Greetings fellow Bioneers!
This week, join us as we dive into scientist Monica Gagliano’s groundbreaking research on plant intelligence, and explore Michael Pollan’s new book, How to Change Your Mind, which highlights the potential far-reaching benefits of psychedelics, both natural and manmade.
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The Big Question: Plant Smarts
Plant intelligence is a hot-button topic in the scientific community, and Monica Gagliano has made it a central tenet of her career. To better understand if and how plants respond to stimuli in their environment and whether or not they learn from it, Gagliano ran a series of tests with a pea plant, a blue light, and a fan. She first studied the plant’s response to the light and the fan individually, taking note of how the plant grew toward the light when it was turned on, but ignored the fan. Then, she tested the plant’s reaction when both were used simultaneously after a period of time. Eventually, by merely turning on the fan, the plant would start to grow sideways in anticipation of the light being turned on too. What classic experiment inspired this study? (Read to the bottom of the email to find the answer.)
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Wise Words
“By merely asking the question about plant voice, we set ourselves free from the preconceived notion that construes plants as inevitably voiceless, and we open to observe plants as they behave and truly discover the reality we share. That’s right, because voice is an intersubjective affair. Voice exists in the place of relation, the space between the self and the other, and it is what we bring to our encounters with plants that defines the quality of our communicative rendezvous—who we allow to speak (or silence).”
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Video to Watch: Psychedelics & Consciousness
Michael Pollan’s recent book How To Change Your Mind surveys the highly controversial terrain of the renaissance of both the science and popular usage of psychedelic substances. As one of our most brilliant and clear-eyed explorers of such topics as plant intelligence and how we feed ourselves, Michael shares his luminous insights from what began as investigative reportage and became a very personal interior journey into the mystery of consciousness and the nature of spirituality at this perilous moment when only a shift in human consciousness can alter the deadly trajectory of our societies. |
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This Week on Bioneers Radio & Podcast
Are plants intelligent? If we knew their language, what might they tell us? Potawatomi Indigenous ecologist and author Robin Kimmerer and evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano merge Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western science for a surprising trip into the minds of mosses and chili seeds and the songs of corn. They agree what we really need today is a revolution in values, an “Honorable Harvest” of gratitude and reciprocity with our plant kin.
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Help Bioneers Continue This Important Work
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Book to Read: How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Perhaps no author is better positioned to bring the renaissance of psychedelics into the homes of millions of readers than Michael Pollan. Well-known for his research, talks, and best-selling writings on food, its effects on the body, and its place in society, Pollan enters new territory with How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Penguin Press, 2018). Following is an excerpt from the book’s prologue in which Pollan discusses the potential of psychedelic drugs and how his research inspired him to delve deeper.
Today, after several decades of suppression and neglect, psychedelics are having a renaissance. A new generation of scientists, many of them inspired by their own personal experience of the compounds, are testing their potential to heal mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, trauma, and addiction. Other scientists are using psychedelics in conjunction with new brain-imaging tools to explore the links between brain and mind, hoping to unravel some of the mysteries of consciousness.
One good way to understand a complex system is to disturb it and then see what happens. By smashing atoms, a particle accelerator forces them to yield their secrets. By administering psychedelics in carefully calibrated doses, neuroscientists can profoundly disturb the normal waking consciousness of volunteers, dissolving the structures of the self and occasioning what can be described as a mystical experience. While this is happening, imaging tools can observe the changes in the brain’s activity and patterns of connection. Already this work is yielding surprising insights into the “neural correlates” of the sense of self and spiritual experience. The hoary 1960s platitude that psychedelics offered a key to understanding—and “expanding”—consciousness no longer looks quite so preposterous.
How to Change Your Mind is the story of this renaissance. Although it didn’t start out that way, it is a very personal as well as public history. Perhaps this was inevitable. Everything I was learning about the third-person history of psychedelic research made me want to explore this novel landscape of the mind in the first person too—to see how the changes in consciousness these molecules wrought actually feel and what, if anything, they had to teach me about my mind and might contribute to my life. Read more here.
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Learn More: Plant Consciousness & Psychedelics
This eye-opening media collection of dynamic talks and panel discussions from the Bioneers Conference archive offers an expansive view of the power of sacred vision-inducing and consciousness-altering plants and other “psychedelic” (“mind manifesting”) substances. Since the 1991 Bioneers Conference, many of the luminaries in this field have explored this controversial area: the mysteries of plant intelligence and of consciousness itself. Check out the series now and immerse yourself in podcasts, videos, and more. |
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What We’re Tracking:
- Last week, the Senate of Ireland passed the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill, requiring the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund to sell off hundreds of millions in investments in coal, oil, gas, and peat assets over the next five years. This puts Ireland on track to be the first country to divest from fossil fuels. (Lorrain Chow via EcoWatch)
- The French public financial institution Caisse des dépôts et consignations, which manages €150 billion in assets, announced today that starting in 2019 it will no longer invest in companies with more than 10% of its business in coal. (via Fossil Free)
After decades of suppression, Alaska’s governor warns that its Native American languages—and others around the world—are in danger of extinction. Here’s a look at what led to this “linguistic emergency,” why theses languages are important, and what’s being done to preserve them. (Rosalyn R. LaPier via The Conversation) - Remember reading about the rise of “victory gardens” during World War II in your history textbooks? Now, the nonprofit Green America is encouraging the practice once again—this time as a way to fight climate change by raising awareness about regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration. (Deonna Anderson via Yes!)
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The Big Question, Answered: Plant Smarts
Many people are familiar with Ivan Pavlov’s study of classical conditioning, in which he discovered that a dog could learn that the sound of a bell meant food was soon to be served. It would therefore start salivating each time it heard the bell. More than a century after Pavlov and his dogs first studied this theory, Monica Gagliano found that plants are intelligent enough to associate a biological need (the light) with an environmental stimuli (the fan) and respond with a behavior (growing toward the light). Read more about Gagliano’s research with classical conditioning and plant intelligence in her keynote address from Bioneers 2018. |
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