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Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants

Monica Gagliano (Goodreads Author)

3.75 · Rating details · 244 ratings · 57 reviews

An accessible and compelling story of a scientist's discovery of plant communication and how it influenced her research and changed her life.

In this "phytobiography"--a collection of stories written in partnership with a plant--research scientist, Monica Gagliano, reveals the dynamic role plants play in genuine first-hand accounts from her research into plant communication ...more

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Paperback, 176 pages

Published November 13th 2018 by North Atlantic Books

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Start your review of Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants

Mar 31, 2019 ashes ➷ rated it did not like it

DNFed after chapter 1; only made it that far because I was sure the whole book couldn't be what it seemed to be in the first 17 pages. It was.

Here's the first chapter: Gagliano has some prophetic dreams and goes to South America, where she smokes the bark of a tree who apparently tells her the uses of said tree. She sees vague red shapes and the phrase 'everything is connected' and thinks, ah! everything connected by blood! This was already quite a leap for me, to assume that this was somehow co DNFed after chapter 1; only made it that far because I was sure the whole book couldn't be what it seemed to be in the first 17 pages. It was.

Here's the first chapter: Gagliano has some prophetic dreams and goes to South America, where she smokes the bark of a tree who apparently tells her the uses of said tree. She sees vague red shapes and the phrase 'everything is connected' and thinks, ah! everything connected by blood! This was already quite a leap for me, to assume that this was somehow communicating with plants, but of course she assures the reader that she had problems too, and later, the tree reveals (through, again, vague imagery and dreamlike concepts) that... blood and oxygen have a relationship. To a scientist who, I believe, already had a PhD before this. Really? She then claims that this tree 'taught' her that blood carries oxygen throughout the body. I have no idea how that is possible given that 1) the tree did not directly say anything, it '''sent''' her colors while she was high off its bark, 2) she derived the conclusions herself from said messages, and 3) any scientist would have already known this. Hell, I knew that. This is fourth grade biology anyone could draw out of their subconscious mind, and Gagliano is passing it off as plant communication?

"Oryngham," a small fern tells her (again, while she's high.) "That is the plant word for thank you."

Is it? Is it really? A word easily pronounceable in English? And, hell, why would that be the word? Why not have the word be something plants actually demonstrably do, like a change in chemicals or a shift in the wind or, hell, noises plants actually do make? How the hell is this specific word a 'thank you' when nobody has ever heard it from a plant? Am I seriously the only one who cannot comprehend why in the hell anyone is rating this highly?

Received from a Goodreads giveaway; obviously that hasn't affected my thoughts on the book. I was absolutely prepared to hear, based on scientific reasoning, why plants are actually conscious and capable of communication (because I do believe they could be, if not are) but Gagliano makes no attempt to bridge the gap between her stoned ramblings and the understandably skeptical audience. All I can say is please don't attempt to pass this book off as 'science'. ...more

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Nov 24, 2018 Simon Leadbeater rated it it was amazing

I have never read a book like this before, but that is to Monica Gagliano’s great credit. Her book makes a profound and iconoclastic statement, challenging most of our preconceptions about what science is.

How the author carries out her work, and indeed lives her life, is as fascinating as it is inspirational. Throughout her scientific career she has been guided by plant spirits – whom she encounters with the help of different shamans, through dieta, that is, ingesting parts of a plant initially I have never read a book like this before, but that is to Monica Gagliano’s great credit. Her book makes a profound and iconoclastic statement, challenging most of our preconceptions about what science is.

How the author carries out her work, and indeed lives her life, is as fascinating as it is inspirational. Throughout her scientific career she has been guided by plant spirits – whom she encounters with the help of different shamans, through dieta, that is, ingesting parts of a plant initially under supervision but later alone, and a ‘vision quest,’ in which she has to lie still fasting for four days up a mountain in California. These plant spirits practically dictate how to set up Gagliano’s experiments which, for example, demonstrate associative learning in garden peas and that corn kernels emit ‘chirpy clicks’ to others, who modify their behaviour upon hearing them. It is not an exaggeration to say these findings should completely change how we view plants, from passive, insensate, inferior even, to active, communicative, volitional beings.

Some readers may well think this is too fantastical to be true, but Gagliano’s book tells us that we all can be so much more – if only we listened to plants and became who we always have been from the beginning, by ‘de-educating’ ourselves from the mind-forged manacles laid down by Aristotle and reinforced over the centuries - leading us to be infinitely poorer as individuals and a species, and resulting in the ecological collapse of the world around us.

