DO ANIMALS HAVE SOULS?

By Richard Webster

I've been an animal lover all my life. As a family, we always had dogs and cats, and as a child I had a variety of different pets, ranging from lizards, frogs, mice and rabbits, to cats and dogs. I even had the opportunity many years ago to buy a chimpanzee, but my wife forbade it. She said I could have her, or the chimpanzee, but not both. It was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make! The beneficial aspects of owning a pet are well known. However, no scientific research into the subject took place until 1975, when two English researchers, R. A. Mugford and J. G. M'Comisky, devised a test. They gave caged birds to twelve pensioners, and gave another twelve a pot plant. Three months later, they found that the pensioners who had been given a bird had a more positive outlook on life and a better attitude than the pensioners who had been give a plant. Another experiment, done five years later found that pet owners with heart disease were more likely to be alive twelve months later than patients without a pet. The research showed that ownership of a pet was the strongest single factor. It made no difference if the person was married or single, rich or poor, surrounded by friends or entirely alone. This confirms the Native American belief that without animals "men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beast also happens to man. . ." Our pets often serve as psychologists and counsellors. They surround us with love and a healing energy that takes away pain and hurt. In many cases, they even give us a reason for living. But do they have souls? The famous pianist, Ignacy Paderewski, had a wonderful friend - his parrot named Cocky Roberts. Cocky always insisted on being with his master whenever Paderewski practised. If he was shut out of the room, he would tap on the door with his beak, and call out, "Cocky Roberts, let me in!" Once inside, he would sit on Paderewski's pedal foot and bounce up and down as Paderewski practised. When he finished practising, Cocky Roberts would usually say, "Lord, how beautiful!" However, sometimes he would say, "Lousy, lousy!" In his memoirs, Paderewski wrote that Cocky was usually right. Paderewski had to leave his parrot at home in Switzerland when he went on tour to America. One night, while in New York, he dreamed about Cocky Roberts all night long. The next day he told his friends about his dreams, and how he knew that Cocky Roberts had died. Ten days later, Paderewski heard that Cocky Roberts had died on the night of his dream. Unfortunately, he had been accidentally left outside on a bitterly cold night, and froze to death. In his memoirs, Paderewski wrote, "That little bird had a soul." Paderewski is not the only person to have such a close bond with his or her pet. People often say, "My little Frou-frou is almost human", as if that was a compliment. Almost human? Maybe, but to say their pet has a soul - that's a different matter entirely. Perhaps we'd better discuss the soul. The soul is the life force within us. It is immortal, and is the very essence of our being. It is the seat of our highest aspirations, and the core of our very existence. Nowadays, the soul is often thought of as being our mind, or spirit, but in the past the soul was synonymous with life.

This was a natural assumption, because when we die, the soul leaves our bodies, and our bodies decay because life has ended. The stoic philosophers believed that the soul and the body were in constant opposition. Some civilisations considered that the soul died when the body died. Others felt that the soul existed long before we were born, and continued its existence after we died. In other words, it was eternal, and was loaned to us to enable us to experience life. Plato believed that the soul reached perfection only after the physical body had died. He also believed that the soul reincarnated time and time again until all the necessary lessons had been learned. At least half the people on this planet have similar beliefs today. Other people believed that the soul left the body at death, but was reunited with the physical body on the final day. What about ghosts who haunt their favourite places, or the place where they were buried? They were believed to be souls that had somehow not managed to move on, and people were terrified that these souls would try to take over a living body. There are people who believe that they can allow their souls to leave their bodies when they astral travel so that they can achieve certain goals. Shamans and mediums are believed to have this ability. I knew a lady who was terrified of sneezing, as she felt that she could accidentally expel her soul. Eminent people from the past, such as Plato and Descartes, believed the soul was immortal. Immanuel Kant insisted that we all had souls, even though there was no physical evidence of the fact. William James felt that the notion of a soul was a crutch that we used to make life more bearable. In medieval times it was believed that all life possessed souls. However, the soul was not in the body: the body was in the soul, and consequently the soul was inside every molecule of the body. This allowed an acorn, for instance, to grow into a mighty oak, because the soul of the oak was already present and enabled the acorn to grow and develop. It actually attracted the essence of the acorn, enabling it to become the fully grown tree. Today, it finally seems that there is evidence for the existence of the soul. In 1939 