in an earlier Blog I started a discussion on healing throught eh collective consciousness - which includes all living and (so-called) non-living aspects of our planet.

The collective consciousness in fish swimming in schools and birds flying in flocks is familiar to anyone who has seen large numbers of fish turn simultaneously in an aquarium or wondered at the coordinated aerial acrobatics of a group of pigeons circling above a park. The collective consciousness of birds, butterflies and fish in migration is also well acknowledged. The most amazing aspect of this is to learn that a bird raised without parents from an egg knows to migrate at the right time of year, in the right direction to join its kind in the right place.

Insects such as bees, ants and termites cooperate in their hives and colonies, with specialized individuals who contribute to the welfare and survival of the whole group. There are ants and termite queens, for instance, whose sole job is to lay eggs and provide a telepathic focus for the colony; ants whose job is to tend the queens and the eggs; others who are soldiers on guard to protect the colony; foragers; and so on.

These behaviors generally have been labeled as 'instinctual,' and this term has gained general acceptance – although without an accepted mechanism to explain it. Rupert Sheldrake, in A New Science of Life, has hypothesized that there is an informational field of consciousness that serves as an energetic library where individuals of a species can file the records of their learned experiences and can check out information (such as migration times and routes) when this information is needed.

Human and research on telepathy and other parapsychological abilities, and telepathy experiments with animals provide further pieces to explain instincts. For example, Sheldrake has gathered research and anecdotal reports on animals who know when their owners are returning home – even when this happens at irregular, unscheduled times.

Plants have consciousness too, as reported by sensitive people who are able to communicate with trees and garden vegetables. For example, Machaela Small Wright (US), Andrea Mathieson (Canada), Lilja Asgeirsdottir (Icelend), and others around the world who prepare flower essences report that the plants may tell them for which ailments essences from these plants can be of help. Conversely, if a healer holds a mental question in focus while walking in nature - about which plant will be helpful for a given symptom or disease – plants that can be helpful will identify themselves telepathically.

In another fascinating example of plant consciousness Cleve Backster developed a study around a violent interaction with plants. He found that plants have a fairly steady-state electrical potential when galvanometer electrodes are placed on two points on a leaf. (This is the same electrical measurement used for skin resistance in the lie detector test.) However, if something negative was done to the plant, it registered a sharp change in its electrical potential.

Backster then had a person uproot and stomp on one of a pair of plants. The second, intact plant reacted with drastic shifts in potentials. Furthermore, this plant reacted in a similar manner whenever the “plant murderer” returned to the room, but not when other people were in the room.

Backster repeated this a number of times, developing an experiment of "plant murder:" Each person in a small group would be invited to pick a card from a playing deck without showing anyone which card s/he had drawn. Whoever drew the queen of spades was the murderer. This person (without the knowledge of the others) went into the room where two philodendron plants were located, uprooting and stomping on one of the plants. When the intact plant was then wired to a galvanometer, it reacted strongly when the murderer returned to the room, but not when anyone else in the group entered the room.

Machaela Small Wright was distressed that she often injured worms when she was hoeing rows in her garden in preparation for planting. She paused, one day, sending a message mentally to the worms in the next rows she was planning to hoe, warning them to clear out of the area to avoid injury. She was delighted to encounter no more worms when she was hoeing.

The abilities of animal 'whisperers' (intuitives who have gifts for communicating with animals) are legend. I was amused to see an interview with a horse whisperer on BBC TV a few years ago. She was consulted by the owner of a racehorse who was not running his best. The horse complained to her that he had not had his usual summer holiday. The owner said, "He's a damn liar! I sent him to Scotland for four weeks last summer." The intuitive spoke again with the horse, who confirmed he had been to Scotland, but complained that they worked him instead of giving him time off. When the owner checked, he found the horse was telling the truth. Apologizing to the horse, he sent him for another holiday and on his return the horse returned to his earlier, better running form.

These are but a few examples of ways in which consciousness in non-human organisms has been demonstrated. People with highly developed intuitive abilities report that:

Consciousness is present in every living organism.

Single organisms are interconnected with all other members of their species. Trees, birds, worms, dolphins and all other living beings – not only humans – have their species-specific collective consciousness.

All of these can communicate telepathically with each other.

All of these - including humans - are part of the living ecobiological system we call Gaia, our home planet.

Furthermore, what humans have considered to be inanimate objects such as rocks and water also are conscious. More on this in a forthcoming blog entry.

Blessings

Dan Benor - WHEE MD