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LIVING THE FIELD

ANIMAL ENERGIES

LIVING THE FIELD

LIVING THE FIELD

Lesson 20 Dolphin magic 5

Lesson 21 Powered-up by dolphin energy 7

Lesson 22 Holographic healing: virtual dolphins 11

Lesson 23 Precognitive pet sounds 15

Lesson 24 Psychic pet doctors 21

Lesson 25 Telepathic terriers 23

Lesson 27 Animal hospital 27

Lesson 28 Feeling like an animal 29

Lesson 29 Gut hunches, good choices 35

Lesson 30 Curiosity won’t kill the cat 39

Lesson 31 Kindness in the animal kingdom 43

Lesson 32 When animal minds get together 47

Lesson 33 Riding therapy: healing on horseback 51

Lesson 34 Take two cats before bedtime . . . 57

Lesson 35 Basic instincts: not-so-dumb animals 61

Lesson 36 Every picture tells a shaggy-dog story 65

iii

Contents

LIVING THE FIELDAnimalEnergies

LIVING THE FIELDAnimal

Energies

4

LIVING THE FIELD

For some two decades, re s e a rc h e r s

have insisted that dolphins have an

i n c redible effect upon the human brain

and immune system. Swimming with

dolphins is reputed to help heal illness,

aid the speech and physical develop -

ment of the autistic or mentally re t a rd -

ed, balance the brain and boost the

immune system. In this lesson, we look

at the source of the dolphin's supposed

power—its intricate sonar system. In

later lessons, we will also explore how

these frequencies may be affecting us.

In the 1950s, the US Navy discoveredsomething astonishing: that dolphins

have an system of using sound wavesthat is more extraordinary than anythingman has ever been able to produce—then

or since.Although bats use soundwaves and

their returning feedback echoes to navi-gate as well as recognize objects in theworld around them, in dolphins, this par-

ticular type of ‘echolocation’, as it iscalled, is very finely tuned.

D o l p h i n s ’ ‘speech’, such as it is,comes in three broad categories: as whis-

tles, or sounds of long durations; andseries of short and long pulsed clicks(called ‘click trains’), both of which are

wave frequencies that emanate from theforeheads of these mammals in a narrow

beam, like a focused torch of light.Although they may sound random to

the uneducated ear, these sounds have

specific functions and frequencies. Theclick trains are used not only to locate the

dolphin in space, which will help himcarry out specific tasks, but also to com-

municate.When broken down, these sounds are

hardly sounds at all as we know them.

Instead, they are tiny bursts of extraordi-narily high-pitched frequencies. Each

click lasts for one-20,000th of a second,and the volume of the sound itself canreach as high as 250 kHz—about 15 times

above the limits of the sounds identifiableby the human ear.

Whistles, which are more like tonal‘songs’ of widely varying wave frequen-

cies, are often the dolphin’s way of ‘talk-ing’ to the other members of his pod.

What’s more, dolphins somehow have thecapability of emitting two and even threetypes of noises—whistles and more than

one click train—all at the same time.A dolphin’s clicks also can be subdi-

vided into different types, including: ordi-nary click trains, which help him to sensehis place and the objects in front of him;

and bursts of pulsed clicks, which are hissocial ‘conversations’. In general, a dol-

phin ‘talks’ much faster than he navi-gates—the blasts of pulsed clicks he uses

for speaking explode out far faster (withonly several milliseconds between clicks)than do the click trains he uses for echolo-

cations (which are 10 to 100 times slow-er), says Michiel Schotten, a dolphin-

acoustics researcher at the OceanwideScience Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Studies of dolphins demonstrate that

they are able to make use of these soundslike the most sophisticated of eyes.

According to Schotten, “they can use it totell two hollow steel cylinders apart, one

of which is only 0.008 mm thicker thanthe other.”

Schotten has also uncovered studies

demonstrating that dolphins have thecapacity to understand the human lan-

guage.1 Evidence shows, he says, that“they are able to learn a grammar-basedartificial sign language and to understand

abstract concepts, such as ‘left/right’,‘absent’ and ‘creative’, and even full sen-

tences.”At the moment, our understanding of

dolphin speech is hampered by the equip-ment we have available. Recordingequipment has the same limitations as the

human ear, and so is unable to record therich range of frequencies being emitted

by these animals. The other problem isspeed.

It is often difficult to separate out,

from among all the sounds blasting outfrom a pod, which dolphin was ‘speak-

AnimalEnergiesLesson 20

5

Dolphin magic

LIVING THE FIELD

ing’ at the time. This makes it difficult tomarry up behavior with the sounds.

Current equipment also has problemsin working out the amplitude of the signal

or even the position of the dolphin’s headin relation to the signal.

Finally, as the recording equipment isattached to a boat, it is almost impossiblefor it to move freely to follow the sound.

At present, researchers can listen in todolphins using a ‘hydrophone’, a device,

which ‘hears’ sounds in water by convert-ing the physical oscillations of the sound-waves into voltages, thus converting

acoustical energy into electrical energy.

Michiel Schotten is now in theprocess of developing devices that can

provide man with his first real glimpseinto the exquisite world of dolphin fre-

quencies in all of its enormous range. Theinformation he and others are uncovering

may demonstrate nothing less than howdolphin frequencies may be able to ‘re-tune’ our own.

Lynne McTaggart

Lesson 21: Dolphin healing:

the latest evidence

1 Cognition, 1984; 16: 129–219

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 20

6

Dolphins in ‘3-D’

Michiel Schotten and others solved the complicated problem of recording dolphin

sounds by constructing a ‘hydrophone in the round’. To do this, they set up four

hydrophones into a letter ‘Y’ configuration—with one placed in the center, and three

extended out from the central one positioned at 120 degrees apart—and digitized the

acoustical signals it picked up.

The device allowed Schotten and his colleagues to work out which dolphins were

making which particular noises by measuring the differences in time it took each click

to arrive at each hydrophone, and matching the times to photographs taken by an

underwater camera.

Matching all of the results allowed them to make a ‘three-dimensional’ image of the

appropriate dolphin making the noise, its location from the target and, most important, its

reason for making it.1

1 Schotten M et al. Echolocation recordings and localization of wild spinner dolphins (Stenella lon -

g i r o s t r i s) and pantropical spotted dolphins (S. attenuata) using a four hydrophone array. In: Thomas

J A, Moss CF, Vater MM, eds. Advances in the Study of Echolocation in Bats and Dolphins. Chicago,

IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004: 393–400

LIVING THE FIELD

In the last lesson, we reviewed the

s o u rce of dolphin frequencies—an intri -

cate sonar system purported to have

p rofound physiological effects on

humans, even aiding in their physical

and mental development. In this lesson,

we examine the evidence amassed thus

far suggesting that dolphins have spe -

cial effect on humans besides the feel-

good factor.

Dolphins have long had a mythical

status as special healers. Indeed,the lore has it that dolphins orig-

inated in Atlantis, that mythical seat ofpower and nobility. However, more

recently, the status of dolphins took anunexpected twist when Dr Betsy Smith,an educational anthropologist, witnessed

an improvement in her mentally retardedbrother after he waded into the water with

two young dolphins in 1971. Neuropsy-chologist David Nathanson was intriguedenough to investigate whether dolphins

could help disabled children to develop,both physically and mentally.

At a facility in Key Largo, Florida, hebegan some basic research, testing

whether dolphins could help two childrenwith Down syndrome process and retainverbal information. The dolphins were

used to provide the stimuli and reinforcebehavior: when a child’s response was

correct, he was allowed to feed a dolphin.Nathanson discovered that the childrenlearned four times faster with dolphins

than they did in their more conventionaleducational settings, and retained 15 per

cent more information as well.1

Nathanson went on to replicate his

work with six other children with Downsyndrome or other severe physical andmental handicaps. As with his original

study, the dolphin interactions elicited upto 19 times more correct speech in these

children than did the usual classroom set-ting, with a nearly 3 per cent greaterretention.2

With the use of larger numbers ofchildren, Nathanson also discovered that

just two weeks of dolphin-assisted thera-py—or DAT, as it is now referred to—

outperformed six months of conventionalspeech and physical therapy—and at less

cost.2

Between 1988 and 1997, he went onto treat 700 children with 35 different

diagnoses, including cerebral palsy,autism, Angelman’s syndrome, and brain

and spinal cord injuries.3

Although critics maintain that theeffect of treatment is brief, a 15-point

questionnaire filled in by the parents ofthe treated children concluded that the

skills learned with DAT were maintainedor even improved upon in 50 per cent of

the cases a year after the treatment hadended.

Nathanson’s initial premise was that it

was simply the pleasurable experience ofinteracting with an animal in water that

appeared to increase the children’s atten-tion span.

“There are three categories of stimuli

that we know from both research andclinical experience that the kids really

respond to very well: music, animals,water. And here we’ve got two of the

three: dolphins and the water,” he says.As immersion in water is also known

to develop mental and physical perceptu-

al patterns, Nathanson decided to attemptto isolate some of the factors that could

have been responsible for the improve-ments. He tried out his experiment usingjust water or even favorite toys—but

without the dolphins. Although someadvances were made, they were not as

dramatic as they’d been with the dol-phins.2

He also wondered whether the effectswere simply down to interaction withsuch a fascinating and intelligent animal,

as research has shown that the presence ofanimals of every variety are an aid to

learning. However, the study childrenenjoyed far greater improvements in lan-guage and motor skills after encounters

with dolphins than after interactions withother types of animals.2


7

Powered-up by dolphin energy

LIVING THE FIELD

Since Nathanson’s groundbreakingresearch, a variety of therapists have

attempted to use captive dolphins to aidevery sort of troubled or handicapped

patients. DAT has been used to treatanorexia nervosa and chronic depression,

autism, post-traumatic stress disorder,dyslexia and even cancer.4 One researchfacility in the Ukraine using dolphins to

assist in the therapy of 1500 patientsreported a 60 per cent improvement in

childhood phobias, and a 30 per centimprovement in patients with infantilecerebral palsy.5

Nevertheless, although Nathansonhimself is a undoubted fan, he himself

admits that DAT doesn’t work in everycircumstance. He has concluded that

autistic children, for instance, enjoy thesessions, but don’t show measurable orlasting improvements compared with

children who have other disabilities.Although a number of organizations

such as Nathanson’s Dolphin HumanT h e r a p y, Living From The Heart inMorrison, Colorado, and the Dolphin

Reef Facility in Eilat, Israel, offer regularshort- or long-term DAT programmes,

only recently have several organizationsattempted to study exactly what happens

to humans when in close proximity withthese special mammals, and how this canaccelerate learning or healing.

David Cole, a computer scientist atFort Myers, Florida, was fascinated by

the possibility that dolphins might have aprofound physiological effect on humans.He developed a neuromapping electroen-

cephalography (EEG) instrument toenable his AquaThought Foundation to

study the neurological effects that closecontact with dolphins might have on the

human brain.6

Using this technology, the Foundationhas been carrying out EEG testing at three

of the four dolphin swim facilitieslicensed in the US. Those humans tested

have their EEGs measured at 16 points onthe scalp and are then placed in directcontact with dolphins—swimming,

touching, playing or diving with them.Immediately after the activity, EEG read-

ings are then taken again. Aqua-Thoughtalso records the hand and eye contact

with the dolphins, blood pressure andtemperature, and even makes a simple

psychological profile of each participant,before and after contact with the dol-

phins.Although the data were preliminary

when presented at the International

Symposium on Dolphin-Assisted Thera-py, the researchers discerned several sig-

nificant trends. A participant’s dominantbrainwave frequency slowed significantlyafter interaction with dolphins—from a

beta frequency to something resemblingan alpha state, the brainwave frequency

of light meditation or dreaming. T h eresearchers also found that the brain

hemispheres synchronize, so that thebrainwaves emitted from both the left andright hemispheres are in phase (peaking

and troughing at the same time) and ofsimilar frequency (speed).

Studies into psychoneuroimmunologyhave demonstrated that alpha statesstrengthen the immune system—one pos-

sible reason why cancer patients swim-ming with dolphins report successful

treatment outcomes. Other researchshows that an increased number of alpha

and theta waves can enhance learning.The Florida Back Institute has also

studied the endocrinological effect of

human–dolphin contact. This researchhas demonstrated that the production and

uptake of the brain’s neurotransmittersare strengthened by dolphin contact.AquaThought has postulated that a dol-

p h i n ’s acoustic emissions, or soundwaves, cause chemical changes at the

boundaries of cells in living tissue—whatCole terms ‘sonochemistry’—the interac-

tion of sound with matter through theprocess of cavitation.

“Sonochemistry . . . may explain both

the chemical and electrical changes thathave been observed in the brain,” says

Cole. The cavitation is caused by micro-scopic bubbles 100 microns in diameter,formed as a result of the intense sound

waves, which implode in less than amicrosecond.7 The effect of this is to heat

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 21

8

the liquid (in this instance, a cell) to 5500degrees C—approximately the tempera-

ture of the sun’s surface.Some researchers suggest that the

effect of sound waves on developing tis-sue causes neurons to migrate.8

Thus far, we know that cavitationhelps hormones to pass through cellmembranes more eff i c i e n t l y. Further-

more, leukemia research shows that cavi-tation can help to disintegrate the mem-

branes of cancerous cells, which may beanother reason for the reported positiveDAT effects on cancer patients.9 It is also

thought to stimulate the production ofimmune system T cells and to release

endorphins, hormones involved in copingwith stress and modulating the perception

of pain.Research has shown that the bot-

tlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), the

particular species of dolphins most oftenused for DAT, are capable of soundwave

intensities that can produce cavitation,especially as water is able to transmitsoundwaves 60 times more efficiently

than does air.Nevertheless, cavitation may not be

the whole story. Many behavioral andelectrophysiological changes have been

observed in people exposed to dolphins atmuch further distances, from which theycould not have experienced these sound-

wave intensities.Also, Nathanson’s original research

doesn’t actually address whether DAT isonly effective on children with learningdifficulties and not ordinary children, or

whether it can aid adults who have cogni-tive problems.

Another possibility suggested by dol-phin researchers is a process called ‘reso-

nant entrainment’, a situation that is anal-ogous to when one tuning fork hits a pitchat which other tuning forks subsequently

vibrate. We know that bottlenose dolphinsproduce low-frequency electromagnetic

and scalar waves (or standing) waves.l0

For the Hello Dolphin Project inFlorida, the researchers constructed spe-

cial wide-band sensor and recordingequipment to record all signals emanating

from dolphins. They then also recordedthe brainwave frequencies of the children

participating in the study.When the dolphins were present, they

recorded an electrical, magnetic andacoustical extremely-low-frequency sig-

nal of about 16 Hz in nearly three-quar-ters of all the trials. When the researchersthen examined the brainwave recordings

of the participants, they found profoundbrainwave shifts to a predominant fre-

quency near 16 Hz after the interactionswith the dolphins.

From the material they gathered, the

researchers concluded that dolphinssimultaneously emit acoustical, electrical

and magnetic fields, and that dolphinssense electrical fields from humans and

attempt to communicate using the samefrequencies (in the human brainwaveband of 6–30 Hz).10

We feel better around dolphinsbecause we are placed on their wave-

length—the natural state of The Field.Lynne McTaggart

Lesson Twenty-two: More on

dolphins

1 Nathanson DE. Dolphins and kids: a

communication experiment. P r o c e e d -

ings of the XVI World Assembly of the

World Organization for Preschool

E d u c a t i o n, 1980: 447–51

2 Anthrozoös, 1993; 6: 17–29

3 Anthrozoös, 1997; 10: 90–100

4 Dobbs H. Dance to a Dolphin’s Song.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1990

5 Lukina, L. Results of using Afalina dol-

phins with a purpose of rehabilitation,

social adaptation and medical treat-

ment of children in the program called

Dolphin Therapy. Presentation at the

Second Annual International Sympos-

ium on Dolphin Assisted Therapy,

Cancun, Mexico, September 5-8, 1996.

6 Cole D. Neuroelectical effects of

human–dolphin interaction and sono-

chemical hypotheses. Presentation at

the International Symposium, Cancun,

Mexico, September 8–10, 1995

7 Sci Am, 1989; 260 (2): 80

8 Lancet, 1992; 339: 85


9

LIVING THE FIELD

9 Int J Radiat Biol, 1994; 66 (2): 221–8

1 0 Byrd E. The Hello Dolphin Project.

Presentation at the International

Symposium on Dolphin–Assisted

T h e r a p y. Cancun, Mexico, September

8–10, 1995

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 21

10

On the trail of the dolphin

Here are some websites for dolphin-assisted therapy programmes:

! www.dolphinhumantherapy.com

This is the website of the DAT Program by Dr David E. Nathanson, at Key Largo in

Florida.

! www.aquathought.com

This website contains information that can clarify the options available to those seek-

ing DAT, and provides contacts details for the community of therapists and facilities in

the field.

! www.dolphinswim.net

This site offers programmes at Krim (a half-island in the Black Sea) and at Nuweiba in

Israel, which costs about 4000 bzw ( 5000).

! www.cancun.com/Dolphins/Cancun/

Although not offering DAT as such, Parque Nizuc at Cancun, in the Mexican Caribbean,

offers various interactive swimming events with dolphins.

LIVING THE FIELD

The last lesson revealed the pro m i s i n g

evidence of dolphin-assisted therapy in

t reating children who have a vast arr a y

of learning difficulties. Researchers are

experimenting with 'virtual dolphins' in

an attempt to simulate this transforma -

tional experience.

One of the most troublesome

aspects of dolphin-assistedtherapy (DAT) is the undeniable

aspect of exploitation—the animals in

question heal us at their own expense.Dolphins in captivity live for only four to

five years, compared with an averagelifespan of 45 years in the wild. There is

also the fact that dolphins drasticallycurtail their use of sonar in captivity—toacoustical ranges between 30–60 Hz, far

lower than they would use in openw a t e r s — l a rgely because the signals

bounce off the walls of their holding tankand confuse them. As Dolphin ProjectInternational has described it, this situa-

tion is analogous to a human living in aprison cell of mirrors.

In addition, if captive dolphins arereleased into the wild again, they need to

relearn how to use their sonar to locatefood sources. There is even the possibili-ty of that we humans could transmit our

diseases to dolphins, although dolphinresearchers claim they have carefully

evaluated the genesis of most human-borne infectious diseases and such a pos-sibility is deemed remote.

Clearly, the only beneficiaries in thisrelationship are humans—and wealthy

humans, at that, who are able to afford theexpense of traveling to a facility that

offers DAT.The answer, believe many dolphin

researchers such as David Cole of

AquaThought, is a ‘virtual’ dolphin, orVirtual Reality Dolphin Encounter

(VRDE), as it is known. This attempts torecreate the auditory and visual experi-ence of a dolphin encounter in the partic-

ipant’s head. There are a number of such‘virtual’ programs, employing computers,

videos and special sound systems, but allhave one thing in common: the need for

the participant to suspend disbelief andact as though he is witnessing the ‘real

thing’.In the ‘virtual’ environment, the

patient is immersed in a complete world

of one kind or another, often with the sim-ulated feeling of being immersed in

water, but without any ready reference tothe ‘real’ world. The aim of virtual realityis to create ‘presence’—a psychological

state in which the participant has no dis-tractions from outside, and so can con-

centrate on—and ultimately believe in—what seems to be in front of him. Virtual

systems also tend to create an environ-ment conducive to maintaining thepatient’s attention and improving his con-

centration for longer periods of time thanwould be possible in an ordinary, actual

environment.Virtual reality has been reported to

improve short-term memory, attention

span and perceptual processing, particu-larly in children with attention-deficit/

hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ora u t i s m .1 Very preliminary evidence

shows that virtual dolphin therapy mayimprove the tendency of ADHD childrento be visually distracted.2

One study using a VRDE was recent-ly carried out at Swinburne University of

Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Thetest involved 26 ADHD children and agroup of children without ADHD as con-

trols.Parents completed a questionnaire

( C o n n e r s ’ CPRS-93 Rating Scale) onattention and behavior a week before, and

48 hours after, the children had their vir-tual encounter: a 32-minute 3-D film ofwild dolphins near Hawaii.

