In the 1840s, Gustav Theodor Fechner championed the idea that plants have souls…
The more I read, the more I realize just how long humans have known about plant intelligence, but failed to acknowledge it. I can’t help buy wonder, “Why so much fear?”
In this fascinating article on AEON, Gustav Fechner proposed the revolutionary idea that plants possess a form of consciousness akin to what we call ‘mind’.
His work suggested that plants are sentient beings with interior lives that deserve serious consideration. He also believed that the body and soul were two sides of the same coin. For him, mind was consciousness, the conductive link between the physical and spiritual.
Years later, In The Claim of Reason (1979), Sanley Cavell wonders: how can we really know what’s going on in the minds of others?
He posited that humans were suffering from ‘soul-blindness’—a condition in which the sceptic ‘lack[s] the capacity to see [the richness of] human beings’. “This blindness, he implies, is rooted in our inability to embrace exteriority as sufficient evidence of rich interiority: ‘not to believe there is such a thing as the human soul is not to know what the human body is,’ wrote Cavell.”
To that, Fechner would add,
“…not to believe there is such a thing as a human soul is not to know what the plant body is. And not to believe there is such a thing as a plant soul is not to know what the human body is.“
For these philosophers, soul blindness and plant blindness were the same thing. And this makes so much sense to me!
This explains why my work with plants led me to coaching—to helping others fully embody what their soul desires in order to live their authentic life purpose.
By reflection, plants show us how to build an ecosystem where every being flourishes with their many different shapes and colors. To create a whole by expressing all parts of yourself, rather than limiting or holding back. It is a rich metaphor that brings me chills just thinking about it!
…maybe our loneliness and inability to become our authentic selves is soul-blindness. Skepticism fills Earth with exhausted selves—shadows of refused light unable to embody their greatness.
EXTRAORDINARY breakthroughs AWAIT when you overcome fears and let your most AUTHENTIC SELF emerge. And I want to help you blossom!
Ready to weave together all your passions
to evolve from who you are now into who you dream to be?
Take the assessment to find Your Ideal Mentorship Program