Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 62, 396-406 (July 1998)

by David Jay Brown and Rupert Sheldrake

ABSTRACT

A telephone survey of 200 households was carried out in North-West California to find out how many pet owners claim to have observed seemingly psychic abilities in their animals. 132 of the households surveyed had pets. 45% of dog owners claimed their animal knew in advance when a member of the household was on the way home, compared with 31% of cat owners, and around 20% of these animals were said to react more than 10 minutes in advance. 65% of dog owners and 37% of cat owners said their pets knew that they were going out before they showed any physical signs of doing so. 46% of dog owners and 41% of cat owners said that their pet responded to their thoughts or silent commands, and 42% of dog owners and 34% of cat owners said that their pet was sometimes telepathic with them. 49% of pet owners and 31% of non-pet owners said that some of the animals that they had known in the past were telepathic. Significantly more pet owners claimed to have had psychic experiences themselves than non-pet owners, and a significantly higher proportion of 'psychic' pet owners claimed that their pets exhibited psychic powers than 'non-psychic' owners. These findings are in general agreement with a previous survey in England. Some implications of these results are discussed.

The full text version of this paper is available in the following formats html full text ...   pdf format

  Pdf Reader required, free download from www.adobe.com

Note: This is a large document - allow time for downloading