Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth

So brilliantly insightful and mind-changing that despite some problems, I have to give Plant Intelligence the top rating. It's in my short list of books that have jolted my thinking off its comfortable rails into whole new paradigms.First of all, Plant Intelligence is only sort of about plants. It's also sort of about psychedelic drugs. It's not quite a polemic against human technological progress (though it heads in that direction), and also not quite a theory of living systems. It's poetic, recursive, loosely-structured and passionate, and as a reader I found it challenging and highly rewarding.Buhner lays out in great and scientific detail some little-known characteristics of plant ecosystems and the microbiome of the earth. This forms the basis for the rest of the book, which is a long reverie on the connectedness of all self-organizing systems, among which humanity is absolutely not "supreme" or even in any way special. Plant systems have "brains," and interact with their changing environment by exactly the same means as "intelligent" animal species; the earth itself is a living being responding intelligently to its environment (Buhner cites James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis throughout the book); and the hubris that has driven humanity to its destructive practices will be no match for Gaia when Gaia shrugs its shoulders and brushes us off.Plant Intelligence was a slow read for me, because the scientific language demanded careful attention, and because I had to keep stopping to quote long, mind-blowing sections to friends and family. First there were vivid images of plant root systems all communicating via the same neurotransmitters our brains use. Then came the unsettling concept that humans aren't the free agents we think we are; we're really just working for the planet. (Bees, Buhner says by way of analogy, think they're collecting honey, and have no idea that they're pollinators).Next came awe as Buhner discussed how human creativity is only a response to the larger system eliciting something it needs from us. While this view says that free will is largely a fantasy, it also says that our creative works--our very lives--do have meaning and power whether or not other humans consciously know it. It abolishes in a single chapter the idea that only fame and fortune can validate our lives.Finally--and in what I felt was the weakest part of the book--Buhner lets loose his "barbarian" diatribe in favor of hallucinogenic drugs and against civilization. After spending some 400 pages building a beautifully spiraling idea structure, he seemed to lose sight of his own core idea, that humanity is just one (disposable) part of nature like all other parts. Instead, he regresses to the conventional notion that humanity and its technologies (particularly cities) are separate and uniquely bad, and that a libertarian, individualistic, back-to-the-land way of human life is somehow inherently "better" than urban life.Throughout the book, I was hoping he'd arrive at the logical conclusion, that cities are organic, natural structures arising in response to Gaia's promptings just as beehives and anthills and biofilms arose; and that the shamanic approach that he favors would apply equally to urban and "natural" environments. I had to sleep on his conclusions before realizing that my view (let's call it urban shamanism) is as likely to be valid as his, even though I haven't written a beautiful, challenging, poetic tome on the subject. Yet.On a final and more mundane note, Buhner's style poses some difficult editorial problems, and it's easy to imagine an editor just leaving most of it alone, but there are dozens of missing words, repeated phrases, and misspellings throughout the (Kindle edition) text that really should have been caught by a competent line-editor. This important book deserves better editing than it got.

I'm not even a quarter of the way through the book but wanted to write a review because I can't imagine this book losing stars as I continue to read... it's amazing!This book is so fascinating, in fact, I changed my syllabus a week ago to incorporate it into the curriculum. The students have browsed the book on Amazon and are already obsessing. We'll be reading it during our Shamanism + Plant Medicines unit in a "Poetry, World, and Spiritual Though" course. It fits in oh-so-perfectly.The writing style is multi-disciplinary, poetic, scientific, humorous, and curious. It's hard to read quickly, but you don't want to. It's the type of book that encourages meditative reverie and personal contemplation. Since my students come from all backgrounds (pre-med majors, liberal arts, architects, musicians, etc.) I think this book is a fantastic choice because there is truly something in it for everyone. The tone is welcoming and light but PACKED with hard-core information & observations about humans and our placement within an intelligent structure much grander than our mere selves.Like I said, I'm not even a quarter of the way through, so maybe the book will take a sharp turn and disappoint me, but I seriously doubt that.