I have a number of overwhelming impressions. First, that Dr Gagliano is an incredibly courageous person. She is very brave just to study plant sentience and to travel to parts of the world most of us wouldn’t. My second impression is the importance of what the author is trying to communicate; I too wonder whether the evidence presented by Gagliano – and others such as Suzanne Simard (who wrote Thus Spoke the Plant’s foreword), Peter Wohlleben, Matthew Hall, Stefano Mancuso, and philosophers such as Michael Marder, will create a new paradigm in which plant sentience is accepted and valued rather than scorned. My third and perhaps greatest impression, is that while this is a book about plants it is most certainly is also about our relationship with them and hence about ourselves.

Did I find some of Gagliano’s metaphysics challenging, yes, and I will need to re-read this book in order to gain a better understanding. But I also find Dr Gagliano’s scientific papers (of which there are around 60 and counting, excluding edited books) difficult; but this is emphatically a reflection on me not the author. I think Gagliano’s ultimate message is that to be heard plants need a “commitment to a nonhierarchical respect, a space of communion in which we come to understand the world and the pathway toward understanding each other.” This, Gagliano says, is only the beginning. Perhaps so, but what a radical refreshing new start this would be. ...more

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Aug 24, 2019 Erika Shaw rated it it was ok

I found this book in the Science/Nature section of a local bookstore. That is a little misleading. This book would be more suited for Religion/Spirituality. I was hoping for a book more about research in to plant intelligence and consciousness and that maybe makes up 20% of this book. Monica Gagliano does report on some interesting experiments that she conducted. But 80% of this book is telling of dreams, visions and realizations that Gagliano experiences after visiting Shamans and performing ri ...more

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Nov 13, 2018 Frauke Sandig rated it it was amazing

Monica Gagliano is one of the very rare authors who have the courage and take the risk to unify thorough and solid scientific investigation with a spiritual outlook on the great mysteries of the world. A world where plants see, hear, communicate, learn and remember - which Gagliano demonstrates in mind-boggling experiments in her university's biological laboratories - but also communicate with the human to give advice, guidance and healing in visions and dreams.

By listening to the plants, Monica ...more

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Dec 30, 2020 Alison rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science

It is a shame that this book is *so bad*, because I think that research should have a place for Gagliano, whose research into sound wave influence on pea plants is really significant (which is what brought me to this book). And it is obvious from this book that this is because she brings a different set of assumptions than the field is used to (and that she applies a toolkit learned from behavioural studies into marine life). And trying things differently can be a very good thing. BUT - just bec ...more

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Sep 18, 2019 Michael rated it it was amazing

I first hear of Ms Gagliano at a Global Talks workshop at WOMADELAIDE in March. She was on a panel with 3 other scientists dong cutting edge research on non-animal intelligence. I came away finding her very articulate, bravely embracing this new scientific field she was pioneering against a lot of resistance. As her book quickly sold out, I had to wait until her appearance at the NT Writers Festival in Alice Springs in May. At this time, she was able to elaborate more on her research, having mor ...more

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Nov 18, 2018 S Laborde rated it it was amazing

This is a beautiful and mind-opening book that tells the story of the author’s uncompromising search for deep truths, through both scientific and spiritual pathways. It’s a fun and informative book about the life sciences and plant intelligence, as well as a deeply reflexive, poetic and spiritual text. Its magic I think is that it links the author's scientific breakthroughs with the experiences and conversations with plants that have shaped her intuition, imagination and way of being - including ...more

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Mar 18, 2019 Rachel rated it did not like it

I did not like this book. The idea was fascinating, and I would totally love to read about this sort of thing-- if it was written in a manner that made any sense at all. The author didn't really seem to be trying to make any sort of scientific sense, and I don't think that letting go of all prior prejudice and skepticism, as she suggests, is a legitimate way of looking at things. At that point you may as well just believe anything anyone tells you. The way this book was written just didn't sit w ...more

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Jul 20, 2019 Hank Edson rated it it was amazing

I would not impose on you, Ms. Gagliano, the traditional label of the well of wisdom from which I seek to drink, but everything you say makes me say, “I agree,” though whereas I seek to drink, you clearly have drunk deeply already. This book is a work of art, a major contribution to science, a precious seed for a culture worthy of Gaia’s Eden, a philosophical, political, ethical treatise and an intimate confession and diary demonstrating the dense richness that is the hallmark of the genius of n ...more

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Nov 14, 2018 Greenmantis rated it did not like it

Garbage....

