Have you ever wondered about our instinctual response to life processes and events? There are times when we no longer function under the rational logic of the cognitive brain, but rather we respond intuitively relying upon the instincts encoded within our body. Famous athletes are an example. How would you respond to a baseball coming towards you at over 100 mph? Or remember the great musicians. For a pianist cognitive thought dissolves as their fingers instinctively respond to the musical score. Then there are the deep and difficult to remove memories stored in the bodies of abused children or soldiers who return from the horrors of war. I am working with a martial arts teacher and am amazed at how our bodies can be trained to instinctively react to repel an attack -- there is no time to "think." One appears to be training a survival technique based in antiquity.

Are we observing the original way that life had of knowing and surviving? Could this be how the simplest form of life responded to a threat? The process of life started when the first living system, the cell, appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. It was about a half billion years ago before the first multi-cellular organisms appeared on earth. However, it was only in the last few million years that human beings appeared. The human body can be considered a community of cells -- about 100 trillion, with 200 different types, that need to live in harmony. To accomplish this feat a very effective cellular communication process essential to the survival of these more complex life forms must have evolved.

What evidence do we have today that cells can join together, form cellular communities, communicate and share their awareness and thereby become more adept at survival? An amoeba named Dictyostelium, a single cell organism that feeds upon bacteria, provides an interesting example of how individual cells can cooperate. When these amoeba are under stress due to food shortage, about 100,000 individual cells form a mound about the size of a grain of sand. The mound then begins to act as if it were an organism and develops into something like a crawling slug form. The slug now goes through another change -- the back end catches up with the tip, and the slug turns into a blob. The blob then grows into a slender stalk carrying spores. Later these spores split open and free the individual amoeba to start their life process anew.

Cells may have a survival instinct but is there such a thing as a cellular memory? The medical profession is becoming increasingly aware that the cellular structure of transplanted organs carry with them a memory content to a degree never before considered possible. After heart implants, food and music likes and dislikes sometimes change dramatically, a persons behavior such as their approach to sexual activities can suddenly be modified, and recipients occasionally even use words they never spoke before.

If cells have a memory and can communicate, can the effects of this biocommunication between cells be detected by instruments? For almost 40 years one researcher, Cleve Backster, has pursued this question. Cleve had become an expert with the use of lie detectors. He was Director of the Keeler Polygraph Institute and worked for the CIA on interrogation tactics. In 1966 he attached a plant to a polygraph. The polygraph recording pen moved rapidly to the top of the chart when Cleve's thought and intention was "to burn the leaf." As a result of this intriguing response, Cleve became obsessed with a desire to understand the cellular communication process which he called primary perception. Studies were done on various plants; brine shrimp; non-fertile chicken eggs; E. Coli bacteria; bacteria present in plain yogurt; bacteria from an aquarium; in vitro animal cells; in vitro human white blood cells (oral leukocytes); human spermatozoa; and human whole blood. The instrumentation used was primarily the GSR (skin conductance) component of the polygraph, but later included electro-encephalograph (EEG) and electro-cardiograph (EKG). Distance seemed to impose no limitations to communication between cells. For example, Dr. Brian O'Leary, a NASA scientist-astronaut, conducted successful experiments with Cleve both in the laboratory and over distances of 350 miles away using his own donated white blood cells. Also, the use of electromagnetic shielding in experiments produced no deterring effects upon results implying a non-local process.

Cleve Backster's research has been replicated, but others have failed in their attempts at replication and disparage his work. Cleve believes there exists a strong propensity for an "experimenter effect" in this type of research. The connection or bond between the experimenter and the life form being monitored must be eliminated. This is the reason that Cleve eventually used automated experiments. In addition, his research clearly indicates the importance of spontaneity and sincere intention. Both plants and human cells appear to discriminate between a thought that you do not really mean and a thought that is "for real." Thus, what appears to be occurring in Cleve's experiments is a communication between one's thoughts and one's cells regardless of where the cells are located -- an instantaneous non-local linkage.

