Do animals have souls? (translated)

By Ernesto Bozzano

- This edition is unique;
- The translation is completely original and was carried out for the Ale. Mar. SAS;
- All rights reserved.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Category I - Telepathic hallucinations in which an animal is the agent
Category II - Telepathic hallucinations in which an animal is the percipient
Category III - Telepathic hallucinations perceived collectively by animals and humans
Category IV - Visions, no longer telepathic, of human ghosts perceived collectively by animals and humans
Category V - Cases in which only animals gave signs of perceiving paranormal manifestations
Category VI - Animals and haunting phenomena
Category VII - Apparitions of identified animal ghosts
Category VIII - Post-mortem manifestations of animals with unusual modes of manifestation
Category IX - Animals and premonitions
Category X - Materializations of animals
Conclusions

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anna Ruggieri
• Release date: Jun 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9788892864269

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

What was affirmed with regard to paranormal manifestations in which humans are agents or percipients, namely that such manifestations have been observed at all times and by all peoples, must also be affirmed with regard to the complementary branch of the same manifestations in which animals are agents or percipients. Naturally the paranormal manifestations in which animals are the protagonists are confined within more modest limits of extrinsicity than those in which human beings are the protagonists, limits which correspond to the intellectual capacities of the animal species in which they are manifested. These include telepathic episodes in which animals act not only as recipients but also as agents; episodes in which animals perceive, collectively with man, ghosts or other supernormal manifestations that have occurred outside of any telepathic coincidence; and episodes in which animals perceive, collectively with man, manifestations that take place in haunted localities. In addition, there are episodes of a premonitory order, episodes of materialisation of identified animal ghosts; the latter circumstance is theoretically very important, since it would tend to validate the hypothesis of the survival of the animal psyche. The investigation of this branch of the metapsychic disciplines was completely forgotten until the present day, although in the metapsychic journals, and especially in the collections of the Proceedings and the Journal of the well-deserving Society for Psychical Research of London, there are numerous cases of the nature indicated; which, however, were never collected, classified and analysed by anyone, as very little was written and discussed about them. There remains, therefore, very little to summarise about the theories formulated on the subject. I will only note that in the commentaries on a few individual cases belonging to the largest class of phenomena under consideration, which is that in which animals collectively perceive manifestations of a telepathic and haunting order to man, the hypothesis was put forward that psychic perceptions of this nature originate in a hallucinatory phenomenon originating in the centres of ideation of a human agent, and then transmitted unconsciously to the homologous centres of the present and percipient animal. As will be seen, this hypothesis is contradicted by the facts, which show that in numerous episodes of this nature the animals perceive the supernormal manifestations previously to man, a circumstance which suddenly nullifies the hypothesis in question. For another class of phenomenology under consideration, and more precisely for that of the apparitions of animal ghosts, a phenomenon of pure and simple hallucination on the part of the percipient individual was assumed. This hypothesis is untenable on the basis of a comparative analysis of the facts, which show that animal phantoms are often perceived collectively or successively by several persons; and, more importantly, they are identified with animals that lived and died in the same locality, and all this while the percipients were unaware that the animals visualised existed. On the basis of these findings, it must be concluded that, in general, the two hypotheses set forth above must be considered insufficient to account for the facts; a conclusion that is of great importance, since it is equivalent to admitting the existence of an animal subconsciousness that is the repository of the same supernormal faculties that exist in human subconsciousness; as well as, it is equivalent to recognising the possibility of the existence of veridical apparitions of animal ghosts. Having said this, the scientific and philosophical value of this new branch of metapsychic research is evident, and it is already fair to predict that the day is not far off when it will be recognised as indispensable for the establishment of the new Science of the Soul, which would appear incomplete, to the point of being inexplicable, without the necessary complement that the analytical investigation and the synthetic conditions concerning the animal psyche bring to it. It can already be understood that with the present classification - which is the first of its kind - I am far from presuming to have thoroughly examined a subject so vast and of such metapsychic, scientific, and philosophical importance. I only flatter myself that I have made a first effective contribution to new research, and with that I have awakened the interest of scholars on the subject, thus favouring the further accumulation of raw material and facts, which seems indispensable for the completion of investigations into this young branch of the metapsychic disciplines. Finally, if one wished to fix the date when paranormal manifestations in relation to animals began to be taken into serious consideration, it would have to be that of a famous incident of canine telepathy in which the well-known English novelist Rider Haggard was a participant, a telepathic accident which occurred in circumstances which cannot be doubted, but which, owing to one of those providential conditions of time, place, and environment, which are so often to be found in the early history of new branches of knowledge, aroused in England an unexpected and almost exaggerated interest; It was discussed at length in political, variety and metapsychic journals, thus creating a favourable environment for such investigations. We must therefore begin our classification of metapsychic manifestations in animals with the telepathic case of the novelist Rider Haggard. E. B.