The researchers then analyzed thebefore and after questionnaires, control-

ling for many factors, including age andmedication. They claimed that the ADHDchildren’s behavior after the sessions was

dramatically improved and to a far greaterdegree than that seen in the control chil-


11

Holographic healing: virtual dolphins

LIVING THE FIELD

dren. Indeed, there was a 25 per centdecrease in hyperactivity and a 16 per

cent decrease in disruptive conduct.In addition, the researchers attempted

to informally evaluate whether the partic-ipants experienced ‘presence’ by record-

ing the number of head or tracking move-ments made during each of the sessions.The children with ADHD seemed to have

made far more such movements than thenon-ADHD children.

Tactile sensations created during vir-tual reality are known to enhance theexperience. The Australian researchers

are looking into the possibility of using‘mixed-reality’ methods such as immers-

ing the participants’ hands in a containerof water while they’re watching the virtu-

al movie.

One of the difficulties in creating vir-tual DAT is that we don’t really under-

stand what it is about real dolphins, whichheals us. We also don’t yet know whether

any improvements will persist in an ordi-nary setting. Those projects now being

developed tend to reflect the inventor’sview of exactly how, physiologically, dol-phins affect humans.

Dr Horace Dobbs, known forresearching dolphin encounters to allevi-

ate chronic depression and cure anorexia,3 for instance, holds a fairly conservativeview. He believes that the key to the heal-

ing effect is the ‘feel-good’ factor, whichboosts a patient's psychoneuroimmunolo-

gy response (mind–body immune func-tion). Dobbs‘ Virtual Dolphin Project

attempts to recreate a dolphin encounter

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 22

12

Dolphin therapy: a mystical experience

Birch and others studying the transformational experiences of interacting with dolphins

have explored the idea that the sonar pulses emitted by dolphins cause transcranial mag-

netic stimulation (TMS), pulsed magnetic fields that can temporarily activate certain por-

tions of the brain, bringing on a mystical experience.

This theory is supported by the work of Michael Persinger (see Living the Field Lesson

Sixteen), who discovered that a low-intensity TMS applied to the temporal lobes of

the brain can evoke mystical experiences or altered perception by causing tiny micro-

seizures in the brain, ultimately causing the two hemispheres of the brain to synchronize.

This simulates the same brain patterns as those achieved during meditation or mystical

awakenings.

Researchers have found that dolphin electromagnetic (EM) emissions fall within the

range of the low-level fields required to produce this effect in the human brain.

Steve Birch, a doctoral student from Monash University in Victoria, Australia, is

researching the effects of dolphin sonic and EM emissions on humans. He has found that

transient temporal-lobe stimulation appears to parallel patterns of proopiomelanocortin

(POMC) neurochemical microseizures—that is, changes in hormone production through

low-level EM fields on the pineal gland.1

In this case, the body releases endorphins (feel-good neurohormones) and ACTH,

which stimulates nerve regeneration. This would explain the analgesic effects and cogni-

tive improvements observed, particularly in autistic children, as synthetic ACTH given to

such children has brought about similar improvements.

Other researchers believe that certain resonant frequencies emitted by dolphins acti-

vate specific proteins in the body, causing a number of positive biomolecular alterations.

1 Birch S. Dolphin therapy effects: An hypothesis. Proceedings of the Second Annual International

Symposium on Dolphin Assisted Therapy. September 5–8, Cancun, Mexico, 1996

with a recording that includes musicusing dolphin sounds.

Although Dobbs’ tape hasn’t under-gone rigorous scientific study, according

to a self-reported questionnaire, three-quarters of listeners claimed to have sig-

nificantly improved. Dobbs plans to com-bine his listening tape with holographicimages of dolphins that participants can

watch while sitting in a warm-water tank.David Cole of AquaThought, who has

been studying the effects of dolphinencounters on the human brain, hasdeveloped a more holistic sensory experi-

ence in partnership with InnerSenseTe c h n o l o g y. His Cyberfin Dolphin

Encounter Immersive Simulator recreatesthe feeling of being in an underwater

sanctuary.Cole developed his prototype from a

converted flotation tank in his garage.

The participant straps on 3-D goggles,lies down on a water mattress inside the

tank, and observes a TV monitor over-head while ambient music blares out ofspeakers.

Although a full-scale study still needsto be performed, Cole’s system has had

anecdotal success with patients who arecognitively impaired.

Cyberfin has the added advantage ofnot requiring a head-mounted display(HMD) unit to be worn. This is important

because a common complaint with VRDEis a ‘cybersickness’ headache, which may

be due to visual distortions from theHMD screen. It’s also known that theequipment changes the mass of the head,

requiring far more effort to move the headabout.

Doctoral student Stephen Birch (seebox above) developed a Dolphin Virtual

Reality Telepresence (DVRT) system,

and tested it on 10 volunteers to deter-mine whether just viewing images of dol-

phins could cause changes in electroen-cephalography (EEG) brainwave record-

ings as seen as a result of actual encoun-ters with wild dolphins (see Living The

Field Lesson Twenty-one). Although theparticipants reported feeling morerelaxed, their EEG patterns did not

change.One factor not usually considered is

the input of the animals themselves. InBirch’s research, when humans were heldin a dorsal position (floating on their

stomachs), dolphins approached on theirown initiative and positioned themselves

so as to aim their ‘melon’, which containstheir sonic mechanism, towards the back

of the floater’s skull, presumably to sendpulsed electromagnetic (EM) fieldsdirectly into the occipital lobes.

Although it may ultimately be kinderfor us to conduct our research with dol-

phins virtually, we still require a clearerunderstanding of the EM effects of dol-phins before we can recreate the real

experience on Playstation.Lynne McTaggart

Horace Dobb’s website (www. i d w. o rg )

contains teaching aids and virtual dol -

phin systems, including a Dilo Dome, an

igloo-shaped plastic structure containing

pictures of dolphins, which may be filled

with sea and dolphin sounds.

1 J Autism Dev Disord, 1996; 26: 651–9

2 North MM, North SM, Coble JR. V i r t u a l

Reality Therapy. Colorado Springs: IPI

Press, 1996

3 Dobbs H. Dance to a Dolphin’s Song.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1990


13


Energies

14

LIVING THE FIELD

The most remarkable aspect of the 2004

Far East tsunami disaster concerned

re p o rts that few animals or traditional

native inhabitants numbered among the

24,000 dead from the enormous tidal

waves that swept the Far East. Do ani -

mals possess a ‘disaster sense’ and can

humans develop their own ‘dre a d ’

s e n s e ?

After the 2004 tsunami disaster,one of the worst hit areas includ-

ed Yala National Park, SriLanka’s largest wildlife preserve, where

tidal waves flooded up to two milesinland. Nevertheless, not a single wild

elephant or leopard was found among thedead. Hundreds of elephants, leopards,tigers, crocodiles and smaller mammals

escaped to safety or hid in their shelters.Of the hundreds of animals at the pre-

serve, says Ravi Corea, president of theSir Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society,only two water buffalos died. Three ele-

phants ran away from the beach an hourbefore the tsunami struck. The World

Wildlife Fund, which has tagged some ofthe elephants, plans to track them to

determine when and how they moved tosafety.

Other eyewitnesses told stories of bats

flapping away excitedly and flamingoesfleeing for higher ground before the

waves struck, of elephants screaming andbreaking constraints to rush for safehaven, and of dogs refusing their daily

walks on the beach.At India’s Coddalore coast, where

thousands of people numbered among thehuman casualties, dogs, goats and buf-

faloes were also found unharmed.The tsunami is only the latest report of

animal presentiment of catastrophe.1 , 2

Twelve hours before Hurricane Charleyhit the Gulf Coast of Florida in 2004, 14

electrically tagged blacktip sharks, livingoff the coast of Sarasota, suddenly rushedoff for deeper waters. After staying away

two weeks, they returned, once the hurri-cane was over.

The fabled sixth sense of animals hasexisted since Ancient Roman times, when

the sudden arrival of owls was viewed asan omen. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake,

who has studied the predictive power ofanimals (see Dogs That Know Their

Owners Are Coming Home: and Other

Unexplained Powers of A n i m a l s,Hutchinson, 1999), cites the fact that hun-

dreds of reports can be found in historybooks of the sudden agitated evacuationof animals up to three weeks prior to

earthquakes.Although the United States Geologi-

cal Survey (USGS) has conducted sever-al studies on animal prediction,3 the best

data have been gathered in the Far East.The Chinese, whose traditions hold thatsuch animal behavior is one of the most

vital elements of earthquake prediction,have used observations of animal behav-

ior to predict earthquakes since the mid-1960s. The Chinese State SeismologicalBureau established a station in the

Xingtai Province in 1968 for earthquakeprediction that monitors biological obser-

vations. In the early 1970s, the govern-ment trained large groups of amateur

observers to monitor and report on unusu-al animal behavior. These reports wouldthen be analyzed by scientists.

In 1974, the Chinese researchers puttheir programme to the test in Haicheng,

an area in the Liaoning Province inNortheast China. After warning the popu-lation that an earthquake was due within

the next few years, their network of some100,000 monitors were told to report any

unusual animal behavior, as well as othergeological changes and unusual weather

patterns.In mid-December and January, the

government received thousands of reports

of unusual animal behavior: hundreds ofsnakes were emerging from hibernation,

even though they were likely to freeze inthe wintry weather; and cows, horses,dogs and pigs were restless and acting

strangely. Altogether, some 20 speciesdemonstrated signs of fear.


15

Precognitive pet sounds

LIVING THE FIELD

As the reports of this strange behaviorbegan flooding in, the government decid-

ed it was time to act, and they evacuatedHaicheng’s half-million inhabitants on 4

February. Later that day, a massive earth-quake registering 7.3 on the Richter Scale

struck Haicheng County, leaving onlyhalf the buildings standing. Had they notbeen evacuated, thousands of occupants

would have died.According to the Chinese surveys, the

largest number of these kinds of animalbehaviors occurs 24 hours before theearthquake strikes. However, smaller ani-

mals, such as snakes or rats, show themost unusual behavior from three days

prior to the earthquake to a few minutesbefore it strikes.

After an earthquake in 1976 in theTangshan area, a team of scientists,including meteorologists, biologists and

geophysicists, carried out a survey ofhundreds of people in 48 counties sur-

rounding the affected region. From the2000 case reports of unusual animalbehavior they were able to collect, the

team identified 58 types of domestic andwild animals that had shown abnormal

behavior prior to the earthquake striking.

The majority of cases concerned domesti-cated animals (see box on the right).

Prompted by the success of theChinese, the US Geological Survey

decided to carry out its own pilot study atthe Stanford Research Institute. T h e

USGS enlisted 1200 volunteers between1979 and 1981, who were told to call inwhenever they noticed unusual animal

behavior. During this period, of the 13earthquakes that occurred registering 4

or more on the Richter Scale, seven fol-lowed a statistically significant number ofwarning calls—some impressively so.4

According to Dr George Pararas-Carayannis, oceanographer and former

director of the International Ts u n a m iInformation Center of the United Nations

Educational Scientific and CulturalO rganization (UNESCO)–Interg o v e r n -mental Oceanographic Commission

(IOC), the Chinese are experimentingwith new instruments and electronic

solid-state sensors to predict catastrophes,much in the way that animals do. The ideais that, eventually, man will be able to

create machines and instrumentation thatcan duplicate the sixth sense of animals.5

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 23

16

Signs of a coming catastrophe

The following unusual animal behaviors have been noted by Chinese scientists prior to

earthquakes:

" domestic animals became highly agitated, or pick up their offspring and carry them

outside

" goats, pigs and other animals bite each other, refuse to enter their pens or coops, or

emit strange squeals

" swarms of rats suddenly appear and act strangely

" geese and other birds begin flying into trees

" chickens rush out of their coops in the middle of the night

" birds leave their nests or usual habitats

" reptiles, like snakes and lizards, and small mammals leave their underground nests

" fish swim around aimlessly or move into waters unnatural to their species (deepwater

fish are suddenly found in shallow water, or large fish used to living in a bay suddenly

flee to deeper waters)

" zoo animals refuse to enter their shelters at night

" insects swarm in huge groups near the shore

" cattle tear away at their restraints and rush to higher ground.

Where is the sixth sense?

The problem, of course, is attempting to

understand exactly what in the animal’sbiology is providing it with precognitive

information.Wildlife experts tend to explain away

animal sixth sense as a byproduct of oneof their exquisitely attuned five senses—dogs, for instance, possess a sense of

smell that is up to 100,000 more sensitivethan that of humans. Others believe that

an acute sense of hearing or a ‘seismic’gift, allowing them to sense the vibrationsof the earthquake, may have alerted the

animals that the flood was on its way.According to Sheldrake, three major

theories are proposed:! Animals can sense subtle sounds or

movements of the earth. Researchersbelieve animals, with their superiorsenses, can pick up the most minute

physical stimuli—for example, dogs,they believe, can hear tiny fractures in

rocks before an earthquake reachesthe surface of the earth. According toAlan Rabinowitz, director for science

and exploration at the Wi l d l i f eConservation Society in New York,

animals also have the ability to sensethe vibrational changes on land

caused by earthquakes.Joyce Poll, of the Savanna

Elephant Vocalization Project of

Norway, has carried out 25 years ofacoustic and seismic research on ele-

phants. She believes that animals areable to sense even the subtlest of seis-mic changes in the earth. This accords

with Japanese research that animalshave a sixth ‘seismic’ sense.6 Never-

theless, says Sheldrake, a number ofanimals that react precognitively to

earthquakes have no better hearingthan humans do. They also don’t reactto small tremors and, if seismic infor-

mation is so accurate, he says, thenwhy aren’t seismologists also able to

pick up these clues with their highlysensitive instruments?

! Animals smell the gases emitted prior

to earthquakes. Again, says Shel-drake, a number of species that react

to earthquakes, such as birds, don’thave an acute sense of smell.

! Animals pick up subtle changes inelectromagnetic (EM) fields. Other

research has concentrated on whetheranimals with high-frequency sensors

like sharks, or those such as birds orfish, which appear to rely on geomag-netic signaling to navigate, can sense

the EM changes in the earth before aquake or the EM changes in the

atmosphere of storms.In China, scientists have studied

pigeon legs. Biologists know that tiny

nerve bundles in a pigeon’s leg areextremely sensitive to vibrations of

any sort. In experiments, 50 pigeonsthat had their leg nerves severed

remained calm before an earthquakeof 4.0 on the Richter Scale. Thosewhich had nerves that were normal

became agitated and flew away.In Japanese studies carried out at

Osaka University, fish and wormsexposed to weak EM fields havebecome fearful and begun rushing

away—behavior similar to the typethat occurs before an earthquake.7

Sheldrake argues that the EM the-ory is the most promising, as changes

in electrostatic fields prior to earth-quakes are well established.

H o w e v e r, none of these explanations

accounts for animal premonitions thatoccur weeks before the disaster strikes

nor, indeed, for the many accounts of ani-mal presentiments of other types of disas-ters befalling their human owners, includ-

ing warnings of approaching doodlebugbombing raids during World War II, or

precognitive awareness of low bloodsugar or epileptic fits (which we’ll

explore in Lesson Twenty-four).The inescapable conclusion is that

animals are far more in touch with fore-

bodings than we are. As Sheldrake says ofthese cases, “Many other examples of

foreboding . . . make the idea of precog-nition or presentiment almost unavoid-able.”

Lynne McTaggart


17

LIVING THE FIELD

1 Earthquakes Inf Bull, 1978; 10 (6):

2 3 1 – 3

2 Earthquakes Inf Bull, 1978; 10 (2):

4 2 – 5 0

3 Evernden JR (ed). Abnormal Animal

Behavior Prior to Earthquakes. U S

National Earthquakes Hazards

Reduction Program Conference, 23–24

September 1976

4 Otis LS, Kautz WH. B i o l o g i c a l

Premonitors of Earthquakes: A

Validation Study. Annual report pre-

pared for the US Geological Survey,

1 9 8 1

5 Intergovernmental Oceanographic

C o m m i s s i o n – U N E S C O. W o r k s h o p

Report No. 58

6 Wadatsumi K. Precursory Te s t i m o n y

1 5 1 9 . Tokyo: Tokyo Publishers, 1995

7 J Phys Soc Jpn, 1996; 65: 710–2

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 23

18

LIVING THE FIELD

In the last lesson, we examined the

'disaster' sense of animals: their ability

to forecast danger. But aside fro m

tsunamis, animals possess a finely

tuned ability to 'read' humans and even

to predict illness in their owners.

Connie Standley has epilepsy, andfits can strike at any moment.

Although she used to be trappedin her home, a prisoner of her unpre-dictable illness, she now lives a normal

life, thanks to a unique warning system.The Floridian has two enormous Bouvier

des Flandres dogs, who’ve learned abouttheir owner’s affliction. A h a l f - h o u r

before a seizure is about to strike, thedogs pull on her clothes and drag her bythe hand to get her to a place of safety

before the seizure begins. Connie reckonsthat her dogs predict more than 75 per

cent of her seizures.Although we like to think of ourselves

as the most well developed of all species

on the planet, most animals have abilitiesthat far surpass us in almost every regard.

Most of us are aware of the special talentsof different animals—that they can

remember better than us (in the case ofsquirrels and nuts), navigate better thanus (in the case of birds) or hear or smell

better than us (in the case of dogs). Butmost remarkable of all is the ability of

animals to predict events.Among the most remarkable exam-

ples is the ability of dogs to predict

epileptic fits. Although doctors tend topour cold water on the possibility of ani-

mals predicting illness, cases abound ofdogs predicting seizures in their owners.

Many are trained to be seizure-responsedogs to help their owners get to a safeplace before a seizure has begun. These

dogs have been taught to lie down on topof their owner or fetch his medicine, once

a seizure has begun.Such trained behavior is well within

the reach of any dog. But many owners

report that their dogs have moved fromresponding to seizures to predicting them.

This has arisen spontaneously; most train-ers believe it is impossible to train a dog

to anticipate a fit, as humans themselveshave no reliable early-warning system.

Yet, some 10 per cent of people withseizure-response dogs claim their dogshave become seizure-alert dogs.1 Indeed,

Florida is considering giving epileptic-alert dogs the same status as seeing-eye

dogs.According to Dr Rupert Sheldrake,

the first study of dog epilepsy prediction

was by British vet Andrew Edney, whostudied dogs of all breeds who’d become

seizure-alert, according to their owners.Of the 21 who responded to Edney’s sur-

vey, all claimed that their dogs developedthis talent without training. In all cases,the dogs would:

! show concern, apprehension or fear! show attention-getting behavior, usu-

ally barking or whining! make frantic attempts to make contact

with the owner either by jumping up,

or licking his hands or face! stand by their owner, encouraging him

to lie down or shepherding him tosafety.

During the seizure, the dogs either stayedwith their owners, often licking them, orrushed to get help. According to Edney’s

study, the dogs had a remarkable trackrecord. One even could distinguish a

‘fake’ seizure from a real one.2

Sheldrake has even had reports of arabbit and a cat being able to predict its

owner’s seizures. The Epilepsy Institutein New York City is attempting to study

this phenomenon using EEG recordingand simultaneous videotaping.

A British group called Support Dogshas developed a special programmecalled Seizure Alert Dogs®. Medical sci-

entist and dog-lover Val Strong foundedSupport Dogs in 1992 to train dogs to

help physically disabled owners. Severalyears later, when a physically disabledepileptic contacted them about having a

companion dog, Val hit upon the idea ofattempting to train the dog to predict the


19

Psychic pet doctors

LIVING THE FIELD

woman’s seizures. They chose a rescuedog (most of the trained dogs are from a

shelter) and, within three months, the dogwas giving the woman a half-hour warn-

ing as well as arriving with a blanket andthe telephone once she’d had her seizure.

Because the woman often finds it difficultto talk immediately after seizure, the doghas been trained to bark down the phone

to her friends.Trainers like Val Strong emphasize

that they don’t train dogs to recognize anepileptic fit per se. Instead, they simplyobserve the dog’s reactions prior to a fit

and train it to accentuate its behavior. So,if a dog reacts by staring at the owner, Val

will teach it to lick the owner’s face, jumpup or tug on his hand. Some Seizure

Alert Dogs® even jump on top of theirowner and shake, imitating the seizures

they’ve observed. In Val’s experience,most—if not all—dogs that are closely

bonded with their owner will be able topredict fits.

