horse communicators and reason out the window

Pearlsasinger: I think the clue in your story is the bit where you say that your sister couldn't really make sense of that...until she did. The communicator told her something vague and general, your sister added in the details. It is an extremely well known phenomenon that we fill in our memories to make more sense of them and revise them in light of these new interpretations. Out of interest what was your horse's interest in the dog, why did he bring it up? I would imagine your horse would be astounded to come across a communicator who could talk to him directly and delighted at the opportunity to convey his thoughts back to you, after all with the best of intentions we do misunderstand our animals, so here was the opportunity to tell you everything he ever wanted...and he focused on a dog in a barrel. Why was he so interested in the dog? Did he tell you anything more pressing and (frankly) more interesting?

This does make me laugh.
So, because Pearlsasinger recounts a very very specific and utterly bizarre story, one which you really couldn't make up imho, and which only 2 people in the world knew about at the time, you disbelieve it.
But if she'd said totally typical stuff, the sort you might expect a horse to say (if you'd believe it ever could) - and of course that is assuming we have ANY clue at all of what is important in a horse's mind - if she'd said
"the AC said he wants more hay and more attention and more food, he likes the field with lots of grass, and please give him more massages and less work"
or the sort of thing we'd guess a horse would ask for...
then I'm sure you'd all be crowing "well, anyone could have said that!"
Basically, nothing could possibly convince you... fair enough. Enjoy your closed minds.

I have heard stories elsewhere of horses commenting on the colours of things. A blue water tub. The purple thing on the wall mentioned earlier. Maybe they particularly notice plastic things like that, since they are so unnatural. I would imagine the blue barrel got a bit stinky (sorry Pearl!) so it would be something a horse might comment on, if it could!

And as we know, horses are stoics. Unless they are starving, I don't think they mention food, or all the things that we as humans are fixated on. They expect to find their food at their feet, etc etc. None of mine, in any reading, has ever mentioned food, or the day-to-day stuff. (other than the strength of the electric fencing here, which apparently merited a very acerbic remark!)
It is very difficult not to anthropomorphise, obviously.
They comment on things which are quite bizarre, but which obviously interest or puzzle them. Some have a real sense of humour.
*shrugs* I don't care what you think of me, or my decision to occasionally spend money on this... I 100% believe there are some people with this gift, and it can be a HUGE help.
 
Whilst its no less psychic to pick up a humans thoughts than a horses, I do think if its possible to read a horse from a photo, its more likely to be picking up the person whose handled the photos thoughts. I think to be convinced its the horse rather than the person whose being read, you would have to have an unknown third party take a picture & only relay the reading back to the owner after its complete. Preferably a non horsey person who won't even have random thoughts such as 'chestnut, one white sock, probably a tbx, in full work by the topline' etc whilst they are taking the picture. Eg getting my non-horsey friend to drive 5miles, photo the first horse she sees, & only after the reading track down the owner to verify it. And because I guess genuinely psychic people do sometimes draw a complete blank, it would need to be a handful of random horses.
 
I am a member of the James Randi Foundation - they have been offering $1,000,000 to anyone who can prove clairvoyance, telepathy and communicating with dead people - for years without ANY takers let alone folk who've tried and failed.

Good point. Why doesn't one of these psychic communicators collect the cash?

I also remember one of the big tv documentary programs about 10 years ago offering a huge reward for anyone who could prove homeopathy worked. Some came forward and tried, but it couldn't be proven.

There are things I'd really LIKE to believe in, but I can't when they can't be shown to be true.
 
A few years ago, on another forum, a poster who practised Reiki, offered to do readings from photo's.
My dog was very ill and on the Sunday I decided that he would have to be PTS the next morning. I really wanted to old lad to die naturally rather than have to get the vet to euthanize him. It was a decision that was heart breaking.

I sent the woman a photo of him and just told her that he was very ill and would be PTS. She said she would, via the photo, do a session at 8pm.

I'd forgotten the time and was sitting at the table when the dog got up and lay by my feet, which was strange as he would never lie there. I looked at the clock, it was a few minutes after 8pm.

At 11.30pm, his breathing became distressed so I carried him to the car to travel to the emergency vet. As we drew into the car park, he died. I was spared the decision of taking his life.

Coincidence ? Quite possibly.

