Romans 8:22 says,

²² For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Most people have thought this was metaphorical, because only man has a consciousness of God. However, in 1966 Cleve Backster made a discovery which changes the way we think of nature—or at least plant life.

Backster began working with the newly-formed CIA on April 27, 1948 as part of their program to develop polygraph techniques to know if people were lying or telling the truth. He left in 1951 to become the director of the Keeler Polygraph Institute of Chicago and later started his own polygraph consulting business in Wash. D.C.

Plants Never Lie

By 1958 Backster had enough free time to do further polygraph research. In 1966 he made the most significant discovery ever, insofar as our purpose is concerned. His secretary had purchased a rubber plant and a dracaena cane plant for the office. On Feb. 2, 1966, after working at the lab through the night, he took a coffee break about 7:00 a.m. It was then that he got the unusual idea to hook up the polygraph to his new dracaena plant.

He was surprised that the plant recorded electrical activity that was jagged and not smooth or flat. It was constantly changing. About a minute later, he noticed that the polygraph showed the kind of electrical patterns resembling “fear of detection” in humans who had just been asked a question that made them afraid of being found telling a lie. It was as if the plant knew it had been discovered.

He tried dipping a leaf in the hot coffee and tapping another leaf, but got very little response. Then he had an idea. He would light a match and burn a leaf. The moment he thought this, the polygraph's recording pen spiked to the top of the chart. Surprised, Backster later confessed, “Gee, it's as though this plant read my mind!”

Further experiments showed that the threat had to be real in order for the plant to “scream.” If someone were just play-acting, the plant somehow knew this and would not react. But if the plant were convinced that the threat was real, it would react wildly, and every impulse was recorded on the polygraph. Backster also found that expressions of love and concern would calm the plant.

Another time a plant “screamed” whenever a certain man came near. He made his living mowing lawns.

Communication by the Spirit

He also discovered that once he had started to take care of the plant, it seemed to track his thoughts even when he was out of the lab. At one point he left the lab to run an errand, leaving the polygraph hooked up to the plant. When he returned, he noticed that the plant had reacted the moment he had decided to return. The plant did not need to wait to see him. It “knew” the moment he made the decision to return.

Backster soon appeared on various television talk shows, such as Johnny Carson and Art Linkletter. On one of the shows, the plant was asked, “Do you believe in God?” The plant showed an immediate reaction on the polygraph, showing that the plant did indeed acknowledge God. The audience was stunned.

Soon Backster began to monitor living cells (animal and human) and found that the cells also showed the same kind of reactions. He wired living cells with very thin gold wires. In 1988 Dr. Brian O'Leary left his own cells in a lab near San Diego to monitor carefully while he took a trip to Phoenix. When O'Leary missed a turn on the freeway, and when his son failed to meet him at the airport, and other stress-events, the cells reacted to his stress each time, though it was hundreds of miles away.

Vegetarians often avoid eating meat in order to live a “cruelty-free” diet. They may have to rethink their arguments. Whether they are vegetables or living cells in raw meat, they all “scream” when they are cooked or eaten. The stress is all measurable on the polygraph. However, Backster says, when you pray over your food, it has a calming effect, as it seems to understand its role in keeping us alive.

Scientists soon discovered that distance was meaningless in these experiments. All that was required was a “connection” between cells and person, such as, in Backster's case, owning and taking care of ”his” plant. Plant reactions were just as strong regardless of distance.

Further research showed that distance was not a factor. The communication was immediate. This showed that a spiritual link could be established.

The Unity of Creation

They discovered that plants would react to nearby animals who were in danger. Backster had decided to leave the polygraph wired to the plant all the time just in case something might occur that was unusual and interesting. One day he poured some hot water down the smelly, dirty sink at the lab in order to clean it. When all of the bacteria were dying, the plant “screamed.” So they dumped a pan of shrimp into hot boiling water to cook them, and again the plant “screamed.”

This shows that creation itself is interconnected in some way. In my view, everything is part of Creation and is made out of “God Particles.” God Himself feels everything, all the pain and all the pleasure, all the sin and all the good stuff that is going on in His Body. God, then, is the common denominator between all things. Distance does not matter, because God is spirit, and the spiritual realm recognizes no distance.

Further, we must recognize that we are not separate from creation but are intertwined with all things as in a single Body. Though sin and selfishness has divided us, these divisions are not permanent. It is a sickness, as described in Isaiah 1:5 and 6,

⁵ The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint, ⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.

But “there is a balm in Gilead (Jer. 8:22) that makes the wounded whole,” as the old hymn says. Neither is the pain permanent that God Himself feels in His Body throughout history. It all came out of Him, it is all going through Him, and ultimately, it all goes back to Him (Rom. 11:36). The reconciliation of all things is the moment when every particle of God's Body returns to full unity and pain-free harmony.