Semyon Kirlian, a Russian electrician, accidentally discovered Kirlian photography, which was a way of taking photographs without lenses or light. Kirlian photography enabled photographs to be taken of the auric fields. One experiment involved taking a photograph of a leaf, part of which had been cut off. To everyone's amazement, the photograph showed a "phantom" image of the removed part of the leaf. This seemed to indicate that the energy body that had been photographed was actually able to exist after the destruction of the physical body. Perhaps, these photographers were taking pictures of a soul. This phantom leaf effect has been duplicated independently by scientists in the United Kingdom, United States, Japan and Brazil. However, the scientific establishment does still not accept the whole subject of Kirlian photography. This is because it is possible to affect the photograph by the degree of pressure placed on the plate, or by having moist or dry hands. Neglecting to clean the electrode between photographs of intact and damaged leaves can also affect the outcome. Naturally, this enables the scientific establishment to write off the Kirlian camera as pseudoscience. However, in Pennsylvania, L. W. Konikiewicz has set up a carefully controlled Kirlian camera. The temperature of the room is kept constant, as is the humidity. The voltage supply is also kept constant. He wears cotton gloves and washes himself and his apparatus in distilled water between experiments. Also, he is given samples to analyze using a double-blind system to ensure

that he knows nothing about the subjects beforehand. This is as near a perfect system that can be devised, but his research is, for the most part, ignored by the scientific establishment. So different people, throughout history, have had different ideas about the soul. Assuming that we humans possess a soul, is it such a stretch to think that animals also have souls? Pythagoras definitely thought animals had souls. When I told a friend I was writing this article, she said I should write, "Of course animals have souls", and then stop. I doubt many people could look into a dog's eyes and consider that it does not have a soul. I find it fascinating that the word "animal" is derived from the Latin word "anima", which means soul. Of course, by this they meant "animal soul" which covered the instincts of animals, but not the intellect of humans, who possess a "rational soul". This rather superior view of humans, versus the rest of the animal kingdom is specious, and I hope to demonstrate that to you. Mammals, except for sea mammals, are biologically much the same as us. They also possess the qualities that to me indicate the presence of a soul. For instance, they experience emotions in much the same way that we do. We had two cats at one time. When one died, the other was heartbroken, refused to eat, and willed herself to die, which she ultimately did. When I was a child, my father accidentally ran over our cat. Our Labrador dog, Bruce, lay on his grave for hours every day for the rest of his life. I lived in Scotalnd for a year, many years ago. When the Edinburgh Festival was on, I parked my car every night close to a statue of Greyfriar' s Bobby. I always paused to study it, as I had known the story of this amazing dog for most of my life. I am sure you are all familiar with the story of Greyfriar's Bobby, the Skye terrier who remained faithful to his master for fourteen years after the old man died. When Auld Jock died in 1858, Bobby returned to his master's grave every night. Every day, he would have lunch at Traill's dinng rooms, which is where he used to eat with his master. At one time, he was arrested as an "unlicensed vagrant". Mr Traill also appeared in court, accused of assisting the dog in his illegal activities, because he kept feeding him. Fortunately, they appeared before the Lord Provost, who was touched by the story of this remarkable dog. He offered to pay for Bobby's dog license for the rest of his life. A special collar was made that read: "Greyfriar's Bobby, from the Lord Provost, 1867. Licensed." On my first visit to Edinburgh I went to see this collar in the Huntley Museum. When Bobby died in 1872, he was buried near the main entrance to the church. A group of Americans were touched by the story and paid for a headstone for Auld Jock's grave. Baroness Burdett-Coutts, a prominent person in the community, erected a drinking fountain and statue of Bobby in Candlemaker's Row, where it quickly became a tourist attraction. Thanks to all this, the loyalty and steadfastness of Bobby is still known today. When I was in Tokyo a few years ago, I chanced upon a statue of a dog called Hachiko in the Shibuya Railway Station. Hachiko used to accompany his master there every day, and would then return in the evening to welcome him back. One day, his master collapsed and died at work. Every day, for the remaining ten years of his life, Hachiko returned to the railway station hoping to find his master. When he died in 1935, a statue was erected to commemorate his faithfulness, and once a year - on April 8th - a special ceremony is held to honour Hachiko. Jealousy is one of the most unattractive emotions, and is one that is shared by our animal friends. Try giving more affection to one of your pets than you do to another, and you'll quickly discover how jealous the neglected pet will become. My daughter's horse would become highly annoyed if we gave any attention to the other horses in the same paddock as her.