According to the US Delta Society’sNational Service Dog Center, GoldenRetrievers and German Shepherds, as

well a variety of mixed Setters, BorderCollies and Samoyeds, tend to be used

most often. Basically, trainers like Vallook for a people-oriented disposition,and one that is extremely alert and

responsive to its owner’s emotions andbehavior. They also steer clear of a dog

that is shy or overly protective.3

In many instances, the peace of mind

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 24

20

How animals think—a photographic memory

Why do animals have so much more precognitive ability than we do? Much of the res-

earch into animal thinking shows fairly conclusively that animals think in pictures. In one

Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, mice taught to run a maze were implanted

with electrodes to compare their brain patterns while awake and asleep. During the maze

runs, certain brain sections would fire so that the researchers were able to predict whether

the rat was turning right or left.

During sleep, the same firing occurred, suggesting that the mice were dreaming of

running the maze. The researchers concluded that, if mice dream in pictures, they must

also think in pictures while awake.

Other researchers know that ‘verbal overshadowing’, as Temple Gradin calls it, inter-

feres with memory. It may well be that language and thinking in words also suppresses

our cognitive ability to pick up future events.

Learning about your own precognitive ability from animals means developing those

areas of awareness that are beyond language.

Exercise

! Work on studying things in ‘pieces’—the smells, sounds, look, feel and taste of the

component parts

! Draw your dream images without trying to analyze them or figure out at first what they

‘mean’

! Study your partner, friends and children, and see what thoughts you can pick up

without using words

! Study your pets to see how they communicate, and if they are picking up your thoughts

and emotions. Recently, our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Ollie picked up my appre-

hensions of some unsavory people walking in front of our house. As soon as I regis-

tered my own fear, Ollie—who was lying in another part of the house—began barking.

in knowing that your pet will warn you ofa fit in good time reduces stress, which, in

turn, dramatically reduces the rate ofseizures. The experience of one of Val’s

clients is typical. Gillian McCluskey hada very restricted life from the age of nine.

By the time she contacted Support Dogs,Gillian was having from six to 10 seizuresa week. Her worry over becoming over-

stressed often brought on a fit.Support Dogs arranged for her to have

a jet-black mixed dog called Harvey. “Itw a s n ’t long before Harvey was able togive me an alert of 15 minutes,” Gillian

says. “Harvey’s alert is to stare at me andwhine. As I am coming out of the seizure,

Harvey licks my face until I can say‘Good boy’, then he looks for his reward.”

After three-and-a-half years of havingH a r v e y, her attacks have dramaticallyreduced to just a few in the last two years

with no change in her medication. “I cannow lead an almost normal life and do

things that anyone else would take forgranted,"” she says. “To think it’s all downto a little black dog.”

Besides epileptic fits, dogs—and evencats—have learned to monitor blood-

sugar levels in diabetic owners. Sheldrakerecounts one 1992 study by Gloucester-

shire doctors who interviewed diabeticswith pets. Of 43 owners, 15—nearly athird—claimed that their animals gave

them warning by either barking to gettheir attention or seeking a neighbor for

h e l p .In one instance, a dog named Max

lived with a severe diabetic. If her blood-

sugar levels plummeted in the middle ofthe night, Max would shake her husband

until he woke up to give her the medica-t i o n .1 Perhaps the most remarkable cases

are those where a pet has helped to diag-nose cancer or an emergency like appen-dicitis. In 1989, The La n c e t published a

report of a Border Collie–Dobermanmixed dog that kept licking and sniff i n g

at a mole on his owner’s leg, and evenattempted to bite it off when its ownerwore shorts. Eventually, the mole was

found to be malignant, but at an earlystage, so it could be treated.4 Since then,

retired orthopedic surgeon Mr JohnChurch has set up a Canine Olfactory

Detection Center, following anotheranecdotal report of a dog sniffing out its

o w n e r’s melanoma.5

The Center, in the Department of

Dermatology at Amersham Hospital, hascarried out the first cancer- d e t e c t i o nstudy using six dogs to sniff the urine of

patients suspected of having bladder can-c e r. As a group, the dogs correctly chose

the urine of patients with bladder canceron 22 out of 54 occasions—an averagesuccess rate of 41 per cent compared

with the 14 per cent expected by chancea l o n e .6

Although the doctors at A m e r s h a mHospital assume that the dogs are picking

up some odor unavailable to humans, theanswer may be more subtle. Sheldrake’sdatabase contains many stories of dogs

who predicted appendicitis, heart attack,fainting, common-or-garden illnesses

like flu and even sudden death. Va l ’sSupport Dogs is now investigating otheravenues: seizure-response dogs for chil-

dren; hypoglycemia-alert dogs for diabet-ics; and even canine help for people with

emotional conditions. Although tradition-al medics believe it mostly has to do with

smell (see box, page 16), a heightenedsense of smell doesn’t account for whereanimals have made these predictions long-

distance. As Sheldrake says, it may becloser to the same information source that

helps pets read their owners’ thoughts andintentions—a non-local clue from T h eF i e l d .

Lynne McTa g g a rt

1 Grandin T, Johnson C. Animals in

Tr a n s l a t i o n. New York: Scribner’s,

2 0 0 5

2 Sheldrake R. Dogs That Know When

Their Owners Are Coming Home and

Other Unexplained Powers of

Animals. Hutchinson, 1999

3 Alert. National Service Dog Center®

N e w s l e t t e r, 1995; 6 (4)

4 Lancet, 1989; i: 734

5 Lancet, 2001; 358: 930

6 B M J, 2004; 329 (7468): 712


21


22

How do dogs sense fits?

Epilepsy is a temporary disruption of normal brain activity characterized by abnormal

electrical activity in the brain. Without warning, an epileptic’s brain erupts into uncontrol-

led waves of electrical activity, causing involuntary movements or loss of consciousness.

These convulsions, or fits, can be severe (in the case of grand-mal seizures) or simply

a brief loss of consciousness (petit mal). There is no mechanism to allow epileptics to

predict their own fits, other than the ‘aura’—physical symptoms such as twitching or

strange behavior that sometimes occurs just before the onset of a fit.

Rupert Sheldrake, who has extensively studied animal predictive behavior, says there

are several possible explanations of how a pet can predict a fit.1

The animal:

" somehow senses electrical changes in its owner

" notices minute changes in his owner’s behavior or physicality

" smells a different odor in his owner. This is the most well-accepted theory among the

medical profession. According to Hywel Williams and Dr Andrew Pembroke, of King’s

College Hospital in London, who first reported on dogs being able to sense melanoma

(see text, page 17): “It might well be that dogs have such high acuity of smell that they

can smell things like the immune system can sense antigens. Their sense of olfaction

may be in a sense akin to the immunological ability to recognize different things on

the basis of molecular constituents.”

Cancer cells, for instance, are known to produce far different chemical compounds

than those made by normal healthy cells. Some might even produce distinctive odors

detectable by dogs, even at the tiny amounts found in a few rogue cells.

A British study of bladder cancer concluded that ‘tumor-related volatile compounds’

released in urine give off a smell distinct from those associated with secondary effects

of the tumor, including bleeding.

Nevertheless, says Sheldrake, these possibilities don’t account for reported cases

where dogs have picked up such clues from another room and have come bounding in to

warn their owners.

1 Sheldrake R. Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. Hutchinson, 1999

LIVING THE FIELD

Over the last several lessons, we’ve

examined the precognitive abilities of

animals to forecast personal or global

d i s a s t e r. In this lesson, we move on to

their powers of extrasensory perc e p -

t i o n.

Some months ago, I was walking mydog in the large common near us

when I met up with one of myneighbours. At the time, Ollie, our smalltricolour Cavalier King Charles Spaniel,

was a ‘teenager’ in dog years, with ateenager’s rebelliousness. A few months

before, he’d gone chasing after anotherdog and soon ran out of sight. We’d lost

him for more than a panicky half hour,after which he’d had the good sense tomake his own way home.

My neighbour introduced me to afriend and then introduced Ollie as a good

example of failed dog training. (We’d hadmany sessions with a dog trainer, whichhad worked, but then we’d got a bit com-

placent and hadn’t reinforced them.)“They’ve spent all this money training

their dog and none of it worked at all!”my neighbour said, by way of introducing

us. “Their dog’s just useless.”As soon as she made this statement,

Ollie did something unprecedented in his

short life. He walked up to her, cockedone leg on one of her Wellingtons, and

urinated. He then walked around her,cocked the other leg, and urinated on herother boot. For the first time in some min-

utes, she was speechless—as was I, butfor entirely different reasons.

S o m e h o w, Ollie had completelyunderstood this exchange and responded

utterly appropriately. His was the canineequivalent of utter distain—a perfect put-down. Only a complete understanding of

the situation could have been responsiblefor his reaction.

But what was it that Ollie had graspedabout the situation? Was it that he under-stood that she was insulting him? Had he

cognitively understood the words? Orwas it the derision in her tone of voice

that he’d picked up? Or my discomfitureat her implications? Was he simply being

protective of me?It came down to one of two extraordi-

nary possibilities—either Ollie hasadvanced cognitive understanding, or hehas an ability to read my thoughts.

It may have been that he was simplyexquisitely sensitive to my mood—and

knew I was annoyed at the implicationof the conversation, even though it waspartly in jest; I was being introduced as,

in effect, an inept dog-handler. However,if Ollie was simply reading my mood, he

might have known I was annoyed, but notnecessarily the cause of my annoyance.

Furthermore, I was smiling and friendlythroughout the exchange, so there was noexternal evidence of any upset or con-

frontation.When I relayed the story to our train-

er, he attributed it to smell—that dogs likeOllie, whose smell is 100,000 times betterthan that of humans, in essence smell

their owners’ moods. But if his sense ofsmell told him I was irritated, it wouldn’t

have told him why. He’s been in mypresence when I’ve been irritated before,

and not urinated on anyone. He’s nevercocked his leg on a person before. Giventhe circumstances, it is difficult not to

conclude that Ollie picked up the infor-mation by extrasensory means.

The scientist who has most thorough-ly investigated the extrasensory percep-tion (ESP) of animals is undoubtedly

British biologist Rupert Sheldrake. Hehas interviewed several thousand animal

owners and trainers about their percep-tions of their pets.1

His strongest evidence for animal ESPcomprises the database he has amassed ofanecdotes and subsequent studies of dogs

who know when their owners are cominghome. At the time of his writing the book

on the subject, Sheldrake had collectednearly 600 accounts of dogs that knowwhen their owners are returning—even

when they keep irregular hours. In someinstances, the dogs wait by the door; in


23

Telepathic terriers

LIVING THE FIELD

others, they rush out to the street. In manyinstances, their excitement occurs hours

and even days before their owner returns.With some dogs, this anticipatory

behaviour is a daily activity; in others, it’sa response reserved for special occasions,

such as when their owners return from atrip or long absence.

According to four surveys carried out

by Sheldrake and his colleagues, some 51per cent of all dog owners have dogs that

regularly anticipate their arrival. T h i scapability is spread across many breeds,although Sheldrake found a slight (statis-

tically non-significant) bias towards ani-mals that, like Ollie, were traditionally

bred as companion dogs, compared withthe large breeds that tend to be more

restricted in the home or are simply keptoutside.

Traditional scientists argue that this

perception stems from routine, or from aheightened sense of smell or hearing.

Nevertheless, many of the dog owners inS h e l d r a k e ’s database report that theirdogs are able to detect their return even

when they keep irregular hours, or frommany miles away. Furthermore, Shel-

drake quotes Malcolm Fish, of the EssexPolice Dog Section, who has conducted

trials of bloodhounds for the Home officeshowing that the best a dog can do is to

sniff someone from a half-mile away—and only if the wind is blowing in the

right direction. So, the sniff theory cannotaccount for the many dogs that begin their

anticipatory behaviour while their ownersare still miles away from home.

As for hearing, although a dog may be

able to pick up the sounds of his owner’scar or footsteps, it would not account for

those dogs that can anticipate theirowner’s return in a taxi or a friend’s car,or those who use public transport.

None of the usual explanations canadequately account for the many

instances on Sheldrake’s database wheredogs begin their anticipatory activity the

moment their owners intend to leave. In17 per cent of Sheldrake’s cases on hisdatabase, the dogs begin reacting the

moment the person begins the journey oreven starts preparing to return home.

In one instance, Louise Gavit, whokeeps an irregular schedule, asked herhusband to carefully observe their dog’s

reactions to her comings and goings, andto keep a careful record of the time. They

discovered that the moment she leaveswherever she is and thinks about return-

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 25

24

Pet telepathic research

! If you suspect your animal is reacting telepathically to you in any way, keep a journal

of your intentions and your pet’s response. Although most of Sheldrake’s database

concerns dogs, he also has heard from many owners of cats, horses, sheep and the

like.

Late one night, when I was in our front hallway locking up, at the exact moment that

I noticed some unsavoury-looking people across the street, Ollie, who had been asleep

at the back of the house, jumped up and started barking furiously. He had never pre-

viously barked at people walking by, and certainly not those across the street. We

could find no other impetus for his distress.

Although we were separated by two rooms, it appears that he somehow sensed

my apprehension.

! Note the date and time of your pet’s response and any other important details about

your own intentions. Make a log of the date, time and precise circumstances. If it

concerns your arrival home, where were you coming back from? When did you decide

to leave? What was your mode of transport? How and when did your pet react? Check

out Sheldrake’s methods on his website at www.sheldrake.org.

ing, her dog BJ awakes from his nap,shifts his spot to one near the door and

points his nose outwards, waiting. As shegets closer to home, he begins to pace

excitedly, so that whenever she opens thedoor, he is poking his nose through, ready

to greet her.Although one could attribute this

behaviour to the precognitive abilities of

animals as evidenced in Lessons Twenty-

three and Twenty-four, Sheldrake believes

these data point firmly to telepathy. “Oneway of teasing apart the possible roles oftelepathy and precognition is to look at

what happens when people change theirminds,” he says. A number of his case

reports show that the dogs begin theirusual reactive behaviour at the point

where the owner has decided to comehome but, when the owner changes hismind, or decides to take a detour, the dogs

become confused, grow disinterested andeventually revert to ordinary behaviour.

Perhaps Sheldrake’s strongest caseconcerns Jaytee, the mongrel terrier thatlives outside of Manchester with Pam

Smart, who has been the subject of anumber of Sheldrake’s studies (see box,

page 22).2 At Sheldrake’s suggestion,Pam and her parents, who live in the flat

next door and take Jaytee when Pam isout, have kept a careful log of Jaytee’sactions and compared them with that of

Pam’s erratic schedule. Regardless of thetime or place, Jaytee begins anticipating

her return when Pam is between four and40 miles away.

Sheldrake has filmed Jaytee’s actions

in relation to Pam’s movements with thehelp of two videocameras, one constantly

trained on the dog and the other on thetravelling owner. In some of these studies,

P a m ’s movements were controlled bySheldrake, who would cue Pam to returnhome by signalling her with a pager. In

one such instance, virtually the moment

after Pam is told to return home, Jaytee—who had been languishing beside Pam’s

mother—begins pricking up his ears.Eleven seconds later, while Pam is walk-

ing toward a taxi, Jaytee assumes hisusual posture next to the window, antici-

pating her return, where he waits until herarrival.

With the help of other scientists,

Sheldrake went on to conduct some 45trials with Pam and Jaytee, using double

videos. In some instances, Smart herselfmakes a spontaneous decision to returnhome; in others, experimenters located at

a distance signal her to leave via pagers;and in three cases, the studies were con-

ducted by researchers who were scepticalof Jaytee’s claimed abilities. Independent

judges were used to assess the results,which demonstrated that, without a doubt,Jaytee somehow often knew when Pam

was beginning to travel home.In 45 controlled studies when Smart

did not return home, Jaytee’s waiting timeat the window did not increase.3

Even more bizarrely, in a significant

number of cases, Jaytee began reacting20 minutes before Pam was paged. Shel-

drake went on to demonstrate thatJaytee’s anticipation of the bleep was

related to Pam’s; when she was thinkingabout it or possibly expecting it, he alsoseemed to as well—more evidence that

the bond between man and dog extendsover many miles for a dog’s most impor-

tant moment: when his owner is home-ward bound.

Lynne McTaggart


Their Owners Are Coming Home and

Other Unexplained Powers of Animals.

Hutchinson, 1999

2 J Soc Psychical Res, 1997; 61: 353–64

3 J Soc Psychical Res, 1998; 62: 220–32


25


EnergiesLesson 25

26

A giant magnet

Although Jaytee was remarkably adept at determining when Pam was coming home, in

a number of instances, he missed the signals. The ‘misses’ caused Sheldrake’s colleague,

parapsychologist Dr Dean Radin, to wonder if any outside disturbances were responsible.

A large body of evidence shows that psi perception in humans decreases during

days when the atmosphere is geomagnetically stormy, and increases on days of geo-

magnetic calm. Furthermore, geomagnetic activity apparently affects the navigational

skills of animals such as homing pigeons, which ‘crash’ during geomagnetic storms (see

Living the Field Lesson Thirteen).

Radin wondered if Jaytee’s telepathic ability were related to a system akin to ‘satellite’

navigation, which would be disrupted during high geomagnetic activity or affected by local

‘sidereal’ time. Sidereal time is measured by the apparent motion of the stars (instead of

the motion of the sun). Local sidereal time (LST) is measured by the ‘right ascension’ (an

equatorial coordinate) of a star on the ‘local meridian’ in your sky—the hour angle of

the vernal equinox. The daily movement of this point gives us a measure of the earth’s

rotation in relation to the ‘fixed’ stars, rather than the sun.

After studying the geomagnetic activity on the days Jaytee was being filmed, Radin

discovered that high levels of geomagnetic flux in one of the two series of studies was

indeed significantly correlated with Jaytee’s inability to sense Pam’s return. His ability was

also affected by the LST—it was worse between 12:00 and 14:00 LST.

When keeping your animal journal, make sure to calculate geomagnetic activity and

local sidereal time.

! To compute the LST, work out your longitude, then consult http://tycho.usno.

navy.mil/sidereal.html.

! For the best display of daily geomagnetic activity, consult www. s e c . n o a a . g o v /

radio/radio.html.

LIVING THE FIELD

Animals appear to have an instinctive

sense of how to maintain their health

and even heal themselves with part i c u -

lar plants or herbs.

Stories abound of animals eatingjust the right things to heal them-

selves. After witnessing sick bearseating the roots of Ligusticum plants and

getting better afterwards, North AmericanNative Americans gave the plants a name,which means ‘bear medicine’.

Most conventional scientists have dis-paraged anecdotes such as these, putting

them down to myth—until recently.Animal behaviorists have discovered that

animals appear to have a natural instinct,across species, for determining whichplants can be used to heal different dis-

eases.Animal behaviorist Dr Cindy Engel

spent years gathering scientific evidencethat animals self-medicate—the result isher book Wild Health (Houghton Mifflin,

2002). She found that animals instinctive-ly know how to maintain optimum health.

Given a smorgasbord of choice, animalslike rats will choose a nutritionally bal-

anced diet. A number of animals alsoknow to make compensatory choiceswhen the food supply changes with the

season. For instance, she says, deer grazein summer on grass, but switch to ivy and

holly when the grass dies back. Similarly,she discovered that, when the energy con-tent of food drops in winter, animals like

the Madagascar primates aye-ayes willdouble their intake; before droughts,

camels and rhinos will switch to eatingfoods rich in salts and water.1

What is also remarkable, however, isanimals’ instinctive sense of extraordi-nary nutritional needs—even before they

need it. Animals like birds and squirrelswill change the fat content in their diets

before migration and hibernation, respec-t i v e l y. When their nutritional needsincrease, such as during pregnancy, they

increase their consumption of mineral-rich foods. When moose and deer need to

grow antlers, their bodies raid the calciumand phosphorus from their bones to feed.

The animals would then develop osteo-porosis if their diets weren’t extraordinar-

ily mineral-rich and, because soils areoften so depleted of these minerals, theanimals resort to chewing on cast-off

antlers, or chew soil from around decom-posing bones or eat salty fish.

Even vegetarians will resort to eatingmeat if they cannot get the nutrition theyneed from plants. Engel recounts the

shocking research by University ofGlasgow researcher Robert Furness who,

while researching birds on the ShetlandIsland of Foula, discovered dozens and

dozens of decapitated bodies. It tran-spired that sheep were chewing off thebirds’ heads; on another similar island,

the deer were killing birds and chewingoff their limbs. In both locations, the poor

soil failed to provide enough minerals forthe animals, which then sought to replacethe phosphorus and calcium they needed

with live bones.Numerous other studies show that

many vegetarians among the deer familybecome carnivorous when necessary, and

animals that are ordinarily conservative intheir diet will become more adventurouswhen deprived of a particular nutrient.

