Animal Pyschic Phenomena
Can spirit animals reveal themselves to the living?
Parapsychologists and paranormal investigators often claim to see ghostly animal figures. But can living animals detect their presence as well as humans?
Animals and Psychic Abilities
According to Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, New Psychic Frontiers, (Colin Smythe Limited, 1980), animals have been known to demonstrate psychic abilities in parapsychology laboratories and in field work.
Accounts documenting Animal Psychic Phenomena (ANPSI) include the claims that people have seen or heard the ghosts of animals, as well as "alive" animals behaving in a manner seeming to indicate that they may be reacting to other ghostly animal presences around them.
In one study, a parapsychologist took a dog, a cat, a rattlesnake and a rat into a haunted house in Kentucky as a field experiment. First, he took the cat into the haunted room. The cat hissed at a chair in a corner, ran out of the room and refused to return. The dog was next and whimpered and whined, also ran out of the room and refused to go re-enter. The rat had no reaction. The rattlesnake assumed strike position towards the chair the cat hissed at.
A Sighting
In another account, three friends witnessed a ghost cat in the early 1900s and wrote about their experience in letters to the Occult Review, (a digest devoted to the paranormal that is no longer published.) At the time, it was a common practice for people who had experienced some sort of "psychic phenomena" to use pseudonyms for fear of ridicule. Elliot O’Donnell used these letters book, Animal Ghosts (William Rider & Son, Ltd., 1913).
Thane, Rue and Ilona were sitting in the drawing room of Thane’s home, waiting for the cook to bring Kitty, Thane’s grey Persian cat, in for the night. There were nights when Kitty had to be induced to enter the home. The cook called the cat from the balcony. The French window was open and a cat rushed in at the window and went on through the door.
All three women saw a black Persian cat, not Kitty, the grey one. Before Thane got Kitty, she had a black Persian cat, Ruff, who had a habit of rushing into the window that was open, then scurrying downstairs for his dinner. The cook had not seen the black cat. The animal had disappeared. A few moments, later, Kitty walked in through the door.
They searched the house, but found no other cat than Kitty.
Kitty’s Other Curious Behavior
Rue wrote that Cook asked them to go downstairs into the kitchen to see how weird Kitty behaved when she opened the cupboard. The only item in the cupboard was wood. There was no evidence of mice.
Kitty acted strangely other times. Some days, he refused to sleep in his basket. He refused to eat in the kitchen and had to be fed outside.
While Rue watched, Cook picked up Kitty and petted him, then bent down and opened the cupboard. The cat looked into the cupboard with eyes full of fear, then jumped out of her arms and ran out of the kitchen. The cook told Rue that he always responded that way, as if he saw something that terrified him.
Ruff had been Cook’s favorite cat and she nursed him during his final illness. He would creep into dark corners, so she put his basket in the cupboard which seemed to comfort him. He died in there and when Cook pointed to where the basket had been, it was the same place that Kitty looked at with such terror.
Can paranormal phenomena occur in the animal world? Those interested in the paranormal would emphatically state that yes, ANPSI is indeed possible.
