[.ca] Animal Talk: Interspecies Telepathic Communication (ISBN 1571781498)

Penelope Smith's Gift--Telepathy or Fantasy?:
The author of "Animal Talk," Penelope Smith, has some excellent guidelines for opening up the lines of communications between humans and other species. However, her accounts of her own ability to receive animal messages telepathically seem more like representations of her personal projections, wishful thinking or creative imagination than the probable thoughts or feelings of the animals themselves. Opening her book at random, I found the statement: "Most of the companion animals I have communicated with on the subject \oof spaying, neutering\c are relieved and happy to have their sexual urges and reproductive cycles out of the way." I find that hard to believe. That seems more like the anthropomorphic projection of a perimenopausal woman than the response of a dog or cat to surgical removal of its reproductive organs. While Ms. Smith has good pointers for encouraging animals' acceptance of humans (quiet observation, freedom from expectation, receptivity, etc.), I am by no means convinced that she has the key to telepathy. Many of her accounts of her conversations with animals up and down the phylogenetic scale strain credulity ... for example her alleged telepathic communication with insects. On page 112 of "Animal Talk", Ms. Smith describes a plague of bugs she once had in her kitchen cabinets ("buggles"). Since she didn't wish to kill them and says she never resorts to poisons, she had a conversation with the leader of the bug horde. She asked him why his followers had come to her house. He replied that they were "attracted by the wonderful energy here, that they wanted to be a part of our family and help in interspecies communication." She says that she "made it clear that from my human viewpoint, having millions of buggle bodies crawling over my kitchen was undesirable. Couldn't they just be present and contribute in spirit?" The leader saw her point and transmitted the message to the bug community. In her book, Ms. Smith describes what happened in the weeks that followed--after she had planted containers of diatomaceous earth in the four corners of her kitchen: "hordes of buggles marched into the containers and dried up, and their physical population gradually disappeared from my house." A website on yard-care products that I found on the Internet describes diatomaceous earth as a product that "kills common household and garden pests like roaches, ants, fleas, beetles and many others. It is a long lasting control -- sprinkles easily into cracks and crevices where bugs hide and wipes them out! When soft-bodied insects come in contact, diatomaceous earth causes massive loss of body fluids and death." It seems, then, that Ms. Smith's "buggles" committed suicide to accommodate her needs by voluntarily marching into pesticide containers that she provided for their convenience. Draw your own conclusions. Ms. Smith's true genius may lie in her ability to accommodate a growing market for information and inspiration on the subject of interspecies communications. I don't doubt that she loves animals. Does she read their minds? I wonder. Readers who find half-truths and fantasy unsettling substitutes for truth may want to skip "Animal Talk," and look for other, more reliable sources of information.

Kind of neat...:
Very, very interesting. I found this book by way of another pet communicator who, after doing a reading on my pets, recommended this book. I can't say I learned how to communicate telepathically with my pets, but... hmmm... What Penelope Smith says makes sense: quiet mind is the first step for so many other things, from good health to artistic creation to, yes, it certainly seems possible, telepathically communicating with animals. The trouble is, sorting out the junk from genuine communication. So, in all, so far, I haven't gotten all that much from this book. But I'm very glad Penelope Smith wrote it. I know I will come back and re-read it.

Great ideas / Boring book:
I must admit i find Penelope Smith difficult to read. But her ideas are essential, and her expertise unquestionable. I'm only writing this review to make sure that people understand that though it's difficult to believe Penelope Smith because of her stilted writing style, if you need further clarification on the validity of communicating with insects and other creatures, try reading "Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered" by Machaelle Small Wright, "Kinship with All Life" by J. Allen Boone or "To Hear the Angels Sing" by Dorothy MacLean. In fact, "Behaving..." actually tells you how it's done and I've used the technique to rid myself of roaches with NO pesticides whatsoever! And believe me, I was OVERRUN by them in my Brooklyn apartment. Having been an animal communicator myself for several years after being quite skeptical, I must say that there is no validity in negating the possibility any longer. If you're interested in the subject, by all means do not stop at Penelope Smith! Try reading the other books I've mentioned, and you'll see what I mean.

Imagination or telepathy?:
I simply LOVED this book. I'm an adult who was labeled "strong imaginative mind" as a child, but what we labeled so freely imagination is often intuition, telepathy... our angel guides talking to us and our animal friends. I was raised with yoga and meditation, so I'm not from a very dogmatic and religious background. Nonetheless, my background is in science, so it was hard for me to let the "analytic mind" float away and open my soul further. I'm still working on my ability to "hear" my friends and it does work. We just need to stop doubting ourselves and label what we hear the fruit of our imagination. I guess it's a little bit arrogant to attribute to my own imagination everything I hear; I mean really my dogs are pretty witty!!! Cheers to life and to Penelope Smith.

A little looney, I'd say...:
Call me a skeptic, but a lot of the notions of telepathic communication with your pets in this book struck me as a little "out there." But I wouldn't disregard this book completely even if you don't believe in telepathy. The core of this book, in my interpretation, is to learn how to empathize with your pets and to place them as equals to you in order to gain a deeper emotional connection. I've done the techniques, and it seems like there is a stronger bond between me and my cats. But I don't think I can communicate with them. Some of the conversations that Ms. Smith has seem a little ludicrous, and I'd even venture to guess that she hears those voices, but they don't come from the animals... kinda like how Anthony Perkins heard his mom's voice in "Psycho."