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Vul: II. No. I

¿AIALYST is dedicared to the new nwrvation. It is concerncd with the total environment.

We aim to help educate people to the threits to their environmental weil-being and the need for a change of attitude to quality rather than quantity values. This to insure that future generations do not iaherit an environmental wasteland.

Since it is one of the ironies of our fabulous age of technological advances and scientific discoveries that there ue now available to man more answers to his problenis than there are users of those answers, another of our aims is the transfer of know-low.

To this end CATALYST also relays pertinent news and views of leaders in the field, so that, by sernag as a kind of transmittal belt, we may be a catalytic influence in getting. relevant knowledge, research and skitls put to use.

While our focus is primarily national, our conctms are worid-eride:. For degraded environment is no respecter of bouadazia We are all feliow passengers on the "spaceship earth" and have equat responsibility for maintaining its environmental quality.

EDITOR: Vivian Fletcher

EDITORIAL BOARD:

Dr. Landrum Bolting
Booth Hemingway
Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy
Dr. Richard H. Pough
Richard Vincent
Richard Whittemore

Design: N.B. Ward Associates

Copvrieht 0 1971 by CATALYST For Environmental Quality. No portion of this magazine msy be reptoduced in any form withoul the wrtten permission of CATALYST For Environmnental Quality.

The opinions expressed by the authors are their own and do not necessarily tefiect the policy of CATALYST For"Environmental Quatity

Correspondence, manuscripts, photos, and requests for permission tu quote from CATALYST should be addressed to Vivian Fletcher.. Editor. CATALYST, 333. East 46th \$t.,New York, N.Y. 10017. Telephone 212-986-1459.)

You can help in ihe fight for environmental quality if, after teading CATALYST. you pass it on to someone who aiso should be concernod.

274 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016

CONTENTS

IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SETTING A COOD EXAMPLE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY?

by Russell E. Train, Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality VASTLY MORE NEEDED by Senator Gaylord A. Nelson .

MAN: PLANETARY DISEASE? by Ian L. McHarg. Landscape Architect, and Professor, University of Pennsylvania

PLANTS DISCOVERED TUNING IN ON US Interview with Cleve Backster, plant researcher and polygraph expert.

INDUSTRY SAYS –
MINING NEEDN'T BE A DIRTY WORD by lan MacGregor, Chairnan and Chief Executive Officer, American Metal Clímax

Departments

AUTHORS.. 2
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 4
PICTURE CREDITS 38
NEWS 28
RECENT BOOKS 37
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AIDS 40
INDEX TO VOLUME I 43

PUBLISHER: Nelson Butler

Associate Publisher: John D. Rich

Consultants: John Walker Hundley Enterprises

Publication Office: CATALY\$T For Environmental Quality,. 274 Madison Avenue, N.Y., N.Y. 10016. CATALYST is published quarterly-Spring, Summer. Fall, Winter.

Subseription rates: \$S per year in the U.S. and Canada; \$8 per year elsewhere Single copies \$1.5O. Special rate for students-\$4 per year.

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.CATALYST now accepts limited advertising. For rates and other information, gntact John. D. Rich. CATALYST. 274 Madison Avc., N.Y., N.Y. 10016. Phone: 212-684-6661.

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Rueft E. Tratin has been Chairman of the Council on Environniental Quality sínce its creation on January -30. 1970. He came to this prestigious environmenlal post following more than a decade of activity in conservation work.

After a 1956 safari to Africa. Mr. Train founded the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation

to train Africans in wildlife resource management. From 1965-9, he was president of the Conservation Foundation. Then he served for a yéar as Under Secretary of the Interior with environmental responsibilities.

Born in Washington, D.C. in {920, Russell Train graduated from Princeton (B.A.) and later got a law degree from Columbia, In his first career he was a tax specialist, serving in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the. Federal government. In 1957. Mr. Train was appointed a judge of the Federal Tax Court, a post he held until 1965 when he moved over into conservation work.

lan L. McHarg is a. practicing landscape architect, regional planner, professor, writer, and lecturer, who hoids the Chair of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsyivania.

He is one of America's foremost advocates of the ecoiogical approach in designing tomorrow's cities and countryside, and

his most recent book, "Design with Nature,"spells this out.

Born in Clydebank, Scotland, Mr. McHarg has received from Harvard a Master's Degree in Landscape Architecture and the degree of Master of City Planning. He hoids honorary doctorates from Amherst College and Lewis and Clark College. .

Amone the awards he has won are the Horace Albright Memorial Lectureship at the University of California, the Distinguished Science Lectureship at Brookhaven Nationai Laboratory, and the Bradford Williams Medal awarded by the American Society of Landscape Archilects.

Gas lord A. Nekson, Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, has been anenvironmentalist thuroughouthis, political career. He was national co-sponsór of. Earth Day, and has introduced a wealth of encironmental proposals for legisiation.

