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Do Plants Experience Consciousness?

Do Plants Experience Consciousness?

Last updated on: October 1, 2026 at 8:19 pm by Kermit Zarley

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Do Plants Experience Consciousness? 2026-10-01T20:19:51-07:00 Kermit Zarley

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CREDIT:Getty Images/Stockphoto; Creator: audioundwerbung

Some plant biologists now claim that due to recent botanical studies, plants have consciousness. Of course, it depends on how you define consciousness. But what they are saying seems to challenge a most traditional fundamental of biology—that an organism must have a central nervous system to experience consciousness. Moreover, these researchers claim that plants may even have memory and communicate with each other. What a strange world we live in if true: plants talking to each other without us hearing them!

Research Shows that Plants Experience Consciousness

It’s all laid out in a Popular Mechanics article. Written by Susan Lacy and published on June 11, 2026, it is entitled, “We May Be Surrounded by Trillions of Conscious Beings, Research Suggest—And They Aren’t Human.” For example, she says researchers claim that, just like animals, trees are migrating northward to escape the increasing global warming. Another example is that tree networks broadcast alarm signals by changing their chemistry as animal herds move through their landscape. And she relates that plant neurobiologist Dr. Stefano Mancuso claims that plants exhibit many other behaviors like those of animals.

Botanists have long known that the Venus Flytrap demonstrates some kind of an awareness, whether consciousness or not, by closing its leaves to capture and digest insects. But now, laboratory experiments are showing that plants respond even to anesthesia just as humans do. Amazing!

Does the Bible Affirm Plant Consciousness?

This makes me wonder about some statements in the Bible. Let’s just take, for example, the prophet Isaiah since he is chief of the Bible’s prophetic writers called The Twelve. He says to nature in his book concerning the promised messianic kingdom, what Jesus called “the world to come,” “Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel” (Isaiah 44.23 NRSV). And Isaiah says of that same time, I think, “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the LORD has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones” (Isaiah 49.13). Another is this concerning Israel, “For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55.12). We have always thought of such texts as strictly poetic, thus certainly not to be taken literally. But should we?

NASA Proved that “The Heavens” Literally Make Music

For over 25 years, I lived six miles from NASA’s Houston/Johnson Space Center. Many NASA astronauts lived in those suburbs south of Houston. We had multiple astronauts who attended our church regularly, and some were friends of mine. I remember when NASA started publishing telescope photos of outer space with sounds from the planets and other objects that were like music. It was beautifully shocking! It then occurred to me that maybe God could cause objects in space to move in such a way that they would produce real music.

Maybe that is what will happen in the eschaton, so that what Isaiah says in these texts could literally happen. Besides the heavens singing, trees clapping their hands conceivably could be the wind causing branches to flop about, looking like humans clapping their hands. Maybe branches could rub against each other, producing sounds like those of woodwind instruments. Just speculating here. I’m not aware of how the mountains and hills could sing, but maybe there is a way, all it naturally, of course, yet controlled by God.

Finally, Isaiah has an even more striking text about nature, in Isaiah 14, in which trees actually talks! Heh, if God can make a donkey talk, i.e., Balaam’s donkey, why not a tree? But to understand this text, we need to know something about its context. Isaiah 14 begins with God’s promise to bless Israel with its messianic kingdom by saying of that time, “The LORD will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land,” referring to all of the promised land (Isaiah 14.1).

Jesus Will Kill the Final Antichrist, the King of Babylon

Then Isaiah says to Israel, his so-called chosen people, “When the LORD has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taught against the king of Babylon? How the oppressor has ceased?” (Isaiah 14.3-4). Frankly, I believe the next several verses of this taunt song have been butchered by more than just Bible readers. For one thing, there is no “Lucifer,” referring to the devil, here, as in the King James Version. No, I believe this is about a literal “king of Babylon” who will be the final Antichrist. But let me first backtrack a little.

Isaiah says of the Messiah, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,” referring to King David’s father (Isaiah 11.1). Jews have rightly identified this text and its several verses that follow as one of the three primary messianic texts in their Bible, the Old Testament. Isaiah then says of this Messiah, “He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (v. 4). The apostle Paul quotes this text from the Greek Septuagint and applies it to Jesus at his second coming by prophesying, “Then the lawless one will be revealed,” referring to the final Antichrist, “whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2.8).

When the Whole Earth Rests, Trees Will Talk to the Antichrist

Isaiah then prophesies about this situation soon after Jesus destroys the Antichrist (see my book, Warrior from Heaven), “The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. The cypresses exult over you,” referring to that king of Babylon, the Antichrist, “the cedars exult over you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you were laid low, no one comes to cut us down'” (Isaiah 14.7-8). Is Isaiah waxing here more than just poetically, as we have always thought? Will these trees actually in some way communicate this understanding? Researchers now say that trees communicate with each other through their root structures. Maybe they are actually aware of the forests in which they reside are being massively cut down. Of course, I am just speculating here. I’ve never thought about this before reading this Popular Mechanics article.

The trees say this because, throughout antiquity, wars were fought with primitive weapons, many of which were made of wood, such as bows and arrows, spears, and shields. And aggressors would attack walls and fortresses by building siege ramps and other like weapons. When they did this, they usually cut down nearby trees to create them. Warfare by aggressor often left that area barren of its forests. That is why these trees in this Isaiah text say this.

The World Will Disarm & Fight Wars with Primitive Weapons

But you say, we are talking about the future time of the second coming of Christ, the end of the age, and this world has not fought wars with such primitive weapons for centuries. Yes, but that is going to change. I have a book manuscript about this, in which I interpret such biblical prophecies as Ezekiel 38-39 to show that this world is going to disarm itself of advanced weaponry prior to the end of the age, and therefore it will fight only with primitive weapons again at that time. And when it does, the trees just may be talking!

General Christian

Education and Religion

About Kermit Zarley

Born & reared in Seattle, WA., Kermit lived 38 years in metro Houston, now in Scottsdale, AZ. He graduated from University of Houston w/ BBA in 1963 and played on the PGA Tour full time from 1964-1982 and Senior/Champions Tour in 1991-2001. Kermit co-founded the PGA Tour Bible Study in 1965 and was senior leader most of next 17 years. Kermit has three adult children and six grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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