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+---
+created: 2025-07-23
+updated: 2025-07-23
+title: Cleve Backster
+tags:
+  - person
+  - CIA
+  - polygraph
+  - researcher
+description: Cleve Backster was a former CIA polygraph expert known for his experiments on plant sentience and his theory of "primary perception."
+---
+
+[[Cleve Backster]] was a former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] polygraph expert and interrogation specialist. He is known for his controversial experiments on plant sentience and his theory of "primary perception," which suggested that plants have consciousness and can respond to human thoughts and intentions.[^1]
+
+In 1966, Backster conducted an experiment where he attached polygraph electrodes to a plant and observed its responses to his thoughts, including the intention to harm it. He claimed the plant showed a measurable reaction, leading him to believe in a form of [[ESP]] in plant life. He published his findings as "Evidence of a Primary Perception in Plant Life," which became the subject of the bestselling book *The Secret Life of Plants*.[^1]
+
+Backster's work, while widely criticized by mainstream scientists for lacking scientific rigor, caught the attention of [[Hal Puthoff]], who was interested in exploring the boundaries of [[Animate Physics]]. Backster also conducted experiments with [[Ingo Swann]], who later became a key figure in the [[STARGATE PROJECT|Stargate Project]].[^1]
+
+---
+
+[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.