CATEGORY I - TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS IN WHICH AN ANIMAL ACTS AS AN AGENT

CASE 1 - This is the Haggard case, which for the sake of brevity I shall only relate as it was faithfully summarised in the August 1904 issue of the Journal of Psychical Studies, referring for further details to the October 1904 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Mr. Rider Haggard recounts that he went to bed quietly about one o'clock in the morning of July 10, 1904. An hour later, Mrs. Haggard, who was sleeping in another bed in the same room, awoke with a start, hearing her husband groaning and making inarticulate sounds like the moaning of a wounded beast. Frightened, she called out to him; her husband heard her voice as if in a dream, but could not immediately free himself from the nightmare that oppressed him. When he awoke fully, he told his wife that he had dreamt of Bob, their eldest daughter's old hound, and that he had seen him struggling in a terrible fight as if he were about to die. The dream had had two distinct parts. Of the first, the novelist could only remember feeling a sense of anxious oppression, as if he were in danger of drowning, but between the moment he heard his wife's voice and the moment he regained full knowledge of himself, the dream became much more vivid. I saw, he said, good old Bob lying on his side in the reeds of a pond. It seemed to me that my own personality was mysteriously emerging from the body of the dog who was strangely raising his head to my face. Bob tried to speak to me, and, unable to make himself understood by sound, he conveyed to me in some other indefinable way the notion that he was dying. The couple went back to sleep, and the novelist was no longer disturbed in his sleep. At breakfast in the morning, he told his daughter what he had dreamt, and laughed with her at the fear her mother had felt: she attributed the nightmare to poor digestion. As for Bob, no one worried about him, since the previous evening he had been seen with the other numerous dogs in the villa and had given his mistress the usual party. But the hour of the daily meal passed without Bob appearing. His mistress was worried and the novelist began to suspect that the dream had been true. The novelist himself finally found the poor dog floating in a pond, two kilometres from the villa, with its skull crushed and its legs broken. An initial examination by the veterinary surgeon suggested that the dog had been caught in a trap, but it was later found that the dog had been hit by a train over a bridge crossing the pond and thrown from the collision into the reeds of the water. On the morning of 10 July, a railway worker found Bob's bloody collar on the bridge, so there was no doubt that the dog had died on the night of the dream. By chance, an extraordinary train had passed that night shortly before midnight and had to do the deed. All the above circumstances are proven by the novelist with a series of testimonial documents. According to the vet, death must have been almost instantaneous, so that it would have preceded Haggard's dream by a couple of hours or more. Such, in brief, is the case of the English writer, in which there are many factual circumstances that contribute to categorically exclude any other explanation than that of direct telepathic transmission between the animal and the man. It could not have been the result of a telepathic impulse originating in the mind of a person present, for no one had witnessed or been informed of the drama, as is evident from Haggard's own enquiry, and as could easily have been presumed in view of the late hour at which the event took place. It could not have been a common form of hallucinatory nightmare with a chance coincidence, since there were too many truthful circumstances in the vision, besides the fact itself of the coincidence between the dream and the death of the animal. It could not have been a case of telesthesia in which the novelist's spirit had a distant perception of the drama, since in such a case the percipient would have had to remain a passive spectator, which was not the case. As we have seen, he was subjected to a remarkable phenomenon of incipient identification or possession. This phenomenon - as the editor of the Journal of the S.P.R. rightly observes - presents an interesting parallel with the immedesimations and dramatizations so frequent in psychics or mediums during the state of trance. Finally, it could not have been a premonitory dream by which Haggard learned not of the event at the time it took place, but of the discovery of the corpse in the pond a few days later, because such a solution does not explain anything: Neither of the fact of the veridical coincidence between the dream and the event, nor of the phenomenon of the equally veridical dramatisation of the event itself, nor of the remarkable case of identification or possession". These are the principal considerations that contribute to demonstrate in an incontestable way the reality of the phenomenon of direct telepathic transmission between animal and man. I thought it necessary to formulate them in order to reply to certain objections timidly put forward by various parties after the Society for Psychical Research had accepted and commented on the case in question. At the same time the same considerations may serve as a rule for the readers in order to judge as to the reliability or otherwise of the telepathic hypothesis in regard to the cases that follow.