Those signed into law include; establishment of criteria for maximum limits on pesticides

as part of the inter-state water quality standard program, establishment of environmental education programs, creation of economic incentives for recycling of packaging and other solid wastes, an amendment to the anti-poverty program which puts the unempioyed and elderly to work on conservation projects.

Born in Clear Lake, Wisconsin in 1916, Gayiord Nelson graduated from San Jose State College, California, and received a law degree from the University of Wisconsin. He has received honorary. degrees from Wisconsin's Beloit Lollege. Northland College, and Lawrence University.

Following four years of Army service in Wortd War Ii, he entered politics and served in the Wisconsin State Senate for 10 years. From 1958-62, he was Governor of Wisconsin, and since 1962 he has been a U.S. Senator.

Cleve Backster, founder and director of the Backster Research Foundation, has been a polygraph (lie detector) expert since 1948.

He has served as an interrogation specialist with -the Centrai Intelligence Agency and the US Army Counterintelligence Corps, and as a polygraph consultant to many government agencies.

He is the founder and operator of The Backster School, the first non-military polygraph school to conduct advanced courses in polygraph usage. And he has pioneered in utilizing psychogalvanic reflex instrumientation for stress monitoring purposes other than the detection of deception.

Born in Lafayette, N.J. in 1924, Cleve Backster studied civil engineering, agriculture, and psychology at Texas University, Texas A & M, and Middlebury College.

As chairman of the Research and Instrument Committee of the Academy for Scientific interrogation for eight years, he contributed a" new technique component which materially reduces the number of inconclusive polygraph examinations.

tan MacGregor. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Metal Climax, Inc., joined the company in 1957 as vice president. He became president in 1966 and was clected Chairman of the Board in 1969.

Born and educated in Scotland, Mr. MacGregor receiv. ed degrees in metallurgy fron the University of Glasgow and

the University of Strathclyde. He also holds honorary degrees from the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology (Doctor of Laws), and from Tri-State College (Doctor of Science).

Mr. MacGregot is a director of many companies, and serves as: a board member of. The Conference Board, Ine. He is a member of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America and the Society of Automotive Engincers. and is an associate of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, London.

CATALYST

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PLANTS DISCOVERED TUNING IN ON US

CATALYST Editor. Vivian Fletcher, interviews Cleve Backster, the polygraph expert who has discovered that plants read people's minds, react to death of other living things, feel pleasure and pain, "faint", and remember.

Vivian Fletcher: Mr. Backster, I understand that plants here in your Backster Research Foundation laboratory have been exhibiting very strange behavior. That they "cry out" when live shrimps are dumped in boiling water. That they sense people's intents. That they "faint" when someone they fear is near. That they "yelled" ouch when you accidentally cut your finger and put iodine on it. And thal they seem to have "memóry," and respond to Pavlovian conditioning. Are these things really true?

Cleve Backster: As a scientist, I would more cautiously describe some of the capabilities you are suggesting, although the plants we are working with are showing us some amazing perceptions not previously known to exist. This is not peculiar to those here in my lab, however.

Fletcher: You mean the plants I have in my apartment also have "feelings!"

Backster: I strongly suspect they do. The only tling differént about our plants is that we are able to hook them up to polygraph instrumentation and get meaningful readings recorded on the moving chart paper. This allows us to conduçt scientific experimients with our plants and offer evidence of their reactions:.

Fletcher: You're a polygraph expert, aren't you?

Backster: Yes, I've spent some 23 years in behavioral studies on human beings, using the polygraph or so-called lie detector.

Fletcher: But more recentty you've also been doing polygraph studies on plants, I understand:

Backster: For the past five, almost six years. And the plants have not only provided us with unique inlormation about themselves; they have led to other discoveries

Fletcher: Such as whut?

Backster: Well right now we're doing some fascinating research on chickèn eggs, thanks to a plant reaetion.

Fletcher: You mean one of your plants told you something you didn't know about an egg?

Backster: Something that could have profound implications for origin-of-life research.

Fletcher: Can you tell me about it?

Backster. I don't like to talk aboul things while they're still in. the experimental stage, but I can tell you about some of our preliminary observations.

I used to have a dubennan pincher, and I'd bring him here to the lab with me. Each night when I fed him 1. used to add the yoke of an egg to his food. 1t's supposed to be good for a dog's coat, Well, one night I was monitoring a plant's reactior about 20 or 30 feet from where. I was feeding the dog. To my amazement the plant showed a strong reaction just as I crack ed open the egg.

Fletcher: Something had upset the plant?

Backster Right, The next night I watched closely while going through this egg-breaking routine, and again the same thing happened. Now the idea of a plant reacting to the crack ing open of an egg was awfufly interesting to me. It seeniec that the plant was providing a valuable clue. I then decided t attach the polygraph electrodes directly to an unbroken egg and I succeeded in obtaining a nine-hour recording fron one

Fletcher: Recording?

