By J. R. Church
On the morning of February 2, 1966, Cleve Backster’s life changed forever. He is one of America’s experts
on lie detectors and the developer of the “Backster Zone Comparison Test,” the standard used by lie
detection examiners worldwide. His machine could detect the slightest variation in emotions by measuring
skin tension, heart rate, etc. He set up a large classroom at his company to train people on how to use the
polygraph machines.
One day, he noticed the large dracena cane plant in the classroom and became curious as to how long it
would take for water to travel from the roots, up the tall stem and out to the end of the large leaves. So he
hooked up a polygraph machine to one of the leaves of the dracena cane plant.
He said, “I thought if I put something that measures resistance at the end of a leaf--the galvanic skin
response section of the polygraph, and I had those sitting all over the place because we were running a
school--a drop in resistance should be recorded on the paper as the contaminating moisture arrived
between the electrodes.”
To his surprise, he noticed that the tracing began to show a pattern typical of something he called, “primary
perception” — the response you get when you subject a human to emotional stimulation. The plant was
actually responding to him! He said, “I noticed something on the chart that resembled a human response
on a polygraph. In other words, the contour of the pen tracing was not what I would expect from water
entering a leaf, but instead what I would expect from a person taking a lie-detector test. Lie detectors work on the principle that when people perceive a threat to their well-being, they physiologically respond in
predictable ways. If you were conducting a polygraph as part of a murder investigation, you might ask a
suspect, ‘Was it you who fired the shot that was fatal to so and so?’ If the true answer is yes, the suspect will fear getting caught lying, and electrodes on their skin will pick up the response to that fear. So I began to think about how I could threaten the well-being of the plant.”
At 13 minutes, 55 seconds on the polygraph chart time, he thought about putting a match to the leaf and
burn it. As the thought entered his mind, the needle on his polygraph began to swing wildly. He had neither
touched, nor moved, the plant. Backster concluded that the plant could read his thoughts! The dracena cane read his mind and was frightened by the mere thought of setting a match to it.
Since then, he has conducted hundreds of experiments. For example, he hooked up his polygraph to a test
tube containing white blood cells (leukocites) from a person’s mouth and measured the response of the
cells to the donor’s emotions. He set up a TV camera on the polygraph and another camera on the donor,
recording them on a split-screen, and had the donor watch a war movie. His emotions were recorded on the polygraph hooked up to the white blood cells in the other room. So he moved the donor across town … and still the white blood cells reacted to the donor’s emotions. Then, he put the donor on an airplane and sent him 300 miles away. Believe it or not, the white blood cells could still record the emotions of the donor!
Backster said that the connections have to be metaphysical and spiritual. He said, “Immediately I
understood something important was going on. There were no alternate explanations. There was no one
else in the building, nobody else in the lab suite, and I simply wasn’t doing anything that would provide a
mechanistic explanation. From that split-second my consciousness hasn’t been the same. My whole
thought process, my whole priority system, has been devoted to looking into this.”
He said that he could not describe what he was seeing as “extrasensory” perception because plants do not have most of the first five senses to begin with. The perception expressed by the living cells had to be on a more basic or primary level — thus, the name, “primary perception.”
Backster said, “All this, of course, places us firmly in the territory of the metaphysical, the spiritual. Think
about prayer, or meditation. If you were to pray to God, and God was hanging out on the far side of the
galaxy, and your prayer traveled at the speed of light, your bones would long-since be dust before God
responded. But if God is everywhere, the prayer doesn't have to travel.”
Yes, here is a man who is famous for a detector against lying. The fact of the matter is, he has been on a
quest for truth all of his life. There would be no reason for him to fudge facts.
He has proven through hundreds of experiments, that our thoughts are open to someone on the other side of this physical dimension.
Research About Galvanic Skin Response (G.S.R.) Testing
GSR History: An often misunderstood and difficult technique, GSR has gone through many phases of interest and rejection since the early 1900's. It has been used in important research on anxiety and stress levels (Fenz & Epstein, ' 67); and it has been a part of lie detection (Raskin, ' 73). Controversy has centered around the technique, underlying mechanisms, and the meaning of the responses obtained from the skin.
There has been a long history of electrodermal activity research, most of it dealing with spontaneos fluctuations. Most investigators accept the phenomenon without understanding exactly what it means (Hume, ' 76). Although GSR is the oldest and yet most confusing term, it is also the one in common use. Many attempts have been made to improve and update the terminology; two such systems are proposed by the Society for Psychophysiological Reaserch (Brown, ' 67), and Venables & Martin ( '67). Electrodermal response ( EDR ) is the umbrella under which the terms fall.
Basically there are two techniques in the history of Electrodermal measurement. In one a current is passed thru the skin and the resistance to passage is measured; in the other no current is used externally and the skin itself is the source of electrical activity.
GSR Physiology: Easily measured and relatively reliable, GSR has been used as an index for those who need some measurable parameter of a person's internal "state". As in EEG, there is not a clear understanding of what the measures reflect. Physiology, the GSR reflescts sweat gland activity and changes in the sympathetic nervous system and measurement variables. Measured from the palm or fingertips, there are changes in the relative conductance of a small electrical current between the electrodes. The activity of the sweat glands in response to sympathetic nervous stimulation ( Increased sympathetic activation ) results in an increase in the level of conductance. There is a relationship between sympathetic activity and emotional arousal, although one cannot identify the specific emotion being elicited. Fear, anger, startle response, orienting response and sexual feelings are all among the emotions which may produce similar GSR responces.
GSR History, & Physiology taken from BIOFEEDBACK Methods and Procedures in clinical practice ( 1977) written by George D Fuller, Ph.D.