We all know that our pets experience joy, sadness, and a variety of other emotions. They also possess reasoning ability. This reasoning ability used to be called "instinct", but it is much more than that. Just recently, scientists reported that dogs are more intelligent than they had previously thought. They could have learned that years ago by simply asking dog-owners about their pets. We used to have a Labrador who took himself to the vet whenever he felt unwell. We'd get a phone call from the vet saying, "Bruce is here. Please bring $45.00 and pick him up." When he was young, he used to roam all over Auckland. When he'd had enough, he'd befriend a human who would read the tag around his neck and phone us. My father would then have to go and pick him up. After several months of this, my father had had enough. He told the person on the phone to tell Bruce to "go home". We were concerned, as he was several kilometres from home, but a couple of hours later, a very tired dog arrived home. After two weeks of this, he stopped roaming. I consider that a sign of intelligence. In the 1850s, a plague of sheep rustling occurred in the high country of the South Island. It took more than two years to find the thief, a Scotsman called James McKenzie. McKenzie found a secret valley where he could hide up to a thousand sheep for a while, before taking them to the markets to sell. McKenzie and his dog would visit a sheep station and chat with the shepherd. While there, McKenzie would talk to his dog in Gaelic, telling her to return to the spot at night and shepherd the entire flock through a secret pass to the hidden valley. Naturally, McKenzie became a suspect to these crimes, but it seemed impossible for him to be involved, as he was still close to the scene the next day, and usually joined in the search parties. When he was sentenced to five years gaol for his crimes, McKenzie tearfully asked the judge for his dog to be imprisoned with him, but this was refused. James McKenzie obviously had an extremely close bond with his dog, who understood his instructions and then carried them out several hours later on her own. A scientific experiment in France demonstrated that intelligence is not simply a quality of dogs, but is common throughout the animal kingdom. A parrot at the Institut de Psychologie Zoologique in Paris was taught to say the word "cupboard", because that is where his hempseed was kept. Because the person who fed him had to climb a ladder to reach the food, the parrot was also taught the words "ladder" and "climb". One day, to test the parrot 's reasoning abilities, the ladder was taken away, and the hempseed was placed on a high shelf. When the person came to feed him, the parrot called out "cupboard". The man went to the cupboard, which contained millet, and gave this to the parrot. The parrot did not like millet and starting biting the bars of his cage in fury. He called out "cupboard!" all day long. The following day, the parrot started out by being angry, but then paused to think. When he called out "ladder, climb, cupboard" he was given the hempseed. This parrot not only understood what the words meant, but was also able to frame them in the right order to get what he wanted. The most remarkable instance of reasoning ability I have come across, involves a large degree of intuition, also. This involved a dog called Hector. Hector was a terrier who belonged to Willem Mante, the master of a Dutch freighter. One day in 1973, the ship was loaded and ready to leave Vancouver. However, there was no sign of Hector. This was unusual because Hector always went ashore to explore the ports they visited, and had never failed to return before departure time. Finally, Willem was forced to give the order to depart. The following day, an officer on board the S. S. Hanley, which was also berthed in Vancouver, saw a wire-haired terrier walk up the gang-plank of his ship. The dog gave every impression of knowing what he was doing. He walked around the deck and then went below to sniff the cargo.