The Reiki woman sent me an email with all sorts of information about him that was totally characteristic but nothing a clever person couldn't hazard a guess at, except for one thing.
Finn, had told her how thankful he was about my patience at toilet training and how he and the little black dog had sorted it.
That didn't make any sense as neither he or the black dog was ever a problem.
Some months later it dawned on me, he was referring to my daughters puppy, who was a complete nightmare to toilet train. A stressed animal, she would mess all over the kitchen constantly, empty the bin and shred the contents etc etc.
I knew the little dog was neurotic and telling her off would increase her stress, so she was never told off. The mess was quietly cleared up and training continued.
One day, she messed on my new carpet at the top of the stairs. I looked at her and sighed' Oh, how could you ?'
Little black dog and Finn, 2 very docile dogs, suddenly leapt at her and without leaving a mark, pinned her to the floor.
She never, ever messed anywhere again.

I often thought how clever my 2 other dogs were to toilet train the puppy, but I'd never imagined that Finn would be aware of, or recall my patience with her.

How would the Reiki woman have known ?
 
I prefer to have an open mind.

It is sheer arrogance, or perhaps fear, to imagine you understand everything on heaven and earth, a condition that the human race constantly suffers for.
 
There has been a study shown that human nature is that we play along with the herd. We don't want to be the ones that are different. One experiment was to ask a group of 6 strangers questions. 5 of the group were stooges. They all started giving obviously wrong answers to the questions. They all gave the same answer so the 6th person always gave the same answer as well. Even though they admitted when interviewed afterwards that deep down they knew it was wrong!
Add in a hefty emotional (we all want to think we are doing the very best for our horses) & financial investment and....BOOM you have someone ripe for cold reading.

Don't forget human memory is a very clever thing. We can process millions & millions bits of information without it really registering until something jogs us to remember something. So the thing is how these readings are recalled by 'believers are very different to how they actually happened.

Re: the dog in the barrel. I would bet it went actually something like this:
'He's telling me about a dog. It was in something. Could it be a box? A bucket? A water trough? A barrel? (Owner responds enthusiastically to barrel because suddenly they remember the dead dog)
It was a fairly small dog (would have to be to fit in a barrel, no?) owner confirms it it was a Jack Russell.
Ah yes, he's telling me it was always a happy little thing (well have you ever seen a miserable Jack Russell)

The telling thing is I believe the punter is turning the information to fit the memory in their head....but that first statement 'He's telling me about a dog that was in something' could be fitted to almost any dog memory & if it doesn't then you keep looking until you find a memory it does fit eg) the punter who called the old owner & found out about the sheep.

If you want to believe (& if you have paid for it then even if you claim to be sceptic then you arent ;) )then you will find a way to believe
 
There has been a study shown that human nature is that we play along with the herd. We don't want to be the ones that are different. One experiment was to ask a group of 6 strangers questions. 5 of the group were stooges. They all started giving obviously wrong answers to the questions. They all gave the same answer so the 6th person always gave the same answer as well. Even though they admitted when interviewed afterwards that deep down they knew it was wrong!
Add in a hefty emotional (we all want to think we are doing the very best for our horses) & financial investment and....BOOM you have someone ripe for cold reading.

Don't forget human memory is a very clever thing. We can process millions & millions bits of information without it really registering until something jogs us to remember something. So the thing is how these readings are recalled by 'believers are very different to how they actually happened.

Re: the dog in the barrel. I would bet it went actually something like this:
'He's telling me about a dog. It was in something. Could it be a box? A bucket? A water trough? A barrel? (Owner responds enthusiastically to barrel because suddenly they remember the dead dog)
It was a fairly small dog (would have to be to fit in a barrel, no?) owner confirms it it was a Jack Russell.
Ah yes, he's telling me it was always a happy little thing (well have you ever seen a miserable Jack Russell)

The telling thing is I believe the punter is turning the information to fit the memory in their head....but that first statement 'He's telling me about a dog that was in something' could be fitted to almost any dog memory & if it doesn't then you keep looking until you find a memory it does fit eg) the punter who called the old owner & found out about the sheep.

