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Witches and apothecaries have been aware of the mysterious and magical properties of plants and flowers for centuries, using them for healing and magic spells. Plants have a personality and individuality, they go through phases and moods just like people, sometimes they are active, other times inactive. It is thought that before a tree is chopped down it actually experiences fear, some plants and flowers are more sensitive than others and react to people’s energy and words.
Flowers and plants feel the energy of love and all plants thrive in a calm and happy environment, they especially enjoy music and have varied tastes depending on what species they are, the emotion they release is dictated by their surroundings. They have auras and react to people’s moods, becoming tense if around loud or erratic energies, they have an awareness and feel empathy. Tests were conducted in the 70’s, the discovery was that when plants were subjected to undue stress they fainted, and remained non responsive for a time.

In October 1970 an article was published in Russia proclaiming that plants talk, they not only talk they scream, they stoically bare pain and accept misfortune. It was written in the article, that a barley sprout attached to very sensitive electronic equipment, cried out when its roots were plunged into hot water. This sound was registered by the electronic instrument attached to the barley sprout, also revealed was a “bottomless vale of tears.” on a broad paper band. The recording pen zigzagged crazily out on the white track documenting the agonizing death throws of the barley sprout. Some kind of brain cells within were telling those conducting the experiment what was happening.

Professor Ivan Isidogovich Gunar, was head of a Plant Physiology Department, and along with his staff conducted hundreds of experiments on plants, these confirmed the presence of electrical impulses in plants similar to the nerve impulses in man. Professor Gunar talked about plants and their distinguishing habits, characteristics and proclivities. He seemed to have the ability to converse with them. A former engineer, Leonid A. Panishkin, became Gunar’s chief assistant. When asked why he gave up technology to work on plants alongside Gunar in his laboratory, he said. “Well there I used to be involved with metallurgy, here there is life.” It seems that plants also have short term memory.

In Bengal India, off the Acharya Prafullachandra Road, north of Calcutta University there are some buildings made of gray and purple sandstone. The main one is the Indian Temple of Science. Inside this temple there are glass cases which contain instruments that were devised more than fifty years ago, to measure the growth and behavior of plants by magnification processes up to 100 million times. Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose who built the Institute of research and its gardens, his would could not be accurately evaluated before he was so far in advance of his time.

Bose travelled to Europe in 1914, his fourth scientific journey, in England Bose conducted an experiment using his highly sensitive instruments, the specimens he tested were Mimosa pudica and Desmodium gyrons. In his demonstrations at Cambridge and Oxford, the audience was shown how a plant that was touched on one side would shiver and react on the other.

Rudolf Jakob Damerarius, a German professor of medicine and director of the botanical gardens at Tubingen, published a book in 1694, he was the first botanist to reveal that flowering plants have sex and that pollen is necessary for fertilization and seed formation. He stated that plants have female organs in the form of vulva, vagina, uterus and ovaries, serving the same functions as they do in women, as well as male organs in the form of penis, and testes, designed to sprinkle the air with billions of spermatozoa. And like animals and women, flowers exude a powerful and seductive odor when ready for mating, triggering bees, birds and butterflies to join in these rites. Flowers that are not fertilized will emit a strong fragrance for up to eight days, or until the plant withers, once the flower is impregnated the powerful fragrance ceases.

In the mid 1900’s Gustav Theodor Fechner came to a profound understanding that plants possessed a soul and had undreamed of sensitivity, he believed that all things in different ways express a cosmic soul. He thought it was just a likely that “plant people”, rooted to the spot and living their serene lives, might be wondering why humans were rushing around all the time. Just as there are souls running and leaping and screeching, there are likely to be souls which bloom in calm and stillness, exhaling fragrance satisfying their thirst with dew. All this while communicating with each other by the perfume they exude, and becoming aware of each other through their senses, just as people recognize each other by voice, flowers recognize each other by scent.

In the twentieth century, Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, an electrician and amateur photographer, and his wife, Valentina, built a laboratory in the corner of their small apartment. One evening they made the discovery that allowed them to photographically reproduce (with neither lense nor camera), an otherworldly luminescence which emanated from all living things, but could not be detected by the naked eye. A plant specialist from Moscow sought the couple out, appearing as a stranger at their apartment and asking them if they could make photographs of the strange energy, which he had heard only they could make visible on film. The man then handed them what appeared to be two identical leaves and they began their work immediately he left that evening, staying up until the early hours of the morning working. They were disappointed to find that only one leaf produced viable energy flares from its leaves, from the other a barely discernable energy.

They showed what they assumed was a poor result to the scientist, he was ecstatic with the results shouting “but you’ve found it, you’ve proven it photographically!” The scientist then explained to the couple that although the leaves looked identical, one had been plucked from a diseased plant, and the other from a healthy specimen. The pictures taken by the couple clearly differentiated between the two specimens, illness actually manifest in a plant’s energy field before its physical body showed symptoms.