Perhaps more extraordinary is the evi-dence suggesting that animals know how

to self-medicate against parasites, infec-tion, skin conditions and poisons. Engel’sdata show that animals have learned

which substances—such as clay, soil andcharcoal—can absorb and neutralize par-

ticular plant toxins. They understand howto deal with certain pathogens—either by

increasing body temperature or, in thecase of the honeybee, by coating the hivewith propolis, a potent antimicrobial.

Engel has also uncovered ample evidencethat animals rub bioactive compounds

into their fur or skin to discourageunwanted insects, ticks and mites.

Scientist Dan Janzen began collating

evidence that animals somehow are ableto differentiate the thousands of toxic


27

Animal hospital

LIVING THE FIELD

secondary compounds in plants that killinternal parasites. For instance, a number

of species, including rhinoceros and wildbison, feast on a certain bark known to be

toxic to the microbes that cause dysen-tery. Even animals in captivity often have

a native sense of self-medication superiorto their doctors. In one instance, a captivecapuchin monkey that had a severe skin

infection did not get better until he wasgiven access to tobacco leaves (which

contain nicotine, a potent toxin), whichcured the skin condition permanently.2

Kodiak bears have been known to

make an herbal paste from osha roots,

then to rub it onto their skin and fur as anantibacterial.

Given a natural instinct for thehealthy, one wonders what animals would

make of our current tendency to consumetoxic junk as food and toxic chemicals as

medicine.Lynne McTaggart

1 Folia Primatol, 1994; 62 (1–3): 115–24

(quoted in Engels C. Wild Health. New

York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002: 30

2 Engels C. Wild Health. New Yo r k :

Houghton Mifflin, 2002: 125

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 27

28

Taking a cue from monkeys

We tend to believe that we need professionals to keep us fit and make us well, but we

can improve our instincts.

! Listen to your intuition when it comes to eating, and allow your children to do the

same. If you have food cravings, you may be deficient in a nutrient that your body is

trying to tell you about. That is thought to be behind the many cravings of pregnancy.

Those who are extraordinarily deficient in certain minerals may even develop pica, the

need to eat coal or wood. Chocoholics are often deficient in magnesium.

Meditate on what you really feel you need to eat, not what you think you ought to

eat or any temporary ‘feel-good’ boost such as junk food.

If you really have an aversion to a food, don’t eat it. Chances are, you are sensi-

tive/allergic to it, or it won’t agree with you in some way.

! Don't force a family member (or yourself) to eat when unwell. Animals instinctively

know to fast when they are ill—often for good reason. If they are infected with a

parasite or microbe, eating will only feed it.

! When you have a condition, investigate your options and spend time meditating

on them. Let your heart tell you which potential therapy ‘feels’ right to you. Not only will

you be tapping into your instincts and native intelligence, but you’ll be investing your

choice with your own belief—which will have a powerful placebo effect.

! Look to the natural. It goes without saying that bears and deer are smart enough not

to fight illness with things that will make them sicker. Whenever possible, consider

natural substances to fight problems such as infections. Recently, propolis—a natural

antibiotic—cured my husband’s infected tooth.

LIVING THE FIELD

In our series on animals and their

special cognitive abilities, we now turn

to a subject of heated debate—animal

emotions. What exactly do animals

feel? And what can we learn about

their holistic attitude toward life? Can

we learn to feel at one with them?

Once there lived a cow whose best

friend was a blind sheep. Soinseparable were they that the

cow acted as her friend’s ‘eyes’, leading

her around the farm all day like a seeing-eye dog, wherever she needed to go.

When the old blind sheep finally died, thecow stopped eating and refused to move

from the spot. Eventually, distraught withgrief, the cow herself died.

Psychologist Irene Pepperberg owned

an African grey parrot called A l e x .African greys are a species known for

their ability to use cognitive language andalso for their psychic ability. Alex neededa lung operation but, when Pepperberg

turned to leave after handing him to theirveterinarian, Alex cried after her, “Come

here. I love you. I’m sorry. I want to goback.” Like a child, he felt that he was

being abandoned and, more to the point,that it was his fault.1

If all animals could talk as well as

Alex, would they also register that levelof sophisticated emotion? Ask any pet

owner or kindly farmer, and they willconsider their animals as consciousbeings capable of a range of complex

emotions—joy, grief, playfulness, sulk-ing, even embarrassment.

However, to the scientific community,an animal is still perceived as nothing

much more than a robot with an array ofchemical processes, without the ability toregister much more than the crudest pain

or fear—certainly none of the more com-plicated human feelings such as excite-

ment, boredom, annoyance, anger or sus-picion.

Only Charles Darwin maintained that

animals have sophisticated emotions2—atheory that, unlike his views on evolution,

never caught fire. Mark S. Blumberg, ofthe University of Iowa, and Greta

S o k o l o ff, of Indiana University inBloomington, number among the most

vocal proponents of the behaviouristview, claiming that the idea that animalsprocess emotion is pure fiction and

‘anthropomorphic’.3

A variation of this theme is the sug-

gestion that animals have a kind of ‘ani-mal consciousness’ that is far less sophis-ticated than ours.

H o w e v e r, these attitudes are nowbeing challenged with the advent of

sophisticated brain-imaging technologythat can reveal brain function in specific

areas of the brain in people with emotion-al disorders. A number of scientists, instudying the brains of both animals and

humans, has discovered remarkable simi-larities in emotional biology between

species. Increasingly, scientists are com-ing to believe that animals have sen-tience—the ability to have a conscious

experience, to compare and understandexperience, to have an internal represen-

tation of what is going on in their lives—in effect, to know that they know.

Indeed, this was the subject of theconference entitled Animal Sentience,held in London in March 2005. The vari-

ous speakers and delegates, who num-bered among them veterinarians, repre-

sentatives from government and interna-tional institutions, animal-welfare organi-zations and even the meat industry, tend-

ed to agree that animal sentience is nowone of the most important and necessary

new areas of biology to explore.At the forefront of this underexplored

area of research is Jaak Panksepp, profes-sor emeritus of the department of psy-chology at Bowling Green State Univers-

ity, in Ohio, who first coined the term‘affective neuroscience’ to describe the

science of where and how emotion devel-ops at the neural level of the brain.4 Itwas also Panksepp who first proposed

that brain neurochemical research couldprovide a window through to an under-


29

Feeling like an animal

LIVING THE FIELD

standing of emotion and from where itderives.

Neurochemical research acrossspecies has demonstrated that, in both

animals and humans, all the core ‘prima-ry’ emotions —rage, fear, the drive to

chase prey and curiosity—are centred inan elemental ’paleo-mammalian’ part ofthe brain. The amygdala, a tiny almond-

shaped portion of the brain, is part of thelimbic system, the seat of all emotions. It

is present not only in birds and mammals,but also in more ‘primitive’ species suchas fish, reptiles and amphibians. The lim-

bic system helps us decide whether welike or dislike something, and is also the

keeper of emotional memory.Paul McLean, director of the

Laboratory of Brain Evolution andBehavior in Poolesville, Maryland, firstcarried out research showing that humans

and higher mammals have three brains:the reptilian brain (all the autonomic

functions); the paleo-mammalian brain,the limbic system; and the neo-mam-malian brain, the core intellectual brain,

which has abstract thought, reasoning andlanguage.

Stimulating one part of the amygdala,

according to the work of neuroscientistJoseph Le Doux, a professor at the Center

for Neural Science at New Yo r kUniversity, can cause a state of intense

fear; humans and rats with damage to thisportion of the brain are unable to feel fear,

even in appropriate circumstances.According to Panksepp, aside from

the core emotions which sit in the more

primitive portion of the brain, the ‘higherbrain centres’ lie in the newer sections of

the brain, the ‘neo-mammalian’ cerebralcortex. It is here that animals, like ushumans, develop sophisticated secondary

‘ s o c i a l ’ emotions: separation distress;sexual attraction and lust; social attach-

ment and bonding; and play.These secondary emotions are the

more complicated variety as they requirereflection and choice—a weighing up ofthe effects of different actions. Without

human speech, animals cannot prove tous that they think the same way we do

about a certain situation. Nevertheless,we do know that the brain biochemistryconnected with certain sophisticated

human feelings are found in a range ofother species, and that the same emotions

cause the same measurable chemical

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 28

30

Like a weasel

Naturalist essayist Annie Dillard, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning Pilgrim at Tinker

Creek, writes of the moment she was sitting by a pond, and she and a weasel spied

each other:1

“Our eyes locked and someone threw away the key . . . It emptied our lungs. It felled

the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled

into that black hole of eyes. If you and I looked at each other that way, our skulls would

split and drop to our shoulders . . .

“I would like to learn, or remember, how to live . . . I don’t think I can learn from a wild

animal how to live in particular . . . but I might learn something of mindlessness, some-

thing of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or

motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at

the last ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he

should.”

To live like a weasel, she says, is to “stalk your calling in a single skilled and subtle

way”, to grasp the necessity in your life and “not let it go”.

1 Dillard A. Teaching a Stone to Ta l k. New York: Harper & Row, 1982

changes in the brain. Consequently,Panksepp and others have inferred that

secondary emotion is not a uniquelyhuman trait.

As noted animal scientist Te m p l eGrandin says, the difference between ani-

mal and human emotions is a matter ofdegree, rather than of kind.5

One of the areas that Panksepp has

studied in depth is animal joy asexpressed through play. In his own lab,

Panksepp has discovered that rats chirpwith joy and laugh when they are tick-led—the same sound they make when

having sex. “I literally came into the labone morning and said, ‘Let’s go tickle

some rats’. Lo and behold, it soundedlike a playground.” Those rats repeatedly

tickled enjoyed themselves so much thatthey bonded with the researchers.

Other scientists have discovered that

chimpanzees and dogs also have theirown variety of laughter, often outside the

range of human hearing. ResearcherPatricia Simonet, of the University ofNevada in Reno, discovered that, to a

dog, a laugh is a sudden breathy forcedexhalation in a burst “like receiving the

Heimlich maneuver”, but which mightseem to the untrained ear like a normal

large pant. While researching the begin-nings of human laughter, Robert Provine,of the Yerkes Regional Primate Center in

Atlanta, found that play made chimpslaugh. The chimps’ brand of chuckling

was a mix of panting and grunting oninward and outward breaths (as opposedto our rat-ta-ta-tat outward breath ha-ha-

has)—and they would pant in excitementwhen anticipating roughhousing.6 P r o -

vine also discovered that dog laughterpiped into a kennel dramatically reduced

stress, and caused the dogs to cheer upand start playing.

Says Marc Bekoff, a professor in the

department of environmental, populationand organismic biology at the University

of Colorado in Boulder, and author ofThe Smile of a Dolphin: Remarkable

Accounts of Animal Emotions (Random

House, Discovery Books, 2000):“Animals at play are symbols of the

unfettered joy of life.”Panksepp has also discovered that

play has a serious social function: thebrain releases opiates in response to play,

and the frontal lobe of the brain grows inresponse to the amount of play per-

formed. Play becomes a means of rein-forcing social cohesion.

Similar studies of rats by Steven

S i v i y, from Gettysburg College inPennsylvania, also shows that even when

rats are only anticipating play, their brainshows an increase in dopamine activity.They also chirp and pace with anticipato-

ry excitement.Panksepp has demonstrated that when

you isolate rats and then have them re-socialize with others, they increase their

level of play. Deprived of their social ties,they increase play to increase their levelsof ‘feel-good’ chemicals in the brain.

Once they’ve satiated that chemical andfeel good enough about themselves, they

stop playing. They’ve reached, saysPanksepp, a saturation point in their needfor ‘social comfort’. Those little rat pups

deprived of play will engage in ‘catch-up’play longer than their ordinary counter-

parts.Panksepp believes that human chil-

dren also need hours of rough-and-tumbleplay every day. Indeed, hyperactive anddisruptive children may simply be those

who are not allowed to play enough inour increasingly isolated, competitive and

‘ s e r i o u s ’ primary-school environment.Ritalin and other drugs to control atten-tion-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may

simply be chemically repressing the basicdrive for play. Panksepp found, in his

own studies with rats, that those withsmaller frontal lobes had attention-deficit,

and had increased levels of both hyper-activity and playfulness. However, ifallowed to play enough, they developed

into normal animals.7, 8

Through this understanding comes a

moral obligation—to change the way wetreat them.

Jeffrey M. Masson, co-author (with

Susan McCarthy) of When Elephants

Weep: The Emotional lives of Animals


31

LIVING THE FIELD

(Delta, 1996), takes this issue one stagefurther. “What are the implications of

finding that animals lead emotions lives?Must we change our relationships with

them? Have we obligations to them? Istesting products for humans on animals

defensible? Is experimentation on ani-mals ethical? Can we confine them forour edification? Kill them to cover, sus-

tain and adorn ourselves? Should wecease eating animals who have complex

social lives, are capable of passionaterelations with one another and desperate-ly love their children?9 And if we are

going to continue to eat them, aren’t wemorally obligated to only eat meat from

animals that have been humanely rearedand killed?

The most interesting aspect of animalemotions is that it appears to activate or

c h a rge an animal’s sixth sense. T h e yreserve their highest precognitive ability

for those they love, usually their owners.Pets routinely are able to sense danger orillness in their owners and will usually

attempt to save them (see Living the Field

Lesson Twenty-four).

But if dogs and cats have precognitiveability through their emotions, it is likelythat other animals do, too. Biologist

Rupert Sheldrake believes that socialfields or groups facilitate the possibility

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 28

32

How to feel like a dog

! If you have a pet, observe it closely when playing—its sense of rough-and-tumble. If

you don’t have a pet, observe animals that are unfettered (dogs off a lead, animals in

the wild—not in a zoo) playing with each other

! Make notes of what they do: rolling over each other, their positions, their surprise

attacks

! Take time out every day to engage in a little unstructured play. If you have children,

engage in some rough-and-tumble with them

! While you’re playing, don’t think about winning. Animals tend to ‘self-handicap’, some-

times winning, sometimes purposefully allowing the other animal to win, to keep the

game going. The point is the game, not the outcome

! During these moments, keep your mind trained to the present. Try to feel the joy of

living in that very moment

! Take time to observe animals in social groups in parks and in wild land. When observ-

ing animals in the wild, attempt to make a connection with them, such as locking

eyes. Really observe every aspect of the animal and try to imagine what these animals

feel in those moments

! Lock into the necessity of the present (see box, page 26)

! Observe everything that happens, including your feelings, and write it all down in your

journal.

Jeffrey Masson says that he often attempts great imaginative leaps to imagine how crea-

tures very different from him might feel. “And sometimes, when I think I get it, when I can

suddenly begin to feel the same as my dogs, I can almost enter another world. I seem to

have no control of such moments. I like to believe that at these moments, my dogs and I

are feeling something very similar, something that escapes language entirely, and is

almost impossible to describe to another person. I feel a bit silly talking about it. Yet it

happens. And I cannot help feeling that it happens to my dogs, too. That creates a

special and deep bond. We are both creatures of feeling.”

of telepathic communication.Perhaps our most important lesson as

beings tortured by choice and cognitivereasoning is to learn from an animal’s

sense of holism and ability to live in themoment. Unconditional love comes natu-

rally to a dog or cat; animals aren’tambivalent or repressed about their emo-tions. As Grandin says, there is no such

thing as a love–hate relationship in theanimal kingdom. “If an animal loves you,

he loves you no matter what. He doesn’tcare what you look like or how muchmoney you make,” she says.5

“When animals are no longer colo-nized and appropriated by us, we can

reach out to our evolutionary cousins,”says Masson. “Perhaps then the ancient

hope for a deeper emotional connectionacross the species barrier, for closenessand participation in a realm of feelings,

now beyond our imagination, will be real-ized.”

Lynne McTaggart

1 Pepperberg IM. The Alex Studies;

Cognitive and communicative Abilities

of Grey Pa r r o t s. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1999

2 Darwin C. The Expression of the

Emotions in Man and Animals. London:

John Murray, 1872

3 Psychol Rev, 2003; 110: 389–94

4 Panksepp J. Affective Neuroscience:

The Foundations of Human and Animal

E m o t i o n s. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1998

5 Grandin T. Animals in Tr a n s l a t i o n . N e w

York: Scribners, 2005

6 Provine R. Laughter: A Scientific

E x p l o r a t i o n . Viking, 2000

7 Dev Psychobiol, 1981; 14 (4): 327–32

8 Curr Dir Psychol Sci, 1998; 7 (3): 91–8

9 Masson JM, McCarthy S. W h e n

Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives

of Animals. New York: Dell Pu b l i s h i n g ,

1 9 9 5


33


Energies

34

LIVING THE FIELD

Although we believe that the logical

p o rtion of our brain guides us in mak -

ing future decisions, studies show that

humans, like animals, use emotions and

intuition to make decisions about the

f u t u re .

One of medicine’s great textbookcases concerns a 25-year-old

railroad construction foremannamed Phineas P. Gage. [For a fullaccount, see Antonio R. Damasio’s book

Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and

the Human Brain (New York: Grosset/

Putnam, 1994]). Gage’s company, theRutland & Burlington Railroad, was lay-

ing new tracks across Vermont in thesummer of 1848, and Gage was in chargeof overseeing the controlled explosions

used to blast through the layers of strati-fied rock covering the uneven terrain. For

this exacting job, he’d had a special ironbar made that was nearly four feet long,an inch-and-a-half in diameter and weigh-

ing more than 13 pounds. After a hole wasdrilled into the rock, and powder, a fuse

and sand inserted, the job of the iron barwas to tamp down the sand, which con-

tains the explosion within the rock.One afternoon, a freak accident

occurred. Gage was distracted in the

midst of what was usually a careful pro-cedure. On that occasion, he tamped in

the powder, but without the sand in place.The striking of the iron bar on the stonecaused a spark, which lit the fuse, and the

entire explosion blew up in his face.The force of the explosion sent the

iron bar up like a rocket through Gage’sleft cheek, the base of his skull and the

front of his brain and out the top of hishead. Gage was thrown to the ground but,to the stunned members of his gang, he

was not only still alive, but also awakeand able to speak coherently and to walk.

Once he was taken to a local hotel, histerrible gaping wounds were dressed bya young doctor named John Harlow and,

two months later, he was completelyhealed, suffering only the loss of one eye.

Nevertheless, although Gage was toall intents and purposes his old physical

self, his body appeared to be inhabited bya totally different person.

Harlow, who maintained a keen inter-est in Gage’s case, kept a careful record ofthe fact that Gage appeared to no longer

have a connection between his intellectu-al capacities and his ‘animal’ propensi-

ties. He was invariably socially inappro-priate and also appallingly profane, withlittle regard for his fellows. He also

appeared to be utterly unable to plan anyfuture operation without vacillating or

changing his mind.These new personality traits so dif-

fered from the thoughtful and well-bal-anced character he’d displayed before theaccident that his employers were forced

to let him go. Afterwards, he invariablychose work that did not suit him: on horse

farms, as a stagecoach driver, even as afreak in a circus act. Unable to securesteady employment for more than a few

months at a time, he, like many misfits ofthe time, traveled to California, where he

eventually died of an epileptic fit.More than 150 years later, this case

fascinated Antonio Damasio, who’d longsuspected that cool-headed reasoning didnot produce intelligent choices unless

there was an emotional component. AndGage had not only been incapable of

making good choices, but was alsoimpelled to select situations for himselfthat were downright disadvantageous.

As Damasio put it, Gage “workedhard at his downfall”. Although his men-

tal skills for language, memory, percep-tion and intelligence had remained intact,

somehow all his value judgments wereseriously impaired. He’d been unable tobehave in an ethical manner, observe

social conventions and, most important,make decisions that were advantageous to

his survival.When Damasio and his wife Hanna

reconstructed Gage’s brain and the route

of the tamping iron with the use of mod-ern neuroimaging technology, they dis-


35

Gut hunches, good choices

LIVING THE FIELD

covered that the iron rod sliced throughwhat Damasio called the ‘ventromedial’

(or underbelly) region of the frontal lobe.Damage to this area of the brain appeared

to be why Gage could not plan for thefuture or successfully decide on the most

beneficial course of action for himself.Gage had, in short, lost his ability to

act on a gut hunch.

