Comments on: Animal Telepathy

By: bill wilson

bill wilson — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:51:33 +0000

Yeah, debunkers are important and necessary. But I find too often that they throw one rock at a window and declare the whole house destroyed. I read them endlessly, I do, and sometimes i am one of them.

That said, here’s one i want to share… house rabbits. My neighbor had house rabbits, about 13 of them at once. They romped in open pens as a herd more or less. After years of quiet co-existence one of the adult rabbits began to thump the floor every evening and into the night, on occasion during the day as well.

Now this was new behavior. I hear it loud in my apt. because the floors are wood so I know it was not going on before. In addition, the thumps seemed to convey real fear and urgency. The thumping had that kind of slow pace and pause that created apprehension.

Well, after a week or two of this I decided to stay up late to listen to it more closely. Of course that night the ’94 Northridge quake tries to make rubble out of our building. And as you may guess, the thumping never happened again. (the rabbits survived btw).

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:59:07 +0000

It was Rupert Sheldrake who has done work on psychic dogs.
Go to his website to learn more….www.sheldrake.org
Quite interesting. Though more work definitely needs to be done.
That debunking of his psychic dog experiment is laughable at best.
Only one trial!!? C’mon, if youre gonna debunk someone elses work at least MATCH their protocol.

By: Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:56:26 +0000

No problem, Drew. I was joking in that there isn’t a psychic claim out there that Schwartz hasn’t, couldn’t, or wouldn’t Prove Scientifically. Class A wooster. Uri Geller did a hilarious job on him, as have so many others.

By: Drew

Drew — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:33:56 +0000

Thanks Greg for clearing that up, you’re absolutely right. I was getting Sheldrake confused with Schwartz, and Wiseman was the skeptic whose name I couldn’t remember.

Also, looking at my comment, it looks like I was saying that Schwartz (read, Sheldrake) was saying that animals did not show psi. What I meant was that he was claiming they did, and was debunked by a skeptic (Wiseman).

By: Mark Edward

Mark Edward — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:59:31 +0000

Psychic pets is a whole other thing and a show on that loaded subject would be very difficult one to capture solid and verifiable info about since most people (I’m starting to be a bit more wary of using terms like “most,” but until better stats are in I’ll have to assume the worst) people who claim to have psychic pets or believe their pets to have ESP are such nutcases, the show would likely tend to tip on the whackjob side of things. Funny, but not so evenly balanced as we might want. Still, there may be some exceptions. Irene Pepperberg has never claimed Alex is psychic, but there must be some borderline incidents worth searching out in cases like hers and getting to the bottom of that kind of “laboratory conditiions” type of sane research would be worth looking into and very entertaining as well. I hope we get to do it. Maybe this would subject have to be a two part episode?

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:37:08 +0000

I’ll be looking forward to your post on Pet Psychics, Mark. (Is that a play on Psychic Pets?) If we all paid more attention to our pets maybe we’d realize early on what ‘normal’ behavior is for different animals and wouldn’t be so quick to think ‘gee, that’s creepy – my pet must be psychic!’ I think it would make for a great show if it’s done well. :) And what is pretty ordinary stuff for an animal trainer might be the most amazing thing ever seen for people who haven’t spent much time working with animals.

By: Greg Taylor

Greg Taylor — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:31:59 +0000

It wasn’t Gary Schwartz who did the animal telepathy research, it was Rupert Sheldrake. Richard Wiseman did some research countering Sheldrake’s findings, Sheldrake has countered and so on.

By: Mark Edward

Mark Edward — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:31:42 +0000

I thought Gary Schwartz was on one of the episodes of “Exploring The Unknown” I did with Shermer where he was a complete believer – must be a different guy. Anyway, Drew, “rigorous research” is exactly what I’m asking for! My post was not meant to be a diatribe on how much telepathy I had with my dog, just a suggestion for what I think would be a fun show to do. Given the crew we have and all the knowledge contained therein, we are bound to find out something new and have a great time doing it. Read my next post coming up on Saturday about “Pet Psychics” as a codicil to where we might go.

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:50:13 +0000

@Devil’s Advocate:

Is that the same Gary Schwartz who publishes all that fluff about talking to the dead? I can imagine that reasoning with Schwartz would be like reasoning with the dead … or at least the braindead.

By: Devil's Advocate

Devil's Advocate — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:44:53 +0000

Yeah, it was that famous debunker Gary Schwartz who cleared that one up…