If you want to believe (& if you have paid for it then even if you claim to be sceptic then you arent ;) )then you will find a way to believe


Right as the person who was at the centre of the dog in the barrel story, let me set you straight there. The communicator mentioned a dog in a barrel at least three times in seperate 'conversations', each time I told her, quite honestly, that I had no idea what she was talking about. On the last time it was mentioned, she said, "it must be real, as the horse has kept going on about it, the barrel is blue and the dog is a JRT who is laughing" There was no input from me, as I honestly did not have a clue what she was talking about until she said that sentence. Then I remembered that we had in deed stored the body, until the ground was unfrozen, in a blue barrel on the yard. I am well aware of the studies about 'herd' mentality, it informs such notions as 'risky shift' in offending behaviour etc. However it has no bearing whatsover in this instance.
 
also, glamourpuss, we don't all play along with the herd... ;) ;) I don't know what to call your assumptions in that post, without being rude, so I apologise in advance, but they sound rather arrogant, insulting, and small-minded to me.
 
My reading was done in an email, there was no input about the toilet training or the other dogs.

I am aware of studies done like the example Glamourpuss mentions, and yes, it is a phenomenon of human nature, but not everything can be explained away by people being gullible.
 
I had one AC tell me that the reason my horse developed separation anxiety in relation to her grey Connie-X neighbour was that the horse reminded her of her mother. My horse was 17 or 18 at the time (and she would have been weaned at what? six to eight months?) and I know for a fact that her mother was a bay TB.

There was me thinking it was because my horse and the Connie-X were the only two horses in that barn. The problem went away when all 16 horses at the yard were moved to one American-style barn.

Another AC gave me more of a mix of accurate and inaccurate information. For example, she went on for a while about my horse's obsession with routine, which was spot-on, but also talked about how we had "recently" taken up dressage. Er... I bought that horse 13 years ago as a dressage horse and we have done ever since.

I continue to experiment. I have heard other accounts where the AC had specific, accurate information, which were far more convincing than my own experience, where the information was sometimes correct, but vague and general enough to describe a lot of horses.
 
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YorksG it does sound like an intriguing reading.

I apologise if my post comes across as arrogant. I have based it on the readings I have personally witnessed. As with anything in life I base my opinions on my experiences. My experiences have made me a disbeliever in this type of thing because I have come across more evidence for it being a farce than I have for it being correct.

Kerilli I certainly don't mean the 'following the herd' to be an insult, it's just human nature.
The experiment I mentioned was a version of this www.spring.org.uk/2007/11/i-cant-believe-my-eyes-conforming-to.php
 
"An open mind" is a mind open to reason, to persuasion by valid arguments, it's not a mind that simply accepts everything it comes across no matter how incredulous.

Here's an open mind suggestion for you: I can see invisible, flying pigs. They come from space and their mission is to frighten horses. Perfectly well behaved horses get attacked by these invisible flying pigs and go bonkers. Their poor owners have no idea what is happening. If you look on HHO there are loads of threads by concerned owners wondering why their horses are going bonkers for no good reason - it's the invisible, flying pigs that only I and the horses can see. So there you go, a nice explanation which you should accept if you have an open mind.
 
YorksG how did your horse explain its obsession with the dog in the barrel? Presumably the horse must have been astounded to suddenly have someone it could communicate with. Did the horse explain why the main thing it wanted to convey to you was that there was a dog in a barrel? Did the horse explain why it spent its time with the communicator repeatedly bringing up the dog in the barrel? (I won't ask how the horse was able to see blue as that has not gone down well earlier in the thread!)
 
YorksG how did your horse explain its obsession with the dog in the barrel? Presumably the horse must have been astounded to suddenly have someone it could communicate with. Did the horse explain why the main thing it wanted to convey to you was that there was a dog in a barrel? Did the horse explain why it spent its time with the communicator repeatedly bringing up the dog in the barrel? (I won't ask how the horse was able to see blue as that has not gone down well earlier in the thread!)
I am beginning to understand the closed mind now. It is closed even to the written word, its owner reads only what s/he wants to see on the page.

As has been explained more than once on this thread, the horse had several opportunities to communicate with the person concerned and took full advantage of them. The dog was very small part of the communications and arose several weeks into the process.

I will also say that having read many posts on many subjects by some of the people who believe the evidence that their horses have indeed communicated with a 3rd party, I would not have thought of Goldenstar, Kerilli or Horserider if someone asked me to name gullible HHO members. They have all struck me as sensible, experienced horsewomen who usually appear to know what they are talking about, even if I do not agree with their viewpoints on all occasions.