Damasio, who suspected the currentneurological world view—that emotion

and reason operate from two entirely sep-arate places in the brain—went on tostudy a number of modern Gages. One of

his patients, a fellow called Elliot, whowas in his early 30s, was ordinary in

every regard, with a high IQ and good test

scores in all the standard neurologicalassessments such as perception, memory,

ability to learn, and language and arith-metic skills. The only distinguishing

characteristic was a tendency to bedetached and imperturbable, even in

potentially embarrassing situations.Elliot had had a brain tumor and,

although it had been successfully

removed and he’d physically recovered,like Gage before him, he had emerged

from his ordeal a changed person. Heseemed utterly unable to manage his timeor keep sight of an overall goal without

becoming hopelessly distracted orobsessed with detail.

He also seemed unable to operate

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 29

36

Intuitive learning

Developing your intuition can be a learning process, just as it was with Bierman’s card

games. It’s also a matter of honoring the still, small voice in yourself that says to you:

“Don’t do that!” or “Go ahead and take a chance”.

You can teach yourself to listen to your gut hunches by:

! Slowing down. We rush about so much, using cognitive reasoning to steer us around,

that we often don’t have time to listen to our inner voice. When making a decision, mull

it over in your mind and see what comes up.

! Practicing. A tried-and-tested means of improving your intuition is to practice

guessing with a pack of cards. Keep the deck turned over, face down. Concentrate on

each card as you guess what it is. Say the first symbol that comes into your head. If

you wish, you can start off with just 10 cards, so you have less choice.

! Resisting analysis. When you receive an intuition, resist the urge to figure out what

it ‘means’. If a word pops up, write it down, but don’t try to determine its significance.

During a remote viewing session, when I was invited to ‘see’ an object hidden in

wrapping paper, I kept seeing an oval. My analytical mind kept thinking ‘pin’ because

I was wearing a brooch of a similar shape. However, suddenly the word ‘candy’ popped

into my head. I was in the US, where the term is used in place of ‘sweets’. Indeed, the

box contained an array of oval-shaped chocolates.

! Receiving through senses, not your analytical brain. Take the information and first

draw it. Noted remote viewer Ingo Swann tells his RV students that there are different

stages of receiving: in the first, you are aware of very basic outlines of shapes, which

grow in complexity over time. Begin by drawing the first idea that comes into your

mind. After a few moments, draw it again (you should have more information). A few

moments later, draw it again. Some minutes later, try constructing it in three dimension,

with clay.

! Following your gut hunches, no matter how irrational. If you get a strong impression

that you or someone else shouldn’t do something, listen to it.

within the ‘larger frame of behavior’ ineither home or business. He was inca-

pable of making reasoned decisions orlearning from them, which left his per-

sonal and professional life in tatters.Eventually, his employment was termi-

nated and his marriage collapsed, and hewas left in the care of a relative.

Damasio finally put two and two

t o g e t h e r. As with Gage, portions ofElliot’s frontal lobes relating to emotion

had been destroyed by the brain surgery.He was incapable of having any sort ofemotional response to any aspect of his

life. He might hear a pleasurable piece ofmusic, understand it intellectually, but be

unable to actually feel the pleasure fromit. As Damasio described it, Elliot “could

know but not feel”.From cases like these, Damasio began

to suspect that reduced emotion has a cen-

tral role in inhibiting the ability to makesound decisions about the future. In cases

like Elliot or Gage, the loss of the emo-tional center of the frontal lobes robssomeone of their gut hunches. W h e n

faced with logic alone, people invariablymake the wrong decision.

To test this, Damasio gave Elliot apopular psychology test called the

Gambling Test. In this test, which imi-tates ordinary gambling, a subject isgiven $2000 to gamble with and four

decks of cards. Certain cards, which are‘wins’, result in the gambler being paid

money. Others, deemed ‘losses’, requirethe gambler to pay the experimenters afine.

In this instance (as with most tests),two of the decks—decks A and B—had

been stacked so that Elliot would get highwins, but also high losses. Similarly,

decks C and D were laced with smallwins and small losses.

Ordinarily, a normal person will begin

to get a bad feeling about the first twodecks, and his gut hunch will tell him to

avoid it. But, with Elliot, he ended up los-ing, attracted to decks A and B for thehigh wins, but unable to feel that he was

losing all his money with them.Many animal behaviorists have dis-

covered that animals primarily operate onthe gut hunch, using their emotions to

predict the future. As animal trainerTemple Grandin says: “Emotions don’t

just give you motivations; they give youinformation—information about the

future and what you need to do about it.”1

Animals use their gut hunches—usu-ally their fear—to guide their actions.

Most animals are gifted with an innatesense of fear which accompanies an acute

sense of ‘close-up’ smell so that, if theysmell that a predator has been nearby,their accompanying fear helps them get to

a safe haven quickly. Other evidenceshows that animals have instinctive rather

than learned fears, such as a fear ofheights or of predators to their species.

Perhaps most significantly, the guthunches of both animals and humansappear to improve with experience: our

intuition is intertwined with our experi-ence. When the Damasios attempted their

card game with normal subjects, they dis-covered that their participants were learn-ing to predict from the situation. Their

hunches were anticipating what would begood or not for the future. But with par-

ticipants whose frontal lobes had beendamaged, there were no such anticipatory

responses.2

Although Damasio does not under-stand how this predictive capability

develops, he believes that it arises out ofsome non-conscious estimate of success

and failure that improves with time.H o w e v e r, parapsychologists suspect

that intuition arises from information not

contained within the boundaries of timeand space. Dutch psychologist Dick

Bierman has also been keenly interestedin whether our bodies predict bad news.

To test this hypothesis, he used theGambling Test, but wired up his partici-pants with skin-conductance devices that

measure ‘fight-or- f l i g h t ’ responses. Hediscovered that, as the game went on, his

participants became more stressed a fewmoments before they selected a bad card.Although they didn’t show such predic-

tive ability at first, this ability increasedas they got further into the game. Their


37

LIVING THE FIELD

ability to receive a gut hunch improvedwith time.3

As with animals, many of our emo-tions may be unconscious, picking up

information without our cognitive aware-ness. According to Joseph LeDoux, of

New York University, fear travels to theconscious part of the brain slowly, and tothe unconscious part (the more primitive

amygdala) in a few milliseconds. This hasan obvious survival advantage. You run

away from something potentially danger-ous before you take the time to work outin your frontal lobes whether it actually

poses a threat.Many of the emotions that form our

gut hunches could be operating similarly,so that we are recipients of two types of

information flow—’low-road’ u n c o n-scious information to the amygdala, and

conscious ‘high road’ cognitive informa-tion to the neocortex. It may be that our

unconscious intuition is constantlyreceiving sensory and intuitive data that

our ‘sensible’ neocortex dismisses.Unlike animals, which act on their own

highly specific unconscious fears forever,unless desensitized, humans often ignorethese unconscious warning signals at their

peril.Lynne McTaggart

1 Grandin T. Animals in Tr a n s l a t i o n. New

York: Scribners, 2005

2 Soc Neurosci, 1993; 19: 791

3 Bierman DJ. Anomalous aspects of

intuition. Presented at the Fo u r t h

Biennial European Meeting of the

Society for Scientific Exploration,

Valencia, Spain, 9–11 October 1998

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 29

38

LIVING THE FIELD

Next in our series on animal emotions

and wholism, we explore how animals

e x p ress their joie de vivre thro u g h

c u r i o s i t y, and what we can learn from it

about ourselves and the further devel -

opment of our psychic abilities.

All I need to do is to walk towardthe drawer where my dog Ollie’s

lead is kept, and he will beginbarking and springing up three feet in theair. Although he spends much of his time

content to slump at the top of the stairs,the very thought of having his walk sud-

denly animates him with a joy almostbeyond description. It isn’t even the actu-

al walk that’s good. It’s the very thoughtof it. The sheer anticipation of it. It’s sogood that he can taste it.

According to Dr Jaak Panksepp,Professor Emeritus of Psychobiology at

Bowling Green State University in Ohioand currently Head of A ff e c t i v eNeuroscience Research at the Chicago

Institute for Neurosurgery and Neuro-research, Ollie’s anticipatory joy has all

to do with the ‘seeking’ mode of his brain. Panksepp has spent more than three

decades studying the physiological mech-anisms of the so-called primitive emo-tions in mammalian brains. He’s identi-

fied five such emotions that humans sharewith many members of the animal king-

dom.1 They include the:! SEEKING system (expectancy/

seeking out things)

! RAGE system (anger/rage)! FEAR system (fear/anxiety)

! CARE system (maternal care/nurturing)

! PANIC system (separation andneed of care)

! PLAY system (roughhousing play

and general joy).The seeking system helps animals to

search or investigate, and also to work outthe meaning of their environment. It’spowered by a variety of stimuli: hunger,

thirst, sexual arousal or thermal bal-ance—the need for food, water, shelter, a

mate—most of which the animal mustsatisfy to stay alive.

The role of curiosity

But the most vital element—the mostemotionally arresting part—is the jour-ney, not the arrival: it’s the hunt, not the

catch. It is being interested in having asnoop or a sniff around, being intensely

engaged in the search or the puzzle, orbeing curious about something new.

The seeking circuits are fully engaged

when an animal is involved in high antic-ipation, intense interest or insatiable

c u r i o s i t y. It’s being fully present andengaged in life.2

Animals as well as humans have aprofound need to sniff out not only whatthey need in life, but also the novel. What

is mostly pleasurable is the curiosityabout and anticipation of exactly what

they will find. Scientists like Panksepphave carried out electrical stimulation ofthe brain to determine exactly where

seeking fires in the brain. They’ve dis-covered that when animals are curious,

the hypothalamus lights up and the neuro-transmitter dopamine is produced.

In the past, the scientific communitybelieved that dopamine was a feel-goodchemical, and that it was the release of the

chemical itself that was pleasurable.More recently, however, researchers are

beginning to discover the reverse: thepurpose of the neurochemical is to lightup a certain portion of neurocircuitry.

What actually feels good is the activationof the seeking part of the brain.

On the whole, wild animals have amore active seeking-circuit than ordinary

domesticated animals. This is likely dueto the fact that wild animals have to usetheir wits about them, and maintain a high

level of curiosity for hunting and foragingto keep themselves alive, whereas domes-

tic animals like Ollie are limited to dig-ging and foraging just for the fun of it.Nevertheless, even when survival is not at

stake, mammals of any sort maintain afascination with the new.


39

Curiosity won’t kill the cat

LIVING THE FIELD

Another interesting discovery ofPanksepp’s shows that the seeking por-

tion of the brain stops firing once the ani-mal has found food or water. Animals

have been hardwired to enjoy the forag-ing and the hunt so that they will carry on

doing so until they get what they need tosurvive. They find it physically pleasur-able to be curious so they will persist in

looking, even when the going gets tough.This evidence has its own parallels

with human needs. Our own hunting andgathering instincts are no longer impor-tant for survival, but we have retained our

love of the hunt, whether it concernsinvestigating a mystery, having a good

nose around a shop or flea market, study-ing new ideas or projects, or even prob-

lem-solving. This impulse may even bebehind our obsession with detective yarnsand ‘whoddunits’.

Indeed, a sense of curiosity may beessential to a long and healthy life.

Science has also confirmed that an endur-ing sense of curiosity is one of the mostvital elements of longevity. In one five-

year study of more than 1000 men overage 70, a sense of curiosity was the most

significant determinant of survival, irre-spective of diet and lifestyle. When the

study examined women of the same age,curiosity was found to be the most vital

factor in their survival as well.3 A love ofthe hunt may also be involved in a sense

of purpose, evidently a mainstay ofhealthy old age.

One retrospective study examined 17

American Civil War nurses, includingLouisa Mae Alcott, Dorothea Dix and

Clara Barton, all of whom lived to a ripeold age. Although the study revealed thatsocial ties, marital status, religion and a

sense of altruism contributed to their sur-vival, the most important attribute that

they all shared was their curiosity: a pio-neering spirit that remained perpetually

fascinated by the new.4

One of Panksepp’s important findingsis the location of the brain’s seeking

mode. The hypothalamus has been knownas ‘the brain of the brain’. It is the brain’s

central hub for the body’s autonomic reg-ulatory activities—such as the endocrineand cardiovascular systems, temperature,

hormonal levels and metabolism. But it isalso thought to be the center of the

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 30

40

Kept alive by natural curiosity

The ‘seeking’ circuit described by Panksepp is located in the hypothalamus of the

limbic system, the seat of primitive emotions. It also contains the so-called ‘low-road’

primitive emotions, described by New York University’s Joseph LeDoux as those that help

an animal to immediately assess whether a situation is to be feared and avoided before

the slower, but more accurate, analytical neocortex determines whether the situation

represents a true risk (see Living the Field Lesson Twenty-eight). This area of the brain also

houses the more primitive areas of the ‘gut hunch’.

Some of the latest brain research by Richard Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin,

on Buddhist monks confirms that the brain is highly plastic. Portions change and grow

according to how often they are activated. Meditators who spend a great deal of time

focused on a mantra or on their breathing can expand that portion of the brain dealing with

highly focused attention.1

By the same token, if you work on areas that heighten your curiosity, you can also

reinforce and strengthen the neural circuitry relating to anticipation and your own gut

hunches. So, you will not only be sniffing out new things, but be relatively good at

anticipating what you will find.

1 Psychosom Med, 2003; 65: 564–70

‘mind–body’ connection, helping to inte-grate feelings into a cohesive response. It

is the home of the pineal gland and thelimbic system, as well as the portion of

the brain most involved with picking upmagnetic signals from external sources

(see Living The Field Lesson Two), andwith gut hunches and forecasting.

It may well be that one good way of

developing your psychic hunches is tomaintain a healthy sense of curiosity

about the new. As Bob Dylan once said,“An artist must always be in a state ofbecoming’. This may just as well apply to

life.Lynne McTaggart

1 Panksepp J. The anatomy of emotions,

in Plutchik R, ed. Emotion: Theory,

Research and Experience, Vol. III.

Biological Foundations of Emotions.

New York: Academic Press, 1986:

9 1 – 1 2 4

2 Panksepp J. The neurobiology of emo-

tions: Of animal brains and human feel-

ings, in Manstead T, Wagner H, eds.

Handbook of Ps y c h o p h y s i o l o g y.

C h i c h e s t e r, UK: John Wiley & Sons,

1989: 5–26

3 Psychol Ageing, 1996; 11: 449–53

4 Nurs Forum, 1991; 26 (1): 9–16


41


EnergiesLesson 30

42

Curiouser and curiouser

To expand your natural sense of curiosity (and that part of your brain):

! Engage in frequent ‘hunting’. Human hunting includes attending car-boot sales, flea

markets, auctions, trade fairs—where buying activity encourages you to ‘snoop’

around.

! Solve problems for fun. Crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, Sudoku—all engage

that portion of the brain that tries to work out what happens next.

! Watch or read ‘whodunnits’ or thrillers. Perhaps more than any other form of story-

telling, this type of reading or movies focuses entirely on ‘what happens next’ or who

is responsible.

! Keep abreast of the ‘new’. Curiosity is about fascination with novelty. It doesn’t have

to include new things. Keep involved in what is new on the political and cultural scene.

! Avoid routine. Don’t get stuck in a rut: study a new subject, take a new course, try

new recipes, go to new shows, walk new ways to work or put up a new curtain in your

living room.

! Investigate a new area in your town. Look at details. Actively dig out details of its

history, its buildings, their occupants and businesses.

! Hunt for answers. Set yourself an intellectual problem and seek out the answer to it.

! Be nosy. If you’re curious about something, don’t dismiss it as unimportant. Track it

down, look into it, find out about it.

! Learn to listen. Be genuinely curious about colleagues and friends. Ask questions

about their lives.

! Be curious about the big questions. Do some scientific or philosophical searching

into the meaning of life and life’s other big conundrums.

! Revel in the anticipation of things. If something good happens, notice if you felt

excited beforehand. Try to tease out what you were excited about. Notice how you

were feeling. When that feeling comes again, learn to rely upon it.

! Notice when you are apprehensive. Learn to recognize when you are feeling wary of

something. What does it feel like? See if you were right to suspect a certain situation.

When that feeling comes again, listen to it.

LIVING THE FIELD

Animal behaviorists have long arg u e d

that animals only act out of surv i v a l

s e l f - i n t e rest. However, new evidence

shows that animals have higher senses

of compassion and altru i s m — w h i c h

humans would do well to learn fro m .

Neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkinshas argued that only humans

make the ‘error’ of true altru-ism—acting for a higher purpose, such asa caring for the well being of others.

Animals, he has said, are merely ‘robotsurvival machines’ shaped by the survival

imperative of their genes.1

According to this view, animals only

demonstrate altruistic behavior when car-ing for their young, or living in a largepack or herd. Otherwise, animals have no

capacity for compassion or generosity ofspirit. As Woody Allen puts it, the world

is one large cafeteria: eat or be eaten.The definition of ‘altruism’ is the very

opposite of this survival imperative. It is

to act unselfishly out of a concern for theneeds or interests of others, regardless of

personal consequences. Indeed, in manyinstances, the path of altruism can be at

personal risk, or deleterious to the self.With animals, altruism can reduce theirpossibility of survival. Altruism, one

could argue, is ultimately an act of self-destruction.

We have labored under the delusionthat we are the only species capable ofnobility of action—of grace under pres-

sure. But animal champions such asJeffrey Masson have amassed hundreds

of astonishing cases demonstrating thatanimals routinely engage in what Gloria

Steinem once referred to as ‘random acts’of self-sacrifice, compassion, courageand generosity toward members of their

own species, members of other speciesand even toward humans, often to their

own detriment.2

Although Masson’s work has beendiscounted as anecdotal, the hundreds of

individual case studies compound into aconvincing argument that animals are

capable of extraordinary self-sacrifice.Animals routinely evidence moments

in which they put aside the most funda-mental drive of all: the need to eat. In

innumerable instances, Masson andMcCarthy have discovered instanceswhere animals have shared food or

ensured that weaker individuals in a packor herd be fed, even if it means giving up

their own food. This occurs even inspecies like red foxes, known for theirjealously guarding of their own catch.

Indeed, Masson recounts the story ofTatu, a mongoose, whose paw had been

injured in a fight and so was unable tofight. The other mongooses in her pack

began foraging close to her, so that she’dhave more food and even gave up some oftheir daily food to her.

I have seen this impulse close tohome. I am fascinated by the relationship

between my dog Ollie and my next doorn e i g h b o r’s diminutive A ff e n p i n s c h e rbitch, ironically named ‘T-bone’. When

Ollie gets fresh bones, he will occasional-ly shove one under our fence for T-bone.

Redolent of Lady and the Tramp, he onlyraids our rubbish bin when she is visiting,

offering her a chicken carcass to feast on.When she is at our house, Ollie gives herunfettered access to—indeed, first shot

at—his own food bowl, his pig’s ears, histoys and water. She’s smaller than he is,

but when he plays with her, he’ll often lether win just to keep her in the game.

The fascinating aspect of this is the

fact that T-bone is neutered, and Ollie isnot. This is not a potential mate for him.

There is nothing he will gain by these actsof kindness—no survival benefit, no

preservation of the family line. T-bone issimply and truly Ollie’s greatest friend,and he loves her with a passion entirely

akin to human love between two insepa-rable buddies. She brings out the altruist

in him.Masson has uncovered numerous

instances where animals will give up

more than their food bowl. In times ofdanger, animals routinely rescue mem-


43

Kindness in the animal kingdom

LIVING THE FIELD

bers of their own species—often at dan-ger to themselves. For instance, he

describes a pack of wild dogs that hadchased off a herd of zebra and had sur-

rounded a mare, foal and yearling. Theywere beginning to attack the mare (to get

to their ultimate target, the foal), whensome 10 zebras suddenly galloped intothe scene, created a protective fence

around the three threatened members oftheir pack, and rushed away with them.

These rescue attempts also occur withunrelated species. Masson tells the storyof an elephant who repeatedly attempted

to rescue a rhino calf that was stuck indeep mud during the rainy season in

Kenya. The elephant repeatedly attempt-ed a rescue, even at its own expense,

since the calf’s mother, misinterpretingthe elephant’s interest, charged wheneverhe got near her offspring.

