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How Pet Psychics Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. That's me. I mentioned myself already.
0:18
Speaker 1: Have I mentioned Jerry? Yeah? I think so. They just
0:22
Speaker 1: keep getting worse and worse. Stuff that Cherry's over there.
0:24
Speaker 1: We're all in the Christmas spirit. I think this is
0:26
Speaker 1: the last show we're recording this year, right, Yeah, we're
0:30
Speaker 1: ahead of the game a little bit. Yep, so we
0:32
Speaker 1: can have a coushy couple of weeks. So, um, we're hammered.
0:38
Speaker 1: Not true, no, not Yeah, you got your coffee. I
0:41
Speaker 1: got my uh soda water laqua loquis soda water. Yeah.
0:47
Speaker 1: My coffee is neither Spanish, nor Irish nor anything like that.
0:51
Speaker 1: What a Spanish coffee? Oh, it's the better of the two.
0:54
Speaker 1: What is it? Um? You get a little well it
0:56
Speaker 1: depends on your on your recipe, but you get a
0:58
Speaker 1: little bit of rum okay, uh, you get a little
1:01
Speaker 1: bit of triple seck or I can't remember the other
1:07
Speaker 1: name for it, um, but good triple seck. Put them
1:11
Speaker 1: together in a like a tempered sniff ter or an
1:15
Speaker 1: Irish coffee class fire tempered. Make sure it's tempered, or
1:18
Speaker 1: else you're about to hurt yourself. You light it um,
1:22
Speaker 1: you like the it's gotta be high proof from you
1:25
Speaker 1: like the rum uh triple sec combo. Just let it
1:29
Speaker 1: burn out for a second, or you can blow it
1:31
Speaker 1: out if you don't want to burn off too much
1:32
Speaker 1: of the alcohol. And you add some espresso, some kalua
1:37
Speaker 1: and then top it off with a little whip cream
1:39
Speaker 1: and nut make Man, it's good stuff. And that's just
1:43
Speaker 1: one version. There's plenty of other version of Spanish coffee
1:46
Speaker 1: that makes Irish coffee look silly. They're just like I
1:50
Speaker 1: don't put down Irish coffee much in the coffee and
1:53
Speaker 1: drink it pretty much. It's also called the eye opener. Yeah.
1:56
Speaker 1: I love the simplicity of the Irish just doing that
1:59
Speaker 1: and I love that. Have you seen that country. I
2:01
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a new one. Last week
2:03
Speaker 1: I started watching The Simpsons again after like years off,
2:06
Speaker 1: and it is it's awesome, man, it is back. There
2:10
Speaker 1: was one. I don't know if it was new or not,
2:12
Speaker 1: but Crusty Um syndicated himself around the world so he
2:17
Speaker 1: could make a lot more money. So there's like a
2:20
Speaker 1: Jamaican crusty. There's like a like all these and then
2:24
Speaker 1: the Irish one. It was just like this depressed alcoholic
2:28
Speaker 1: who would like sit at a at a table on
2:32
Speaker 1: a chair and like the spare room didn't even do
2:35
Speaker 1: that really yeah, and like we just drink and say
2:39
Speaker 1: like these you know, really bleak depressing things. Was perfect
2:43
Speaker 1: and he ended up with his own like stage show
2:45
Speaker 1: on Broadway and everything as the Irish rusty. Yeah, that's
2:49
Speaker 1: a good one. Have to check that out. Yeah. Uh,
2:52
Speaker 1: that was my intro to pet psychics. Alright. You know
2:56
Speaker 1: that cat sitting over there knew everything. I was about
3:00
Speaker 1: to say, Oh yeah, not many people know we have
3:02
Speaker 1: a studio cat. No, man, I wish we did. How
3:05
Speaker 1: awesome would that be? Studio cat? Yeah, it'd be great
3:09
Speaker 1: to get game in here, wasn't I it's already pretty
3:12
Speaker 1: warm in here as it is. A cat would love that. Yeah. Um,
3:16
Speaker 1: all right, So pet psychics fact or fiction? Uh? Their fiction?
3:23
Speaker 1: Are we debunking right out of the thing? Well? You know,
3:27
Speaker 1: I'm I am of the forty and ilk all right,
3:30
Speaker 1: Like I think that using science as a means of
3:35
Speaker 1: avoiding scientific investigation of something is a slap in the
3:39
Speaker 1: face of science, and that science should be used to
3:43
Speaker 1: exhaust all avenues. And just because we can't currently explain
3:46
Speaker 1: something using science doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think
3:49
Speaker 1: that there's a whole echelon of stuff out there that
3:51
Speaker 1: does exist that we can't quite explain yet. Yeah. Sure,
3:56
Speaker 1: I don't know if pet psychics fall into that one,
3:59
Speaker 1: but I'm wanted just overtly pooh pooh something out of
4:02
Speaker 1: hand that said, I had a hard time like taking
4:07
Speaker 1: this entire article seriously. Well, you want to know something, Yeah,
4:14
Speaker 1: Emily just went to a pet psychic. I I thought
4:18
Speaker 1: that there was probably like a nine percent chance that
4:22
Speaker 1: something like that was going to come up. Yeah, you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: we had to put old Lucy down. And Emily went
4:27
Speaker 1: in the following week. We have a local pet psychic,
4:31
Speaker 1: and I'm surprised there probably is, but um one near
4:36
Speaker 1: our house. And she went and talk to this lady.