This may be the most important book you'll read this decade. Maybe ever. It re-enforces things that many of us have intuitively believed for a long time, but it does it through cutting edge science that is completely blowing my mind. Do you sort of think that the gaia hypothesis is kind of true--you know, maybe on a mythical or metaphorical level? Do you want proof that it is absolutely, scientifically true? The science presented here is mind blowing, paradigm shifting. As the mystics and native medicine people have been telling us forever, everything is connected, everything is conscious and communicates with everything else, the earth is actually a conscious, continually evolving being of which we and every other living thing are interconnected expressions. We have the capacity to actually SENSE this, feel it, know it in the ways that all people used to know it, back before the current scientific paradigm--now too slowly changing--started to convince us that we are all separate beings, and the rest of the universe, including the rest of "nature", is basically mechanical and unconscious and cannot communicate with us. The author gives exercises for developing this other way of sensing that we all are capable of but have mostly had beaten and "educated" and conditioned out of us. I'm actually not quite done reading the book yet, but each chapter fills me with more amazement, more "aha, yes, YES!" moments. I'm ordering at least 2 more copies to give to others. This is an absolute must read book, one that COULD help us to pull back from the precipice we are currently hanging over. We won't destroy the planet, though we are currently doing it very serious harm. But we may succeed in getting ourselves eradicated as a sadly failed experiment that was ultimately too destructive to the rest of the living planet of which we are but one expression. There's no way I can say words to do this book justice. Just read it, I totally promise you will not be disappointed. It may change your life. It will absolutely astound you, unless you yourself are a cutting edge biologist--and possibly even then. Just read it.

It does what it says it does. How rare to find a book of science with literary distinction. You begin wherever you are and as you read this book the new ways of seeing things slowly pile up.Come on in. The water’s fine.

No he conseguido leer más que unas pocas páginas. Yo esperaba un libro acerca de los vegetales y centrado en cuestiones de la vida vegetyy animal, pero parece un libro centrado en el autor y su vida, y aunque trata de los seres vivos lo hace con la actitud de asentar o defender una postura y de forma literaria con muchas citas de diversos autores de literatura... No lo he soportado.

This book is a blessing and I thank you for writing it. The information it contains is valuable beyond everyone's dearest imagination yet. Thank you for raising the collective awareness!

I just finished reading this book and I am already missing its company. Reading this book was like going on a journey, a journey deep inside myself and into the heart of the Earth. Honestly, I don't remember the last time a book captivated me like this one did. While reading it I felt like I was transported into another world, a world full of mystery and wonder, a world that seemed so far away from the mundane everyday-happenings around me and yet I knew that all this was taking part around me at this very moment. The book fills you with a sense of awe of being alive on this beautiful planet, it makes you feel like a child again, fascinated by the world and wanting to engage with it and explore it.Even though I have enjoyed this book immensely, I can't say that I agree with all of Stephen Buhner's opinions. At one point he states that the current state of the earth, the environmental destruction etc. is simply a "season" of the earth, part of a cycle. It is, according to him, "autumn" now and earth is decomposing and decaying, but spring will come again and all will be well again. Hm. I don't know, maybe I need to expand my mind, but to me, the environmental crisis that the earth is in at the moment isn't "natural" or "meant to be".Despite this, I would recommend this book without hesitation. It isn't for everyone though - if you are someone who believes that humans are "above" every other being on Earth and unwilling to change your thinking, this book will probably just upset you. You are, as Buhner sais, probably better off reading Dawkins.But for all those with an open heart and mind who feel a deep connection with the Earth and who know that we humans are only a small part of a much bigger story: Get this book and enjoy the journey!

stephen assists me to remember my place as a cell of the organism humanity, and its being a layer in the biospheric wonder of our living planet and how we might ponder the workings of the intelligent aware living fractals of life, and these living fractals of intelligent awareness are myself, my species, my planet,and the universe. Crikie how did we as fellow members of our human family forget our being a part of nature. We aren't people standing on a planet we are inherently and inticately a part of it. Thankyou Stephen