It wasn't all that long ago that the idea of animal consciousness was dismissed as impossible. Traditional scientists claimed Consciousness as a uniquely human trait to exclusion of the rest of nature. Animals had "instinct" but not "cognition". "Instinct" however was not actually defined, it was a label for species-specific behaviours like spider web-weaving or avian nest-building. But labels do not explain anything and so "Instinct" remained a mystery. We could observe the products of its existence in animal behaviour but not precisely what Instinct is. Unfortunately for humans, we can likewise only observe the effects of Consciousness and we still do not know what it actually is or where, precisely, it resides. Now to add to our ignorance we have the phenomenon of animal psychic abilities such as telepathy and even remote viewing!
Enter two scientific researchers, Aimee Morgana and Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. Aimee had been working and living with a N'kisi an African Grey Parrot. Most of us will have encountered a "talking" parrot at some time in our lives. It can be an eerie experience to hear a voice that sounds human but turns out to be coming from a bird! We may marvel at the novelty but we soon write it off as "only instinct" and "meaningless". However, having lived with an uncannily perceptive dog for 16 and 1/2 years, I did not need to be persuaded that animals are both conscious and intelligent. So, ok, I get that they are somewhat aware and demonstrably intelligent - some more than others, as is true of humans. But telepathic communication? Even between humans this phenomenon is not understood. We can only see the outcome of it. Again, I'd have no trouble accepting that domestic animals can learn to "read" our moods, but our minds? That took a bit of convincing.
Psychic Pets
Aimee Morgana decided to study the potential for inter-species telepathic communication after viewing a documentary on the work of Dr. Sheldrake who has conducted experiments with dogs that seem to know when their owners were coming home, even under conditions of random return in which the owner follows no previously established pattern of behaviour and does not choose when to return home. The return time is
determined by random programming of a computer as part of the experimental protocol. Sheldrake's experiments, conducted with a number of owners and dogs, yielded convincing evidence in favour of doggy telepathy under random conditions and with no environmental "cues" such as train whistles or car engines to help them. So ok, dogs have this weird ability to anticipate the very moment when the owner decides to return home. They did it time and again on un-manned cameras left running in their homes so obviously they have the ability. But how do they know? Are out pets somehow "connected" through the field of consciousness with their owners and when the owner thinks of something that is relevant to the pet, the pet receives some sort of internal signal to that effect? Dogs are mammals and therefore related to us in all sorts of ways one of which may be this strange ability to know what we are doing when we are separated from them. I saw that happen so I can believe it. But what sort of telepathic connection could there be between humans and birds?
N'kisi, African Grey Parrot and Psychic
Despite my skepticism about the abilities of parrots to do anything beyond simple mimicking of human speech and random sounds in the environment, I decided to follow Sheldrake's work on N' kisi. It seems that N'kisi's owner, Aimee Morgana, had successfully used a language teaching method commonly in use in schools and as a result N' kisi soon had a working vocabulary of 400+ words. Stop and let that sink in for a moment. 400+ words. Lots of parrots can repeat sounds including words. But N'kisi's is a working vocabulary which means he comprehends the meaning of each word and it's use in context! And he's a bird. With a brain the size of a walnut! How is this possible?
A few years into her research, Morgana noticed something interesting about N' kisi's understanding of language: he was spontaneously putting words together to form statements, actual comments on what was happening around him. His statements were not random couplings of words. They made sense and followed sentence structure for speakers of English. N'kisi demonstrated both an understanding of individual words and how to use them in a meaningful context. This was unexpected development and required addition of new testing protocols to determine if these utterances were pure luck or a pattern that indicated a new level of communication with the bird was possible.
Ms. Morgana continued to work on building up N' kisi's vocabulary. He had acquired a working vocabulary of about 950 words when N'kisi revealed a new skill: he was somehow "reading" Morgana's thoughts in real time and giving voice to them and commenting on them! For instance, if she were looking at images in a magazine, N'kisi, on his perch in his cage and out of the line of sight of the magazine, would suddenly pipe-up with "Good food" or "Hungry?" just as Aimee was looking at an image of food in the magazine! Now, this could be written off as co-incidence if it happened only once or even a few times but N'kisi demonstrated a consistent ability to "read" Morgana's mind even when she was in closed room 55 feet away so he could neither see nor hear her. N'kisi went on doing what humans call 'remote viewing" AND then he started to do the same with Morgana's husband as well! By January 2002, Morgana had recorded 630 such incidents.
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| Aimee Morgana, N'kisi |
A few years into her research, Morgana noticed something interesting about N' kisi's understanding of language: he was spontaneously putting words together to form statements, actual comments on what was happening around him. His statements were not random couplings of words. They made sense and followed sentence structure for speakers of English. N'kisi demonstrated both an understanding of individual words and how to use them in a meaningful context. This was unexpected development and required addition of new testing protocols to determine if these utterances were pure luck or a pattern that indicated a new level of communication with the bird was possible.