Presently, anyone can write and edit a "book" and Mrs. Gagliano small opus is a very good example of it.

If you want to learn anything about plants, this "book" will teach nothing.

This "book" contains a collection of mumbo-jumbo conjectures and musing about plants....that's all there is to it. I guess one needs to be stoned or drunk to appreciate the insights about the plant world as given by the author. ...more

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Dec 28, 2018 Lynette Murphy rated it did not like it

This book was definitely not for me. It seems to me the author's only way to communicate with plants was to get drunk or high. I couldn't see anything scientific about any of it. ...more

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Jan 21, 2019 Jay rated it it was amazing

The most important book I've read this century ...more

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Nov 25, 2020 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: reference, nonfiction, 2020

First off, let me say that this book is more than a bit woo woo. So if you don't want to read about the author communing with plants, you should stay far away.

I myself found these accounts of interest. Beyond these accounts, though, there is the fact that Gagliano is a scientist who is doing research on plants with other colleagues and has published her findings in several journals. Gagliano's endnotes on her chapters provide rich ground for further reading on plant research, which made this boo ...more

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Sep 30, 2019 Patricia rated it it was amazing

I finished weeks ago but have been struggling to decide how I feel about this book. On one hand, parts are so extreme and bizarre that it is isolating and in other places it is so accessible it is empowering. I have decided that since this book has made me think more than nearly any other book I’ve read in a while, it must be very good on some level.

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Apr 25, 2019 Romeo rated it liked it

I the narrative was good. The science and anthropology about the botanical world was great.

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Nov 12, 2018 Larissa rated it really liked it

Love this book. A wonderful dive into the mind of a scientist who also has a little woo-woo in her.

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Dec 15, 2019 Dennis Merimsky rated it it was amazing

Reading this book feels like witnessing a future scientific revolution. Shamans have traditionally been upholders of a subjective weird world. Scientists are supposed to be kings of the objective world. Now we have Monica Gagliano, the first (to me anyway) of a new breed of shaman-scientists, who are willing to risk their livelihood to expand the frontiers of science in very unconventional and surprising directions, combining insights from both the subjective and objective world.
She started as a Reading this book feels like witnessing a future scientific revolution. Shamans have traditionally been upholders of a subjective weird world. Scientists are supposed to be kings of the objective world. Now we have Monica Gagliano, the first (to me anyway) of a new breed of shaman-scientists, who are willing to risk their livelihood to expand the frontiers of science in very unconventional and surprising directions, combining insights from both the subjective and objective world.
She started as a conventional scientist studying fish and then after weeks in the water with them, they disappeared on the very day that Monica wanted to say goodbye before coming back to kill them.
Appalled by guilt from the killing she had done, in the name of science, Monica was ready for a new approach, which she recommends to the readers of this book in these words:
"take a leap outside the box of your “normal” and allow for the magical absurdity of your subjective experience to walk alongside the objective rationality of your logical mind."
This brought her to the Peruvian jungle, where she spent time in isolation repeatedly drinking a concoction made from the bark of an Amazonian tree (Socoba).This daily regime of ingesting the target plant or tree (called "dieta"), brought on dreams, visions and "conversations" with her first plant teacher, Socoba which revolutionized her outlook of the world and led her to further "conversations" with different plants who guided her in the direction of new scientific discoveries.
Her experiments with yellow corn proved that plants emit sound as a form of communication with each other. Her experiments with Mimosa and peas proved that plants can adjust their behavior and learn despite not having any nervous system or brain. Plants can also hear the sound of flowing water and move towards it.
The aim of this book is not just to surprise us but to change the stories we tell ourselves and each other about our place and role in this world. We tell each other that the world is cruel so we can justify raising our fists against other humans or being cruel to animals. Our anthropocentric view of the world is based on the illusion, dating back to Socrates that "plants (and nature in general) have no voice and no teaching for us". This way of being has led us to environmental destruction and trapped us in a planetwide greenhouse which is just getting hotter and hotter.
How can we escape?
If we surrender our preconceived ideas and judgments, we will be able to recover what Socoba described as "the story of me", our first story and experience "a state of communion with the whole". Monica writes " We need to forget what we think we know to remember what we truly do know."
The very oxygen we breathe in is made of the exhalation of the plants so how could we possibly be separate from the whole? When we can look at the world in awe, we will reconnect to "the pure joy" which "heals the world". We will truly be open to deep listening, appreciation and gratitude which ,in turn, will inspire us to find new ways of being to "keep the Earth all her living species (including ourselves) safe from the threats posed by environmental deterioration, climate change, and mass extinction".
What a great book.
...more

