Parapsychology, or the study of psychological phenomena which can not be explained by modern physics, has its origins in the same investigations which gave birth to psychotherapy, cerebral pharmacology and modern neurology. Researchers at the beginning of this century observed a number of phenomena which could most easily be explained if the human brain has the ability to work at the distance, unconnected to the object of its efforts. There is not space here to review this work in detail, but the reader is invited to consult any one of a number of excellent texts on the subject. Our aim here will be merely to discuss a few of the salient points of recent research, to put the science of earlier chapters in perspective.
The early history of animal parapsychology (ANPSI) includes much anecdotal evidence of pets communicating with their owners. The best explanations for classic cases such as “Lucky Hans,” a common horse which could solve math problems, lies in psychic abilities (Pfungst 1965). The horse could not answer problems posed to it when only young children were in the area; if the children didn’t know the answer, Hans would not as well. Modern theorists hypothesize that Hans knew the answers to questions posed to him not by solving math problems, but by reading the minds of the people testing him.
The evidence that pets use psychic powers in their displays of insight or intelligence is bolstered by the case of “Rolf,” an Airedale terrier, which could solve math problems as Lucky Hans could. As with Lucky Hans, Rolf could solve a problem only when one of the humans present knew the answer. However, Rolf was sometimes able to indicate his answer before the humans worked out the solution. A combination of precognition and mind-reading? You decide. (Mackenzie 1919).
Living beings can detect a wide range of physical cues. A variety of signals might be carried by electromagnetic radiation in the bands discernable by animals other than humans (Pressman 1970). Similarly, organisms respond to minute magnetic fluxes (Barnothy 1964) and to charged subatomic particles such as pions and muons (much work in the mid-1970s, including McNulty, Pease and Bond). Animals may be acutely sensitive to tiny changes in pressure or temperature (Callahan 1964, Bullock and Cowles 1952). Some insects can detect the polarization of light, much as we might see its color (Goldsmith 1962). The ongoing investigations into avian navigation has revealed many sophisticated techniques at work, among them the ability to detect magnetic fields.
When one considers that animals detect these varied and weak signals much more acutely than humans can, and often through physiological channels greatly different than the ones we use, it is not surprising to think that some animals may pick up signals of which most humans are not aware at all. After all, when was the last time you saw the polarization of light? We can not detect magnetic fields, as birds can, but our brains do produce these fields (Brenner, Williamson and Kaufman 1975). Perhaps birds use these fields to read our minds.
Skeptics might claim that animals respond simply to the subtle signals of their owners and trainer, signals that the animals, with the sensitive eyes and ears, are able to discern. However, this argument does not explain the prescient behavior of dogs and horses before earthquakes (Kilian 1964). The animals respond to subtle tremors before quakes, but don’t respond to seemingly identical tremors which do not precede a quake. How do they know? The simplest answer is precognition.
Rhine and Feather (1962) described five categories of widely observed psychic behavior in animals:
The last is the most intriguing, and rarest. A animal left behind may trail its owner to a new, previously unseen location. Research at Duke University in the 1960s turned up 25 demonstrable cases of trailing, each involving more than 30 miles of travel. The cases involved cats, dogs and birds. Research into this area is continuing, and if you think you know of examples of trailing behavior, contact a research center immediately.
Since the introduction of computers into laboratories in a widespread way, researchers have been able to test the ability of pets to anticipate or modify the generation of random numbers by a machine. Though such experiments might be easily recreated by anybody with a home computer, it would not be appropriate to try to do so, as the possibility of harm to the animals exists. The core of the experiments involves randomly delivering goodies or punishment to an animal, as determined by a random number generator. If the pet can psychically modify the output of the generator, it will receive many more goodies than would be explicable by chance. Dr. Harold Schmidt has found excellent results from cats in this area. Ironically, he also found that cockroaches may have anti-psi — they produce unpleasant conditions for themselves more often than might be explained by chance.
Finally, an enormous amount of work has gone into the study of the use of psychic ability by animals in making choices. In these studies, “good” and “bad” alternatives will be randomly assigned to two buttons, or doors, or other venues of choice. Animals will then be asked to chose between the various alternatives. For example, two unmarked buttons can be randomly assigned so that the left one causes a nearby machine to produce food pellets, while the right on produces a life-threatening electric shock. If the food and shock alternate randomly between the buttons, we would expect any animal asked to choose repeatedly between them to get shocked about half the time. However, if an animal has paranormal abilities to anticipate good or bad alternatives, it will be shocked less than half the time.
Studies of this type have been carried out for decades, with cats and mice as the primary experimental subjects, though dogs and gerbils are used at times. See, for example, Levin 1975, Parker 1974, Craig and Treurniet 1974, Vekilov 1984. The results of most studies indicate only chance results, but other show statistically significant deviations from the scores that would have been generated by random choices.
Recently, an increasing amount of work has been undertaken on the subject of the religious nature of psychic ability in humans. Researchers at Balmore University have investigated the possibility that psychic activity leads to religious visions, or the reverse. Their results are at this point inconclusive, but suggest that faith plays a major role in psychic activity.
This is curious, as animals are not often thought of as having an appreciation of religious thought. However, it may be that they are as capable of faith and doubt as are humans, and that this provides a link to the psychic abilities we have discussed.
It is worth noting that work has also been completed on psychic abilities in plants. Few enough studies have been completed that it would be dangerous to make generalizations, but the results leave open the possibility of psychic ability in many species of plants and algae.
A note on skepticism:
There are those who hold the view that no psychic powers exist and that if they attend an experiment where psychic powers are being tested, the experiments will fail. They suggest that this means that the experiments were faked. Perhaps…or perhaps they have ability, innate or deliberate, to distort others’ psychic powers. If deliberate, we have to ask ourselves — what do they have to gain by hiding the truth?!?