CASE 2 - I get this from the Journal of the S.P.R. , vol. II, p. 22. Mr. E.W. Mr. E.W. Phibbs relates: On the first Monday in August, 1883 (trading holiday), I was at Ilfracombe. About 10 o'clock in the afternoon I went to bed, and soon fell asleep. I was awakened about half-past ten o'clock by my wife coming into the room, and telling her how I had at that time had a dream in which I saw my dog Fox lying wounded and dying at the foot of a wall. I had no precise idea of the locality, but happened to observe that it was one of the usual dry stone walls peculiar to the province of Gloucester. I had not a precise idea of the place, but observed, that it was one of the usual dry-walls peculiar to the province of Gloucester. The next day, Tuesday, I received a letter from the servant, informing me that Fox had not been seen for two days. I immediately replied, ordering him to make the most minute enquiries. I was answered on Saturday by a letter which I received the next day, Sunday. I was informed that the dog had been attacked and killed by two bull-dogs on the previous Monday evening. When I returned home a fortnight later, I immediately commenced a rigorous investigation, as a result of which I was able to ascertain that about five o'clock in the afternoon of the Monday in question, a lady had seen the two bull-dogs viciously attack and tear my dog to pieces. Another woman, who lived in the neighbourhood, informed me that about nine o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, she had seen my dog lying dying at the foot of a wall, which she pointed out to me, and which I saw for the first time. The next morning the dog was no longer there. I later learned that the owner of the bull-dogs, as soon as he had learned the fact, and fearing the consequences, had arranged for him to be buried at half past ten that same evening. The time of the event coincides with the vision of my dream". (Mrs. Jessie Phibbs, wife of the said speaker, confirms her husband's narration). This case was repeatedly quoted by Professor Richet in his Traité de Métapsychique with the intention of showing that it could be explained by cryptesthesia, without there being any need to assume a phenomenon of telepathy in which the animal was the agent and its owner the percipient. He remarks: It would be more rational to suppose that it was the nature of the fact that affected Mr Phibbs' mentality, and not that the spirit of the dog vibrated the master's brain centres (p. 330). By 'the nature of the fact' he refers to his own hypothesis of 'cryptesthesia', according to which existing things, and the performance of all actions in the animate and inanimate world, emit sui generis vibrations perceptible to the senses, who are thus theoretically able to become aware of everything that happens, has happened, and will happen in the whole world. I replied with a long article in the Revue Spirite (1922, p. 256), which sought to challenge this alleged omniscience of the subconscious faculties, showing on the basis of the facts that the faculties in question were instead conditioned - and therefore limited - by the unavoidable necessity of the psychic relation; that is to say, if there were no prior emotional ties, or even, in very rare circumstances, relations of simple knowledge, between the agent and the recipient, telepathic manifestations could not take place. Then, referring to the present case, I continued: If we exclude the possibility that the dog's thought, directed with anxious intensity towards his distant protector, was the determining agent of the telepathic phenomenon, or, in other words, if we exclude the possibility that it could have taken place by virtue of the existence of an affective relationship" between the dog and his master, then the question arises: Why did Mr Phibbs see his own dog dying that night, and not all the other animals that were certainly dying all over the place that night? This question can only be answered by acknowledging that Mr. Phibbs did not see the dying animals at the slaughterhouse or elsewhere, because there was no psychic relationship whatsoever between them and him, and instead saw his own dog in agony because there were emotional ties between it and him, and because at that moment the dying animal was intensely thinking of its distant protector; This latter circumstance is not at all improbable, and is indeed logically presumable in a poor animal in agony, and therefore in urgent need of rescue'. And it seems to me that these conclusions cannot be doubted. In any case, readers will find in the present classification numerous examples of various kinds that exuberantly confirm this point of view, while inexorably contradicting the hypothesis of an omniscient cryptesthesia.