Backster. A written chart readout from the polygraph Well, a portion of that reading showed me something prells startling. Though this was a non-incubated, fresh egg. the char: showed what seemed to be a heartbeat. There was a frequer. - about 160 to 170 beats per minute - appropriate for a ct embryo between three and four days along in incubation. A. there was no other way to account for this frequency ka when we afterward opened up the egg and carefuly cherk the contents, we found absolutely no physiological evidene : a chicken embryo.

Fletcher: That's fantastic! What conclusions do you d from it?

Backster: No conclusions. This was an, observation H.. did appear that we mighi be tapping into some kind f :.. field that could be providing the rhythm and guiding development at a pre-embryo stage - a force field thal: conventionally understood within our present body ot tific knowledge.

Fletcher: And you say you're now doing further reses. on this?

Backster: Yes, and we are finding that the heartbeat 1 quency shown in the original recording is a repeatable obser. tion.

Fletcher: How does your egg research relate to the . research?

Backster. It seems to add weight to the idea thal. munication capability exists anong all living thnt.s meiber it was the plant which first indicated awarene.  e: the egg was broken. And, of course, in the various t.-. our plant research we get consistent indication of stro, ;ia reaction to the death of living organisms, even isolateu .. cells. One day when I happened to cut my finger, for exrpk

A

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and l tuline on it. 1he plant that was being monitored by the polygražl -mmediately reacted to the death of some form of human cell

. nother occasion 1 was about to eat a cup of yogurt here in the ł know how the jan is. down at the bottom of the container. à ust as I stired the jam into the yogurt, a strong plant reaction ed on the polygraph chart. This puzzied us until we realized thar

tiess was a chemical preservative in the jam and this was terminating the yogurt cells. What we wete getting fron the plant appeared to be another reaction-to-death chart reading.

Atso, in our original experiment, live brine shrimps were dropped into boiling water and at the moment this occurred the monitored plant at the other end of the laboratory teg istered a reáction on the polygrapl chart.

Fletcher: So the shrimps or the yogurt cells or the tissue cels in your finger - whatever is dying - niust send out a message of some sort which the plant picks up and récords.

Backster; Slight correction. I would say whatever is abruptly killed must send out a message. A more orderly dying involves some preparation for death, and we've found that where this occurs there is little if any plant reaction.

Fletcher: That seems a strange distinction

Backster: Maybe not. It may be that what the plant is reacting to is sudden disorientation — disorganization fromn a natural state of being

Fletcher: That could have ecolugical implications, of course. And I want to get into this. But first, what got you started on this strange adventure with plants? What made you think they might know things nobody guessed?

Backster: Well, it goes back to 1966. February 2nd, to be exact. I remember the date well because from then on a grèat deal about my life chranged. Before that my ful-time activity had been use of the polygraph in testing people. I had heen an interrogation specialist with the U.S. Ammy Counter-intelligence Corp., a polygraplı speciatist with the Central Intelligence Agency, and I had founded the Backster School which conducts polygraph examiner training courses.

Fletcher: That's lie detection, you said. Would you explain how the polygraph works - with people and with piants?

Backster: Briefly, when testing people most polygraphs record three types of changes - the breathing pattern, the heart activity, and changes in the electrical properties of the skin, which is called galvanic skin response or psychogalvanić reflex. It is this last portion of the polygraph that we have been using on plants.

When testing hunans, electrodes are attached to each of two fingers. With plants, the elcctrodes are attached to each side of a leaf, Basically, when testing people we rely on reactions accompanying threat-to-well-being. This-occurs when a person faces discovery when attempting deception to a question about a crime.

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Fletcher; So on this day in February, 196o... Backster: l had stopped work to water a plant - that dracena over there . an. the thought popped into my mind to hook it up to a polygraph neatby Fletcher: Why

Backster: I wanted to see if 1 could find out how long it took moisture to get trori
the roots of the plant to the leaf area. So 1 placed electrodes on both sides ot  lea and then watched the polygraph chart - not really expecting there would be an tracing changes at al Fletcher: But there were

Backster; There not only were but the pattern was not unlike human tracings That was surprise number one. After watching the chart tracings for a few minutes. said to myself, I'll try to cause it to react by somehow threatening its well-being. decided to burn the leaf that had the electrodes on it. Well, that was the moment! Befor 1 could reach for a match - at the splít second that I had the image of fire in my mind the recording pen bounded right off the top of the chart Fletcher: You mean the nlant read vour mind?

Backster; That's exactly what seemed to happen. I'm not one to jump to conclusions but what I observed really shook me up. Being a scientist, the first thing I had to d was to make sure l had not overlooked a logical explanation of the occurrence. So
started checking things out. Maybe this particular plant was somehow extraordinaty Maybe there was something peculiar about me. Or was there something unuisua about the polygraph instrument, the room, the location? No. Other people using other plants in other places, were able to make similar observations. Plant not only seemed aware of people and reacted to them: plants could apparenthy sense intent! Moreover - and this not onty confounded me, but also scientist: from many disciplines whom I invited to come and observe the phenomenon - physicists found they could not block out the apparent transmussion Fletcher; What do you mean by "block out"".