4:41
Speaker 1: Was it comforting? It was? She said it was really interesting,
4:44
Speaker 1: and um, there was less talk about Lucy and more
4:48
Speaker 1: talk about like me and our other animals, and um,
4:53
Speaker 1: she wouldn't tell me a whole lot because she didn't
4:56
Speaker 1: want me to poke fun at it, you know, And
4:59
Speaker 1: and I tried to be super supportive, and I was Um,
5:03
Speaker 1: I thought every instinct I had two. Uh, you're like,
5:06
Speaker 1: that sounds like a great neat. How much was it? Um?
5:12
Speaker 1: But Emily, and she asked me not to say this,
5:14
Speaker 1: So of course I'm going to say it. She is
5:16
Speaker 1: getting books now herself to read and because she feels
5:20
Speaker 1: like she is very intuitive with animals, and that she
5:24
Speaker 1: is very intuitive with animals, and so she's gonna poke
5:28
Speaker 1: around there and not to do it for a living
5:30
Speaker 1: or anything to do with your own dogs at home. Yeah,
5:32
Speaker 1: just to see if she can become more in tune
5:35
Speaker 1: with our animals. And they are called animal intuitives sometimes
5:40
Speaker 1: or communicators, not necessarily pet psychics, because that makes you
5:44
Speaker 1: sound a little crazy. It seems to be like a
5:46
Speaker 1: whole gamut of people that would fall under the umbrella
5:50
Speaker 1: of pet psychics. Yeah, like a horse whisper or Caesar Milan,
5:56
Speaker 1: some people might say, as an animal communicator that are
6:00
Speaker 1: just maybe more in tune with the signals the animals
6:04
Speaker 1: send out, and they can send signals to animals. Yea, Um,
6:07
Speaker 1: but that I fully believe. Okay, So that's totally different
6:11
Speaker 1: from what a person who claims to be a pet psychic,
6:15
Speaker 1: says is going on. Well, yeah, but not always like
6:18
Speaker 1: this lady Emily went to was sounded more like an
6:21
Speaker 1: animal intuitive and communicator than uh, like a medium saying
6:26
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Lucy. She's in a better place. She's
6:29
Speaker 1: playing with your grandfather in heaven. Right. But there are
6:32
Speaker 1: pet psychics that claim to do that, yeah, and charge
6:36
Speaker 1: people money for that. Yeah, just like real psychics. Um,
6:40
Speaker 1: all right, so let's get into it. Well I thought
6:43
Speaker 1: we already had. Well I guess we have. Um. I
6:46
Speaker 1: just wanted to go ahead and drop that bomb about Emily. Um,
6:49
Speaker 1: I think you're in trouble. So pet psychics, now, she
6:51
Speaker 1: doesn't listen, they they claim, depending on who they are,
6:57
Speaker 1: there is a spectrum of pet psychic like you said,
7:00
Speaker 1: that claim certain abilities, but some claim that they can
7:04
Speaker 1: actually telepathically communicate with animals mind and like one step
7:10
Speaker 1: beyond intuition, Like we're actually talking, right, Not only are
7:13
Speaker 1: we talking, we're transferring images from one mind to another. UM.
7:19
Speaker 1: In some cases they are talking like there's a pet
7:21
Speaker 1: psychic um who claims that when she speaks to animals, um,
7:28
Speaker 1: they respond to her in a childlike voice. The animals
7:33
Speaker 1: have childlike voices, they speak like children. They do in
7:37
Speaker 1: Disney movies, So why not um, But the basically at
7:42
Speaker 1: its most supernatural, I guess it's most extrasensory um pet psychics.
7:49
Speaker 1: What they're claiming to do is a convergence of clairvoyance,
7:53
Speaker 1: which is far sighte um, and telepathy, which is mind reading.
7:59
Speaker 1: And they're putting these together. And then if you already
8:03
Speaker 1: have a hard enough time swallowing that, you may have
8:05
Speaker 1: an even harder time following it when you realize that
8:11
Speaker 1: they're saying they're doing this with animals, which may or
8:14
Speaker 1: may not even be self aware. Yeah, Like, it's tough too.
8:17
Speaker 1: It's hard with humans to believe that someone might have
8:20
Speaker 1: ESPN telepathy, and we speak the same language, so it
8:25
Speaker 1: might be even a deeper reach to say that you
8:28
Speaker 1: can do that with a dog. Let's say, okay, Emily
8:32
Speaker 1: went to a pet psychic. Um. She went after Lucy
8:37
Speaker 1: um passed on um basically to find out how Lucy
8:41
Speaker 1: was doing. Yeah. I think she was just curious about
8:45
Speaker 1: the She had been curious for a while, and this
8:47
Speaker 1: afforded her an opportunity to go see a pet psychic.
