Supernature by Lyall Watson: Complete Guide to Biology, the Paranormal, and the Hidden Forces of Life

What Is Supernature About?

Supernature: A Natural History of the Supernatural, first published in 1973, is one of the most unusual and influential popular science books of the twentieth century. Written by Lyall Watson, a South African biologist with a doctorate in ethology from the University of London, the book attempts something that most scientists of the era would have considered professionally suicidal: a serious, scientifically grounded examination of phenomena that mainstream biology had consigned to the dustbin of superstition.

Watson's central argument is captured in his title. "Supernature" is his term for the zone between the natural and the supernatural, the territory where well-established biological facts shade into unexplained phenomena that orthodox science prefers not to discuss. Flowers that trigger spring-loaded stamens to dust visiting bees with pollen. Shellfish that open and close in rhythm with the moon's gravitational pull even when transported to landlocked laboratories hundreds of kilometres from the sea. Migrating birds that navigate across continents using mechanisms that biologists cannot fully explain. Plants that appear to respond to human emotional states. These phenomena are all part of nature, Watson argues, but they are parts of nature that conventional biology has not yet incorporated into its picture of reality.

The book spent nearly a year on the bestseller list in Britain and sold over 750,000 copies in paperback, making Watson one of the most widely read science writers of the 1970s. Its success was driven not by sensationalism but by Watson's ability to present genuinely puzzling evidence in clear, engaging prose, maintaining a scientist's caution while refusing to ignore data that did not fit the prevailing paradigm. Supernature demonstrated that there was a vast audience for a book that treated the mysteries of biology with intellectual seriousness rather than either credulous enthusiasm or dismissive scepticism.

Lyall Watson: Biologist at the Borderlands

Lyall Watson (1939-2008) was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and educated at the University of Witwatersrand, where he studied botany and zoology, and at the University of London, where he earned his doctorate in ethology (the study of animal behaviour) under the supervision of Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape. He also studied palaeontology under Raymond Dart, the discoverer of Australopithecus africanus. This training in multiple scientific disciplines gave Watson an unusually broad perspective on the natural world and an ability to see connections between phenomena that specialists in narrower fields might miss.

Watson's scientific credentials were genuine and substantial. He had worked in the field, conducted original research, and published in peer-reviewed journals. This is important because Supernature's credibility depends entirely on the fact that its author was not a journalist, a philosopher, or an amateur enthusiast but a trained scientist who understood the rules of evidence and the standards of proof that science demands. When Watson says that a particular phenomenon cannot be explained by known mechanisms, the reader can be confident that he has considered and rejected the obvious explanations before reaching that conclusion.

At the same time, Watson was not a conventional scientist. His fieldwork had taken him to remote parts of Africa, Indonesia, and South America, where he encountered indigenous knowledge systems that treated the natural world very differently from Western science. These experiences convinced him that Western biology, for all its achievements, was missing something fundamental about the nature of life. The question was not whether indigenous peoples were right about everything (they were not) but whether Western science was right in dismissing everything that fell outside its current framework. Watson's career-long project was to find out what orthodox biology was missing, and Supernature was the first major statement of that project.

Watson went on to write more than twenty books, including The Romeo Error (1974), on the nature of death; Lifetide (1979), which extended the arguments of Supernature; Lightning Bird (1982), on traditional African beliefs; and Beyond Supernature (1986), which attempted to address the criticisms levelled at the earlier book. He also worked as a television presenter and documentary filmmaker, bringing his distinctive blend of scientific rigour and open-minded curiosity to a wider audience.

The Supernature Concept: Beyond Natural vs Supernatural

The conceptual foundation of Watson's book is a simple but radical idea: the distinction between natural and supernatural is not a genuine division in reality but an artefact of the current state of scientific knowledge. At any given moment in the history of science, there are phenomena that are understood and phenomena that are not. The phenomena that are not understood are often labelled "supernatural," but this label says nothing about the phenomena themselves. It says only that current science does not have an explanation for them.