Backster; Thís was an attempt to isolate that portion o: the electro-magnetic spectrum involved in some torr of transmission between a human and the plant All types of shielding were used. hut mone

successfully interrupted the tranuussion Fletcher: You said you conducted
experiments on other plants and in other places. Would you be more specilic! Backster: I tested plants in different parts of the United Stutes and overseas in Lehanon when I : seted to conduct tests or to attendting>
of polygraph experts. The chan:·mgs obtained were alwa、ilur. Fletcher: You use the same pyr:aph
equipment that's used for hunser nd
you clamp the electrodes on easi: le of a plant leaf. Doesn't that limit ou to plants whose leaves are fairly thick?

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.ster: No. So lon,. as the plant leaf is large enough to he surface of the electrodes and tough enough so the les don't press through the leaf and short out, most any plant ca: ¬e tested. During initial observations, we to 30 different varieties. We've also found that other 1 vegetation will show meaningful tracings.

ter: Such as?

er: Lettuce, onions.. . in fact, just about any kind tble. Also, most types of fruit.

her: Have you had polygraph evidence of plants reader people's minds? I mean, other than your own ice?

ster: We have made some interesting observations that point in that direction. On one occasion, for example, scientist who is a plant physiologist visited our lab. he was present the piants did something similar to

her: Fainting?

ster: What we'd call fainting in a human. The plants n reacting quite typically before she arrived -retluctuating patterns - but while she was in the room ere able to obtain was a straight line. It was downright ;sing. She'd made the visit to our lab to see for herself t reactions she'd read about. One at a time, I hooked different plants and coulda't get aaything but a ine out of any of them. Finaly the sixth plant did ponses so I was somewhat vindicated. But before she «ed her, "Just what is it you do with plants in your nis? Do you hurt them in any way?" And she said, "I : in an oven and roast them in order to get their dry my data." i

er: She was a plant killer and the plants knew it, so passed out?

ter: Well, that's one interpretation anyway. It doesn't vthing. But it may point a direction for further study. irty minutes after she left, I attached each of the five at had shown only a straight line and each then cellent reaction capability.

er: Have the plants appeared to "faint" in any other er: Yes. One situation. involves preliminary work on esearch project we have under way. to see if we can us - if they can be conditioned by association to ence of menory.

r: You mean Pavlovian experiments such as that tog which salivated when a bell rang even though he iger fed at the time of the signal?

r. Yes, but I don't want to get into the details of ent until after its completion.

r: But is there any evidence that plants have t: Not what can be called evidence in a strict scien-But we've seen some indications that they might example, in our brine shrimp tests. a plant would w no reaction to the death of the shrímp after the urth time it occurred. They appeared to adapt - ies memory.

Backster: On our project to see if we can teach plants, at the beginning I was using an electrical impulse on them as a conditioning threat-to-well-being. Because of the crudeness of the particular equipment, it turned out that I was giving them a stronger shock than I intended, and this too produced a straight-line "faint" recording. It got so that when I merely thought of using that electrical impulse on them, the plants would "faint." This caused me to change to a "reward" basis instead.

Fletcher: If plants are capable of all the things we've been discussing, we must obviously view them differently. I'm reminded of a friend of mine. She has so much love for animal life that she won't eat meat or fish. When she learns this about plants and other vegetative fors she'll probably feel she shouldn't eat greens and vegetables either.

Backster: I don't see that our uncoveries are any threat to vegetarians. It may be that a vegetable appreciates becoming part of a higher formn of life rather than rotting on the ground.

riercner; Do you think a plant feels Man is a higher form? Backster: I don't know about that, but it's very interesting that plants will adapt to death of all kinds of living cells we've tested except one. They do not adapt, in our experience, to recurring death of human cells.

Fletcher: Could you do some experiments to find out the reaction of, say, a lettuce leaf to being eaten? The attached electrodes wouldn't seem to be a problem because if the leaf can read the tester's mind, he wouldn't have to really eat it; he could just think of eating it.

Backster: Ah, but there we get into something else that's very interesting. We've seen this repeatedly in our experiments. The plant senses intent. Intent is real. If we merely pretend

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that we're guing to do soonething. we get no rea tion omn the plant whatsoever. Whatevet it is theyre tuned m to. this . true. You can't foot it.

Fletcher: l gather you also feei that plants have a pecial affinity for their owners?

Backster: It's certainly true in my experience. Take this dracena plant, for example. i do a lot of lecturing and I often project a cotor slide of this plant because it's the original one we lested. When i show the slide and speak foridly about the plant there's a tine correlation with a reaction by the plant back here in the lab, if we have the polygraph equipment activated.