8:50
Speaker 1: I think like it gave her a good reason. Okay,
8:52
Speaker 1: so that's one reason people go see pet psychics. Um
8:56
Speaker 1: after the death of a pet. Another one is when
8:58
Speaker 1: a pet is sick or injured or ailing, tell me
9:02
Speaker 1: if it's time to go. Um, which, man, that's gotta
9:07
Speaker 1: be a lot to put on a pet psychic. That's
9:09
Speaker 1: a lot to put on a vet, you know, although
9:12
Speaker 1: I think vets are kind of like, yeah, let's just
9:14
Speaker 1: go ahead and do it. No, that's not true. Um,
9:18
Speaker 1: And then what if the what if the pet is
9:20
Speaker 1: acting like a jerk all of a sudden. Yeah, that's
9:22
Speaker 1: another reason people, why pets. Is my dog acting out
9:25
Speaker 1: or maybe my pet is lost? Can you tell me
9:27
Speaker 1: where my pet is? Right, that's a little more of
9:31
Speaker 1: a niche thing. Not all pet psychics will take on
9:34
Speaker 1: those cases, my guess is because the success rate might
9:39
Speaker 1: not be great and they don't want to, you know,
9:42
Speaker 1: charge somebody for something and not provide the service that
9:44
Speaker 1: they said they can. Yeah, because I mean, unless you
9:47
Speaker 1: can talk to somebody into giving up their bread for
9:52
Speaker 1: you just to say, yeah, your dog will be home
9:54
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks, yeah, then you know, how
9:57
Speaker 1: are you gonna work that you can't? But there are
10:00
Speaker 1: anecdotal success stories of locating pets this way. If there
10:04
Speaker 1: weren't this wouldn't be yeah around and a skeptic will
10:07
Speaker 1: say this just luck and coincidence. I think the dog
10:11
Speaker 1: was on its way home anyway, exactly. This pet psychic
10:14
Speaker 1: didn't called to it with her mind, that's right, Uh, psychics.
10:18
Speaker 1: Pet psychics say they, UM use electromagnetic energy to accomplish this,
10:23
Speaker 1: that there's this energy field in the universe that science
10:27
Speaker 1: hasn't quite figured out yet, but it exists, and we
10:30
Speaker 1: are able to pick up on that energy and use
10:33
Speaker 1: that energy to speak to your animals. Um, whether it's
10:36
Speaker 1: a childlike voice or like I think most of them
10:39
Speaker 1: generally do it, and like in pictures, which makes a
10:42
Speaker 1: little more sense to me. Um. And this this this thing,
10:46
Speaker 1: this electromagnetic energy. There's this guy who wrote a book.
10:50
Speaker 1: His name is Jay Alan Boone and he wrote a
10:53
Speaker 1: book called Kinship with All Life and it apparently is
10:57
Speaker 1: the pet psychics Bible, and it's um kind of his
11:00
Speaker 1: relationship with this German shepherd named Strongheart, which is a
11:04
Speaker 1: Hollywood dog that he cared for starting and I think
11:07
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, UM, and who he became Uh, telepathically
11:14
Speaker 1: linked with intuitively linked to um and basically Jay Alan
11:20
Speaker 1: Boone wrote this book on how to Communicate with animals
11:24
Speaker 1: and in it he mentions that all things are connected
11:26
Speaker 1: by this thing called the primal cause. Minty Glorian's right,
11:32
Speaker 1: and um, I think that's what the pet psychic would say. Well,
11:36
Speaker 1: it's the electromagnetic energy. The point is that since it
11:39
Speaker 1: binds all things, we can just kind of use that
11:43
Speaker 1: too to connect to the mind of another thing, human
11:47
Speaker 1: or animal, because we're all connected by this, right, it's thought. Uh.
11:53
Speaker 1: Animal Plan actually hit a show for a little while
11:55
Speaker 1: about ten years ago called the Pet Psychic and Um,
11:59
Speaker 1: the lady on the or what's her name Fitzpatrick. Yes,
12:02
Speaker 1: she claimed that she picked up this in childhood as
12:05
Speaker 1: a result of a hearing loss um, although other people
12:10
Speaker 1: say they pick it up as adults after studying it
12:13
Speaker 1: and not necessarily born with a gift. But they just
12:15
Speaker 1: studied how to be more in tune with animals, right,
12:19
Speaker 1: And apparently a lot of them discovered that they had
12:21
Speaker 1: this gift after they saw the Pet Psychic on Animal Planet?
12:25
Speaker 1: Was that right? That's what Tracy says in this article. Okay,
12:28
Speaker 1: I wonder what that sounds like one of those statements,
12:30
Speaker 1: did she do research on that she do a poll? Well,
12:33
Speaker 1: I think that definitely did kick off a frend. If
12:37
Speaker 1: it didn't capitalize on it, it definitely kicked it off.
12:41
Speaker 1: All right. So you go to your pet psychic. You're
12:44
Speaker 1: gonna go into a room and they're gonna do something
12:47
Speaker 1: like this, Uh, not exactly like this, depending on their methods,
12:52
Speaker 1: but they're probably gonna like just relax and tell you
12:55
Speaker 1: to calm down, and they will make contact with the
12:58
Speaker 1: energy of the animal. And then they will actually try
13:01
Speaker 1: and contact the said animal telepathically, like ask a question
13:07
Speaker 1: of the animal, or they'll they'll they'll call its name
13:10
Speaker 1: or something and get its attention to yeah, or have
13:12
Speaker 1: a picture. A lot of times like you don't need
13:15
Speaker 1: the animal there necessarily. In fact, a lot of times
13:17
Speaker 1: I think the animal is not there, because why do
13:20
Speaker 1: you need the animal? Now? You don't, You've got the
13:22
Speaker 1: great cause, the primal cause exactly with their mind they do,
13:30
Speaker 1: and then they um well accept whatever response they get,
13:34
Speaker 1: relay that back to you, ask you some more questions
13:37
Speaker 1: or if you have any more questions, and basically act
13:41
Speaker 1: as the go between between you communicating with your pet
13:44
Speaker 1: like just like you would think, it goes down, your
13:46
Speaker 1: pet is saying that there. Uh they're not happy with
13:50
Speaker 1: the new couch and that's why they're being on it
13:53
Speaker 1: or ever since you uh took that promotion in the
13:58
Speaker 1: middle management, you've changed, man, and I'm not happy with
14:04
Speaker 1: this new you. That's why I keep chewing your suits exactly. Um,
14:10
Speaker 1: they are going to uh. It's it's pretty controversial, as
14:14
Speaker 1: we pointed out, because there isn't any hard science behind it.