For centuries philosophers and seers alleged that plants, animals and human beings, have fields of photoplasmic energy which permeate the solid physical bodies of molecules and atoms. In ancient iconography, the “aura” depicted around the bodies of saints, with golden halos around the head, has been claimed by those with the psychic gift since historical documentation began. The Kirlians discovered how to photograph an aura, by placing film in contact with an object they wished to photograph. They then passed through the object an electric current from a high frequency spark generator, which put out 75,000 to 200,000 electrical pulses per second.

When leaves were placed with film between the electrodes of their device, a micro-universe of tiny starry points of light were revealed. Emanating out of what looked to be channels in the leaves were white, blue, red and yellow flares. These force fields around a leaf became distorted if the leaf was damaged, diminishing and disappearing as the leaf died. The Kirlians found that rays of energy and swirling fireball of light shot out of plants into space.

It was some years before Russia showed interest in the astounding work of the Kirlians. In 1968 a scientific paper was written, based on the work of the Kirlians, by Professor Vladimir Inyushin, while working with several of his colleagues in Russia. Inyushin went a step further than Kirlian, who believed the strange energy in his pictures was caused by “changing the non-electrical properties of bodies into electrical properties which are transferred to film.” Professor Inyushin and his collaborators declared that the bioluminescence visible in Kirlian pictures was not caused by the electrical state of the organism, but by “biological plasma body,” a new word for the “astral” or “etheric” body of the ancients.

During six years researching Kirlian photography, Professor Inyushin discovered that specific areas of the human body revealed characteristic colours which may prove significant in the diagnosis of illness. The clearest photographs were taken at four o’clock in the afternoon, the worst photographs at midnight. Inyushin believed that his “bioplasma” body, was the “aura” or the “astral” body.

The research of Viktor Adamenko and other Soviet scientist determined that the “bioplasma” undergoes a drastic shift when placed in a magnetic field. And that it is concentrated at hundreds of points in the human body, which correspond to the ancient Chinese system of acupuncture points. These points were mapped as paths by the Chinese thousands of years ago, they discovered seven hundred points on the human skin, where a life force exists and circulates. The Chinese insert needles at these points to cure disease and correct imbalances in the energy flow. The Kirlian light was the most brilliant in the spots on the human body that correlated with the acupuncture points the Chinese had mapped. Kirlian photography continues to be used, particularly by those involved in occult practices.

The well-known Austrian natural scientist and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner believed that cosmic etheric forces must exist if only by the fact that some plants will only germinate in the spring, no matter what amounts of heat and water are given to them during other times of the year.

Flowers can be a symbol of happiness and sadness, flowers and death are synonymous, with a history of use on graves and in funerals. They also celebrate the birth of a new soul, a small baby coming into the world about to embark on a journey of discovery. The scent of a flower can take you back to a time of sadness or happiness. We use flowers as a part of many rituals, the sight and smell of flowers in the home always evokes a feeling of wellbeing. In our day to day life flowers are used naturally and they are seen as a symbol of life, they are beautiful and they are fragile. There are many myths and superstitions about flowers, if you plant flowers on the evening of a new Moon it is lucky and the ancient Egyptians believed that giving flowers would bring them good luck. If a flower is removed from the site of a grave and thrown away, the place where the flower lands will be haunted ever after. Always give red flowers to someone who is ill as red represents life and healthy red blood cells, under no circumstances give white flowers to a sick person it is back luck. Giving a flower to someone you care about is a loving gesture and there is an art to choosing the right flower for that person.

During Victorian times flower giving was particularly symbolic, due to strict social guidelines emotions and thoughts could not readily be expressed between men and women. They relied on communication using elaborately created symbolism in the form of flowers. A language that all men and women, courting or otherwise, understood. Succint messages, conveyed as eloquently as the spoken word were sent via flowers. Thoughts, feelings and emotions were understood by the recipient depending on what type of flower was sent, whether there was a bunch of flowers or a single flower. Everything that could be adorned with flowers during the Victorian era, was, the home, wallpaper, jewellery, stationary, crockery, hair, clothing.

Adding to the elaborate language of flowers was the significance of their scent, instead of a gift of flowers, a scented handkerchief could be sent. For a woman to drop a scented handkerchief purposely in close proximity to a man was considered quite seductive. The first book written on flower symbolism in modern times was in 1819, it was titled Le Language des Fleurs, and it was by Madame Charlotte de la Tour.

In modern times flowers are still sent to those who are ill, or recovering from an accident or ailment. To welcome the birth of a baby or celebrate a marriage, to mourn a death or offer congratulations. They are given for birthdays, anniversaries, housewarming, to celebrate holidays and as a simple gesture of friendship. The modern world takes less notice of the symbolism of flowers than they did in times gone by. In contrast the tradition of girls being named after flowers is as popular these days as it ever was, and has existed in many cultures throughout time. Some of the names used are Fern, Primrose, Violet, Jasmine, Poppy, Lily, Rose, Holly, Heather, Lavender, Ivy, Iris, Fleur, Daisy and Willow named after the willow tree, many of which are found in Devon, in the South of England.

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