Some of the most extreme instancesof altruism concern examples of animals

adopting other, unrelated animals. In onestudy, notes Masson, African researchersrounded up a batch of young baboons and

set them free in foreign territory. Beforelong, all the babies had been adopted by

the adult male baboons, which lovinglycared for them, exhibiting typical mater-

nal-like behaviour.3

Most astonishing of all, he says, arethe many instances of one species adopt-

ing another. In one extraordinary studycarried out in the 1930s, a group of

researchers presented a mother rat withunrelated rat pup after rat pup. She went

on to mother 58 adopted pups in all. Theresearchers then offered a group of moth-er rats a smorgasbord of infants: mice,

rabbits and kittens. The mother rats read-ily adopted the mice. If they were strong

enough, they’d drag back the baby rabbitsto their cages. They even gamely attempt-ed to nurse the kittens, shoving them

repeatedly into position—without suc-cess. Kittens are used to suckling while

lying down, unlike rat pups, which nursestanding up.

The rats even tried to grab a pair ofbantam chicks by the scruff of the neckand drag them to their nests, although the

chicks became so agitated they had toabandon this particular adoption.4

Rupert Sheldrake, author of D o g s

That Know When their Owners are

Coming Home and Other Unexplained

Powers of Animals (Hutchinson, 1999),has over 200 cases in his growing data-

base of what can only be described as ani-mal empathy and compassion toward

humans. In hundreds of cases, humans

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 31

44

Does intention require altruism?

One of the great debates among the various schools of enlightenment concerns whether

altruism is a precondition for extended human potential. In other words, will your Field

effects greater telepathy or precognition, your directed intentions—be equally successful

regardless of whether you are trying to help another or make more money?

A number of schools of thought claim that a sense of higher purpose isn’t necessary.

Most modern self-empowerment gurus concentrate on personal self-empowerment: using

visualization, say, to get yourself a parking space.

However, the work of John Diamond offers proof that the life energy of a person is

raised when they focus on an altruistic purpose—what he calls ‘aspiration’. Furthermore,

the most profound cases of telepathy—say, between a mother and child—involve situa-

tions where someone is in need (see Living the Field Lesson Twenty-six). Indeed, a large

study of successful healers found that they worked best if they were able to shift away

from their own ego and allow a greater force in.1 It may be that animals have an instinc-

tive sense of this greater force, which they see in all other living creatures.

1 J Am Soc Psychical Res, 1992; 86: 99–133

describe their pets as instinctively know-ing that they need comforting, particular-

ly when they are ill. Cats that are inde-pendent and routinely prowl at night will

sacrifice their own independence if theirowners are sad or unwell.

One of the few instances where ananimal displays human language involvesKoko, a gorilla raised to employ human

sign language. One day, her trainer indi-cated to Koko that she had indigestion: a

‘sick stomach’. Koko, who would begiven orange juice to cure her digestivecomplaints, signed back ‘stomach you

orange’ and later indicated that she couldget it out of the refrigerator. Only after

Koko had been assured that the trainerfelt better would she take some for her-

self. Nearly a fortnight later, when thetrainer returned and offered Koko somejuice, the gorilla again would not take it

until she’d been convinced that her train-er had fully recovered.

Sheldrake’s database contains numer-ous instances where animals have actedas therapists. Chad, a Golden Retriever,

routinely visits a hospice in England. Heinstinctively spends the most time with

the patients who are the most ill, and willsit with his head on their lap or on the

bed. In one case where the woman wasdying, he stood for three hours by herbedside, his head next to hers, until she

had passed on.In a number of Sheldrake’s case stud-

ies, animals have prevented their ownersfrom committing suicide. In one instance,a woman living in the North of England

with terrible marital troubles decided tooverdose on paracetamol. Although her

English Springer Spaniel William hadbeen left sleeping in front of the fire, he

suddenly bolted up, jumped in front ofher pills and water in hand and startedsnarling, even baring his teeth. Frightened

by this fiercesome aggression, whichshe’d never seen before in her dog, the

woman replaced the bottle and sat downon the sofa, after which William jumpedup on her and began frantically licking

her face.One of the most astonishing of

Masson’s cases concerns Gilly, a BorderCollie. A trained signal dog, she had been

adopted by the family to assist the father,and had arrived just a few months before

the birth of the family’s second child. Theevening of the baby’s first night home,

Gilly frantically woke the mother, run-ning back and forth between her bed andthe baby’s cot. When the mother investi-

gated, she discovered that the baby hadturned blue and stopped breathing due to

mucus clogging his airways. She clearedaway the mucus and the baby’s breathingwas restored.

Of course, the Dawkins’-eye view ofthe universe would argue that altruism is

impossible among animals that are notclosely related as it runs counter to sur-

vival. He even offers a ‘cost–benefit’equation that calculates the point at whichit becomes genetically advantageous for

an animal to display altruism.H o w e v e r, this reductive arg u m e n t

falls down in the face of many examplesfrom Masson’s and Sheldrake’s files,which describe assistance by unrelated

animals for no apparent self-serving pur-pose.

In these instances, the animal oftenrisked its own life to save another’s. What

they demonstrate is a being with anexquisite sensitivity for the sanctity oflife and a will to preserve the living—in

whatever form it has. This would suggesta sense of humility in the face of the life

force that we would do well to learn from.Although, on the other hand, other

examples can be found of what appears to

us to be senseless cruelty among animals,such instances are hardly on a scale akin

to that of what humans do to otherhumans.

Considering that the structure of ourlives—our schooling, our businesses, oursocieties and countries—are entirely

based on ‘me-first competition’, whichevolves from a sense of separateness, it

could be argued that animals more oftenact from a sense of higher purpose thanwe do.

Lynne McTaggart


45

LIVING THE FIELD

1 Dawkins R. The Selfish Gene. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1976

2 Masson JM, McCarthy S. W h e n

Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives

of Animals. New York: Dell Pu b l i s h i n g ,

1 9 9 5

3 Kummer H. Social Organization of

Hamadryas Baboons: A Field Study.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1 9 6 8

4 Wiesner BP, Sheard NM. M a t e r n a l

Behavior in the Rat. E d i n b u r g h ,

London: Oliver & Boyd, 1933

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 31

46

LIVING THE FIELD

In the animal community, telepathy is a

normal means of communication and

helps the pack or herd coordinate its

activities. Their ESP relies upon an

exquisite sensitivity to their feelings

and senses, which we humans would do

well to emulate.

One of the most well-attested psy-

chic phenomena is telepathy—mind-to-mind communication

over a distance. It’s also fairly common.

Most of us have had the experience ofknowing who’s on the other end of the

line as soon as the telephone rings, andthere are literally thousands of cases of

people ‘knowing’ that someone has died,or is in trouble, long before the actualnews reaches them. So, if humans are

capable of telepathy, what about animals? On the face of it, there is even better

reason for animals to be telepathic thanhumans. After all, their normal communi-cation system is limited to vocalizations

(calls), smells and simple visual signals,so it’s apparently much less sophisticated

than human language. Many animals, too,move about in herds, packs or flocks, so it

would make sense for them to have devel-oped a range of ways to communicateamong themselves, particularly in an

emergency.Eighty years ago, Canadian naturalist

Dr William Long studied the behavior ofcaribou deer in some detail, and observedthat caribou herds can sometimes com-

municate danger without using calls, fearmovements or other obvious signals. He

tells the story of how he came across awounded deer that had become separated

from the herd, and startled it. The animalmade no sound, but he noticed that therest of the herd, which was a good mile

away, instantly reacted and fled “as if thedeer had rung a bell for them”.1

Long also did tests with birds. Out inthe wild, he laid down bird food andwatched what happened. He noticed that

as soon as the first birds had found thefood, others quickly arrived on the scene.

On the face of it, that was unsurprising, asthe new arrivals might easily have been

able to see and perhaps even hear theirfellow birds pecking and feeding.

But what intrigued Long was that rel-atively rare species of birds, which heknew were unlikely to be in the vicinity,

would also come down to feed again,very soon after the first birds had located

the food. This led Long to carry out awhole series of observations, scatteringfood at random times and places.

Throughout these tests, he saw the samepattern. He concluded that feeding birds

send out “a silent food call” that is “feltby other starving birds at a distance

beyond all possible range of sight or hear-ing”.1

Some experts think horses are also are

telepathic. The close relationship betweenriders and their horses is well known, and

often involves silent communication.Indeed, the celebrated British horse train-er Harry Blake was convinced that horses

connect with each other that way, too, anddevised a number of experiments to prove

it. He arranged for two horses that kneweach other well to be separated, and fed

only one of them. Although totally out ofsight or hearing, the unfed horse wouldinstantly react by becoming excited and

demanding food itself.Blake carried out 24 such tests, vary-

ing the pairs of horse ‘friends’ and thefeeding times, and saw the same telepath-ic behavior in all but three pairs of hors-

es. These results led Blake to believe thathorses have this innate telepathic ability

because they are herd animals. “If onepart of the herd should be frightened by

the appearance of a predator, the rest ofthe herd can be alerted by ESP,” he said,having witnessed such extrasensory per-

ception in action when herds are widelyscattered. “Horses will first become dis-

turbed, then prick up their ears, and startto move away from the area”.2

Blake’s experiments appear to suggest

that horses, like humans, need a bond ofkinship or friendship for telepathy to


47

When animal minds get together

LIVING THE FIELD

occur. But what about other animals?Rabbits don’t go about in herds, but they

do establish communities by buildingburrows close to each other. So telepathic

communication might be of benefit tothem, too. The first, rather brutal, experi-

ments to test this idea were reportedlydone by the Russians in the 1960s. Babyrabbits were taken down into submarines

while their mothers remained on dry land,wired up to brain and heart monitors. The

baby bunnies were then killed. It wasfound that the mothers had stress reac-tions at the precise time of death of their

offspring, providing strong evidence of atelepathic link. As an aside, the fact that

there was telepathic communication fromdeep inside a submarine shows that the

telepathic ‘signal’ cannot be electromag-netic, like a radiowave, as radio signals

are totally blocked by seawater—as wellas, of course, by metal submarine hulls.3

Other, less distressing, experiments

with rabbits have recently been done byFrench biologist René Péoc’h. He tested

telepathy between sibling rabbits that hadbeen brought up with each other, andcompared them with rabbits that were

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 32

48

What can we learn from animal telepathy?

Experts such as Dr Sheldrake think telepathy is widespread in the animal kingdom (that

means us humans, too), having evolved primarily as a means of group, community or

herd support. What animal telepathy teaches us is that there are simpler, deeper ways to

communicate with our fellow beings than just language.

To become better extrasensory communicators, it’s vital that we understand the signs

around us and also that we give out the right signals.

Telepathy means feeling at a distance. To develop our extrasensory skills, we need to

become exquisitely sensitive to our feelings and trust our intuitive senses, just as animals

do. We also need to cultivate our ability to tune into particulars. Remember, animals are

cognitive ‘splitters’, not ‘lumpers’ (see Living the Field Lesson Twenty-three) and so are

especially good at noticing detail.

! Know your feelings in every situation. Are you feeling especially good or bad about

a situation? At ease or uncomfortable? Is it the people you’re with or the situation itself?

To find out more about what most affects you, mentally divide the situation into com-

ponent parts, and test out your feelings for each component. Ask yourself in each

instance: how does X make me feel?

! Study the particulars. In any given situation, imagine you are a detective and that you

have to memorize the room. Examine every detail: the environment; the particulars of

scenery or furniture; if indoors, the people or animals there. Resist your mind’s ten-

dency to fill in the details of an experience into a totality. Zero in on specific things—a

vase in a room, a picture on the wall—and study every detail. ‘Feel’ these component

parts.

! Listen with your five senses. Pay attention to the smell, taste and kinaesthetic feel of

a situation, not just the visual and auditory information.

! Cultivate empathy for others. Slow down and learn how to listen to others and to

feel their feelings. After all, sympathy and empathy are telepathy’s soul mates.

! Read body language. When you speak to people, examine what else they’re trying to

tell you besides the words.

! Pay attention to intuitive communication. When you have a ‘gut hunch’ or an inter-

nal message pops into your head, respect it and act on it.

strangers to each other. For the experi-ment, he separated these animals into

pairs, and gave a mild stress to one rabbitinside a soundproofed cage, while moni-

toring the other. He observed a corre-sponding empathetic stress reaction

among the sibling rabbits outside thecage—typically about three seconds afterthe initial stress on the sibling. In con-

trast, there was no such reaction betweenrabbits that were strangers to each other.4

Dogs, too, seem to be telepathically intouch with each other. Dr RupertSheldrake, the biologist who has pio-

neered studies into telepathic communi-cation between dogs and their owners,

has collected a number of examples of thepsychic bonds between dogs themselves.

For instance, there is the case of the nine-month-old Labrador that uncharacteristi-cally went off its food and fell silent for a

whole day. The owner was puzzled untilhe received a phone call informing him

that the dog’s mother, which lived 100miles away, had been run over and killedthat very day. Another owner reported

how one of her two Burmese dogs sud-denly started howling at the very time its

companion was being put to sleep at thevet’s.5

“Telepathy may be widespread withinthe animal kingdom,” says Sheldrake. “Ithink it’s a natural ability of animal

groups, to communicate with each other.It’s a normal means of animal communi-

cation.”6

Sheldrake believes that telepathy hasevolved in groups of animals that are

bonded with each other. It is not “para-normal”, he maintains. It’s just one more

sensory mechanism to help the groupcoordinate its activities. It usually occurs

among closely related animals, but hebelieves a form of telepathy is also usedby animals that move together in large

numbers, such as birds or fish.Nature has many visual marvels, but

among the most spectacular is the phe-nomenon of schools of fish or flocks ofbirds moving in perfect synchrony. Take

this poetic, but accurate, description of aflock of starlings by British naturalist

Edmund Selous in the 1930s: “Each massof them turned, wheeled, reversed the

order of their flight, changed in one shim-mer from brown to gray, from dark to

light, as though all the individuals com-posing them had been component parts of

an individual organism.”7

Selous spent 30 years studying flockbehavior in birds, and concluded that

“rapid thought transference” was the onlyexplanation for a phenomenon he saw as

the product of “simultaneous collectivethinking”.

In his groundbreaking book on animal

telepathy, Sheldrake has added an impor-tant extra refinement with the introduc-

tion of the concept of information fields.Using the benefits of modern high-speed

film evidence, he has been able to pointout that the twists and turns of a flock ofbirds are not, as Selous believed, simulta-

neous, but more like an extremely fastwave, which can propagate itself from

bird to bird in just 15-thousandths of asecond.

How do the birds do it? Crucially,

ground-based tests have proved that thereaction times of birds just aren’t that fast,

so they can’t be responding to the move-ments of their nearest neighbor. Shel-

drake suggests that the birds’ behaviormay be being governed by what he calls a‘morphic field’ (‘morphic’ simply means

‘form-shaping’). He likens it to a magnet-ic field, where its lines of force govern the

position of any iron filings scatteredaround a magnet.

Perhaps the most spectacular example

of a field effect is with schools of fish—especially small ones. Like birds, groups

of many hundreds of fish can twist andturn through the water as if they were a

single organism. But it’s when they arebeing attacked that they behave in a trulybreathtaking way.

Schools of fish have two typicaldefenses against predators. In one, the

whole group may suddenly split into two,and then reform again behind the preda-tor. The second is even more dramatic, as

it looks like a bomb bursting or a fireworkexploding. Each fish will suddenly dart at


49

LIVING THE FIELD

high speed out away from the center ofthe group.

The rapidity of the effect is stagger-ing, with the whole ‘flash expansion’, as

it is called, typically taking just one-fifti-eth of a second. And although the fish are

traveling at very high speed, they don’tcollide with each other; each fish seemsto know where it is in the school and the

relative positions of its neighbors. AsSheldrake points out, “the behavior has

no simple explanation in terms of sensoryinformation from neighboring fishbecause it happens far too fast for nerve

impulses to move from the eye to thebrain and then from the brain to the mus-

cles”.Sheldrake’s concept of morphic fields

predated his studies of telepathy, but henow believes that the two are intimatelyconnected. “My own theory is that mem-

bers of groups have what I call a ‘morphicfeeling’ that links them together, a field

phenomenon,” he says. “Members of ani-mal groups, when they go apart, remainconnected through this field that stretch-

es, rather than breaks, and one can com-municate with the other, telepathically.

The nature of this field is, in fact,quite close to a phenomenon well known

in quantum physics called ‘non-locality,’where particles that are part of the same

system, when they move apart, retain anon-local connection.”6

Tony Edwards

T V p roducer Tony Edwards is also a

f reelance writer specializing in leading-

edge alternative medical and scientific

re s e a rc h

1 Long WJ. How Animals Ta l k. New Yo r k :

Harper & Brothers, 1919

2 Blake H. Talking with Horses: A Study of

Communication Between Man and

H o r s e . London: Souvenir Press, 1975

3 Ostrander S, Schroeder L. Ps y c h i c

Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,

1 9 7 0

4 Fond Odier Psycho-Phys Bull, 1997; 3:

2 5 – 8


Their Owners are Coming Home and

Other Unexplained Powers of Animals.

London: Hutchinson, 1999

6 The Telepathy Debate. Royal Society of

Arts, London, 15 January 2004

7 Selous E. T h o u g h t-Transference (or

What?) in Birds. London: Constable,

1 9 3 1

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 32

50

LIVING THE FIELD

When people think of animal-assisted

t h e r a p y, they think of dolphins or

domestic cre a t u res like dogs. However,

as every equestrian knows, horses share

a special affinity with their riders.

Studies have shown that regular contact

with horses can develop cognitive abil -

ities, and help the physically and learn -

ing disabled.

Iwas on a two-week holiday with myfamily to Bergen in Norway in the

summer of 1993. We were stayingwith some close friends, and their house

backed onto a stables and riding school.My daughter Laura, then six years old,

was very eager to see the horses and I wasvery happy to accompany her. The holi-day couldn’t have been better timed

because I had been enduring particularlyhigh levels of stress in my mental-health

work. I was exhausted and looking for-ward to de-stressing in the peace and tran-quility of the Norwegian fjords. The idea

of visiting the stables had a similarappeal. Spending time with some horses,

at a safe distance, seemed another possi-ble route to relaxation.

Our Norwegian hosts quicklyarranged for us to visit the stables. Theriding school’s facilities were quite exten-

sive with a large indoor arena. Laura waskeen to go into the stables and we were

welcomed in by the stable hands who,like most Norwegians, spoke very goodEnglish.

As we entered, we were confrontedwith a large Irish stallion named O’Mally.

He was being groomed by one of thehands, who began telling us what a won-

derfully gentle horse he was. This was asclose as I had been to a horse for over 25years. There was no fence between us

either. O’Mally was out of his stall and Iwas standing calmly just inches from his

side, but I felt no fear. I began to strokehim and soon sensed the heat of his body.His warmth was both calming and reas-

suring.Without thinking, I put my head on his

flank. As I did so, he turned towards meand looked me over. I didn’t move and he

gently nodded. All too quickly, the timearrived for us to return to our hosts. I gave

O’Mally a light hug and told him I wouldvisit him again during our stay. He cer-tainly did help me relax. His reassuring

warmth gave me what I can only describeas a glow of contentment. My meeting

with O’Mally proved to be my first expe-rience of the therapeutic benefits that canbe derived from horses.

Equestrian or riding therapy as ameans of enabling personal development,

education and healing for people with arange of disabilities and special needs has

been well established throughout theworld for a number of years. Probably theUK’s most well known organization pro-

moting this activity is the Riding for theDisabled Association, or RDA. T h e

Association grew out of what had beenknown as the Advisory Council on Ridingfor the Disabled. As of 1999, the RDA

boasted some 700 groups with more than23,000 riders and drivers, and affiliated

groups in Europe, North and SouthAmerica, Africa, the West Indies,

Singapore and, more recently, Russia andJapan.

The RDA offers the chance to ride to

any person with disabilities who mightbenefit from doing so in terms of their

general health and well being. They haveexperience of supporting people with arange of disabilities, including those with

cerebral palsy, spina bifida, multiple scle-rosis, muscular dystrophy, multiple

injuries, those without limbs (includingvictims of thalidomide), as well as those

with learning difficulties and sensoryimpairment, both visual and aural. Peoplewho are over 14 years of age and physi-

cally prevented from riding are offeredthe opportunity to learn to drive a pony-

or donkey-drawn vehicle.Probably one of the most celebrated

examples of a rider overcoming disability

is that of Liz Hartel. She contracted polioin the 1940s and, although confined to a


51

Riding therapy: healing on horseback

LIVING THE FIELD

wheelchair, she went on to win a silvermedal for Denmark in the 1952 Olympic

Games. Her achievement did much toencourage the establishment of the RDA.