Watson illustrates this principle with a quick tour through the history of science. Lightning was once considered supernatural, the weapon of angry gods. Disease was once attributed to evil spirits or divine punishment. Magnetism, gravity, electricity: all were considered mysterious or supernatural forces until science developed theories to explain them. The history of science is, in large part, the history of phenomena migrating from the category of "supernatural" to the category of "natural" as understanding advances.

Watson's claim is that this migration is far from complete. There are phenomena in biology, phenomena that can be observed, measured, and replicated, that current scientific theory cannot explain. These phenomena are not supernatural in any absolute sense. They are natural events occurring in the natural world, involving natural organisms doing things that natural organisms actually do. The only thing "supernatural" about them is that science has not yet caught up with them. Watson coined the term "supernature" to describe this territory: phenomena that are above or beyond current scientific understanding but that will eventually be incorporated into an expanded science of the natural world.

This framework allows Watson to examine a wide range of anomalous phenomena without either credulous acceptance or automatic dismissal. He does not claim that every reported miracle is genuine or that every piece of evidence for the paranormal is reliable. He claims only that some phenomena deserve serious scientific investigation rather than the reflexive rejection that the scientific establishment typically offers. His standard is not "Is this proven?" but "Is this worth investigating?" And his answer, based on the evidence he presents, is a resounding yes.

Cosmic Influences: Moon, Sun, and Living Rhythms

Some of Supernature's most compelling evidence concerns the influence of cosmic forces on living organisms. Watson presents case after case of organisms that respond to astronomical events in ways that cannot be explained by obvious environmental cues like temperature or light.

The most famous example is Frank Brown's oyster experiment. In the 1950s, the biologist Frank Brown transported oysters from the Connecticut shore to a laboratory in Evanston, Illinois, nearly a thousand kilometres inland. Initially, the oysters continued to open and close on the same schedule they had followed in Connecticut, synchronised with the Atlantic tides. But within two weeks, the oysters had adjusted their rhythm to match the theoretical tidal pattern for Evanston, a landlocked city that has no tides. The oysters were responding not to the actual tides but to the gravitational pull of the moon itself, adjusting their behaviour to match what the tides would be if Evanston were on the coast.

Watson presents this experiment as one of many demonstrating that living organisms are sensitive to cosmic forces in ways that current biology cannot fully account for. He documents lunar influences on plant growth, coral spawning, animal reproduction, and human behaviour. He examines the evidence for solar influences on terrestrial life, including correlations between sunspot cycles and outbreaks of disease, changes in blood chemistry, and fluctuations in human mood and behaviour. He discusses research on the effects of geomagnetic storms on animal navigation and human health.

The significance of these cosmic influences extends beyond the specific examples. If organisms are genuinely responding to gravitational, electromagnetic, and possibly other forces from astronomical sources, then the mechanistic view of biology, which treats each organism as an isolated entity responding only to its immediate physical environment, is fundamentally incomplete. Watson argues that organisms are embedded in a web of cosmic influences that connects them to the moon, the sun, the planets, and possibly the stars. This is not astrology in the traditional sense, but it is a form of cosmic connectedness that has implications for how we understand the relationship between life and the universe.

Watson is careful to distinguish between the evidence for cosmic influences, which he considers strong, and the traditional astrological interpretation of those influences, which he considers unproven. He does not argue that the position of Saturn at the moment of your birth determines your personality. He argues that living organisms are sensitive to cosmic forces in ways that science has not yet fully understood, and that this sensitivity may eventually provide a scientific basis for some of the claims made by traditional systems of cosmic correspondence.

Plant Consciousness and the Secret Life of Organisms

Watson's discussion of plant consciousness is one of the most provocative sections of Supernature and one that has aged remarkably well in light of subsequent research. Writing more than thirty years before the emergence of "plant neurobiology" as a scientific field, Watson presented evidence suggesting that plants are far more aware of their environment, and far more sophisticated in their responses, than conventional biology acknowledged.