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Jul 02, 2020 Sheila rated it it was ok

You'll learn a lot of fascinating facts about plants in this book. The author gets a big thumbs up for being anti-Capitalism, too. At the same time, while stating her opposition to anthropomorphism, there's quite a bit of it in this book. Plants and animals speak to the author (in English), and literally teach her and guide her scientific research. If you grew up in the sixties, like I did, it might remind you of someone "tripping."

While the author respects Indigenous knowledge and peoples, ther You'll learn a lot of fascinating facts about plants in this book. The author gets a big thumbs up for being anti-Capitalism, too. At the same time, while stating her opposition to anthropomorphism, there's quite a bit of it in this book. Plants and animals speak to the author (in English), and literally teach her and guide her scientific research. If you grew up in the sixties, like I did, it might remind you of someone "tripping."

While the author respects Indigenous knowledge and peoples, there is something reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan series here. Castaneda tried to pass his works off as valid science, and Don Juan as a real shaman, but serious anthropologists roll their eyes at his books. I'm not saying that Gagliano is making stuff up, but at the same time there seems to be a phenomenon of white people who feel they can acquire or use the wisdom of eons of Indigenous cultures in the course of a few years and a few plant-based trips. It's a form of cultural imperialism, and promotes a stereotype of Indigenous knowledge as arising from bio-chemical tripping, not thousands of years of real, scientific observation and experimentation.

At one point the author explains how she literally stepped through a portal after communing with a redwood in California. This convinces her that an Indigenous story that animals passed through a portal to get to Australia is a true story. Case closed. No need to fund geological or evolutionary studies, it would seem. Only her own, perhaps?

Gagliano seeks to prove that plants are sacred and "persons" as much as humans. She feels this realization is going to save plants and planet. But she is sadly mistaken. After all, Europeans knew that Africans were humans, but enslaved them anyway. The rapidity at which racist statues are being torn down now shows that the people who kept them in place knew all along it was wrong. They did not respond to revelation. They responded to power, and the threat of it. Sadly, it will take a monumental social revolution to stop the exploitation of human beings, animals, plants and planet. Hopefully, this will happen in time to slow down the ongoing mass extinction. An essential part of this process is to follow the militant political and spiritual leadership of Indigenous peoples--without romanticizing or colonizing their culture. ...more

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Dec 24, 2019 André Habet added it

Shelves: diss-reading, november-box

I picked this up because I was really taken by Dr. Gagliano's work on plant bioacoustics and hoped that seeing her discuss her work at length outside the strictures of academic writing conventions would be a great way to get further into her insights. However, this book held little knew either scientifically or spiritually that's not respectively covered in her co-authored papers on plant bioacoustics (experiments depicted in underwhelming narrative told in the book), or described in more engros ...more

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Sep 09, 2019 Mariana Calderon rated it it was amazing

In the face of scientific evidence showing that thinking is not only achieved through brains, neurons, and nervous systems, are we willing to peek into the possibility that the immense intelligence of creation, just as it concocted human-brain intellect, could have created other types of intellect that do not involve neurons or brains at all? Are we willing to fathom such a possibility and step out of our convenient and cozy anthropocentric view, so that we may encompass other types of intellige ...more

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Jan 08, 2021 Gloria Terry rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: For anyone who cares about our planet and its conscious existence

Recommended to Gloria by: Amazon

"Your seeing was replaced by a story that was never yours, but you believed it to be! You have come to define who you are by this insane belief. It is certain, then, that all of your perceptions would be insane. It is predictable that you would perceive your very existence coming under threat when the belief of what you are is under attack. As the imaginary victim of a hypothetical aggressor, the 'identity' given to you by your belief sees the threat of its possible annihilation, and in self-def ...more

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Jan 03, 2019 Jake rated it it was amazing

A truly inspiring read! This story has the potential to influence a paradigm shift in popular perceptions of the natural world and our relation to it.