A special bond

Sister Chiara Hatton-Hall, the Interna-tional Liaison Officer for the Association,believes that there is a particular magic

about horses, and that most people whobecome involved with them develop an

enduring bond and love. She thinks this isbecause we need an affinity with nature,and the horse is a highly sensitive and

responsive ambassador. If a horse is treat-ed gently and with respect, he will

respond accordingly. The horse offers aconsistency of response and an uncompli-

cated relationship. For many, this is a rarecommodity in their human relationshipsand, for those who may have been isolat-

ed because of their disability, the feelingof acceptance can do much for their feel-

ings of self-worth. The horse is uncriticaland non-judgmental, and has no sense orknowledge of past failures. Many com-

panion animals share these attributes, butthe horse may proffer a particularly

potent therapeutic cocktail.The social support derived from hors-

es may be qualitatively different frommany other companion animals. I’m sure

a pony listens as well as any dog or cat.But they also require an enormousamount of grooming and looking after.

For many, the horse provides a much-needed opportunity to care for and nur-

ture another living creature.Riding a horse demands that the rider

controls the relationship. Since the horse

is the biggest and most powerful compan-ion animal, the sense of achievement, and

feelings of enhanced self-worth and self-esteem may be magnified accordingly.

For those people with disability or specialneeds who are unable or prevented fromcontrolling many aspects of their lives,

such feelings of accomplishment must beprofound.

For most people, riding a horserequires a complete change of environ-ment. Stables and riding schools with

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 33

52

Centres offering horse-assisted therapy

In the UK

! The Fortune Center of Riding Therapy: Avon Tyrrell, Bransgore, Christchurch, Dorset

BH23 8EE; tel: 01425 673 297

! Riding for the Disabled Association: Lavinia Norfolk House, Avenue R, Stoneleigh Park,

Warwickshire CV8 2LY; tel: 0845 658 1082

! The Elisabeth Svensden Trust for Children and Donkeys: Sidmouth, Devon EX10 0NU;

tel: 01395 578 222

In the US

! North American Riding for the Handicapped Association NARHA: P.O. Box 33150,

Denver, CO 80233; tel: 800 369 RIDE (7433); fax: (303) 252 4610; fax on demand:

(303) 457 8496; e-mail: [email protected]

! The National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy: 5001 Woodside Road, Woodside,

CA 94062; tel: (650) 851 2271; e-mail: [email protected]; www.nceft.org

! For more information on centers across North America, see www.narha.org/

In Australia

! Riding for the Disabled Association (NSW): 7 Underwood Road, Homebush NSW 2140;

tel: (02) 9746 0950; fax: (02) 9746 1711; e-mail: [email protected]

their particular sights, sounds and smellsform the setting for the most significant

environmental change of all—sitting on ahorse. This position—sitting on an ani-

m a l ’s back—is restricted to very fewcompanion creatures. When riding, one

moves through the environment in a dif-ferent mode and shares the animal’srhythm. For many people with disability

who are confined to wheelchairs, sittingastride a horse or pony may also be their

first experience of literally looking downon people. A person’s social surroundingsare also altered—by meeting new people,

whether instructors, support staff or fel-low riders. It is not unusual for the dis-

abled to excel at riding, and this may leadto particularly significant changes to their

social environment, since a person withdisability may find themselves in compe-tition with fully able people. In this

respect, the horse can act as an effectiveequalizer.

Education

Experience has demonstrated that those

who develop a close affinity to horsesoften show greater motivation to learn.

An equine environment can provide amore stimulating climate for education

and can be more effective in holding anindividual’s attention. Such a comple-mentary classroom offers an alternative

approach for children and adults whohave not flourished in traditional teaching

settings.On a simple level, time with or riding

horses has been used as an incentive to

encourage people to attend to their class-room studies. However, horse-motivated

education can offer much more. Stablesand riding schools present settings littered

with opportunities for applied learning.Caring for a horse involves counting,measuring and weighing. How many

bales of hay are needed? What weightsand quantities of feeds are required for

each horse? How many stalls are still tobe cleaned out? I have recently becomeaware that letters are used as marker

points when learning to ride. Also integralto the process is familiarizing yourself

with line, shape and distance. T h e s eapplied uses of mathematics and letters

offer a more tangible and less abstractlearning situation.

Physical benefits:

hippotherapy and vaulting

‘Hippotherapy’ refers to the physical ben-efits derived from riding, where accom-

modation of the swinging motion of thehorse by the rider stimulates and exercis-

es various parts of the body. The naturalmovement of a horse produces movementin the rider similar to walking. Horse rid-

ing offers moving physiotherapy andencourages body symmetry. Riding a

horse can produce up to one thousandrandom body movements in as little as 10

minutes—such a workout would take upto three months of normal physiotherapy.The horse has another advantage in that

its natural warmth aids relaxation.The success of hippotherapy has been

demonstrated by X-ray and electromyog-raphy [measuring electrical activity gen-erated by muscles to determine nerve

function]. Vaulting, the assisted perfor-mance of gymnastics on horseback, can

also offer both physical and psychologi-cal benefits in terms of balance, coordina-

tion and confidence.The findings of several research stud-

ies have clearly indicated the effective-

ness of equine animal-assisted therapy. Astudy conducted at Queen Mary’s Hos-

pital in London was so unequivocal in itsfindings that it led to an almost immedi-ate expansion of the small-scale pro-

gramme that had been the focus of theresearch. In 1969, researchers there eval-

uated the effects of riding on six people,three of whom were physically disabled

and three of whom were diagnosed withlearning disabilities. After only a fewweeks, there were significant improve-

ments in behavior, language, communica-tion skills and physical functioning.

In an American study, Natalie Bieberevaluated the effects of a five-weekequestrian-therapy programme on a

group of 42 children, aged six to 17, whohad a range of disabilities, including


53

LIVING THE FIELD

spina bifida and cerebral palsy. The studyinvolved riding for one day on a horse or

in a pony cart, and two days in the class-room using horses and horse-related

material as an incentive for learning. Staffwho assessed the children found that all

but four of the children benefited signifi-cantly from their involvement in terms ofcommunication and motivation. The pro-

gramme also appeared to stimulate thechildren physically, socially and intellec-

tually.In 1975, research was undertaken to

assess horse riding as a risk exercise, and

as a means of increasing self-confidence,courage and motivation. It involved 102

physically disabled children at therapeu-tic riding centers in England, Ireland,

Wales, Canada and the United States. Thestudy found a high level of improvementin mobility, motivation and courage. The

morale of many of the children was alsogreatly enhanced.

Improved language skills

Besides aiding physical development,

horses appear to help with cognitiveskills. A seven-year study was conducted

in Washington, DC, into the benefits of ariding-therapy programme for physically

disabled people and those with learningdifficulties. The programme was evaluat-ed on a yearly basis, using input from

teachers, parents and the students.Analyses of the evaluations revealed

startling results: as a group, there was anaverage gain in physical movement of7–31 per cent, and 80 per cent of the chil-

dren were found to have improved lan-guage skills, with the average gain of

9–29 per cent. Average increases of 6–19per cent were found in emotional control,

social awareness, peer relationships andself-awareness., while 70 per cent showednotable improvement in work skills, with

an average gain of 17 per cent. Of thechildren’s parents, 87 per cent comment-

ed upon their child’s improved self-confi-dence, and there was a 52 per centdecrease in the number of negative state-

ments made by the children about them-selves. The teachers’ overall evaluation of

the effectiveness of the programme was‘very good’ or ‘excellent’.

Another piece of American researchwas done by Ruth Dismuke into the

e ffects of therapeutic horse-riding onchildren with language disorders. Thirty

children, aged from six to 10 years old,were classified as moderately to severelylanguage-disordered. The children were

matched for age, type and degree of lan-guage disorder, and were randomly

assigned to the experimental or controlgroup. All the children received languagetherapy for three one-hour sessions every

week for 12 weeks. The controls receivedtherapy in a state-school therapy setting

whereas the experimental group under-went a structured horsemanship pro-

gramme in which speech and languagespecialists were also professional ridinginstructors.

Independent testers, who wereunaware of the children’s group place-

ment, evaluated their improvementthrough tape-recorded conversations. Theresults indicated that the horsemanship

programme facilitated the language thera-py.

Although both groups of childrendemonstrated more complex sentence

structure following therapy, the experi-mental group exhibited an ability to usetheir language more efficiently and

appropriately. The study concluded thatriding appeared to have enabled an

enhanced development of language skills.In addition, significant gains in musclestrength, coordination and self-esteem

were noted.The particular bonds that horses

develop with disabled humans are oftenespecially moving. One extraordinary

example involved Carrie, an 18-year-oldwith hemiplegia—a fairly extensiveparalysis of the right side of her body.

Against the expectations of her doctor,she learned to ride and jump at the

Camomile Center near Dartmoor, whereanimal-related activity therapy is offeredto children and adults with a range of spe-

cial needs.Carrie became especially close to

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 33

54

Merlin, and I once witnessed this extraor-dinary communication. She made several

circuits of the arena, then rode him overand through a number of obstacles. She

then dismounted and removed Merlin’ssaddle. For a moment, I thought the ride

was over but, within a few minutes,Merlin—with no lead rope—was follow-ing Carrie around the arena in different

directions, responding almost instantly toher every prompt and request.

I had no doubt that she was communi-cating with Merlin in a language that heclearly understood. After several minutes,

it appeared that Carrie had told Merlin tostop and stay where he was. She then

walked about 15 meters ahead of him andthen stopped with her back to him. On her

command, Merlin walked up to her andrested his head on her right shoulder.

For a grand finale, she remountedMerlin and rode him bareback for severalcircuits of the arena.

Bernie Graham

This article has been adapted fro m

Bernie Graham’s book C r e a t u r eComfort: Animals That Heal (Simon &

S c h u s t e r, 1999; £9.99).


55


Energies

56

LIVING THE FIELD

In our series on animal energies, we've

examined how animals offer a re d - a l e rt

system for their owners when they are

unwell. However, pets themselves have

p roven to be the most health giving of

companions—even more so than other

h u m a n s .

Ask a doctor about the effect pets

might have on your health, andthe question will probably

unleash a diatribe including words like

a l l e rgies, parasites, tummy upsets andblood poisoning. Pets, for most of the

medical profession, are unsanitary thingsto be kept at arm’s length—with the arm

preferably wielding Dettol DisinfectantSpray.

If the world were run by doctors, pets

would probably be banned.But the fact is, pet ownership has

never been more popular, with almost 50per cent of all UK households owningwhat officialdom describes as ‘compan-

ion animals’. The figure is even higher inthe US, with about two-thirds of homes

now housing a pet.Here’s another startling statistic. In a

recent American survey, pet owners wereasked: “If you were stranded on a desertisland, but were allowed just one com-

panion, whom would you prefer to bewith—a pet or a human?” More than

half—57 per cent—ticked ‘pet’.1

So, it seems that the medical profes-sion will simply have to accept that the

human–animal bond is a fact of life,unwelcome though it may be.

Pets for disease prevention

Recently, however, some members of thehealthcare profession have made a com-plete U-turn. A few doctors have begun to

ask whether, rather than causing disease,it is possible that pets may actually pre-

vent it.This startling volteface first occurred

about 20 years ago, after an interesting

observation by heart specialists in the US.They wanted to find out what were the

factors that kept their patients alivelongest after an initial heart attack.

To their surprise, at the top of the listwere not the usual suspects like nutrition

or exercise, but pet ownership. Quite sim-ply, the heart-attack patients who livedlongest were the ones who had animal

companions.2

Why should this be so? The most

obvious answer was because of the bene-fits of the extra exercise involved in keep-ing a pet. Walking the dog every day is

clearly healthier than sitting at home wor-rying over a heart condition. But that

explanation, while certainly true, wasunlikely to be the whole answer as many

of the heart patients were cat owners—and, as every-one knows, you can’t walka cat.

This remarkable finding was followedup by later studies which showed an even

wider range of health benefits from pets.For example, in the early 1990s, Dr JamesSerpell, of Cambridge University, found

that pet owners had many fewer visits totheir GP than other people. “We found a

highly significant reduction in minorhealth problems,” he reported. “The

results provide evidence that pet acquisi-tion may have positive effects on humanhealth and behaviour.”3

Meanwhile, in the US, Dr JudithSiegel of UCLA was spending a year

tracking the doctor visits of nearly 1000people. Again, it was revealed that petowners saw their physicians significantly

less often than did other people.This suggestion of health benefit was

particularly strong for dog owners. But itwasn’t just due to the extra exercise that

dogs forced on their owners, claimedSiegel; it was clearly the nature of therelationship itself.

“Dog owners in comparison to ownersof other pets spend more time with their

pets and feel that their pets are moreimportant to them,” she said. ”Dogs morethan other pets provide their owners with

companionship and an object of attach-ment, in particular, buffering them from


57

Take two cats before bedtime . . .

LIVING THE FIELD

the impact of stressful life events.”4

The anti-stress aspect of the

human–animal bond has been investigat-ed by another American researcher, Dr

Karen Allen, of the University of Buffalo,New York. She wired people up to stress

monitors, then provoked rises in theirstress levels by giving them a complexmaths test. The subjects were tested under

three different conditions: alone in aroom; in the company of a close friend; or

in the company of their pet.Predictably, the presence of friendly

companions—whether human or ani-

mal—reduced stress levels. But, perhapss u r p r i s i n g l y, she found that the more

powerful stress-buster was not the pres-ence of a close friend, but that of the ani-

mal companion.5

Prescribe a pet?

Dr Allen then went on to tackle an evenmore ambitious question: Might pets be

as good as, or even better than, prescrip-tion medicines in combating the effects ofstress?

For this study, she chose as her exper-imental subjects 48 male and female

stockbrokers who were all living alone,all earning over $200,000 a year and all

diagnosed as suffering from high bloodpressure when under stress. Before begin-

ning the study, Allen and her teamobtained readings of the stockbrokers’blood pressure in response to artificially

induced stress. She then prescribed themall the angiotensin-converting-enzyme

(ACE) inhibitor lisinopril, used to lowerblood pressure and improve survival aftera heart attack, for six months. Half of the

subjects, however, were also asked totake home a dog or a cat, and to live with

the animal for the same six-month period. At the end of six months, Allen retest-

ed the stockbrokers’ stress reactions. Asmight be expected, all had improved, butthere was a significant difference between

the blood pressures with and without apet. The brokers taking lisinopril alone

had dropped from a systolic pressure of184 mmHg to 141 mmHg, whereas thosewho had also cared for a pet reduced their

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 34

58

The pet–human bond

THE RAW STATISTICS

80% say companionship is the major reason for having a pet

72% say affection is their pet’s most endearing trait

79% give their pets holiday or birthday presents

33% talk to their pets on the phone or through the answering machine

62% often sign letters or cards from them and their pets

55% consider themselves as parents to their pets

65% of pet owners have sung and/or danced for their pets

67% celebrate their pet’s birthday, with

45% actually singing Happy Birthday, and

42% wrapping a gift

78% greet their pet at the door before greeting their human partner

43% have a photo of a pet at work

21% sometimes dress their pets

51% have taken time off work to tend to a sick pet

73% of companies say pets create a more productive work environment.

SOURCE: American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) 1999–2000 Pet Owner Survey

systolic pressure even further—down to131 mmHg—a figure that falls within the

normal range of blood pressure.6

“We’ve shown over and over that it’s

beneficial to be with a pet when you’reunder stress, but we really can’t explain it

in purely physiological terms,” saysAllen. “There are lots of theories, but wehonestly don’t know why pets lower

blood pressure. And interestingly, petseven outperform human companions.

Why? We suspect that having somethingon your side, something you can alwayscount on that is non-judgmental, psycho-

logically creates a beneficial atmos-phere.”

According to the Society ofCompanion Animal Studies (SCAS),

encouraging people to keep a pet couldsave the NHS as much as £1bn a year.“The potential health benefits are being

under-exploited.” says SCAS chairmanProfessor Sam Ahmedzai of Sheff i e l d

U n i v e r s i t y. “Studies show that simplystroking and talking to a pet not onlyreduces blood pressure, but also increases

levels of phenylethylamine and endor-phin (the body’s natural mood-enhancing

and pain-relieving chemicals) anddecreases cortisol, a stress hormone.”

Yet, according to Dr Lynette Hart ofthe University of California at Davis,that’s too simplistic. “You can’t simply

‘prescribe’ a pet to anybody,” she says.“The benefits only work in people who

actually like animals.” However, non-ani-mal lovers are clearly in a minority, evenamong criminals. “Ex-prisoners who

form relationships with pets have lowerrecidivism rates than those who do not,”

comments health guru Dr Andrew Weil.

Making a connection

All the evidence points to pets having abeneficial effect not just on our physical

health, but also on our mental wellbeing,too. At its heart is not so much the petting,

stroking, caring and exercising involvedin pet ownership, but the emotional con-nection forged with another living being.

This was borne out forcibly in a recentstudy done by two British psychiatrists

from Leicester General Hospital. Theyarranged for a group of 30 people who

had mild-to-moderate depression tospend two weeks by the sea in the

Caribbean island of Honduras—on theface of it, a trip guaranteed to lift any-

one’s spirits. And so it did, bringing on a25-per-cent improvement in mood withonly an hour’s daily swim in the sea.

But 15 of the patients were given anextra treat. They got to spend a further

hour a day with dolphins, touching themand snorkeling among them. This experi-ence produced a far more dramatic effect.

On average, these people had a 50-per-cent improvement in mood, and some

were completely cured. “Therapy withdolphins is more effective than water

t h e r a p y,” says Professor MichaelReveley. “The effects exerted by the ani-mals were significantly greater than those

just of the natural setting [suggesting that]psychiatric rehabilitation can occur

through the emotional interaction withanimals in nature.”7

But you don’t need to befriend a dol-

phin to get the benefits of an animal anti-depressant. Studies show that just owning

any kind of pet at all—even a fish in atank—will make you less likely to feel

depressed, and better able to cope withloneliness, particularly in old age.8

So, there appears to be widespread

health benefits with owning a pet. Andthe news has even reached the usually

cynical health-insurance companies,some of whom have even started offeringlower life-insurance rates for people who

own pets.Tony Edwards




re s e a rc h

1 American Animal Hospital Association

(AAHA) 1999–2000 Pet Owner Survey

2 Public Health Rep, 1980; 95: 307–12

3 J R Soc Med, 1991; 84 (12): 717–20

4 J Pers Soc Psychol, 1990; 58 (6):

1 0 8 1 – 6

5 J Pers Soc Psychol, 1991; 61: 582–9


59

LIVING THE FIELD

6 Hypertension, 2001; 38 (4): 815–20

7 B M J, 2005; 331 (7527): 1231

8 J Am Geriatr Soc, 1999; 47 (3): 323–9

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 34

60

Pet teachers

“It is the loving devotion, the soft touch, the constant companionship, the attentive eye

and the uncritical ear of the pet that is so attractive to many of us,” say Alan Beck and

Aaron Katcher in their book, Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal

Companionship (Purdue University Press, 1996). “An important lesson for everyone is to

accept ourselves and others in the uncritical way that pets accept us.”

Dr Frederic Desmond, from the University of Florida, agrees. “Loving like an animal

can actually bring out the finer, more altruistic side of your nature,” he says, commenting

on his recent survey of 175 pet owners. “People with a close attachment to their pets

indicate a greater willingness to help other people than owners who keep their animals

at arm’s length. Pet lovers can see someone who needs help, empathize with their plight

and then assist them. It makes sense that one of the ways we learn to feel empathy and

behave in a helpful manner is from having close relationships with pets. It also puts us

more in touch with ourselves.”

LIVING THE FIELD

Biologists and animal experts charac -

terize animals as having a lesser intelli -

gence and little emotions. However, this

attitude, called ‘speciesism’, ignore s

the fact that animals often display abil -

ities that far surpass those of humans.

Animal genius often results from their

g reater ability to tap into The Field.

Ever since man was given dominionover the animals, we’ve alwaystended to look down on our non-

human fellow creatures as lesser beings—an attitude that philosopher Peter Skinner

has memorably called ‘speciesism’, theanimal equivalent of racism.