CASE 3 - I get it from Camillus Flammarion's book L'Inconnu (p. 413). Madame R. Lacassagne, née Durant, writes to Flammarion: I can still quote you a personal case which struck me very much when it happened to me; however, since this time it is about a dog, perhaps I am wrong to abuse your time: I will excuse myself by asking where the problems to be solved stop. I was then a young girl, and it happened quite often that I had a surprising lucidity in my dreams. We had a bitch of superior intelligence, who was particularly fond of me, although I caressed her very little. One night I dreamt of our dying dog, and saw her looking at me with human eyes. As soon as I awoke, I said to my sister, Lionne is dead; I dreamed it. It is certain. My sister laughed, and did not believe it at all. The bell was rung, and the maid who had come in was asked to send for the bitch. They called for her, but she did not answer; they looked for her everywhere, and finally found her dead in a corner. Now, as she was not ill at all the day before, it is evident that in me there were no predisposing causes for such a dream. (Signed: Mad. R. Lacassagne, née Durant, Castres). In this case too, the most likely hypothesis is that the agonised animal anxiously turned its thoughts to its mistress, thus determining the telepathic impression that its mistress underwent in her sleep. The episode, however, is theoretically much less demonstrative in this sense than the preceding one, especially since this time there are no details capable of eliminating the other hypothesis of a presumable phenomenon of clairvoyance in sleep.

CASE 4 - I get it from Light (1921, p. 187). The speaker is F.W. Percival, who writes: Mr. Everard Calthrop, a great breeder of pure-blooded" horses, in his book entitled: The Horse as Camarade and Friends, relates how years ago he owned a splendid mare, named Windemers, to whom he was deeply attached, and by whom he was reciprocated with such affectionate devotion, as to make the case even touching. As fate would have it, the poor mare drowned in a pond near Mr. Calthrop's farm, and he recounts the impressions he felt at that moment in these terms: At 3.20 a.m. on 18 March 1913, I awoke with a jolt from a deep sleep, and not because of any noise or neighing, but because of a plea for help transmitted to me - I do not know how - by my mare Windemers. I listened; there was not the slightest noise in the quiet night; but when I became fully awake, I felt the desperate appeal of my mare vibrate in my brain and nerves, and thus learned that she was in extreme danger, and urgently crying for help. I put on an overcoat, pulled on my boots, opened the door and took a run across the park. There was no whining or moaning, but in an incomprehensible and prodigious way I knew where I was getting the wireless telegraphy signal, however rapidly it was weakening. I ran and ran, but felt that the vibratory waves of the wireless telegraphy were getting weaker and weaker in my brain; and when I came to the shore of the pond, they had ceased. As I looked at the water, I saw that its surface was still rippling with small concentric waves reaching the shore, and in the middle of the pond I saw a black mass standing out ominously in the early morning dawn. I knew at once that this was the body of my poor mare, and that unfortunately I had been late in answering her call: she was dead. This is the fact. Mr. F.W. Percival, who reported it in The Light (1921, p. 187), observes: "It is true that in cases like the one described above we lack the testimony of the agent; but this does not prevent the three rules of Myers, which are designed to distinguish telepathic events from those which are not, from being equally applicable to our case. These rules are: 1. the agent must have been in an exceptional situation (and here the agent was struggling with death); 2. the recipient must have experienced something psychically exceptional, including a revealing impression of the agent (and here the revealing impression of the agent is obvious); 3. the two events must coincide in time (and this third rule is also fulfilled). In addition to Mr. Percival's arguments, it might be useful to point out that the telepathic impulse was so precise and energetic as to awaken the recipient from a deep sleep, to make him immediately aware that it was a call for help from his mare, and to direct his steps without hesitation towards the theatre of the drama. Having said this, it does not seem logically legitimate to question the genuinely telepathic origin of the event.