Watson begins with well-established botanical phenomena that are strange enough on their own terms. The Venus flytrap's ability to detect and capture insects involves a form of biological processing that is functionally equivalent to a nervous system, even though the plant has no nerves. The mimosa's ability to "learn" not to respond to a repeated stimulus (a phenomenon called habituation) demonstrates a form of memory without a brain. The capacity of certain plants to communicate through chemical signals, warning neighbouring plants of insect attack and triggering defensive responses, suggests a form of social behaviour among organisms that are traditionally classified as passive and inert.

Watson then moves to more controversial territory: the experiments of Cleve Backster, a polygraph expert who claimed in 1966 that plants connected to a galvanometer showed electrical responses when nearby organisms were threatened or killed. Backster's experiments, which included measuring plant responses when shrimp were plunged into boiling water in a nearby room, appeared to show that plants could detect and respond to the distress of other living organisms at a distance.

Watson presents Backster's findings with appropriate caution, noting the difficulties of replication and the methodological criticisms that other scientists have raised. But he also notes that Backster's basic claim, that plants can detect environmental changes through mechanisms not currently recognised by biology, is not as absurd as it might initially seem. If plants can communicate through chemical signals (which they can) and if electromagnetic fields carry information about biological states (which they do), then it is not impossible that plants might detect information about their environment through channels that science has not yet identified.

The broader point Watson is making through his discussion of plant consciousness is that the boundary between "conscious" and "unconscious," like the boundary between "natural" and "supernatural," is not as clear as conventional biology assumes. Consciousness may not be a binary property that organisms either possess or lack but a spectrum of awareness that extends from the simplest single-celled organisms to the most complex mammals. If this is true, then the entire natural world is permeated by forms of awareness that current science does not recognise.

Animal Navigation and Biological Mysteries

Watson devotes considerable attention to animal navigation, one of the genuine mysteries of biology. The ability of migrating birds to navigate across continents, of salmon to return to the exact stream where they were born after years at sea, of homing pigeons to find their way home from unfamiliar locations hundreds of kilometres away: these abilities are well documented and repeatable, yet current science cannot fully explain them.

Watson examines the various hypotheses that have been proposed to explain animal navigation: the use of visual landmarks, the sun compass, the star compass, sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field, olfactory navigation, and others. He shows that while each of these mechanisms plays some role in some species, none of them, individually or in combination, is sufficient to account for the precision and reliability of animal navigation under all conditions. Birds navigate accurately on overcast nights when neither sun nor stars are visible. Pigeons find their way home from locations they have never visited before, ruling out landmark-based navigation. Some species navigate accurately even when experimenters have disrupted their ability to detect magnetic fields.

Watson's conclusion is not that animal navigation is supernatural but that it involves sensory mechanisms and information-processing capacities that science has not yet identified. The gap between what animals can demonstrably do and what known mechanisms can explain is real and significant. This gap is precisely what Watson means by "supernature": natural abilities that exceed our current scientific understanding.

Watson also examines other biological mysteries: the ability of certain animals to predict earthquakes and severe weather, the homing behaviour of displaced animals, the apparent social coordination of insect colonies that seems to exceed what individual-level communication can account for, and the phenomenon of biological "clocks" that keep accurate time even when organisms are isolated from all known environmental cues. In each case, the pattern is the same: well-documented biological phenomena that cannot be fully explained by known mechanisms, suggesting the existence of sensory channels and information pathways that science has not yet discovered.

Human Paranormal Abilities

Watson approaches human paranormal phenomena with the same framework he applies to plant consciousness and animal navigation: as potential biological capacities that exceed current scientific understanding rather than as violations of natural law. This biological perspective distinguishes Supernature from most other books on the paranormal, which tend to treat these phenomena either as spiritual gifts or as objects of psychological delusion.