Glamourpuss, you've lost your bet - perhaps you would like to send your stake to HAPPA.
 
There has been reams & reams of psychological studies which can be used to explain Animal communication. You only need to read about the Forer effect, confirmation bias, fallacy of incomplete evidence & cold reading to see why I'm a disbeliever.
You may call it small minded, I would actually argue that considering research is much more open minded ;)
Ah well :)
 
I have lost no such bet. There is no evidence to support the story of what the AC said.
There is plenty of evidence of cold reading.

I actually don't think that someone who falls for cold reading is gullible at all, it's a highly sophisticated art.....I've actually had it done to me & was AMAZED at the 'accuracies'.....until I thought about it a little more :)
 
I have lost no such bet. There is no evidence to support the story of what the AC said.
There is plenty of evidence of cold reading.

I actually don't think that someone who falls for cold reading is gullible at all, it's a highly sophisticated art.....I've actually had it done to me & was AMAZED at the 'accuracies'.....until I thought about it a little more :)
Do tell us your evidence of this cold reading of YorksG, who was at the other end of an email and who certainly didn't have any conversation similar to the one you postulated.

I'm not sure that arrogant even begins to describe your attitude.
 
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At one point....most people believed the world to be round.
One day....someone proved that it wasnt.
Bet there was a bit of foot shuffling that day.
Just because we dont have a method of proving things at this current time.....doesnt make them not true. It makes them unproven at this time....
There is no hard evidence either way......no-one is right no matter how hard you shout.
Cant prove it can be done, cant prove it cant. What we are left with is personal experience and belief
 
To clarify, when I've been saying its the owner being read, not the horse, I don't mean a cold, fake reading, I do believe a small minority are genuinely psychic. I simply mean the psychic communication is with the owner, not horse.
 
Pearlsasinger I really don't understand where this arrogant label is coming from.
Cold reading is a fact. It has been proven time & time again. Do I think that YorksG reading was a cold reading, yes I do, because although I wasn't there I have read enough about some of the research into human psychology to allow me to form an opinion.
My other opinion is The plural of anecdote is not fact. People can tell me they saw, heard, dreamt whatever they like, I have a tendency to believe the published research.

Do I want to believe in animal communicators & psychics?...if I'm totally honest with myself, yes I do. I would love nothing more than to have someone contact my darling grandfather just so I could tell him one last time that I love him but I cannot believe in it, for me the evidence is stacked too much against it. If this makes me arrogant [shrug] then so be it.

You are totally free to carry your own beliefs, I absolutely respect that.
Again YorksG is free to have her own beliefs. I'm sure she is absolutely happy with what the AC told her so why start getting so hostile towards what a stoopid Internet random is writing?
 
Re: the dog in the barrel. I would bet it went actually something like this:
'He's telling me about a dog. It was in something. Could it be a box? A bucket? A water trough? A barrel? (Owner responds enthusiastically to barrel because suddenly they remember the dead dog)
It was a fairly small dog (would have to be to fit in a barrel, no?) owner confirms it it was a Jack Russell.
Ah yes, he's telling me it was always a happy little thing (well have you ever seen a miserable Jack Russell)

Pearlsasinger I really don't understand where this arrogant label is coming from.
Cold reading is a fact. It has been proven time & time again. Do I think that YorksG reading was a cold reading, yes I do, because although I wasn't there I have read enough about some of the research into human psychology to allow me to form an opinion.
it.


Cold reading is indeed a fact but it DID NOT happen in this case. You are not the only one who wasn't there. The only person who was there was the communicator. She did whatever she did with the photograph provided and then emailed her 'findings' to YorksG. YorksG thanked her and conveyed the message to me, we were both very surprised by the things that the communicator was able to tell us about that horse and others that we had owned at various times.
The communicator got in touch by email at subsequent times to tell YorksG that the horse had contacted her again (no, I don't know how it works). On more than one occasion the dog in the barrel was mentioned, on each occasion YorksG said she really didn't know what the horse was 'talking' about. Eventually the communicator gave more details, as above. At no point did the communicator read any body language (unless she has skills with psychic readings of humans which she doesn't advertise) and she definitely didn't get any feedback about the dog which allowed her to narrow down a wild guess. So I'm afraid you lost your bet there was no conversation such as the one you postulated.
The arrogance comes across in your posting style, where you refuse to acknowledge what others have said.
 