Fletcher: No matter how far away you are?. -

Backster: Distance doesn't seem to have any bearing. Et- …ag.

Flefcher: Maybe when a person gues off on vacatión and leaves her plants in the care of a neighbor, she shouid take along a picture of the plants and along a picture of the plants and

look fondly at it occasionally. so they don't wither and die, as so often happens when under someone else's care.

Backster: I frequently suggest just that.

Fletcher: Ate you serious?1 was being fecitious.

Backster: l'm. serious. li wouldn't be the picture that does. good, of course, It's your thinking about the plant. which then appears tn know t hasa't heen abandoned by you. Remenher. it's attuned to your thoughts.

Fletcher: Is this a kind of extrasensory perception on the part of the plant?

Backster; It máy be even more basic. When we use the term ESP we. are referring to perception above and beyond the established

sensory perception of touch, sight, hearing, smelf. and taste. With plants. the perception regisiered is apparently not extra-sensory hut part of their basic sensory equipment. Which is all the moré extraordinary. For this reason, I use the ternı "primary perception."

Fletcher: Do you agree with the people who say it helps plants flourish if you talk encouragingly to themn?

Backster: 1 occasionally lecture to garden clubs and these people tell me it definitely helps. I suspect they are right. g

Fletcher: Maybe that's the real secret of people who have "green thunbs." They simply have better communication with their plants.

Backster: Quite likely. Plants also seem quick to pick up negativism. We've never done formal experiments on this. but many people have told me that plants don't grow well in homes where there's a lot of dissention.

Fletcher: That celates to what you said earlier about plant agitation over death possibly being due to disorganization or disunity. And this makes me think of such environmental disorganzers as air and water poltution. Exologist constantly trying to alert us to the fact that all tormare irrevocabiy interrelated. That we can'i do danag:. one element of our biosphere air, water, earih. , fauna - wilhuut i having destructive repercuv. everything else. What strikes me most about: your o. ve: that piants have sensory perception. and that there be some form of communication among all living t that it offers startling documentation of the e gic viewpoint.

Backster: There's no douht in my mind that we te à one.

Fletcher: Is that perhaps what your research teal directed at - trying to establish the oneness of all lit turn:

Backster: There are many scientists working on variou aspects of this. Our work may make a coutribu:n. W

certainly hope so. Wh: we' involved in doing is exparuintg . scope of the present-dav scientific knowledge. Tbng we'te uncovering be s scientists wouldn: ever hypothesize. But in ut pproa! we're adhering striily to he scientific method.

Fletcher:. Do many ientist inquire about your work"

Backster: Oh y. A3 matte: of fact, over 7.000 ieutists have requested reprints uf tr dirs: published experiment- sume fror abroad. We try to provide as nluci information as possibie. We w to do everything we can tor scientists to point thein in direction and then ruve them g off on their own and do as muct as they want.

persunaiy tave seen too many exampies where there is a tenden  pií "top-secrer".stamp on research. and others ate dept: the benefits. Here we try to make public disclostur. methodology and results of our research as fast a so we don't-have peopie running to get patents on thi of thing. It's too profound for that. I think this is some: for all humánity.

Fletcher: Do you get many expressions of interest tiom; the general public?

Backster; So many. we ean't keep up with the mail or tll all the requests for lectures. This thing interests a very hr cross-section of people - young people. militaiy establishments, garden ciubs, theologists. scientists antd.1 course, ecologists. Being ihat kind of a focal point. ur w: can help develop the oneness idea.

If mankind can nore completely appreciate the interrelated complexity, beauty. and sentience of li envirunment, perhaps he will be more considerate in his ow persungl relatiorship with it.

CATIV.T

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The plant in the cover photo certainly can't scream in the true sense of the word. But according to engineer Cleve Backster, plants and even single celis may be able to give off distress signals that can be picked up by an instrument called a polygraph (lie detector). Now before you fall out of your chair, there's more.

Would you believe that onions and carrots give off distress signals while being chopped up for a salad; and your mother's favorite African violet reacts when someone in the house strikes a match?

Ridiculous?. Unscientific? Maybe but according to Mr. Backster the plant pictured on the cover may actually be emitting distress signals because it is afraid of fire.

It happened like this.

One day while watering an office plant, Mr. Backster wondered if his polygraph could measure how,fast water moves up the plant stems to the leaves. The engineer attached the polygraph electrodes to. the plant leaves and waited.

After a time he noticed something urusual. The polygraph tracing was similar to the ones humans make when emotionally upset.

He decided to test this observation further. Mr. Backster dipped a plant leaf into a cup of hot coffee. Nothing happened. He decided to strike a match in front of the plant.

The moment this thought crossed his mind, the polygraph needle jumped to a high peak similar to those formed when a person tells a lie. The actual striking of the match produced the same response.