Watson examines the experimental evidence for telepathy, drawing on the Rhine experiments at Duke University and subsequent research. He is not uncritical of this evidence, noting the statistical controversies that have surrounded parapsychology research and the difficulty of replicating results. But he argues that the total body of evidence, while not conclusive, is strong enough to warrant continued investigation rather than dismissal. If telepathy is a real phenomenon, Watson suggests, it is likely to be a biological capacity related to electromagnetic sensitivity rather than a "spiritual" power.

Watson's treatment of dowsing is particularly interesting because it connects human paranormal abilities to the electromagnetic sensitivities he has already documented in other organisms. If birds can detect the earth's magnetic field and fish can detect the electrical fields of other organisms, it is not unreasonable to ask whether human beings might possess similar, vestigial sensitivities that could account for the apparently genuine ability of some dowsers to locate underground water. Watson does not claim that dowsing is proven but argues that it is biologically plausible in ways that are often overlooked.

The discussion of precognition, the apparent ability to perceive future events, presents a greater challenge for Watson's biological framework. While cosmic influences and electromagnetic sensitivities can potentially explain telepathy and clairvoyance as forms of enhanced perception, precognition seems to require a fundamentally different kind of explanation. Watson acknowledges this difficulty but suggests that our understanding of time may be incomplete, and that biological organisms may have access to temporal information that physics does not yet recognise. This is the most speculative section of the book, and Watson clearly knows it, but he presents the evidence honestly and lets readers draw their own conclusions.

Mind Over Matter: Psychokinesis and Healing

Watson's examination of psychokinesis, the apparent ability of mind to affect matter directly, is the section of Supernature that most strains the conventional scientific worldview. He reviews the experimental evidence for PK, including research on individuals who claimed to influence the fall of dice, the movement of objects, and the growth rate of plants through mental effort alone.

Watson approaches this material with characteristic caution. He acknowledges that fraud has been documented in many PK studies and that the experimental evidence is weaker than the evidence for telepathy. But he also presents cases that are not easily dismissed, including research on the effects of "healing intention" on biological systems such as enzyme activity, red blood cell resistance to hypotonic solutions, and the growth rate of fungus cultures. These experiments, conducted under controlled conditions with appropriate statistical analysis, appeared to show that directed human intention could influence biological processes at a distance.

Watson places these findings in the context of traditional healing practices that have claimed similar abilities for millennia. The laying on of hands, the healing rituals of shamanic cultures, the practices of therapeutic touch and Reiki: these traditions all assert that human beings can influence biological processes through some form of mental or spiritual agency. Watson does not claim that traditional healers are always effective or that their explanations of how healing works are correct. He argues that the consistency of the claims across cultures and the growing body of experimental evidence suggest that something real may be occurring, something that biology needs to investigate rather than dismiss.

The discussion of healing connects to Watson's broader argument about the relationship between mind and body. If plants can respond to human emotional states, if animals can sense earthquakes before seismographs detect them, if organisms across the biological spectrum are connected through electromagnetic and possibly other fields, then the idea that human intention might influence biological processes is not as outlandish as it seems from within the mechanistic worldview. It is, in fact, precisely the kind of phenomenon that Watson's expanded biology would predict.

Reception, Controversy, and Lasting Influence

Supernature was both a popular triumph and a scientific controversy. The book's commercial success was extraordinary, making Watson one of the most widely read science writers of the 1970s and establishing a template for the genre of "anomalist" popular science that would later include works by Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin, and others. But the scientific establishment's response was decidedly mixed.

Critics charged Watson with being insufficiently rigorous in his evaluation of evidence, citing instances where he treated poorly supported claims alongside well-established research without clearly distinguishing between them. Some reviewers accused him of cherry-picking evidence that supported his thesis while ignoring contradictory data. The most damaging criticism came from those who pointed out specific factual errors and instances where Watson had presented contested findings as established facts.