CASE 5 - I get this from the Journal of the S.P.R. (vol. XII, p. 21). Lady Carbery, wife to Lord Carbery, sends from Freke Castle, County Cork, on the 23rd of July, 1904, the following report: 'On a hot Sunday afternoon, in the summer of 1900, I went after breakfast to make the usual visit to the stables, to distribute sugar and carrots to the horses, among whom was a favourite mare of mine, shady, nervous, named Kitty. There was a great and uncommon fondness between us. I rode her every morning, before breakfast, and in all weathers. They were quiet, solitary excursions along the hills above the sea, and it always seemed to me that Kitty rejoiced as much as the mistress in these morning rides, in the freshness of the hour. On the afternoon in question, on leaving the stables, I set out alone into the park, walking about a quarter of a mile, and sat down in the shade of a tree with an interesting book to read, intending to remain there a couple of hours. After about twenty minutes, a sudden influx of painful sensations came between me and my reading, and at the same time I was sure that something painful had happened to my mare Kitty. I tried to banish this untimely impression by continuing my reading, but the impression grew so great that I was forced to give up and hurry to the stables. When I arrived there, I went without fail to Kitty's stall, and found her lying on the ground, suffering, and in urgent need of help. I immediately went in search of the grooms, who were in another section away from the stables, who rushed to offer the assistance that the case required. The surprise of the grooms was great when they saw me appear in the stable for the second time, which was most unusual. (Signed: Lady Carbery). The coachman who assisted in such contingencies, confirms in these terms: 'At that time I was coachman at Freke Castle, and her ladyship came to the stables in the afternoon to distribute, as usual, sugar and carrots to the horses. Kitty was free in her stall, and in excellent health. Immediately afterwards I returned to my apartment above the stables, and the grooms went up to their rooms. After half an hour, or three-quarters of an hour, I was surprised to see his lordship return, and rush in to call me and the grooms to assist Kitty, who was lying on the ground from a sudden illness. In the interval, none of us had entered the stables. (Signed: Edward Nobbs). This second case is less emotional than the first, and the impression made upon Lady Carbery was also less circumstantial and more vague; but nevertheless it was always strong enough to instil in the recipient the conviction that her sensations indicated that Kitty was in urgent need of assistance, and to determine her to rush to the spot without delay. These exceptional circumstances of precise and suggestive significance are sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the case is genuine telepathy.

CASE 6 - I take it from Light (1915, p. 168). Mr. Mildred Duke, a well-known psychic and author of profound articles on the subject of the metapsychic, relates the following incident which occurred to himself: I was writing late at night, and was totally absorbed in the subject, when I was literally invaded by the idea that my kitten needed me. I had to get up and go in search of her. After wandering around the house to no avail, I went into the garden and, since the darkness made it impossible to see, I began to call out to her. At last I heard a faint meow at a distance, and every time I repeated the call, the faint meow was repeated, but the cat did not come. So I went back to get a lantern, and then I crossed the garden and went into a field, where the mewing seemed to be coming from, and after a short search I found my cat in a hedge, caught in a snare made for rabbits, with a slip-knot round her neck. If she had tried to extricate herself she would undoubtedly have strangled herself, but fortunately she had the intelligence not to move any more, and to send her master a message of help. This is a kitten to which I am deeply attached, and it is not the first time that a telepathic relationship has been established between her and me. A few days ago she seemed to be lost, because she was nowhere to be found, and family members were scrambling to call her from every corner of the garden. Suddenly, in a sort of mental photograph, I saw her as a prisoner in an empty attic room, which was almost always closed. And the vision turned out to be true: somehow she had been locked up in there. Did she send me a telepathic message to inform me of her imprisonment? Even in this third case, in which the telepathic phenomenon is expressed in the form of impressions and nothing more, no doubts can be raised as to the telepathic genesis of the sensory impressions to which the speaker was subjected. Readers will have noted that in the three cases in question - as in many others that follow - the protagonists are unanimous in making the same observation, that there existed between them and the animals with which they entered into telepathic intercourse an affectionate relationship of an exceptional order; and this circumstance is worthy of note, since it is identical in telepathic communications between human beings; so that it may be asserted that a condition of exceptional mutual affection lies at the heart of every telepathic relationship. In other words, it is always the great law of affinity that governs the whole range of telepathic communications, whether they take place between living persons, or between living and dead persons, or between human beings and animals; just as, in the final analysis, the same law prevails throughout the universe - physical and psychic - in the form of vibratory attunements that are increasingly refined and sublimated in an endless series.

CASE 7 - I take this from the Journal of the S.P.R. (vol. XI, p. 323). Mr. J.