We are here to forgive, heal, and reconcile God's Body. That is what happens every time we care for someone else or resolve problems that divide us. Truth ought to be used to bring unification, not to divide further. This is what Paul meant in Eph. 4:15 and 16,

¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

In other words, truth in love is the key to healing the whole body, so that it is without division, and so that each individual part (organ and cell) works properly and can grow and build itself in love. Our growth is dependent upon this love, because not truth alone, but “truth in love” is the measure of spiritual growth.

To accomplish such spiritual growth in love, we need a new understanding of ourselves and the unity of all things. To know its origin as coming “out of” God and to know that in the end all things go back “to Him,” gives us the proper perspective for the interim of “through Him.” Our place in God's history—His Book of Life—will ultimately be measured by how well we healed, not how well we divided God's Body into good guys vs. bad guys.

Discerning good and evil (Heb. 5:14) is the ability to properly diagnose the illness, so that we know how to bring healing.

The Difference Between Soul and Spirit

Modern scientific research is showing that our thoughts and personality (who we are) are not necessarily centered in our brain. Thoughts appear to come from two sources, which biblically can be seen as soul and spirit.

It was in 1982 that I personally began to notice the distinction between the mind of my soul and the mind of my spirit. I “knew” things that my soulish mind did not believe from a doctrinal position. So the natural question was this: What part of me was thinking outside the box, outside the parameters of my familiar mind?

This occurred at the start of my quest to hear the voice of God for myself. I came to see that both the soul and the spirit had minds of their own. Later, I came to understand that both of these were distinct from the mind of my body, commonly known as the brain. In essence, I was a tripartite being: spirit, soul, and body (1 Thess. 5:23), and each of them had its own conscious mind.

Our brain runs the nervous system of our body. But there is also something known as “cellular memory.” This means that certain functions of the soul's mind (the carnal or natural mind of Scripture) are embedded in the cells of our organs—other than the brain. Hence, when doctors do heart transplants, the recipients of the new heart often experience changes in their personalities, habits, and many have memories that the heart donors had before they died. Some can be read here:

http://www.paulpearsall.com/info/press/3.html

My guess is that memories are stored in the DNA of each cell. When a heart transplant is done, the DNA of the donor is transplanted into the recipient, and with it comes certain memories and personality traits. These memories are perhaps shared by the DNA in the heart with the other DNA throughout the recipient's body.

Certainly, it appears that the heart DNA shares its memories with the recipient's brain. With two locations of memory and mind, it appears certain that we are seeing the difference between body and soul. Hence, I make a distinction between the brain—which is the body's mind—and the biblical “natural mind”—which is the soul's carnal mind.

What is the Source of Divine Knowledge?

In the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul discusses the distinction between the mind of the soul and that of the spirit. Of the brain, Paul has nothing to say, unless we mistakenly identify the soul with the brain. Paul holds up the Greeks as an example of dependence upon the soulish mind as the source of divine knowledge. Paul claims that the mind of the spirit is the true source of divine knowledge.

Greek culture and religion did not appear to make a clear distinction between soul and spirit, believing that the soul was spiritual. They taught a dichotomous nature of man: body and (spiritual) soul, whereas Paul used the sharp sword of the Word to divide soul and spirit (Heb. 4:12). He also personified both soul and spirit, picturing them as inner “men.” The soulish “man” is the first Adam; the spiritual “man” is Christ in you. 1 Cor. 2:14-16 says,

¹⁴ But a natural [psuchikos, “soulish”] man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are supernaturally appraised. ¹⁵ But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man. ¹⁶ For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

To the natural mind that we received from Adam, that is, the mind of the soul, the revelation of God coming through the spiritual mind is utter foolishness. For example, when God told Moses to put a tree into the bitter waters of Marah (Exodus 15:25), the solution appeared to be quite foolish to the natural mind. But it worked, not because the tree possessed some acidic qualities that neutralized the alkalinity of the water, but because the tree was a type of the cross of Christ, which makes the bitterness of the heart “sweet.”

In other words, the tree provided the solution by spiritual laws, not by “natural” laws. Both are, indeed, natural to God, and both sets of laws will be commonly known, understood, and utilized in those who receive the revelation knowledge of the Spirit of God via one's own human spirit. When these spiritual laws are utilized, miracles will be commonplace and soon be regarded as “natural” and a part of normal life.

Out of Body Experiences

There are times when one's spirit separates from the soul in what appears to be an odd midpoint between life and death. People call this an out-of-body experience. Some receive training to learn how to do this at will. Others experience it spontaneously through trauma, near-death experience, or by some other kind of shock.