14:17
Speaker 1: There's no proof of this electromagnetic energy. And a lot
14:20
Speaker 1: of people believe in energy. I mean electromagnetic energy does exist,
14:24
Speaker 1: not this kind of manet. Yeah, it's fun to make
14:28
Speaker 1: sure everyone knew that we believe in electro magnetic but
14:31
Speaker 1: they haven't picked up that. They haven't proven that there's
14:33
Speaker 1: any actual like sensory organ than people or animals that
14:36
Speaker 1: allow them to tune into this energy. Does that make
14:39
Speaker 1: more sense? So so during these pet psychic sessions, when
14:43
Speaker 1: the when the the purpose of this normally is to
14:46
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of a problem, say like we said,
14:51
Speaker 1: or to get some sort of comfort or even for
14:54
Speaker 1: decision making. Um, the problem is when a pet psy
15:00
Speaker 1: kick asks an animal what's going on, and the animal
15:04
Speaker 1: is thought to respond, well, this, I'm doing this because
15:08
Speaker 1: of this. So beyond the telepathy, beyond the clairvoyance involved,
15:14
Speaker 1: there's still the question of whether an animal is capable
15:18
Speaker 1: of that higher level of reasoning and thought. Yeah, right,
15:22
Speaker 1: that it would be aware of its own reasons for
15:26
Speaker 1: its behavior. That in and of itself is a controversial
15:29
Speaker 1: aspect of this whole topic. Yeah, that's self awareness. Like, Um,
15:34
Speaker 1: a lot of animal intuitives believe that animals are basically
15:38
Speaker 1: kind of like people. They just can't talk. They experience
15:42
Speaker 1: the emotions there they're self aware, um, and they're just
15:45
Speaker 1: not trapped, but they're in an animal's body. Um. And
15:50
Speaker 1: when you look at your pets, you may think they're
15:52
Speaker 1: experiencing emotions. And it's a controversial subject because it's not
15:56
Speaker 1: something you can prove. Well, it's been it's become more
16:01
Speaker 1: and more proven over the years. Yeah, Like nowadays it
16:05
Speaker 1: is accepted that animals can feel certain emotions. Yeah, especially
16:09
Speaker 1: the basic ones like yeah, like stress, fear, fear, upsettedness. Yeah, um,
16:15
Speaker 1: rage I think is one, um, lust, separation, distress. But
16:21
Speaker 1: it's hard to define emotion period, much less in an
16:24
Speaker 1: animal right. But the the idea that um emotions just
16:28
Speaker 1: belong to humans or even humans and higher primates is
16:32
Speaker 1: is definitely faded. Um. We are aware that animals can't
16:36
Speaker 1: experience basic emotions. They can probably experience even higher emotions too.
16:40
Speaker 1: Like if you look at a dog and your dog
16:42
Speaker 1: looks sad and it's sad because you're leaving, you may
16:47
Speaker 1: be correct. You know your dog pretty well. And we've
16:50
Speaker 1: reached the point where science is starting to come to
16:53
Speaker 1: grips with the idea that yes, animals can experience some
16:57
Speaker 1: higher emotions as well. Sure. And there was actually a
17:00
Speaker 1: conference at Cambridge University in two thousand twelve, and uh,
17:04
Speaker 1: it was a pretty heavy hitting conference. Um, Like, I mean,
17:08
Speaker 1: the people involved were no slouches, and they came up
17:11
Speaker 1: with the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness and they basically said that, um,
17:18
Speaker 1: the the components that you need to experience emotions and
17:24
Speaker 1: consciousness are not relegated to the cortex, meaning it's not
17:28
Speaker 1: just humans that have that are capable that have the
17:32
Speaker 1: hardware for experiencing consciousness. Right. Um. They also said that
17:36
Speaker 1: if you artificially stimulate um, uh, the neural circuits that
17:44
Speaker 1: are responsible for different aspects of consciousness and humans. You
17:48
Speaker 1: can stimulate the same things in animals too, which suggests
17:52
Speaker 1: that they have the same equipment. UM, you can also
17:54
Speaker 1: disrupt those circuits using hallucinogens in humans and animals. And
17:59
Speaker 1: since they have all the equipment, all the signs point to,
18:02
Speaker 1: said this group of neuroscientists and UM other professionals. They said,
18:07
Speaker 1: there is a pretty good chance that it's not just
18:10
Speaker 1: humans who are experiencing consciousness. The things that the trappings
18:15
Speaker 1: of consciousness, like higher emotions, self awareness, the things that
18:19
Speaker 1: make us human. Animals might have that make them animals.
