Auditing tomatoes

Lafayette Ron Hubbard was the creator of Dianetics and founder of the Church of Scientology. Easily one of the most controversial men of the century, Hubbard was at pains to portray himself as something of a universal genius.

"Horticulture: For a Greener World" is a worthless but entertaining (after a fashion) book about L Ron Hubbard's supposed experiments with plants. The experiments *did* create something of a stir in international media, since Hubbard claimed to be a nuclear physicist who had discovered that plants were conscious. He demonstrated the fear of death and other emotions in plants to incredulous reporters, using a mysterious device known as the E-meter.

In reality, the E-meter is a primitive lie detector used by Scientologists during their therapeutic sessions with human subjects ("auditing"). Hubbard claimed that the device could also detect the life force of plants, and promptly "audited" a tomato in his laboratory! Photos of this almost iconic event are included in "Horticulture". Hubbard also researched the effects of light, X-rays and peat moss on the growth or fecundity of plants. Or so he said. I'm not a botanist or horticulturalist, so I can't really judge these more down-to-earth aspects of Dr. Hubbard's forays into the world of Plantae.

However, I'm fascinated by the more "pseudo-scientific" aspects of Hubbard's work with plants. Do they really have some kind of consciousness? It's unfortunate that Hubbard didn't continue this line of research, and instead concentrated on creating a bizarre cult around himself and his other ideas (which were arguably much weirder than auditing vegetables).

Sad. I mean, he might have been on to something with those tomatoes...