Many have left their body during surgery, and they have watched the doctors work to bring them back to life. In such cases, I believe that it is their spirit (mind, consciousness) that separates from the body/soul that is dead. Those who have returned from such a state sometimes report seeing their surroundings, parents praying in the next room, and other things that would be impossible for them to observe while lying dead on an operating table.

Whatever we think about such things, one thing seems clear: there is a difference between the body and whatever conscious mind has separated from their body. Some would call it the soul, but I believe it is the spirit that has separated from the body. The soul is in the DNA and dies with the body.

Simple observation shows that the body dies and is put in the tomb. The Bible makes it clear that the soul does not survive the death of the body, for “the soul that sins will die” (Ez. 18:4). The DNA in our cells is too connected to the body to live apart from the body. Thus, the soul dies with the body.

There is no biblical statement, however, that proves the death of one's spirit. In fact, when we look at our great Example, Jesus Christ, we see that His body died and was put in the tomb (Matt. 27:60), His soul died and went to “the unseen” or the place of no perception, which is the literal meaning of hades (Acts 2:31), and His spirit returned to God (Luke 23:46; Eccl. 12:7). Death is a return, and each part of us returns to its point of origin.

The human spirit is our connecting link between heaven and earth. It is continually conscious of the realm of spirit, and those who enjoy a direct connection with Jesus Christ may receive direct revelation from Him at all times. It only requires learning to hear His voice and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, to whom our spirit is joined by the second baptism.

This does not mean that non-Christians are devoid of receiving revelation from Christ. Saul was not a believer when Jesus Christ revealed Himself on the Damascus Road in Acts 9. There are countless reports of divine appearances to those who do not know Christ as we do. All men possess a spirit and thus have access to God whether they realize it or not.

The Phantom Effect

It is my current opinion that the soul's mind and memory is stored in the DNA of every cell in our body. I would not presume to insist that the soul is actually located in the DNA, but it is plain that its memory is stored there. I believe it is the memory of the soul's mind.

Yet there is a higher force/power operating in us that is distinct from the DNA itself. I learned this from reading David Wilcock's book, The Source Field Investigations, published last August. He tells how Dr. Peter Gariaev made discoveries suggesting that the complete codes in DNA are located somewhere other than in the DNA itself.

He took DNA samples and put them in a small quartz container and shined a mild laser light on it. He observed it with very sophisticated equipment capable of detecting even single photons of light. He discovered that the DNA absorbed the photons like a sponge, rather than bouncing away or merely passing through it. The light was stored, not in the DNA itself, but in a DNA-like spiral above it.

The shock, however, came when the experiment ended. Dr. Gariaev moved the quartz container out of the way, and to his amazement, the light-spiral remained in the same spot as if the DNA were still there! As Wilcock says,

“Whatever was holding that light in place, it did not need the DNA molecule at all. It was something else. Something invisible. Something powerful enough to store and control visible light within the shape of the DNA molecule itself. The only rational scientific explanation is that there has to be an energy field that is paired up with the DNA molecule—as if DNA has an energetic 'duplicate.' This duplicate has the same shape as the physical molecule. . . It doesn't need the DNA molecule to be there in order for it to keep on doing its job—storing visible light. Some force, perhaps akin to gravity, is holding the photons in place.” [The Source Field Investigations, p. 161, 162]

Now, if nature teaches us the mind and ways of God, it seems to me that true science ought to teach us about spiritual things. It seems to me that at the very least, this discovery shows that there is a distinction between soul and spirit—seen in the distinction between the DNA and its “energetic duplicate.”

As David Wilcock pursued this discovery further, building upon it with later scientific discoveries, he showed that the vortex and helix shape of the DNA and its duplicate is the point where the two realms of matter/soul and spirit actually connect. It is the “Zero Point,” where one overcomes gravity, time, and space.

Wilcock then says,

“The implications of this are mind-boggling. . . . So, just by a simple extension of Gariaev's experiment, it is very likely that our entire body must have an energetic duplicate. . . we find out that perhaps the most important thing the DNA molecule does is store light—both in our physical body and in our energetic duplicate body as well. Obviously, conventional science is significantly in need of an overhaul.” [p. 162]

“And that's not all. When Gariaev blasted this Phantom with liquid nitrogen, which creates a sudden burst of great cold, the light spiral would disappear—but then it mysteriously returned after five to eight minutes. . . Even if you destroy the coherence in the area where the DNA Phantom had been, in this case by the sudden blast of cold, it will repair and restore that coherence once more.” [p. 162, 163]

This Phantom effect lasted up to 30 days, Dr. Gariaev found. What exactly is this energetic duplicate? In my view, this is just a scientific way of talking about our spirit and the realm of spirit. Wilcock called it “The Source Field.”