18:24
Speaker 1: But the people who think that if your dog is sad,
18:28
Speaker 1: you're probably right, are right. Dog likes you around, and
18:33
Speaker 1: it might be happy when you're home, yeah, and sad
18:36
Speaker 1: when you leave. And the whole reason that this has
18:38
Speaker 1: been a thing is simply because humans haven't been able
18:41
Speaker 1: to figure out how to accurately test what is an
18:45
Speaker 1: emotion in an an animal, Because animals can't say I'm
18:49
Speaker 1: feeling like this right now, and we can be like,
18:51
Speaker 1: that's love. You're feeling love. Yeah, Like when a mother
18:55
Speaker 1: cares for puppies, it's showing it looks like it's showing love,
18:58
Speaker 1: or is it oxyt oson hormone in the body that
19:03
Speaker 1: says you need to care for you're young. Is it
19:05
Speaker 1: love or care or does anyone realize it's it's love
19:09
Speaker 1: or care. Well, that's the big one because you can
19:12
Speaker 1: say we have that same exact neural circuit and we
19:17
Speaker 1: react to oxytocin the exact same way. So you know,
19:20
Speaker 1: if it's love for us, why isn't it love for
19:23
Speaker 1: the animal? Well, the key is is we think about it.
19:27
Speaker 1: We're thinking, I feel so good about taking care of
19:30
Speaker 1: my baby. That means I love my baby. That makes
19:34
Speaker 1: me even happier. That's called medic cognition. That's where most
19:38
Speaker 1: people are drawing the line with animals these days. They
19:41
Speaker 1: might be able to experience some pretty high um emotions,
19:45
Speaker 1: they may be self aware, but the ability to think
19:48
Speaker 1: about their emotions and the implications of their emotions or
19:52
Speaker 1: think about thinking, that's metic cognition, and not everybody agrees
19:56
Speaker 1: on that one. That's the new thresthhold that we're at.
19:57
Speaker 1: It seems like for animals, whether or not they're capable
20:01
Speaker 1: of metic cognition. So if an animal sees itself in
20:03
Speaker 1: the mirror and noses itself, is that self awareness, Yeah,
20:06
Speaker 1: which would be a form of metic cognition, right, But
20:09
Speaker 1: that's that's not proven. That's where a lot of people.
20:12
Speaker 1: You'll lose a lot of people now, whereas ten years ago,
20:16
Speaker 1: even saying that an animal could experience happiness or joy,
20:20
Speaker 1: um would have lost a lot of people. So who knows.
20:23
Speaker 1: In ten years from now, maybe everyone will agree that
20:25
Speaker 1: animals experience metic cognition. Yeah, grief is definitely one I've
20:29
Speaker 1: seen firsthand a lot. Yeah, we talked about it in
20:31
Speaker 1: the Grief episode. Yeah. Um, and when we put Lucy down,
20:36
Speaker 1: they recommend that we did our house. They recommend that
20:38
Speaker 1: the pet not see that act, but then they come
20:42
Speaker 1: in afterward so they see the body and so they
20:45
Speaker 1: can understand what's going on and so they don't spend
20:48
Speaker 1: time looking for that animal. And uh, we did that
20:51
Speaker 1: with Buckley and Charlie and let them back in, and uh,
20:55
Speaker 1: Charlie was stressed. We didn't think about it. She was
20:57
Speaker 1: a feral dogs, so she gets stressed when other people
21:00
Speaker 1: are in the house. So we forgot this vet lady
21:02
Speaker 1: was in there. So Charlie's just stressed running around. Buckley
21:05
Speaker 1: goes up sniff's Lucy and it was really sad, and
21:10
Speaker 1: he was different for about four or five days, seemed
21:14
Speaker 1: depressed to me. And when we would take him on
21:16
Speaker 1: walks and come back, he would still run around to
21:18
Speaker 1: all the rooms, I think looking for Lucy because he
21:21
Speaker 1: never had done that before. He usually just walks in
21:24
Speaker 1: and lays down, but he literally would go to each room. Um.
21:28
Speaker 1: So I definitely think that there are things like grief,
21:31
Speaker 1: whether or not the dog realizes it's grief, like who cares?
21:34
Speaker 1: You know, That's what I think. Yeah, I mean it's
21:37
Speaker 1: still experiencing on that virtually the same level, right, Yeah,
21:41
Speaker 1: and at its most profound level, that gut experience of grief. Yeah.
