of running streams along which they work their way to congenial
soil by means of tiny projecting filaments which they move as legs, and
thus propel themselves to shore. A botanist has said regarding a
certain species of these “swimming seeds:”
“So curiously lifelike are their movements that it is almost impossible to
believe that these tiny objects, make good progress through the water, are
really seeds and not insects. ”
Certain
plants prey upon other plants, twining bands around another plant
or tree, which bands work their way through the outer covering of the bark and thus act as suckers
through which the parasitic plant draws nourishment from the larger plant,
the latter succumbing in time and being literally hilled for food by the
clinging plant. In South America there are varieties of these climbers
which will mount to the top of a tall tree
in this way, and after killing their support they will wave long tendrils
in the breeze until they fasten hold of another tree which in turn is
depleted of its vitality and nourishment, and so on until the parasite is
surrounded by a large circle of ruined victims. Other parasites content
themselves with boring into a tree trunk and then absorbing enough of the
sap of the latter to enable them to live without other work on their own
part. In some species, the habit of
parasitism is known to have been acquired during the history of the
plant, just as some animals (and human beings) have acquired similar
habits.
Other plants prey upon
animals, and are equipped with mental faculties enabling them to
efficiently capture their prey. We have typical illustrations of the adaptation of means to end in the case of the
insect-eating plants previously referred to, but there are
certain forms of plant-life which trap and devour much large animals;
which forms are found principally in tropical countries. Dunstan, the
naturalist, reported finding on the banks of Lake Nicaragua a particularly
vicious plant of this class which by the natives is called the Devil’s
Noose. This bush-like plant is equipped with long tendrils, or whip-like
feelers, flexible, strong, black, polished, and without leaves, which
secrete a viscid fluid. These tendrils are employed by the plant to
entangle small animals passing under its bush, and to then drain their
blood and absorb their flesh. The naturalist one day passing along the
banks of this lake was aroused by the shrieks and cries of his small dog.
Pushing forward through the underbrush he found the little animal tightly
enmeshed in a number of these black, slimy, bandlike tendrils which were cutting into its flesh by chafing and rubbing,
the bleeding-point have[having!] been
reached in a number of places. He found that these bands were the tendrils
or branches of this particularly carnivorous plant, which he described as
virtually ‘‘a land octopus.” The natives of the tropics have weird legends
of man-eating plants or trees of this kind, but so far science has not
discovered an actual specimen of this kind, though it is admitted that the
same is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Other plants have
roots which capture and kill small burrowing animals like moles,
and then slowly absorb the nourishment from their blood and flesh. The
plant kingdom has its Thugs and stranglers, as well as its vampires,
according to the best authorities.
Professor Bieser says:
“Another plant showing irritability when touched, and possessing the
faculty of finding and raising water by means of a long, slender, flat
stem or tube, is a variety of orchid discovered by E. A. Suverkrop, of
Philadelphia, several years ago. This plant grows upon the trunks of trees
hanging over swampy places along the bank of the Rio de la Plata and
streams of the neighborhood. When this orchid
is in want of water, the slender stem gradually unwinds until it dips
into the water. Then the stem slowly coils around and winds up to
discharge upon the part of the plant from which the roots spring the water
which it has sucked up into its hollow space or tube within its interior.
Sometimes when water is absent from directly under this plant, the stem
moves first in this direction and then in another, in its search for
water, and finally finding the water it performs the process above
described. Ifthis
plant is touched while the stem is extended it acts much like the
sensitive plant (mimosa), and the stem coils up into a spiral more rapidly
than when it is lifting water.”
The experiments of
that wizard of plant-life, Luther Burbank, give
us many illustrations of the manner in which the “mind” in the plant will
respond to changed environment, and to take advantage of improved
conditions thereof in the direction of adapting itself thereto. No one can
study the works of modern botanists, or work long among plants, without
discovering for himself many facts serving to prove that there is not only
Life among the plants, but also sufficient mind
to serve the purposes and needs of the existence of the plant. Some
scientists have thought it possible that by changing the environment of the
plant sufficiently, in the direction of calling out latent possibilities of
mental action, it is probable that plants
may be evolved which would approach in their mental activity that of the
lower forms of animal life, if not indeed exceed the latter.
This
entry was published on the tenth day of June 2021.