Ms. Morgana continued to work on building up N' kisi's vocabulary. He had acquired a working vocabulary of about 950 words when N'kisi revealed a new skill: he was somehow "reading" Morgana's thoughts in real time and giving voice to them and commenting on them! For instance, if she were looking at images in a magazine, N'kisi, on his perch in his cage and out of the line of sight of the magazine, would suddenly pipe-up with "Good food" or "Hungry?" just as Aimee was looking at an image of food in the magazine! Now, this could be written off as co-incidence if it happened only once or even a few times but N'kisi demonstrated a consistent ability to "read" Morgana's mind even when she was in closed room 55 feet away so he could neither see nor hear her. N'kisi went on doing what humans call 'remote viewing" AND then he started to do the same with Morgana's husband as well! By January 2002, Morgana had recorded 630 such incidents.
In N'kisi''s own words:
The only way to get a feel for how strange and yet commonplace N'kisi's ability is, one needs to see a verbatim transcript of such communications.
The only way to get a feel for how strange and yet commonplace N'kisi's ability is, one needs to see a verbatim transcript of such communications.
Example 1: Aimee:
“I was thinking of calling Rob, and picked up the phone to do so, and N’kisi said, ‘Hi, Rob,’ as I had the phone in my hand and was moving toward the Rolodex to look up his number.”
“I was thinking of calling Rob, and picked up the phone to do so, and N’kisi said, ‘Hi, Rob,’ as I had the phone in my hand and was moving toward the Rolodex to look up his number.”
Example 2:
“We (Aimee and husband) were watching the end credits of a Jackie Chan movie, edited to a musical soundtrack. (N'kisi was in his cage which was covered.) There was an image of Chan lying on his back on a girder way up on a tall skyscraper. It was scary due to the height, and N’kisi said, ‘Don’t fall down.’
“We (Aimee and husband) were watching the end credits of a Jackie Chan movie, edited to a musical soundtrack. (N'kisi was in his cage which was covered.) There was an image of Chan lying on his back on a girder way up on a tall skyscraper. It was scary due to the height, and N’kisi said, ‘Don’t fall down.’
Example 3:
”Then the movie cut to a commercial with a musical soundtrack and, as an image of a car appeared, N’kisi said, “There’s my car.” (N’kisi’s cage was at the other end of the room, and behind the TV. He could not see the screen and there were no sources of reflection. Emphasis mine).
”Then the movie cut to a commercial with a musical soundtrack and, as an image of a car appeared, N’kisi said, “There’s my car.” (N’kisi’s cage was at the other end of the room, and behind the TV. He could not see the screen and there were no sources of reflection. Emphasis mine).
Example 4:
On another occasion Aimee wrote: “I read the phrase ‘The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’. N’kisi said ‘That’s called black’ at the same instant.”
On another occasion Aimee wrote: “I read the phrase ‘The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’. N’kisi said ‘That’s called black’ at the same instant.”
Example 5:
“I was in a room on a different floor, but I could hear him. I was looking at a deck of cards with individual pictures, and stopped at an image of a purple car. I was thinking it was an amazing shade of purple. Upstairs N'kisi said at that instant, ‘Oh wow, look at the pretty purple." That is a complete and grammatically correct sentence spoken spontaneously by a parrot!
“I was in a room on a different floor, but I could hear him. I was looking at a deck of cards with individual pictures, and stopped at an image of a purple car. I was thinking it was an amazing shade of purple. Upstairs N'kisi said at that instant, ‘Oh wow, look at the pretty purple." That is a complete and grammatically correct sentence spoken spontaneously by a parrot!
See You In My Dreams
Intrigued? I was! But the best was yet to come: N' kisi next began to "read" Morgana's dreams! With his cage in her bedroom at night, Morgana slept in her bed a few feet from the cage. N'kisi would normally sleep at least part of the night whilst his owner slept. But the bird began to awaken and comment on the content of Morgana's dreams - as she was having them! His night time murmurings were recorded on camera and audio recordings in any case but the correspondence between the bird's comments and the content of Morgana's dreams were completely unprecedented and certainly unexpected. It was at this point that Dr. Sheldrake became involved in testing N'kisi in double-blind experiments with very tight controls for "hits" and "misses". The result was that N' kisi demonstrated overwhelming evidence of the ability to connect with and comprehend the mental activity of his owner. The results went way beyond what probability theory indicated was chance. There was at least one psychic parrot in the world...
© Delia O' Riordan 2014
Image credits: Courtesy The Nkisi Experiments, Aimee Morgana and Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D.