Couid it be that the plant was able to read the experimenter's mind and respond emotionally? Mr. Backster thinks it could be. He is spending a great deal of time and money trying to find out. J…

After. reading this account, you are probably shaking your head in disbelief. Come on now, plants just don't behave this way! How would other scientists view these findings?

A Closer Look

Mr. Backster is guessing that the plant response revealed by hia polygraph is a distress signal.: He is basing his experiments on this guess, or hypothesis. To him this hypothesis seems to be the most reasonable

This ls a potygraph tracing showing a plant's reaction to a fire stimuiue. High peeks drawn by the needle indicate the strongest reactions. A human shows the same kind of tracing when amotionay upset.

one because what he sees indicate a clear case of cause and effect.

But as Mr. Backster and all otht scientists know, his hypothesis coul be wrong. The hypothesis will hav to be tested by other scientists i other laboratories.

It may also be possible that M Backster is observing a correlatic of events and not a case of, cau and effect at all.

For erampie, a. train moving dov a track generally makes a lou noise. And when no noise is hear the train is usually motioniess.

Ls the noise causing the train move? A person seeing a tráin f the first time might think this to a reasonable deduction. But someo familiar with trains would recogni this as a faulty conclusion made limited observation.

Problem Solving

Like most scientists, Mr. Backs has 'taken on a knotty problem eolve. But scientists aren't the o1 people who have difficulty with pr lema, We all have this difficul Often we are less exacting tl scientists. Sometimes our ansa are based more on fancy than fact. Let's consider an example.

Man is subject to a variety diseases. Among these is the c pling disease called arthritis. entists all over the world are tr to find a cure. In the meantime, s indiyiduals have sought their cures. One such supposed cur to wear a copper bracelet on wrist. The green stain left on wrist is thought to have curi powers. Thia "remedy" has ber so, popular that people wishin try it can now go into a jewelry and choose a cure-all bracelet a wide selection of styles.

How would you go about pr or disproving this belief?: Wha pothesis would you start out Could any experiments be usi test the hypothesis?

[PAGE 9]
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[PAGE 10]
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[PAGE 11]
Cleve Backster's polygraph says plants feel apprehension, fear, pleasure and relief. Has he found an unknown kind of communication that links all living things?

Normal calm tracing

Point of stimulus

Gradual return to normal

Above, a typlcal PGR (psycho. galvanic reflex) reading from a polygraph of a human test subject experioncing a deliberate cmotional stimulation. The chart passas undcr the stylus at tho rate of six inches per minute; each horizontal divlsion represents five seconds.

Below, Backstor's first reading from à plant, a drocans massangoana being watored on Fcbruary 2, 19GG. The upward tracing in the center of tha chart was his first suggestion of some type of arousal reaction from the plant.

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Further tracing from Backster's experiment of February 2, 196G, showing his first deliberate stimulation irom a test plant. Backster regards it as significant that his intent to harm tho plant produced a stronger reaction (anxiety?) than the actuol burning.

BY THORN BACON

SUPPOSE you were to be told that the philodendron plant resting on the window sill above your kitchen sink screams silently hen you break a breakfast egg in the frying pan, or that the potted drecena on the sun porch grows apprehensive whenever your dog goes by?

Finally, would you dare believe that when you aceidently cut your finger the dying cells in the drying blood transunit sígnals to the philodendron, the drecena and the parsley in your refrigerator?

Provecative. questions? Indeed, yes, but ones which are being soriously, soberly and quietly investigated by scicntists at several major American universities as a result of some bízarre findings by the Backster Rescarch Foundation of New York City.

The objeet: To discover if there is an unlnown communication link betwveen the cells of plants and animals through which distress signals are transmitted that broadeast threats against any member of the living communityl

These staggering imnplications were reported in an abstract published on September 7, 1967, by Cleve Backster, a former interrogation specialist with the Central Intelligence"Agency, who operates a New York school for training law enforcement officers. in the techniques of using the polygraph - commonly known as the lie detector.

Backster was one of a four-man panel 'of experts called to testify before the 1964 Congressional Hearings on the Use of Polygraphs by the Federal Goverpment. Following duty with the CIA as an interrogation spccialist, he became director of the Leonarde Keeler Polygraph Institute of Chicago. Since 1949, he has acted as a consultant to almost every government ageucy which makes use of the polvgraph. Hc introduced the Backster Zone Comparison polygraph procedure, which is the technique standard at the U. S. Armny Polygraph School.

Changed his life. Teaching polygraph, however, became a secondary interest to Backster on a February morning in 1966 when he inade the discovery whieli changed his life.

These are the words he used to deseribe what happened in hís laboratory that moring:

"Immnediately following the watering of an office plant, I wondered if it would be possible to measure the rate at which water rose in a plant fron the root area into the leaf,  1 chose the psychogalvanic rellex (PGR) index as a possible means of ineasuring the rate of moisture asccnt. The pair of PGR electrodes could be attached to a leaf of the plant. Hopefully, by using the WVheatstone bridge cireuitry involved, I could measure the increase in the plant leaf's moisture content onto the polygraph tape.