Paradoxically, it’s often those peopleworking with animals who are the worstoffenders. The most guilty are, of course,

the animal experimenters, but even peo-ple who claim to like animals can be just

as culpable. For example, the whole sys-tem of modern farming is institutionallyspeciesist, with its mechanized brutality

and factory-sized prison camps. But evennaturalists and zoologists have an attitude

to animals that amounts to disdain.For decades, these animal experts

have propagated the view that animalsare merely machines, driven blindly byinstinct, and lacking any kind of con-

scious intention. According to this view,if animals display intelligence or emo-

tions, that is simply us projecting humanattributes to them—the crime of anthro-pomorphism. Naturalists, in particular,

have been so terrified of appearing to beanthropomorphic that they appear to have

lost all common sense.So, when lions band together to force

a wildebeest to run into an ambush, theyclaim that it is merely random behavior.Or when a heron breaks up twigs to drop

into the water as bait for minnows, that ischaracterized as blind instinct, not purpo-

sive intention. Or when vultures pick uplarge stones in their talons, fly up highinto the air and dive bomb ostrich eggs,

thus breaking them, that is just coinci-dence, not the product of intelligence.

Fortunately, animals haven’t read thezoology textbooks, and continue to dis-

play abilities that are not just the equal ofhumans’ but sometimes far surpass them.

One of the most obvious examples is nav-igation.

Take the life cycle of the salmon, one

of the true marvels of nature. When it’sless than a year old, the salmon leaves its

river birthplace and heads for the opensea, where it will spend up to four yearsroaming the oceans. It can travel anything

up to 6000 miles away from its birth-place, but when its time comes to breed, it

returns to the very river it was born in.Exactly how it finds its way back

across the vastness of the oceans is still amystery, but experts believe the fish usesa combination of sophisticated direction-

finding clues to guide it: the earth’s mag-netic field, ocean currents, the unique

chemical signature of its birth river, eventhe constellations in the night sky.

Many of these techniques are also

used by migrating birds. On their annualjourneys of thousands of miles, birds rou-

tinely use the sun, stars and the earth’smagnetic field to steer by. But as every

seaman knows, you can’t navigate with-out knowing the time of day. So how dobirds manage to tell the time? Cleverly,

they use their internal body clock. This isthe mechanism all living things (includ-

ing humans) possess to regulate theirdaily bodily processes, but birds seem tohave developed a particularly clever way

of not only accessing what is unconsciousinformation, but also making it precise

enough to use for navigation.Bees have developed perhaps the

most accurate animal body clock. Thesehighly organized, social insects need toremember where the best flowers are, for

the good of their community. From oneday to the next, they must know which

direction to fly out from the hive to theflowers. Their problem, though, is pooreyesight. Their eyes perceive the land-

scape as a dull blur, while the sun is mere-ly a fuzzy glow in the sky. But that sunny


61

Basic instincts: not-so-dumb animals

LIVING THE FIELD

glow is enough to enable them to com-pute direction. Nevertheless, to use the

sun as a compass, bees—like migratingbirds—need to know the time of day, as

the sun moves across the sky hour byhour. Detailed studies of bee behavior

have shown that they can tell the time toan accuracy of 15 minutes—an astonish-ing feat, unmatched by humans.

Memory is another ability wheresome animals have superhuman powers.

A crow-like bird called Clark’s nutcrack-er has to survive the long winters of thenorthwestern United States, and so stores

seeds underground during the autumn inas many as a thousand separate caches.

Naturalists have been astonished toobserve that the crows rarely fail to

remember the exact location of the vastmajority of these hidden stores, evenwhen the ground is covered by snow.

Squirrels are almost as good at thisfeat as Clark’s nutcracker, and researchers

now know how they do it. “They useinformation from the environment, suchas the relative position of trees, and they

triangulate, relying on the angles and dis-tances between these landmarks and their

caches,” says Dr Pierre Lavenex of theUniversity of California. “People can do

this too, but for only about half-a-dozensites—not nearly as many as squirrels.”

Curiously enough, some of animals’

greatest powers seem to show up mostwith humans. One of the most famous

examples is of a horse known as Clever

Hans. This extraordinary animal livedabout a century ago, and had a very close

relationship with his German owner,Wilhelm van Osten. Hans’ claim to fame

was that he could apparently not onlyunderstand German, but could also do

simple arithmetic. Van Osten would askHans a question like, “What is eight plusthree?”, and the horse would tap his hoof

11 times. In fact, Hans could get any sim-ple sum right, using the hoof-tapping

technique. His fame naturally spread, par-ticularly when complete strangers wereable to receive correct answers.

But a psychologist called OskarPfungst became suspicious when Hans

began to answer such questions as: “Ifthe eighth day of the month comes on

Tuesday, what is the date of the followingFriday? Suspecting subtle cueing as theexplanation, Pfungst spent hours minute-

ly observing the horse and his question-ers, looking for tell-tale changes in the

questioners’ body language. But he coulddetect nothing. In desperation, hearranged for the questions to be put to

Hans when no human was in the animal’ssight. Lo and behold, Hans failed dismal-

ly.The moral usually drawn from the

Clever Hans story is that humans can bevery gullible about animals’ s o - c a l l e dintelligence. But look at the story another

way, and Hans appears even smarter thanhumans. The horse was actually picking

up on cues so imperceptible that even a

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 35

62

Man’s best friend—the pig

It’s a popular misconception that pigs are stupid. In fact, they are quite the reverse, with

some experts claiming they are more intelligent than even dogs.

One pig hit the headlines in 1984 when it saved someone’s life. An 11-year-old boy

called Anthony was swimming in Lake Somerville of Texas one hot summer day. He got

out of his depth and started to drown. Priscilla, the family’s pet pig, noticed the boy

struggling and immediately began swimming toward him. When she reached Anthony, he

grabbed for Priscilla’s leash with such force that both of them went under the water.

Although Anthony weighed nearly four times more than Priscilla, she managed to swim

to the surface and pull the boy toward the shore.

Priscilla never forgot the incident. Until the day she died, she became upset whenever

she saw young children playing near the water.

psychologist who knew what he waslooking for couldn’t detect them. Indeed,

Hans had never been trained by his ownerto do this trick. He must have developed

the trick himself through extraordinaryintuition, somehow sensing what out-

come his owner wanted, and producingthe required behavior.

Perhaps the best real-life example of

animal intuition in action is with dogs thathelp epileptics. These are the so-called

‘seizure-response’ dogs, which have beentrained to do a variety of useful tasks aftersomeone has had an epileptic fit.

These include things such as lying ontop of the person to prevent self-injury,

removing bedclothes to prevent suffoca-tion, bringing the person the telephone

and fetching the appropriate medication.Although superficially clever, all of theseare relatively simple jobs that most dogs

can be trained to perform.What’s astonishing about the seizure-

response dogs, however, is that some ofthem have gone from merely respondingafter the event to actually predicting when

a seizure will occur.Connie Standley is an epileptic who

lives in Florida with her two Belgiancattle dogs. Originally trained as seizure-

response dogs, they are now able to pre-dict her seizures about half an hour beforethey occur. As soon as they sense an

impending fit, the dogs will start to pullon her clothes or hand in an attempt to

drag her to a place of safety, where shecan have a fit without coming to harm.

C o n n i e ’s dogs are by no means

unique: fully 10 per cent of seizure-response dogs develop this predictive

ability. Quite how the dogs do this is stilla mystery. People have speculated that

the dogs may be picking up on very sub-tle changes in behavior or scent before afit.

What is especially remarkable aboutthese dogs is not just their predictive

powers, but the fact that they haven’tbeen trained to do this. It’s something

they’ve worked out for themselves. And,of course, the behavior is not part of their

instinct.As Dr Temple Grandin says in her

book Animals in Tr a n s l a t i o n ( N Y:

Scribner, 2005), “This is an example ofan animal using advanced perceptual abil-

ities to solve a problem no dog was bornknowing how to solve.”

Take the case of Max, a dog owned by

an American woman who was a severediabetic. With no training, Max somehow

developed the ability to sense when hismistress’s blood-sugar levels were dan-

gerously low, and come to her aid. Thiswas particularly useful at night, as Maxwas able to wake up her husband and

harass him until he got up and tended tohis wife.

It is strange that it’s mainly in thecontext of their relationships with humansthat animals seem to display such extra-

ordinary talents. Perhaps we haven’tbothered to look closely enough at other

aspects of the lives of animals to seehow they make use of their keen sense of

intuition to communicate and, indeed, tostay alive. Like many native human cul-tures, animals routinely make use of

extrasensory information.Or could it be that they’re trying to tell

us something very profound about thenature of relationships?

Tony Edwards




re s e a rch


63


Energies

64

LIVING THE FIELD

During a course in animal communica -

tion, Amelia Kinkade discovered that

she had a special gift for re c e i v i n g

information from animals, usually in

the form of mental images. She has

gone on to become a highly successful

‘ i n t e r s p e c i e s ’ c o m m u n i c a t o r.

Here are some suggestions for

ways to begin communicatingwith animals of every variety—

by exchanging pictures.

! Relax your body. Find a place whereyou can feel completely relaxed and

safe. Wear loose-fitting, comfortableclothing. Turn off the telephone, close

the shades and ensure that you will becompletely undisturbed. You can be inthe same room with your animal or

out of doors, seated comfortably inyour garden, balcony or horse stall.

You may wish to go where your ani-mal friend already is rather than try tobring your animal to you. You can be

as close to or as distant from him asyou like.

Sit on a pillow on the ground or ina chair with your spine as erect as

comfortably possible. Make sure thatyour animal is relaxing comfortablyas well, or at least playing contented-

ly.! Focus on your breathing. Take three

deep breaths, filling your lungs com-pletely and emptying them complete-ly on the exhalation. Visualize all the

tension in your body pouring out asyou exhale. Relax your body com-

pletely. Bring your attention to yourheart and to the smooth rhythm of

your breath.! Enter the silence. Close your eyes.

Visualize your thinking process as a

film that is being shown in a theatre.See the curtains on either side of the

stage slide closed in your thinkingprocess. A huge white scrim may alsodrop from the ceiling. Now the show

is over. There are no more thoughtsallowed on the stage. If words try to

return to the stage, gently catch themand usher them off. Allow the blank

stage to start glowing with a beautifulwhite light. The light will become

more and more brilliant as you enjoyresting in this place without words.

! Visualize your m e s s a g e. Vi s u a l i z e

the object you would like to conveyto your friend by seeing it on the

stage. Let’s begin with your friend’sfood bowl. Visualize the bowl as thea n i m a l ’s usual food bowl or bag.

Picture the empty bowl in the centerof the stage and allow it to take shape

in your mind. See it clearly. Make theimage distinct and the edges crisp.

Notice its size, depth, girth andweight, and any details that wouldhelp describe it. Most important, see

the color of the object vividly in yourmind.

! Reach out with love. Without open-ing your eyes, move your attention toyour animal and concentrate on loving

your friend. Talk to her silently for amoment. Think the thought, “I love

you.” Then ask your friend politely,“May I see what you see?” If you

open with “I love you”, your requestwill rarely be denied. In the unlikelyoccurrence that you feel resistance, try

the technique again later—neverimpose.

Now, if you feel a warm flow ofacceptance between the two of you,imagine you are slipping into the ani-

mal’s body through a door in the topof its head. From this perspective, you

are the animal. You can actually seeout of her eyes.

! Ask a simple question. The questionshould be one that can be answeredpictorially. For our purposes, we will

ask, “What do you like to eat?”Picture the empty food bowl you con-

jured on the stage now sitting right infront of you. Remember that becauseyou are looking out of your animal’s

eyes, you will see the dish from herperspective—if your friend is short,


65

Every picture tells a shaggy-dog story

LIVING THE FIELD

for example, you will be very close tothe bowl. Think for a few seconds

about your stomach and how terriblyhungry you are. Feel your mouth sali-

vating in anticipation of taking a bigmouthful of the most delicious food in

the world. Now project the thoughtthat the bowl or dish is piled high withthis food.

! Catch the thought! Retreat back intothe silence and immediately receive

the picture. What kind of food is it?The answer will come to you as fastas lightning! The transmission is

almost simultaneous. Before you haveeven finished asking the question, you

may have already received the answer.! Trust your first instinct. The first

image that flies into your mind is theright answer. No matter how out-landish the image may seem, there

could be some information coded inthe answer that the animal is project-

ing to you. If you are speaking to adog and he sends you the picture of a

big juicy steak, there should be littledoubt in your mind that you have con-

nected successfully with your dog.If you receive something that does

not make immediate sense, don’t

doubt yourself and dismiss the trans-mission. The animal might be trying

to express to you that she has a vita-min or mineral deficiency or that sheneeds more greens, grains or fiber.

If you received the image of abunch of carrots from a horse, you

may have simply contacted the horse,but if you receive the image of a

bunch of carrots from a dog, he maybe trying to tell you he needs morebeta-carotene or fiber in his diet.

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 36

66

Following up first conversations

After you’ve established your first communication, you can continue to enjoy the experi-

ence of being your animal as he eats, or be adventurous and ask one or more of the

following questions.

! What is your favorite toy?

See your human form from the outside throwing a toy to your friend. From your

animal’s perspective, run after this object with wild abandon. Enthusiastically pick it up

with your mouth. What color is it? What shape? If you don’t receive an answer imme-

diately, send your friend a picture of what you think her toy looks like, and if you are

wrong, she will correct it by sending back what the toy actually looks like.

! Where do you like to sleep when I’m not home?

See your animal preparing to bed down in his favorite place. From his perspective, feel

yourself growing sleepy and look down at the ground or out at the surroundings.

What do you see from this point of view? What color is the bedding, rug, towel, nest or

branch that he’s relaxing on? What is the texture? What does it feel like under his

body? What is its temperature? (You may send the picture of a green rug, and he may

correct it with a picture of a blue bedspread.)

! Who’s your best friend?

Be prepared—this may not be you. See your animal running, crawling or flying toward

the one other animal she enjoys the most. This feeling of love and excitement is the trig-

ger in teasing out whom she loves. In this case, we are not picturing an object so much

as creating a feeling.

An easier way to ask this pictorially might be to ask: who gives you treats? If you

picture the treat being dangled in front of the animal’s nose, he will send you the

picture of the person who is doing the dangling. You may be surprised to find that your #

Now is not the time to analyze themessage. Simply take whatever

comes and accept it at face value. Youwill try to decipher it with your criti-

cal mind later. Think of this now onlyas a game of charades.

In the event that you received animage you cannot tolerate, like thatof a dead partridge or a freshly killed

mouse, try to be sympathetic. At thispoint, you may taste the food in your

mouth from your animal’s perspec-tive. Don’t worry if it’s something youwould never eat. No matter what it is,

if it is your animal’s favorite food, andyou are experiencing your animal

from the inside out, the food will tasteabsolutely delicious.

If you did not receive an image,fill the food bowl with what you thinkthe animal might like, and the animal

will correct the image for you. Yourbowl of kibbles may transform into a

chicken breast.! Make a gracious exit. When you’ve

finished your visit, thank your friendfor sharing her thoughts and desires

with you, no matter what was offeredup. Tell her that you are grateful thatshe so generously let you into her

body and that you’d like to practicethis form of communication with her

more in the future. Thank her for theconversation and ask her to be patientwith you. (Don’t think for a moment

that animals don’t understand everyword we say.)

! Come home to your body. You maywant to practice reentering your body

the same way that you entered yourfriend’s body, through a portal in thetop of your head. Focus on your


67

neighbors are feeding your dog.

! What’s your favorite treat?

Send a picture of what you think her favorite treat is, and let her correct it for you. Often,

this is a real surprise. You might discover that her favorite treat is the neighbor’s cat

food or the french fries she stole off your table last night.

! Who takes you for a ride in the car?

From your animal’s perspective, go for a ride in the car. Sit where he sits. See what he

sees. Remember that he is not your height, so he sees the world from a much lower

perspective. Now look over and see who is driving the car and talking to ‘you’ and

patting ‘your’ head.

! Where is your favorite place to go in the car?

Send the feeling of anticipation and, as your animal, climb out of the car. See the world

around you from her perspective. Are there birds? Trees? Water? Other animals? What

is on the ground? What does it smell like?

! What did you do today?

This is a good question to ask if the two of you are apart all day. Send a picture of

what you thought he did—sleep in his bed, sit by the window—and he may send back

pictures of gnawing on the couch, drinking out of the toilet, tormenting the neighbor-

hood animals. Have a sense of humor. If he is punished after telepathically communi-

cating with you, he won’t confide in you anymore. If you can’t get a clear answer to one

of your questions, don’t force it or get discouraged. Go on to a new question.

Remember that this is a game of psychic charades. If you didn’t receive any picture

in return, you can always try again some other time; if you receive images that you

can’t comprehend, they will likely make sense to you later.#

LIVING THE FIELD

breathing and bring your attentionback to your heart. Become aware of

the feelings and desires inside yourown body, and remind yourself that

the sensations you just experiencedinside your friend are not your sensa-

tions. Your friend has his own bodyand you have yours.

Visualize your friend surrounded

in a field of white light as though hewere wearing a protective armor of

moonbeams. Now, surround yourbody in your very own suit of moon-beam armor. Let communication

through, but keep your identitiesdivinely separate. Even this commu-

nion needs healthy boundaries.! Act on your a n i m a l ’s desire.

Whatever your friend requested, makesure that when you have completedyour meditation, you give your friend

what she asked for. Whether or notyou believe you successfully made

contact, your animal will know youmade contact and will be waiting foryou to fulfill your promise.

Don’t make promises you cannotkeep. This will just teach your animal

to distrust you and not want to com-municate with you. Always follow

through with action as soon as possi-ble after making a telepathic commu-nication. This will encourage your

animal to communicate with you in

the future, and you will prove yourselfto be a trustworthy friend.

Substitute if necessary. If you can-not grant your friend’s wish (say, for

a bowl of partridge or mouse), createthe best substitute you possibly can,

like a piece of warm, partially cookedchicken. If you exchanged pictures offavorite treats or toys, find them and

give them to your friend to show himthat you received his thought. If you

exchanged pictures of a ride in thecar, a frolic in the park or a trip toGrandma’s, make that picture a reali-

ty.! Positive reinforcement. Always fol-

low up on your conversation with lav-ish attention on your friend and praise

her profusely for sharing her thoughtswith you. All this positive reinforce-ment will come in very handy when

you start to ask questions about sensi-tive subjects, like her health.

! Build trust first. You must have ananimal’s trust before you can investi-gate negative situations such as med-

ical problems or behavioral difficul-ties. You wouldn’t ask personal ques-

tions of a new human friend, and youcertainly can’t open a conversation

with an animal by saying somethingthat will hurt his feelings or make himdefensive.

I always open with “What’s your

AnimalEnergies

Lesson 36

68

Feline mind games

There’s always a lot of laughter in my workshops. In one of my earlier workshops, my cat

Rodney worked as my assistant, verifying a series of questions for my students. I had

written the answers (or, at least, what I thought were the answers!) on flash cards and piled

the cards face-down on my lap, so that the answers would be unequivocal.

When asked his favorite food, the class gave me accurate answers that I never would

have guessed. Clearly, they were not merely reading my mind, because I had written

‘White chicken chunks’ on the flash card. One student said “Cake icing”, while another

blurted out “Cheese-fish”!

They had no way of knowing Rodney had vandalized my last birthday cake by licking

off an entire row of icing roses. Nor could they have guessed that, during my last cocktail

party, I had reached my hand into a bowl of fish-shaped crackers and found the crackers

soaking wet. Much to my chagrin, Rodney had licked the cheese off of every single ‘fish’.

favorite food?” because most animals,like most people, enjoy discussing

what they like to eat.If I opened with “So you have

cancer?”, the chances are that couldbe the end of the conversation. (Sur-

prisingly, most animals do know thenames for their health problems; Idon’t know whether they get this from

listening to their vets or from a deeper‘knowing’.)

Sometimes, even after you haveestablished a rapport with an animal,he will be put off by nosy questions

and shut down communication any-w a y. You may find animals don’t

always want to answer you. You willalso inevitably discover that animals

lie (and pull your leg).

When asked questions like “Whosprayed my shoes?” or “Who chewed

up the table leg?”, animals may passthe buck like small children. When-

ever I ask my five cats “Who startedthe fight?”, I will hear a chorus of

“Not me!” (then they laugh). So, inthe beginning, be polite and have asense of humor. Remember to observe

these starting points:" Build trust first.

" Investigate problems later.Amelia Kinkade

Adapted from her book Straight from

the Horse’s Mouth (Thorsons, 2001).

Amelia is also the author of T h e

Language of Miracles (New Wo r l d

L i b r a ry, 2006).


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Energies

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ltf anim energies - what doctors don't tell you · acoustics researcher at the oceanwide...

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