Then he left. The crews of three other ships also reported that Hector had come on board their boats, looked around and then left. Two hours after the S. S. Hanley had left port, Hector was found on board. He was slightly aloof, but showed signs of great animation nineteen days later when the ship neared Yokohama. When it entered the port Hector was quivering with excitement. The crew immediately got busy unloading cargo. While they were doing this, another ship berthed a few hundred yards away. Shortly afterwards, some people left this ship and sailed in a sampan close to the stern of the Hanley. Hector jumped into the water and swam to the boat. On board the sampan was Willem Mante, his master. This well-documented case puzzled Dr. J. B. Rhine, the pioneer parapsychologist who coined the word "psi-trailing" to describe the abilities of some animals to find their way home. How did Hector know which boat to stow away on in Vancouver? How did he know that the Hanley was going to Japan? You cannot put that down to instinct. Surely, the emotional and reasoning powers of animals indicate the presence of a soul. Some religious people claim that because animals have no concept of God, they cannot have a soul. This is an interesting theory, as humans all around the world, and throughout history, have always believed in some force or power greater than them. Animals seem to survive quite happily without this additional aid. Of course, it is also claimed that animals also have no conscience, or sense of sin. Many years ago, we had a Labrador dog who used to love sleeping on our bed. He was not allowed on it, but it held an irresistible fascination for him, and we always knew when he was going to our bedroom to sleep on the bed. He would look guiltily at us, and almost slink out of the room. Once inside the bedroom, he would look back at the door for up to thirty seconds to make sure he wasn't being watched, before jumping on the bed. He seemed to definitely have a sense of sin, and like many humans, was unable to resist it. When he was caught out, the look of guilt on his face was hilarious. Animals certainly don't have the same sense of sexuality that we have. For them, sex is for reproduction. However, even here, there seem to be exceptions. A friend of mine in Wales breeds vultures. Amazingly to me, at least, vultures are an endangered species, and my friend and his partner, breed vultures which they sell to zoos around the world. They have a pair of gay vultures. Obviously, at least for these two birds, sexuality is not related to reproduction. Animals live for the moment, and usually make no plans for the future. The fact that squirrels gather nuts for the winter might demonstrate forward thinking, but is more likely to be instinct. The same thing applies to salmon returning to their birthplace to reproduce. They actually "smell" their way back; utilizing senses that are well beyond anything we can comprehend. I think the reasoning abilities and strong emotional sense of animals indicates the presence of a soul. The fact they might have different approaches to sex and forward planning, and have no concept of God, does not make any difference to this, in my view. Many native, shamanic traditions believe that all living things possess a soul, and we can communicate freely with plants and animals. The whole world is alive and communicating, in their worldview. There is a collective consciousness that binds all living things on this planet together. This fact, in many traditions, allows shamans to become animals. By putting on the skin of an animal, they actually leave their human self behind and become the animal. Why would they do that? They believed that animals were closer to God that we are. Their view of animals is

completely different to the one shared by most people today. They also believe that animals have the ability to see into the future, and also look back at the past. By using these gifts, the shaman can predict the outcome of a hunt, locate lost animals and people, know the outcome of an upcoming battle, determine the best times to plant and harvest, and even predict the weather. Of course, we might argue that animals cannot really do these things, but that is irrelevant in the shamanic view. It is the shaman's belief that is important, and I mention this only to show how highly animals are regarded in their tradition. Shamans believe that they tap into a collective mind. I think all pet owners have experienced situations when they felt they were on the exact same wavelength as their pet. Animals undoubtedly experience the same feelings. Look at the number of instances where animals have saved the lives of humans, perhaps by leading them to safety, or summoning help. Some of the instances in which dolphins have helped people are remarkable by any standards. St. Francis of Assisi was able to communicate with animals. There is a story of how he talked to a wolf, actually reasoned with him, and convinced him to repent and change his way of life. When this wolf died, he was buried in consecrated ground. St. Francis' humility allowed