Animal magic

Cats and dogs can read our minds: Rupert Sheldrake on the mysteries of telepathy In his book The Lost World of the Kalahari, Sir Laurens van der Post described how Bushmen were in telepathic contact over enormous distances. They themselves compared their method of communication to the white man's telegraph or `wire'. On one occasion van der Post had been out hunting with a group. As they were heading back in Land Rovers laden with eland meat, he asked how the people back at the camp would react when they learnt of their success. One of his companions replied. 'They already know. They know by wire. . . . We Bushmen have a wire here' — he tapped his chest — 'that brings us news.' Sure enough, when they approached the camp, the people were singing the eland song and preparing to give the hunters the greatest of welcomes.

By contrast, educated people in the West are usually brought up to believe that telepathy does not exist. Like other so-called psychic phenomena, it is dismissed as an illusion.

Nevertheless, even in modern Britain, most people have had personal experiences that seem telepathic, most frequently in connection with telephones. For example, Janet Ward, of Budleigh Salterton, told me, 'For a long time, I have had a feeling of telepathy with my two daughters, whom I am very close to. I start thinking about them just before the phone rings. It happens, too, with friends. I'm always saying, "I was just thinking about you" when I answer the phone to them.'

Telepathy seems even more common with dogs and cats than with people. For example, many cat-owners have found that their animals seem to sense when they are planning to take them to the vet, even before they have brought out the carrying basket or given any apparent clues as to their intention. They disappear.

In the course of several years' research with pets, I heard so many of these stories that I made a survey of all the vets in north London to find out what they had noticed. All but one said that people often cancelled appointments because they could not find their cat. The remaining clinic had given up an appointment system for cats because there were so many cancellations; people just had to turn up with their animal.

Some people say their dogs know when they are going to be taken for a walk, even at unusual times, and even when they are in a different room, out of sight and hearing. The dogs detect their owners' intentions and bound into the room in eager anticipation.

One of the commonest and most testable claims about dogs and cats is that they know when their owners are coming home. In some cases they seem to anticipate their owners' arrival by ten minutes or more, even at non-routine times and even when they are in unfamiliar vehicles.

The dog I have investigated in most detail is a terrier called Jaytee, who belongs to Pam Smart, in Ramsbottom. Greater Manchester. Pam's family noticed that he seemed to anticipate her returns by going to wait at the window up to 45 minutes before she came home. He started waiting around the time she began her return journey. In more than 100 trials, we videotaped the area by the window where Jaytee waited during Pam's absences, providing a continuous, time-coded record of his behaviour. She went at least five miles away. To find out if Jaytee was simply reacting to the sound of her car, she returned by train or by taxi. He still knew when she was coming.

Jaytee's reactions were not a matter of routine, but occurred whenever Pam came home at randomly selected times signalled through a telephone pager. Jaytee behaved in the same way when he was tested repeatedly by sceptics anxious to debunk his abilities. The evidence shows that Jaytee was reacting to Pam's intention to come home even when she was miles away. We have since replicated this work with other dogs. Telepathy seems to be the only hypothesis that can account for the facts.

If domestic animals are telepathic with their human owners, then it seems likely that animals are telepathic with each other in the wild, for example within packs of wolves.

In modern human societies we now have telephones, but telepathy has not gone away. Someone's intention to make a call often seems to be picked up telepathically before the call itself. But is apparent telephone telepathy really telepathic? Could there be a more mundane explanation? People may think of others from time to time for no particular reason, and if someone they are thinking of then calls, this may be a matter of chance. People may simply forget all the times they think of someone who does not ring. This is a reasonable possibility, but there is no evidence for it. The only way to resolve the question scientifically is by experiment.

I have developed a simple procedure in which subjects receive a call from one of four different callers at a prearranged time. The subjects themselves nominate the callers, usually close friends or family members. They do not know who will be calling in any given test, because the caller is picked at random by the experimenter by the throw of a dice. Subjects have to guess who the caller is before picking up the receiver. By chance they would be right about one time in four, or 25 per cent of the time. In many of these trials, the participants are videotaped continuously to make sure that they do not receive any other telephone calls or emails that could give them any clues.

My colleagues and I have so far conducted more than 800 trials, and the average success rate is 42 per cent, very significantly above the chance level of 25 per cent, with statistical odds against chance of trillions to one. We have also carried out a series of trials in which two of the four callers were familiar, and the other two were strangers whose names the participants knew but whom they had not met. With familiar callers, the success rate was more than 50 per cent, highly significant statistically. With strangers it was near the chance level, in agreement with the observation that telepathy typically takes place between people who share emotional or social bonds.

In addition, we have found that these effects do not fall off with distance. In some of our tests the callers were in Australia or New Zealand, but the subjects identified who was on the line just as well as with callers nearby.

Unfortunately, in most of their laboratory research, parapsychologists have used senders and receivers who are complete strangers, creating poor conditions for telepathy.

Telepathy continues to evolve. One of its latest manifestations is the telepathic email. People think of someone who shortly afterwards sends them an email. We have done more than 700 tests on email telepathy, following a design similar to the telephone tests, with a success rate of 43 per cent, highly significant statistically. These tests can now be done online through my website (www.sheldrake.org), and readers are welcome to try for themselves.

We do not yet understand telepathy, but it is unscientific to dismiss it or pretend it doesn't exist. Only by exploring it can we find out more. We still have much to learn about the nature of minds, and telepathy offers vital clues. It implies that we are far more interconnected than we usually assume.

Dr Rupert Sheldrake's book, The Sense of Being Stared At, and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind, is published by Hutchinson at £17.99.