21:46
Speaker 1: And I think the whole the fine line here with
21:51
Speaker 1: investigating or talking about whether or not animals can experience
21:55
Speaker 1: these things is you're walking this edge where on one
21:58
Speaker 1: side you have a through pacentrism where you're just like, no,
22:02
Speaker 1: they can't, only humans can. Humans are the greatest ever,
22:06
Speaker 1: and you're forgetting that we're animals as well. Then the
22:09
Speaker 1: other side you have anthropomorphizing, where you're attributing you know,
22:13
Speaker 1: human attributes to animals unduly. So it's kind of like
22:17
Speaker 1: you have to so happy because we're putting up the
22:19
Speaker 1: Christmas tree exactly. But it's happy because we're in there
22:23
Speaker 1: having a good time and drinking some magnag and like
22:25
Speaker 1: the music, so onward dancing right exactly. So you have
22:28
Speaker 1: to resist both of those temptations to just kind of
22:31
Speaker 1: keep plodding along down the line scientifically. But I think ultimately,
22:35
Speaker 1: is we go down that line, we're going to finally
22:38
Speaker 1: come to as a species, hopefully the idea that like
22:42
Speaker 1: animals should not be in zoos or tested on or whatever,
22:45
Speaker 1: because they are a lot closer to us consciousness wise
22:50
Speaker 1: than we currently understand or want to admit. Right now, Um,
22:55
Speaker 1: all right, well we're gonna talk a little bit about
22:58
Speaker 1: pet psychics and like contradicts between them, um and what
23:02
Speaker 1: might be going on here right after this message break. Okay,
23:10
Speaker 1: so there are some contradictions. Um, if you go to
23:13
Speaker 1: tin pet psychics, you're probably gonna have ten different, eleven opinions,
23:17
Speaker 1: eleven different stories about what's going on, which is one
23:21
Speaker 1: reason it makes it hard to swallow for some people. Um. Again,
23:25
Speaker 1: I feel like since we went to break and came back,
23:27
Speaker 1: it's this is a good time to read it. Write
23:30
Speaker 1: like I'm not I'm not poo pooing intuitiveness. No, I'm
23:35
Speaker 1: not poo pooing UM and some people's ability a greater
23:40
Speaker 1: ability than others to really kind of connect to animals
23:44
Speaker 1: and and and understand them or um deal with them
23:48
Speaker 1: however you want to put it. It's when it strays
23:51
Speaker 1: into telepathy and clairvoyance that, um, I start to become skeptical. Yeah,
23:56
Speaker 1: you know what you mean. And I think I think
23:58
Speaker 1: people some people are more into with other humans than others.
24:02
Speaker 1: Some people have their heads up their butts and are
24:05
Speaker 1: completely absorbed in their own little universe. Other people, I think,
24:09
Speaker 1: seek out um input from other things, whether it's people
24:14
Speaker 1: or animals. They're always looking for something, um just you know,
24:18
Speaker 1: justin his mom. Carrie, one of my favorite people is
24:23
Speaker 1: one of the most in tune intuitive people I've ever
24:26
Speaker 1: met in my life because she's she's a studier of people.
24:30
Speaker 1: Like you can see her man when there's a party
24:32
Speaker 1: going on, she'll be sitting back and watching. Yeah she's weird. No,
24:37
Speaker 1: she's not weird at all. She's awesome, but she's she
24:40
Speaker 1: watches and she's you know, I don't I don't know
24:43
Speaker 1: if it's a gift as much as it is something
24:45
Speaker 1: you can work on. Yeah, I think it is remove
24:48
Speaker 1: your head from your butt and pay attention. UM. So
24:51
Speaker 1: some contradictions like you might see if Fitzpatrick that says, um,
24:56
Speaker 1: your animal ratted you out about something, you might go
24:59
Speaker 1: to another pet psychic that says animals would never do that,
25:02
Speaker 1: they're loyal. So the story supposedly according to um Sonya
25:08
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick from the Pet Psychic show, UM, animals are very
25:13
Speaker 1: gossipy and um they like to tell one another all
25:17
Speaker 1: your secrets. That's hilarious to me. And she told the story.
25:22
Speaker 1: She wrote a book called UM What the Animals Tell Me?
25:26
Speaker 1: And she told the story about a turtle that she
25:29
Speaker 1: was communicating with and the turtle told her that it
25:32
Speaker 1: would love to have a fish friend as a pet.
25:36
Speaker 1: So Sonia Fitzpatrick introduced a fish to this turtles tank
25:40
Speaker 1: and the turtle was like, thanks, chump, and ate the fish.
25:43
Speaker 1: And so she said, why did you eat the fish?
25:45
Speaker 1: And the turtle said, well, I knew that if I
25:47
Speaker 1: asked you for a fish to eat, you wouldn't give
25:49
Speaker 1: it to me, So I just tricked you. Basically, so,
25:54
Speaker 1: animals are gossipy and wiley and have the potential to lie. Yeah,
25:59
Speaker 1: you should not trust animals. Uh. Debbie McGillivray, she wrote
26:04
Speaker 1: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pet Psychic Communication. Um, she's
26:09
Speaker 1: the one that said no, no no, no, animals are loyal.