him to talk with the animals, but his doctrine of the animal soul was quickly squashed after his death, because it was too radical for the church authorities to accept. There is a concept that only humans have individual souls, and that animals share group souls. For instance, there is a "dog soul" which encompasses every dog in the world, and there are giraffe souls, panther souls, tortoise souls, and group souls for every other species. I find this concept rather arrogant. It demotes animals to a lower - and inferior - form of life, and also fails to explain the many instances in which an animal has enabled its owner to survive an accident, or has given up its life to save its owner. I'll give one fascinating instance of this, although in this instance both the animal and human died. Very few animals were found in the ruins of Pompeii. They must have known ahead of time of the terrible eruption of Vesuvius and fled the scene. However, in the ruins of Pompeii archaeologists found the skeleton of a dog lying over the bones of a child. The way in which the skeletons were arranged made the scientists feel that the dog had laid himself protectively over the child to shield him from harm. When they investigated further, they found that this was the case. A beautifully made dog collar was found by the remains. It had been inscribed, and said the dog's name was Delta, and his master was Severinus. Three times Delta had saved his master's life. Once from drowning, second from an ambush, and a third from an attack by a she-wolf. Delta was devoted to Severinus' son, and in a final act of heroism, did not flee the scene, but remained behind to try to protect the small boy. A remarkable example of an animal saving the life of a human occurred in Sweden in 1977. In May that year, Leif Rongemo went into the kitchen of his flat, leaving his two-year-old daughter and German Shepherd dog named Roy in the living room. When he returned a couple of minutes later, both had disappeared, but the window was open. Leif ran to the window and look down to the ground 36 feet below. Nothing was untoward, but then he looked to his left and saw his daughter, on all fours, crawling along a narrow ledge that encircled the building. Close behind her, highly distressed, was Roy. Both were too far away for Leif to grab, and if he went out onto the ledge himself, he'd probably make a tricky situation worse. Leif called to his wife to call the fire brigade, and then raced downstairs with a neighbour and a blanket, which they held beneath where the baby was. Mrs Rongemo stood at the window, praying for a miracle. It happened. As they watched, hardly daring to breathe, Roy lunged forward and grabbed hold of the baby's nappies in

his jaws. Then he slowly backed along the narrow ledge. It took three anxious minutes before Mrs Rongemo was able to gently take her baby from Roy. This amazing incident changed the life of everyone involved. The Rongemo's had been about to sell Roy because they thought he was too large and rough to have around a young child, especially in a small flat. Needless to say, they kept Roy. These examples involve pets. Here's one that involves a seagull. In 1980, an 82-year-old lady called Rachel Flynn set out on a walk at Cape Cod, New England. Unfortunately, she fell over a thirty-foot cliff and ended up on a rugged, lonely beach. She was wedged between two large rocks, and thought she would die there. She noticed a seagull hovering over her. She wasn't 100% sure, but thought it might be the seagull that she and her sister regularly gave food to. They had called this seagull, Nancy. Hoping that this might be the same seagull, Miss Flynn called out, "For God's sake, Nancy, get help." The bird flew away to Rachel's home about a mile away. Her sister was busy in the kitchen, and was surprised and then irritated at the seagull that kept tapping at the kitchen window, and flapping its wings. She tried to shoo it away, without success. After fifteen minutes, June decided that the bird was trying to tell her something, and followed the bird back to where her sister was trapped. She called an ambulance that rescued Rachel and took her to hospital where she was treated for bruising and a badly twisted knee. This seagull knew Rachel was in distress, and went to summon help. This was a wild bird, not a pet. My life has been enriched enormously by all the pets we have had. I cannot imagine life without a pet to cherish and love. The beneficial aspects of having a pet are well known to all pet owners, and have now been proved scientifically. I look forward to a day in which animals are not considered an inferior species, but fellow inhabitants of Planet Earth. We all need each other, and the divine - our immortal souls - is in all of us. There is an interesting quote in the Book of Job that is related to this: "For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God, and the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:10). I am convinced that the presence of the almighty is in all living things. Therefore, I believe that animals - all animals - possess souls.