Polygraph expert who advocated the idea that plants were sensitive to human thoughts. Backster moved from his work with the Central Intelligence Agency to become director of a Polygraph Institute and then founder of the Cleve Backster School of Lie Detection in New York City. In the late 1960s he conducted a series of experiments to determine whether plants reacted to the destruction of living cells. Backster was building upon research conducted by Indian scientist Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose early in this century and more recent research that suggested that plants react to music and light. Backster raised the issue of the paranormal nature of plant sensitivity. In a paper published in the International Journal of Parapsychology in 1968, he concluded that he had demonstrated the existence of a primary perception (ESP) in plant life.
Based upon his early positive results, Backster received a large grant to found the Backster Research Foundation to continue to investigate plant sensitivity. During the early 1970s, there was some hope among Backster’s supporters that such research would provide a basis for affirming a “form of instantaneous communication among all living things that transcends the [presently known] physical laws.”