26:11
Speaker 1: They're innocent. They would never write you out, they would
26:14
Speaker 1: never lie to you like that or embarrass you. So um,
26:18
Speaker 1: it makes it tougher to swallow when you have people
26:20
Speaker 1: saying these wildly different things, not about what they're picking up,
26:24
Speaker 1: but the fact that no animals do this, No animals
26:26
Speaker 1: do this, Like, which is it right? But you could
26:30
Speaker 1: say the same thing about humans, you know, like if
26:31
Speaker 1: you hang out with certain humans, you can be like
26:33
Speaker 1: some humans like humans gossip. They'll they'll tell other people
26:37
Speaker 1: all of your terrible secrets. Other people might have hung
26:41
Speaker 1: out with the Waltons and they're like, no, humans are
26:42
Speaker 1: all loyal. It's all. It's all about your perception and
26:46
Speaker 1: your experience, that's right. So what might be going on
26:49
Speaker 1: here is what's known as a cold reading. Yeah, the
26:53
Speaker 1: actual any success or what appears to be success telepathically
26:58
Speaker 1: among pet psychics readings, Yeah, esp people use cold readings
27:03
Speaker 1: to explain that fortune telling, tarot card palm reading, crystal balls,
27:08
Speaker 1: you name it. Uh. A skeptic will say that what
27:12
Speaker 1: a cold reading is is the following. They are maybe
27:16
Speaker 1: stating the obvious. Your cat loves to your cats, telling
27:21
Speaker 1: me it loves to lay in the window and look
27:23
Speaker 1: at the world outside. And the person goes, oh, my god,
27:26
Speaker 1: the wizard loves that. All cats love that exactly, so
27:30
Speaker 1: that might happen in your reading. Um. They might also
27:34
Speaker 1: use very vague language like, um, so he says, your
27:39
Speaker 1: dog says something has changed around here, and you go, oh, yeah,
27:43
Speaker 1: I just accepted this middle management promotion, and the pet
27:47
Speaker 1: psychic says, yes, that's that exactly, that's the this new
27:51
Speaker 1: thing that's changed. And you said earlier that your dog
27:54
Speaker 1: was chewing up your new shoes, and that's why your
27:57
Speaker 1: dog is not happy with this change, So he's chewing
28:00
Speaker 1: your shoes. I am a psychic. That's that's how they
28:04
Speaker 1: finish every reading too. But they throw their arms up
28:07
Speaker 1: in the air and shout that, well, it's interesting because
28:09
Speaker 1: what might be happening there is is your dog might
28:13
Speaker 1: be chewing up your shoes because you did get that job,
28:16
Speaker 1: because you're working in extra fifteen hours a week, and
28:19
Speaker 1: your dog has separation anxiety, so ironically it might be
28:23
Speaker 1: actually on the money. But uh, dis kinnect comes in
28:27
Speaker 1: when the psychic says that your dog told him that exactly, Um,
28:32
Speaker 1: what else? Um? Or about this? Here's another way to
28:36
Speaker 1: state the audience your dog. I'm looking at a picture
28:40
Speaker 1: of your dog and they chew on their paws all
28:42
Speaker 1: the time, and say they itch and that's because in
28:46
Speaker 1: the picture they have like a bandage on their pall.
28:49
Speaker 1: Or you went in and I forgot you said, my
28:52
Speaker 1: dog is chewing their paws all the time. What's the
28:55
Speaker 1: deal with that? Like, they'll they'll glean these bits of
28:58
Speaker 1: information without you maybe even necessarily recognizing that by asking
29:02
Speaker 1: you questions, and then they make that part of their
29:07
Speaker 1: cold reading. But then asking questions is another one too.
29:10
Speaker 1: It's fishing for details. It's like I see that your
29:14
Speaker 1: dog is wearing a green and then you say blue
29:19
Speaker 1: blue collar. Your dog is wearing a blue collar. Um.
29:23
Speaker 1: So every time something is uh that that you indicate
29:27
Speaker 1: something is correct, it'll be restated, rephrased, respoken as if
29:32
Speaker 1: the psychic is saying it, and you're you're so unwrapped
29:37
Speaker 1: in this whole thing that you're just missing the fact
29:39
Speaker 1: that you're feeding them the information that they're giving to
29:42
Speaker 1: you as a psychic reading, because this isn't just pet psychics. No,
29:47
Speaker 1: Like generally, if you go into a psychic, you are
29:49
Speaker 1: there because you want to believe and you are seeking
29:51
Speaker 1: an answer. Um, if a dude like your I went
29:55
Speaker 1: into a pet psychic, we probably wouldn't have much luck
29:58
Speaker 1: because we would go in there looking to shoot holes
30:00
Speaker 1: in it. And uh, I did encourage Emily. I was
30:02
Speaker 1: like going there with an open mind. You know, I
30:04
Speaker 1: would go in there with an open mind. See, I
30:06
Speaker 1: don't think I could. I would, I wasn't invited. I
30:08
Speaker 1: would try, at the very least, I don't. I wouldn't
30:11
Speaker 1: if I were going to go in there just to
30:13
Speaker 1: poop who, I just wouldn't go. Well, yeah, you know,
30:15
Speaker 1: because I mean, who wants to do that? Jerks? There
30:19
Speaker 1: are plenty of them out there too. No, that's true. Um,
30:22
Speaker 1: But Emily did say that she was She made a
30:25
Speaker 1: point to not reveal too much and to sort of
30:28
Speaker 1: watch out for those cold reading tricks. And she said
30:33
Speaker 1: I didn't reveal a whole lot and she she gave
30:35
Speaker 1: me back something, so she's a believer. Well, um that
30:40
Speaker 1: that whatever she spent on that, So dropping the bucket.