"Deciding to pursue the idca, I placed a psvchogalvanic reflex electrode on each side of the same leaf of the nearby Draena Massangeana plant with a rubber band. The plant leaf was successfully balanced into the PCR cireuitry, its electrical resistance falling within the resistance limit of the instrumentation.

"Contrary to my expectation, from the outset the plant leaf tracing exhibited a downward trend. Then, after

"Staggering as it may be to contemplate, a life signal may connect all creation..."

about one minute of chart time, the tracing exhibíted a contour similar to a PCR reaction patter typically demonstrated by a human subject experiencing an emotional stimulation of short duration. Even though its tracing had failed to reflect the effect of the watering, the plant leaf did offer itself as a possibly unique source of data.

"As I watêhed the PGR tracing continue, I wondered if there could be' a similarity betwveen the tracing from the plant and a PCR tracing from a human. I decided to try to apply some equivalent to the thrent-to-well-being principle, a well established method of triggering emotionality in humans. I first tried to arouse the plant by immersing a plent leaf in a cup of hot coffee. But there was no measurable reaction.

"After a nine minute interim, I decided to obtain a mateh and burn the plant leaf being tested. At the instant of this decision, at thirteen minutes fifty-five seconds of chart timne, there was a dramatic change in the PCR tracing patter in the form of an abrupt and prolonged upward sweep of the recording pen. I had not moved, or touched the plant, so the timing of the PCR pen activity suggested to me that the tracing inight have been triggered by the mere thought of the harm I in-

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ended to inflict upon the plant. This ccurrence, if repeatable, would tend o indicate the possible existence of ome undefined perception in the plant."

Backster began to explore how the uffering of other species affected his lants. He bought some brine shrimp, rdinarily used as live food for tropical ish, and killed them by dumping them ato boiling water. As he saw the polypraph recording needle leap frantically, e was awed by a startling and aparently new concept: "Could it be that vhen cell life dies, it broadcasts a sigual to other living cells?" If this was so, re would have to completely automate uis experiments, removing all human lements which might consciously or inconsciously contaminate the results.

Space age lab. In the three years ince, Backster has spent many thou-:ands of dollars in transforming his ffices into a space-age assembly of nechanized shrímp-dunp dishes, à sophisticated electronic randomizer and programmer circuitry and multiple PGR nonitoring devices, But the results con-Linue to point to a capabílity for perception in all living cells - a perception that Backster calls "primary". I asked him for maore details:

Q. What do you mean by primary?

A. I mean primary in the sense that this perception applies to all cells that we have monitored, without regard to their assigned biological function.

Q. What types of cells have you tested?

A. We have found this same phenomenon in the amoeba, the paramecium, and other -single-cell organisms, in fact, in every kind of cell we have tested: fresh fruits and vegetables, mold cultures, yeasts, scrapings from the roof of the mouth of a human, blood samples, even spermatozoa.

Q. Do you mean that all of these cells have a sensing capacity?

A. It seems so. Incidentally, we have tried unsuccessfully to block whatever signal is being reccived by using a Faraday sercen, sereen, cage, and even leadlined containers. Still the communicatíon coutinues. It seems that the signal may not even fall within our electrodynamic spectrum. If not, this would certaiuly have profound implications.

Q. What kind of a signal is it?

A. I ean answer your question better by telling you what we think the signal is not. We know it is not within the different known frequencies, AM, FM, or any form of signal which we ean shield by ordinary means. Distance seems to impose no limitation. For example, we are conducting research that would tend to indicate that this signal can traverse hundreds of miles.

Q. Are plants attuned to stress?

A. Perhaps, I used to have a Doberman Pincher in my office. He slept in the back room whiere I had an electric timer hooked to a loud pulsating alarm, which was located directly above his bed. Actuation of the timing mechanism was accompanied by a barely audible click which precędcd the alarm by approximately fve seconds. The dog would invariably hear the click, and would leave the room before the bell, which he disliked intensely, started to ring. Although in a different room, with the plants, I knew exactly when the dog was leaving his room, even though I could not hear the click, because the plants acknowledged his movements by showing reaction coincidental to the click, reflecting the Doberman's anxiety.

O. In the final analysis, aren't you saying that we must re-assess our definitions of sensory perception and Intelligence?

A. Who ean say at this point? There are certainly implications hore that could have profound èftects on those concepts. Our observations show that the signal leaps across distances, as I said before. I have been as far away as New Jersey - about fifteen miles from Manhattan - and have merely thought about returing to my office, only to learn when I returned that at the precise moment I had had the thought- checked against a stop watch - there was a coincídental reaction by the plants to the thought of coming back. Relief? Welcome? We aren't sure, but cvidence indicates something like relief. It isn't fear.