Watson took some of these criticisms to heart. His later book, Beyond Supernature (1986), was more careful in its evaluation of evidence and more explicit about the provisional nature of its conclusions. He also acknowledged that his earlier enthusiasm had sometimes led him to give too much weight to preliminary findings that subsequent research failed to confirm. But Watson never abandoned his central thesis: that biology was missing something important, that the natural world contained mysteries that orthodox science was not addressing, and that a genuinely scientific approach required investigating these mysteries rather than pretending they did not exist.

The most significant criticism of Watson's work concerned the "Hundredth Monkey" story, a claim about learned behaviour spreading instantaneously through a population of Japanese macaques that Watson presented in his 1979 book Lifetide. Watson later acknowledged in The Whole Earth Review that the story was "a metaphor of my own making" rather than an accurate account of scientific observations. This admission damaged Watson's credibility and has been cited by sceptics as evidence of a broader pattern of carelessness with facts.

Despite these controversies, Supernature's influence has been enduring. The book inspired a generation of researchers and writers to investigate the borderlands of biology with scientific seriousness. Its emphasis on the interconnectedness of living systems anticipated the ecological and systems-biology approaches that have become increasingly important in twenty-first-century science. And its central question, whether orthodox science is missing something important about the nature of life, continues to provoke and inspire.

Supernature in the Age of Plant Intelligence Research

More than fifty years after its publication, Supernature reads in many places like a prescient anticipation of research that mainstream science is only now beginning to take seriously. The field of "plant intelligence" or "plant neurobiology," pioneered by researchers like Stefano Mancuso, Monica Gagliano, and Suzanne Simard, has produced findings that Watson would have immediately recognised as supernature becoming nature.

Gagliano's experiments on plant learning, published in peer-reviewed journals, have demonstrated that plants can form memories, learn from experience, and adjust their behaviour based on past events, all without possessing a nervous system. Simard's research on mycorrhizal networks, the "Wood Wide Web" through which trees share nutrients and information through fungal connections, has revealed a form of biological communication and cooperation that was entirely unknown when Watson was writing. Mancuso's work on plant decision-making and problem-solving has challenged the assumption that intelligence requires a brain.

Research on animal magnetoreception has similarly confirmed some of Watson's speculations. Scientists have now identified magnetite crystals in the beaks of pigeons and the cells of migratory birds, providing a plausible mechanism for the magnetic sensitivity that Watson discussed. Studies of the earth's magnetic field and its effects on animal behaviour have moved from the fringe to the mainstream of biology. The connection between cosmic forces and terrestrial life that Watson described is no longer controversial; it is simply an established fact that biology textbooks now include.

The broader intellectual climate has also shifted in Watson's direction. The rigid mechanistic worldview that dominated biology in the 1970s has given way to a more nuanced understanding of living systems as complex, interconnected, and in many ways still mysterious. The discovery of quantum effects in biological processes, the recognition of epigenetic inheritance, and the growing appreciation of the role of electromagnetic fields in biological communication have all expanded the boundaries of what mainstream biology considers possible. These developments do not validate every claim in Supernature, but they validate Watson's fundamental intuition: that orthodox biology was working with an impoverished picture of life, and that expanding that picture would require taking seriously phenomena that the scientific establishment preferred to ignore.

For contemporary readers interested in the relationship between science and spirituality, Supernature remains a valuable and thought-provoking book. It demonstrates that a genuine scientist, armed with real knowledge and honest curiosity, can examine anomalous phenomena without abandoning scientific principles. Watson's approach, taking the evidence seriously while maintaining intellectual honesty about its limitations, offers a model for anyone seeking to navigate between the twin pitfalls of credulous acceptance and dismissive scepticism. The territory of supernature, the border zone between what we know and what we do not yet understand, is still the most interesting place in science.

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