30:45
Speaker 1: Compared to what people spend on their pets these days,
30:48
Speaker 1: it's a little crazy these days, not just for pet
30:50
Speaker 1: psychics but just in general. Yeah. Um, Americans spent sixty
30:55
Speaker 1: one billion dollars billion with a B dollars in two
30:59
Speaker 1: thousand thirty on their pets. Sixty one billion dollars and
31:04
Speaker 1: that was up from thirty six billion in two thousand
31:07
Speaker 1: five and seventeen billion. What's the current number, sixty one billion? Boy,
31:15
Speaker 1: I mean things have really I don't want to say
31:18
Speaker 1: gotten out of hand, but you definitely noticed in the
31:20
Speaker 1: past decade more uh, doggy spas and stuff like that around. Well,
31:25
Speaker 1: there's supposedly more disposable income. Yeah. Uh, and there are
31:31
Speaker 1: more people who are not having kids, so they're just
31:34
Speaker 1: dumping their money into their beats. Well, good get them
31:37
Speaker 1: off the street people, That's what I say. The point
31:39
Speaker 1: is for spending sixty one billion dollars on our pets,
31:42
Speaker 1: and it keeps increasing, almost doubling every few years, now
31:45
Speaker 1: every eight years. UM. Pet psychics are not going anywhere. No,
31:50
Speaker 1: they're not there. Here is stay. I've got one more
31:53
Speaker 1: UM stat for you. Uh, there's a poll in two
31:55
Speaker 1: thousand eight that found that sixty of pet owners say
31:58
Speaker 1: they understand their animals purrs or barks or other noises,
32:03
Speaker 1: and said that when they speak, their pet understands them
32:07
Speaker 1: or at least they're intent um. And one in five
32:12
Speaker 1: owners claim they their pets understand each other completely like
32:16
Speaker 1: the two pets do, and one quarter of cat owners
32:19
Speaker 1: that they completely understood their pet sounds. Only of dog
32:23
Speaker 1: owners said they were flute and barks. So I guess
32:25
Speaker 1: those are two different poles that are wildly different in
32:28
Speaker 1: their numbers. I think people can and animals since a
32:35
Speaker 1: lot of subtle micro expressions and body language, and that
32:42
Speaker 1: is just I mean, that is communication. So don't you
32:45
Speaker 1: think that's just a result of proximity around another living being,
32:49
Speaker 1: you know, just living with something, whether it's a person
32:52
Speaker 1: or an animal, like you get to know them and
32:54
Speaker 1: their mannerisms and yeah, like you can read them, and
32:57
Speaker 1: that is, like I said, micro expressions is a form
32:59
Speaker 1: of commune cation, I think. So it's not like I think,
33:02
Speaker 1: sure you can communicate with your dog, uh, but it
33:05
Speaker 1: may not be telepathically like a conversation. But if it
33:09
Speaker 1: feels as easy as a telepathic conversation, then you you've
33:13
Speaker 1: got it going on with your pet. Yeah. And again,
33:16
Speaker 1: if you want to go out and drop your dough
33:17
Speaker 1: on a pet psychic, more power to you. Probably get
33:20
Speaker 1: something out of it. Same here. Uh. If you want
33:24
Speaker 1: to know more about pet psychics, type those words into
33:26
Speaker 1: the search part how stuff works dot com. And since
33:28
Speaker 1: I said search parts, time for listener mail. I'm gonna
33:33
Speaker 1: call this uh go Figgy Puddings. Remember that in our
33:39
Speaker 1: a live partly Well, I'll just go and read it
33:40
Speaker 1: the semester. Guys, I'm studying abroad in the UK at
33:43
Speaker 1: the University of Hertfordshire during my travel exactly during my travels.
33:48
Speaker 1: Your podcast is help me pass the time of plane
33:51
Speaker 1: and train rides while learning new things and hearing the
33:54
Speaker 1: American accent I miss so much. I just listened to
33:57
Speaker 1: a zero scientific for me. For funny, you mentioned Richard
34:00
Speaker 1: Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire and Josh said go
34:03
Speaker 1: Figgy Puddings, which was very funny. I couldn't have thought
34:07
Speaker 1: of that. You could not that quick. I was a
34:11
Speaker 1: little taken. Aback guy, since you're always dead on with
34:13
Speaker 1: your university team names, I regret to inform you that
34:16
Speaker 1: you h does not have a team called the Piggy
34:17
Speaker 1: Puddings Zell. They're actually the University of Hertfordshire Hurricanes. It
34:22
Speaker 1: was this guy's joking right now, King, Oh yeah, well yeah,
34:26
Speaker 1: I think so. Oh, I think so, Andrew. You knew
34:29
Speaker 1: Josh is joking, right, please, Andrew, I think so. Um,
34:34
Speaker 1: we are the Hurricanes, which is a little weird since
34:36
Speaker 1: they have more figgy puddings here than hurricanes. Yeah, there's
34:39
Speaker 1: not a lot of hurricanes over there and there, No,
34:40
Speaker 1: I don't think so. They tend to come this way. Yeah,
34:43
Speaker 1: you h Hurricanes are actually one of the best British
34:46
Speaker 1: American football teams around with four national championships. But I
34:51
Speaker 1: think he corrected himself in a subsequent email. I think
34:53
Speaker 1: there were five twelve division title since just want to
34:58
Speaker 1: set the record straight. Also wanted to thank you guys
35:00
Speaker 1: for such a consistently great show. And that is Andrew
35:04
Speaker 1: Million go Kaine, and um, I think he I hope
35:10
Speaker 1: he knows you're joking. Well, he said he was taken aback.
35:13
Speaker 1: I think he was kidding. I hope I don't know
35:15
Speaker 1: that he was joking. Go with that if you want
35:19
Speaker 1: to pull one over on me and Chuck, that's fine,
35:22
Speaker 1: We'll see what you got. You can tweet to us
35:24
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35:29
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