Do plants have emotions? The trend of Backster's research results does indeed embrace profound implications. Do plants have ermotions? Do they make strange signals of awareness beyond our own abilities to comprehend? It seems so. Personally, I cannot imagine a world so dull, so satiated, that it should reject out of hand arresting new ideas which may be as old as the first aunino acíd in the chain of life on our carth. Inexplicable has never meant miraculous. Ñor does it necessarily mean spirihual. In

Wheatstone bridge circultry is held in place on philodendron leaf by a special clamp device.

Typical plant reaction to a carcfully randomlzed brine shrimp death, made on tho automatic polygraph with no human in the lcboratory.

Normal calm tracing

Mechanism actuates automatically

Gradual
return
to normal
calm

Shrimp droppod and killed

7

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tupe from editor Kirkpatrick's .interview with Backster and a • philodendron.

Bob Henson edjusts contacts

Henson leaves room

First mention of stimulating plant

Backster declines to burn plant

Kirkpatrick and Backster debate methods

Backster refuses to harm plant

Kirkpatrick suggests ha burn the plant

anouer extension ot our natnral laws, Let me leave you to ponder a question Backster asked me. Many hunters have observed that game animals somehow sense the exact moment of the opening of the hunting scason, We can perhaps aseribe this to the noise of the first gunshots. But, how can we explain the similar observation of game's apparent awareness of the exact momcint of the season's close? Cleve Backster may be approaching the answer to that question, and a lot of others.

The editors wanted proof... here's what the philodendron gave them!

Editor's note: The editors of NatioNaL WioLIFE were as. doubtful as you may be after reading Thorn Bacon's account of "Backster's Phenomenon", so, we visited and photographed him in his offices, just off Times Square in New York City.

We found a quiet, polite, serious and successful student of the psychology of interrogation, working almost full time on the exploration of his discovery in an office cluttered with extremely sophisticated electronic gear and decorated with thumbtacked records of płant - and other cell life -reactions.

He showed us the original tape from his first discovery of the phenomenon, and yard after yard of tapes from succeeding experiments. One thing impressed us immediately: First, Cleve Backster is not some kind of a nut. He really knows his business, andis pursuing his investigations with great care to avoid any chance of criticism from the doubting scientific community, though he admits that secms inevitable.

As we talked, Backstcr set up his specially modified polygraph with a fairly ordinary philodcndron leaf clamped in position for reading the psychogatvanic reflex index. He mcnjioned that he no longer handles his plants with anything but great care, since theij scem to be attachcd to him as their owner and caretaker. When a plant must be handled or stimulated to produce a reaction, that is done by his assistant, Bob Henson, who "plays the heávy".

As we sat, chatting, the peu traced a graph of normal tpose for the plant, until Bob wulked in the room. The graph turnéd suuldenly to one of agitation, and bobbed markedly until he left. Then it calmed doien aguin to a normal tracing.

Later, we talked about ways to stimü- late the plant for a photograph, and Backster explaincd that he preferred not to "hurt" the plant. I reniarked that perhaps I could do it, and reached for a maich, wcctching in astonishment as the plant produccd a ciolently agitated rraction cecn as I began to speak.

Still later, the plänt's reádings became calmer and calmer, and Backster cxpluiard that after an extended time, they seemed to become accustomed to stimnuli und thcir reactions became less marked. At that point I blew a cloud of cigarette smoke ocer the plant without warning, and it produced a jagged little graph that Buckster dida't try to interpret but which I proclaimed to be a reaction of ennoyance.

While George Harrison teas shooting the photograph that appears on pages 4 and' 5, Backster suddenly asked him if anything was wrong: the plant was shocing something like a sympathetic rcaction to consternation, but was not being stimulated in any way. George admitted that he had just discotered that one lens was not working properly, and had been worrying about the photographs he had already made.

Altogether, we ran the machine on that plant for two hours, and produced a dozen cery intcresting reactions, some of which Backster recognized (though he is ccry reluctant to try to interpret them in human terms) and some others that made no pariícular sense. at all, like the up-and-down reading yielded from a telephone concersation Backster held in a neighboring office. The plant rcacted differently to the periods of Backster's talking and listening for some reason. But it did react.

So the rcactions continue, 'and Clece Buckster's work continues, as he attempts to analyjze the nature of the plants' graphs. Šome of the possible applications of the phenomenon, in medical diagnosis, criminal incestigation and other ficldls, are so fantastic that he asked me not to repeat them here. His first serious paper on the phenomenon, fitled Evidence of a Primary Perception in Plant Life, is scheduled for publication in the Intemational Journal of Parapsychology in January 1969. He awaits the rcaction of the scientific communily; we await the reaction of NATioNAL WiLDLiFE readers. What do you suppose he has discovered?

DICK KIRKPATRICK