In quantum physics non-local "communication" requires two identical particles that were once together to be separated. Is their any data supportive of the existence of non-local connections between humans? In nearly all cases, the development of a multicellular organism begins with a single cell - the fertilized egg. Identical twins result for the splitting of a single egg. Now imagine identical twins separated at birth who meet each other years later. Since they have identical DNA one would expect that their physical characteristics like height and weight would be quite similar. However, although they were never in contact over the years and experienced different environmental conditions, researchers found that frequently habits like smoking, drinking, nail biting, the way they laugh, their gestures and mannerisms were also identical. Even their religious attitudes, their choice of jobs, and creative activities were often identical.
The model that Dr. Bob Shackeltt, Dr. Dean Brown and I put forth predicts that all cells are linked to a non-local spaceless-timeless continuum that we have called the Absolute. The cells therefore can access the wisdom of the interconnected web of the whole. Since you can not deceive the all-knowing Absolute, your cells and those of a plant "intuitively" perceive when your intent is not sincere. This "primary perception" and instinctive knowing of the cells in your body is the reason it's important for healing to use visualization and sincerely "talk" to your body. It is also why you say "thank you," since you are interacting with the Absolute -- some would say God.

William C. Gough, FMBR Chairman of the Board; BillGough@fmbr.org

A Letter From Charles Granger

Cleve returned from The University of Missouri, with an audio-tape of Dr. Charles Granger's introduction to his challenge speaker presentation: This was at the 31st Annual Missouri Regional Junior Science, Engineering and Humanities Symposium
March 21, 2004. Dr. Charles R. Granger introducing the Challenge Speaker, Cleve Backster:

Now we have an opportunity to get down to some serious, interesting kind of mental gymnastics, I guess you would call it. Many of the teachers who attend the JSEHS report to us the success of their students and the significance of participating in these kinds of activities in their careers. Thirty years ago, we had a gentleman come and talk about a very interesting, and at the time, a very controversial concept. One of the students, Steve Younger, from Hillcrest and Springfield, under the direction of Hugh Brewer, listened to that particular topic and decided to do a science fair project entitled, "Can Plants Respond to Thought?" He went on to work in that particular area and got his doctorate degree working on neural nets in Colorado and Utah. Now, with his PhD., he is an assistant professor in physics at SW Missouri State University. The gentleman who did the symposium for physics activity yesterday had a similar student inspired by the presentation that you are about to hear.

Thirty years ago, we asked Mr. Cleve Backster to come as a Challenge Speaker to challenge the students to think outside of the box. And he did so, and we had some interesting results from that. His topic deals with something that thirty years ago was laughed at, thought of as insignificant, that was just a one in a chance opportunity to see. He calls this phenomenon that he established, Primary Perception. Biocommunication. He deals with plants, living foods, and animal cells in general. At that time people criticized him for going out of mainstream science, maybe even pseudo-science. We all know what the difference is between science and pseudo-science. Can we tell?
Well, one major criterion deals with whether or not you start out with a major premise and try to find data to support it. Or whether you look, or observe signs in nature and then try to explain them. Which is science and which is pseudo-science?

How do real scientists actually work? They are puzzled by what they see in the universe. They want to know why something works. Then they develop a major premise. Pseudoscience is like what we see in "aliens from outer space." You assume first that there are aliens from outer space, right? That's the premise. Then what do you do? You look in cornfields where the corn has been bent over, wheat fields where something nestled, or some burnt grass in your backyard. How did that get there? This is evidence of aliens! That is pseudoscience. We have lots of examples of that sort of thing.
Backster, on the other hand, was just minding his own business. He is an expert in lie detection. He added a few components to lie detectors to make them more effective. That is actually how he makes his living. He trains people to run lie detectors. But early one morning a strange thing happened to him. He discovered that plants have emotions. Or that they respond to some of the things he was doing. He didn't start out to be a hero and discover primary perception. He didn't even have a word for it. There wasn't a word for it. So he made an observation in nature and came up with a hypothesis to explain it.

So, regardless of what other scientists said at that particular time, Mr. Backster was doing science, just as he did science to work with the polygraph. We are very pleased to have him come back now and discuss the historical discovery of this particular phenomenon. For those who still may be skeptical, and I'm always skeptical, there is an article in Science, just recently, by a person from Princeton, a molecular biologist, who also discovered some primary perception. You will notice that there is a lot of effort going on about intercellular communications and Backster's idea is now substantiated by people like Dr. Bonnie Bassler, writing about "Talking Bacteria." Now let's listen to Mr. Backster and how he stumbled upon this particular idea.