A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [141]
"At first they called primary perception 'the Backster Effect,' perhaps hoping they could trivialize the observations by naming them after this wild man who claimed to see things missed by mainstream science. The name stuck, but because primary perception can't be readily dismissed, it is no longer a term of contempt."
"What's the primary criticism by mainstream scientists?" "The big problem—and this is a problem as far as consciousness research in general is concerned—is repeatability. The events I've observed have all been spontaneous. They have to be. If you plan them out in advance, you've already changed them. It all boils down to a this: repeatability and spontaneity do not go together, and as long as members of the scientific community overemphasize repeatability in scientific methodology, they're not going to get very far in consciousness research.
"Not only is spontaneity important, but so is intent. You can't pretend. If you say you are going to burn a plant, but don't mean it, nothing will happen. I hear constantly from people in different parts of the country, wanting to know how to cause plant reactions. I tell them, 'Don't do anything special. Go about your work; keep notes so later you can tell what you were doing at specific times, and then compare them to your chart recording. But don't plan anything, or the experiment won't work.' People who do this often get equivalent responses to mine, and often win first prize in science fairs. But when they get to Biology 101, they're told that what they have experienced is not important.
"There have been a few attempts by scientists to replicate my experiments with brine shrimp, but these have all been methodologically inadequate. When they learned they had to automate the experiment, they merely went to the other side of a wall and used closed-circuit television to watch what occurred. Clearly, they weren't removing their consciousness from the experiment." Cleve paused, a rare event, then said, suddenly serious, "It is so very easy to fail at that experiment. And let's be honest: some of the scientists were relieved when they failed, because success would have gone against the body of scientific knowledge."
I said, "For scientists to give up predictability means they have to give up control, which means they have to give up Western culture, which means it's not going to happen until civilization collapses under the weight of its own ecological excesses."
He nodded, I'm not sure whether in agreement or thought, then said, "I have given up trying to fight other scientists on this, because I know that even if the experiment fails they still see things that change their consciousness. People who would not have said anything twenty years ago often say to me, I think I can safely tell you now how you really changed my life with what you were doing back in the early seventies.' These scicentists didn't feel they had the luxury back then to rock the boat; their credibility, and thus their grant requests, would have been affected."
Faced with what Backster was saying, I had several options, presumably the same options with which readers are faced concerning my interactions with coyotes. I could believe he is lying, as is everyone else who has ever made similar observations. I could believe that what he was saying is true, which would validate everything I have experienced but would require that the whole notion of repeatability in the scientific method be reworked, along with preconceived notions of consciousness, communication, perception, and so on. Or I could believe that he's overlooked some strictly mechanistic explanation. I said all this, then mentioned that I'd seen an account of one scientist who insisted there had to be a loose wire in his lie detector.
He responded, "In thirty-one years of research I've found all my loose wires. No, I can't see any mechanistic solution. Some parapsychologists believe I've mastered the art of psychokinesis—that I move the