Corn Whisperers? Seeds Respond to Healing Touch
Can healing touch help damaged plants recover faster?
Imagine a healer placing their hands over injured corn seeds, attempting to help them recover through therapeutic touch alone. In 1992, researchers Bush and Geist decided to test whether this ancient healing practice could actually work on plants—organisms that can't be influenced by placebo effects or suggestion. They deliberately damaged corn seeds with salt water, then had practitioners perform therapeutic touch to see if the seeds would germinate better than untreated controls. But the researchers suspected something might be interfering with previous studies that claimed to show healing effects.
Therapeutic touch showed no healing effect on salt-damaged corn seeds.
In 1992, researchers Bush and Geist tackled a persistent question in parapsychology: can therapeutic touch actually heal living things? Previous studies had suggested that human touch might help plants recover from damage, but the researchers suspected these results might be due to uncontrolled electromagnetic effects rather than genuine psychic healing.
When researchers added proper electromagnetic controls to therapeutic touch experiments, the apparent healing effects on damaged corn seeds disappeared.
Key Findings
- When proper electromagnetic controls were in place, the therapeutic touch showed no benefit for the damaged corn seeds.
- The seeds that received healing touch recovered at the same rate as the untreated control seeds, suggesting that any positive effects seen in previous studies might have been due to uncontrolled electromagnetic influences rather than genuine psychokinetic healing.
What Is This About?
The researchers damaged corn seeds with salt water, then had practitioners perform therapeutic touch on some of the seeds while leaving others untreated as controls. Crucially, they added electrical and magnetic monitoring equipment to detect any electromagnetic fields that might be influencing the results. This was important because human bodies naturally produce weak electromagnetic fields, and these could potentially affect plant growth without involving any psychic phenomena.
Researchers tested whether therapeutic touch could help salt-damaged corn seeds recover, while controlling for electromagnetic effects that might create false positive results.
Corn seeds that received therapeutic touch showed no significant improvement in recovery from salt damage compared to untreated seeds.
How Good Is the Evidence?
The study found no significant difference between treated and untreated seeds, meaning the healing touch effect was essentially zero - compared to some earlier plant studies that had reported 10-20% improvement rates.
Supporters of therapeutic touch argue that this single study doesn't disprove the phenomenon and that the electromagnetic controls might have interfered with subtle energy fields. Skeptics point to this as evidence that previous positive results were likely due to uncontrolled physical factors rather than psychic healing. Both sides agree that better experimental controls are needed, though they disagree on what constitutes adequate control for subtle energy effects.
Mainstream: This study shows that apparent psychokinetic effects disappear when proper physical controls are implemented, suggesting electromagnetic artifacts explain previous positive results. Moderate: The study raises important methodological concerns but doesn't definitively rule out therapeutic touch, which may work through mechanisms not yet understood. Frontier: Electromagnetic monitoring might interfere with subtle energy healing processes, and the study design may not be sensitive enough to detect genuine but delicate psychokinetic effects.
Many people assume that if plants seem to respond to human presence, it must be due to some mysterious psychic connection. However, humans naturally emit electromagnetic fields, heat, carbon dioxide, and other physical influences that can affect plant growth through normal biological mechanisms.
To settle this question, we'd need multiple independent replications with electromagnetic controls, larger sample sizes, pre-registered protocols, and blinded assessment of plant recovery. This study meets the electromagnetic control criterion but lacks the other elements needed for definitive conclusions.
therapeutically touched corn seeds did not recover from saline injury significantly better than untreated controls
Stance: Skeptical
What Does It Mean?
The idea that healing touch could work on plants—organisms with no psychology to influence—opens up mind-bending questions about the nature of consciousness and its potential effects on living systems. Even more fascinating is the possibility that what we interpret as 'psychic' phenomena might actually be undiscovered electromagnetic interactions happening right under our noses.
This is like testing whether talking to your houseplants helps them grow, but making sure to account for whether your breath, body heat, or the vibrations from your voice might be the real cause of any changes you observe.
If these findings hold up across different experimental contexts, they suggest that many reported psychokinetic healing effects might be artifacts of inadequate experimental controls rather than genuine paranormal phenomena. This could reshape how researchers approach consciousness-matter interaction studies, demanding more sophisticated control conditions. However, it also raises intriguing questions about whether some healing practices might work through subtle electromagnetic mechanisms that we're only beginning to understand.
This study demonstrates the importance of controlling for confounding variables - factors that might explain your results through normal mechanisms rather than the phenomenon you're trying to test.
Understanding Terms
What This Study Claims
Findings
Therapeutically touched corn seeds did not recover from saline injury significantly better than untreated controls
moderateMethodology
Electrical and magnetic controls are necessary to assess their potential confounding effects in psychokinesis research
moderateInterpretations
Previous psychokinesis experiments may have produced electromagnetic field effects that led to erroneous conclusions
weakLimitations
Failure to control for electromagnetic explanations may produce artifacts in psychic healing studies of living systems
moderateThis summary is for general information about current research. It does not constitute medical advice. The scientific interpretation of these results is debated among researchers. If personally affected, please consult qualified professionals.