Why would anyone be offended and insulted at being called human and fallible? The fundamental attribution error, the gambler's fallacy and out tendencies to be influenced by the behaviour of others are part of who we are as a species and not insults to anyone's intelligence in the same way that optical illusions are part of how we see.

Hippona: are you seriously suggesting that the earth does not actually have a shape and that it's shape changes with whatever we happen to believe it is so that there will never be any decent evidence as to its actual shape?
 
Why would anyone be offended and insulted at being called human and fallible? The fundamental attribution error, the gambler's fallacy and out tendencies to be influenced by the behaviour of others are part of who we are as a species and not insults to anyone's intelligence in the same way that optical illusions are part of how we see.

Hippona: are you seriously suggesting that the earth does not actually have a shape and that it's shape changes with whatever we happen to believe it is so that there will never be any decent evidence as to its actual shape?

My understanding is that the earth is an ovid, with flattened 'points' at the poles, therefore it is not 'round' like a football, which was the belief after the earth was proven not to be flat. No the earths shape is not fluid, but our understanding of it perhaps needs to be a little so.
 
Sorry....i was cooking when I typed that. Meant to say......people believed the world to be FLAT.....and that you dropped off the edge. One day it was proved otherwise.....the world didnt change shape with the proving of it.....it always was so.....
So the point being.....someday certain things may be proved. Because there is no proof right now doesnt mean there never will be.
I have had certain experiences....I cannot prove them to you, and by the same token you certainly cannot prove they didnt.
 
Ha you remembered my fireman story. To give the background it was my farrier at a training yard where one of the lady owners decided to get the 'Horse whisperer' in to find out why her horse wasn't winning. She got the answer :D

That fireman story is one of my all time HHO favourites :)
 
A lady I work with is a "medium". She regularly startles us by announcing various people are in the room. A few years ago she "saw" a man standing behind me holding a horse, and was insistent that he was a relative. No way, no horsey peeps in my very working class ancestry. Whilst discussing the horse meat scandal with my eldest brother last week, he mentioned that our grandfather, who I can't remember, had loved horses since working with them in the first world war. He rode postillion on a gun carriage. It's very seductive to believe, and I usually swither...........
 
Hippona, you are right they may be a point at which psychic readings are proven by scientific fact. That would be amazing.
As yet there is no proof. In fact the only proof is that a person can appear to give psychic readings & communicate with animals using other psychological methods such as using Barnum statements.
Still to this day the £1,000,000 on offer for proving someone has a psychic skill still remains unclaimed!
These are facts.
To believe in anything else is similar to still believing the earth is flat!

Pearlsasinger nothing you are saying is convincing me that this Animal Communicator was actually reading the horse's mind. I think that it can still be explained. You are saying you have proved it but you haven't done anything of the sort you've just got angry because I refuse to accept an anecdotal account as hard evidence!
You say you've proved she communicated with the horse so PLEASE send your animal communicator friend to the James Randi foundation immediately to claim her $1,000,000 as soon as she is paid I will accept that I have lost 'the bet'
 
Hippona, you are right they may be a point at which psychic readings are proven by scientific fact. That would be amazing.
As yet there is no proof. In fact the only proof is that a person can appear to give psychic readings & communicate with animals using other psychological methods such as using Barnum statements.
Still to this day the £1,000,000 on offer for proving someone has a psychic skill still remains unclaimed!
These are facts.
To believe in anything else is similar to still believing the earth is flat!

Pearlsasinger nothing you are saying is convincing me that this Animal Communicator was actually reading the horse's mind. I think that it can still be explained. You are saying you have proved it but you haven't done anything of the sort you've just got angry because I refuse to accept an anecdotal account as hard evidence!
You say you've proved she communicated with the horse so PLEASE send your animal communicator friend to the James Randi foundation immediately to claim her $1,000,000 as soon as she is paid I will accept that I have lost 'the bet'

I can't speak for pearlsasinger, but I am annoyed that you have consistantly suggested that I am a liar. All so you can demonstrate your supposed superiority. Yes this annecdotal, by definition, we were not at the time interested in whether other believed it or not (still aren't tbh) so setting up double blinds and testing were not things we were likely to do.
Your solid mindset may change as you get older, as the world is full of things that on the surface may not appear to be likely.
 
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