A wonderful fusion of prose and poetry, scientific study and autobiographical journey, the book feels fresh and alleviated from the rigidity of a purely academic approach. The author avoids the pitfalls of specialized jargon, embracing a clear and concise writing style, which makes Thus Spoke the Plant accessible and enjoyable for readers of all a ...more

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May 28, 2020 Gydle rated it it was amazing

This is a kind of mind-blowing book. Don’t even bother if you aren’t willing to be open minded about the limitations of contemporary science and what it can and can’t tell us about reality, time, and being. The ideas she has resonate strongly with me and I’m still trying to process some of them. I’ll be re-reading this one.

“[...] given that stories frame what beliefs we elect to embody and which path we choose to walk on for our becoming as individuals and society, shouldn’t we be extremely obse ...more

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Nov 26, 2018 Eric Black rated it it was amazing

Monica Gagliano is setting the world of plant research on its head. What was then taboo and unthinkable, what Jane Goodall did for animals fifty years ago, Monica Gagliano is currently doing for plants. She reveals a world, our own world, where plants see, hear, communicate, learn and remember. What makes her extraordinary is not only her openness to new ideas, even dreams and intuition wherever they may take her, but her openness to revealing her sources as well. In “Thus Spoke the Plant”, she ...more

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Jun 05, 2020 Wayne rated it did not like it

After much assertion of groundbreaking science and asking me to put all beliefs, cultural assumptions, judgments, and prejudices aside, and just listen Monica begins by explaining that the only natural phenomena that can be seen from space is the Great Barrier Reef. Monica might be surprised to hear that almost everything that can be seen from space is natural phenomena, the sun for example, the earth, space itself. The remainder of the Prelude read like a teenager's blog and personally I'm not ...more

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Aug 16, 2019 Sandra rated it it was amazing

Monica Gagliano is a scientist and researcher. This is the story of how she got involved in researching plant communication and how her personal encounters with plants has shaped her work and life.

What I liked: This book was a huge surprise! I read the prelude and was hooked. I liked the blend of science and personal experiences. It was fascinating to read how some of the plants had so much to teach her (and us) and so specifically. For example: the plant Socoba designed her experiments. She pre ...more

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Jan 20, 2021 Sally C rated it did not like it

I was intrigued by this book but ultimately was left disappointed. Other issues aside, I found the overall high minded tone of the narration off-putting. This made it even more difficult to listen to her descriptions of, essentially, getting high and having visions of tobacco (and other plants) personified telling her about their medicinal properties without wanting to roll my eyes. And just for context - I myself have spent time hearing from traditional healers and people embedded in cultures f ...more

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May 11, 2019 Peter A. Lio rated it liked it

It’s interesting and I like the ideas a lot. It ends up feeling sort of cheesy and new-agey, and not in the most flattering way.

Honestly, I heard her on a podcast (Radiolab’s “Smarty Plants”) and that was more than enough to get the main ideas across.

I love the idea that there is a living world of wise plants and I truly hope it may be so! But it ends up feeling a little bit like the teachings of Don Juan by Castaneda: compelling but not really believable in an actionable way. I’m not sure wha ...more

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May 18, 2020 Carolyn rated it it was ok

This journey did travel physically to many parts of the world. It seemed the research projects were not strong enough for actual results. This is a journey of discovery of ones self, the dark tunnels and strange results of drugs, medicines that effect thinking and how a person can rationalize the importance of life following "doctors" of tribes, and or any suggestions of indigenous people. The goal wasn't scientific so much as it was analysis of one individual on a quest of a variety of subjects ...more

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Dec 17, 2018 Caitlin rated it really liked it

While I did not necessarily care for the content within the book, I do feel that it taught me a life lesson. Always remember to look at the world with a different set of eyes. Whether it be your environment, personal experiences, etc., there are always different perspectives. This book felt like one's drug enhanced scientific files in the styles of a modern dissertation.

Overall enjoyable to read at times and would recommend to people who are truly, truly fascinated by plants. ...more

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About Monica Gagliano

Monica Gagliano

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MONICA GAGLIANO is Research Associate Professor of Evolutionary Ecology. She is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow and former Fellow of the Australian Research Council at the Centre of Evolutionary Biology, the University of Western Australia. She is currently based at the University of Sydney as a Research Affiliate at the Sydney Environment Institute and a Senior Research Fellow at the School of ...more