When Animal Communication is Harmful

 In Animal Communication

As a professional animal communicator and interspecies communication teacher, I often feel that I am walking a very fine line…a tightrope, really. On one side of the tightrope is my calling, my inspiration, my deep desire to help as many people as possible to reawaken to their natural, inborn ability to communicate telepathically with animals and all life.

On the other side of the tightrope is the awareness that interspecies telepathic communication, if misused, misunderstood, or simply practiced unskillfully, without appropriate training, practice, understanding, awareness, and boundaries, can be ineffective at best, and really harmful, at worst.

The ability to hear and communicate clearly with beings of other species, who have ways of knowing, perceiving, and understanding that are sometimes vastly different from our human ways, is a magical, heart-opening, expansive experience. This ability is our birthright, and it’s one that all sentient beings possess. As humans, many of us have lost this ability, but it can be uncovered, reclaimed, and relearned.

Although telepathic and intuitive communication is a natural ability, learning how to send and receive telepathic communication accurately and clearly, free of our human ideas, projections, and thoughts, is a skill that needs time, practice, and awareness to develop.

Even when people are able to receive and send telepathic communication clearly, it is another thing altogether to know to use this ability skillfully and ethically, in a professional capacity, to be of service to people and animals.

Interspecies telepathic communication is a sacred trust. It is holy work, as we open to fully receive the experience, perception, and perspective of another being…who, like us, is an aware, awake, sentient expression of the divine. It requires us to examine our human ways of being, ideas, preconceptions, misunderstandings, misperceptions, projections, agendas, neuroses, and fears in a very deep way for us to be really clear translators for the animals. Otherwise, we risk mixing these things into what we believe that we are hearing from an animal telepathically, creating confusion and misunderstanding for all involved.

Telepathic animal communication is not a clever party trick. It’s not a simple, easy way to earn money in a stay-at-home business after a few hours of practice in a weekend workshop. To do this work well requires training, commitment, respect, self-awareness, and deep humility. It is good work, and it is hard work. Nothing about working as a professional animal communicator is “easy.”

When we don’t fully respect or understand what this work is, or when we go off-track into our own egos, ideas, emotions, projections, and neuroses, people and animals can get hurt.

Telepathic animal communication, if practiced unskillfully, can be harmful–harmful to animals, harmful to other people, and harmful to our global interspecies community.

Why am I speaking up about this?

In the years that I have been in this field, I have all too frequently talked with people and animals who have been tremendously hurt by the misuse of telepathic animal communication…people whose hearts have been broken by statements attributed to their animals that were projections, ideas and agendas from the person sharing them, and animals whose experiences, viewpoints, and perspectives have been misrepresented, misunderstood, or simply not heard at all.

I’ve worked with animals whose lives have been terribly impacted by false information shared by an “animal communicator” which has caused or prolonged their suffering, sometimes even leading to their deaths.  I all too frequently encounter cases where the animals’ viewpoints, perspectives, wishes, and experiences have been distorted or misrepresented by of the misuse of “telepathic communication” by people who were not well-trained, well-grounded, or well-resourced emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

Here are some examples. All of these are actual experiences, with identifying information removed.

I recently assisted in the removal of horses from a boarding situation where they were being neglected, starved, and harmed by a person who represented herself as an animal communicator and energy healer, and used her “communication” and “healing” methods to justify her neglect and mistreatment of the animals. She withheld food, necessary medication, and clean water, and claimed that the horses had “told” her that they wanted to stay with her in their terrible conditions, because they “loved” her more than they “loved” their guardians.

I worked with a person whose animal friend had needed help with pain relief and palliative care before her death, but the person had been told not to give it by an animal communicator who said it would “interfere with his spiritual path in the afterlife.” The animal’s death was needlessly painful without the medical help that would have made her last days easier.

I helped someone solve a urination issue with her cats who had spent a huge amount of money on multiple sessions for “entity removal” on the recommendation of an animal communicator…when simple litter box and territory adjustments in the multi-cat household were what was needed.

A client needed help with a behavior and training issue with her dog; instead, she received “channeled” information about her romantic life, past lives, and spirit attachments. The behavior issue was not addressed or resolved.

A client was told that his beloved animal friend was in “purgatory” after her death, stuck and suffering in the afterlife because of the choices the person had made.

A woman was advised by an animal communicator (who was not medically trained in any way, either conventionally or holistically) to discontinue the medication that had been recommended for her dog by her veterinarian, and instructed to use the animal communicator’s preferred method of “natural” treatment. The dog’s health deteriorated rapidly, her pain level increased, and the recommended “treatment” wasn’t helpful. The dog lost several months of quality life before her condition was stabilized again.

I have realized that I have a responsibility to speak about this issue, to raise this topic in my professional community, in my teaching, and in my online world.

It’s one reason that I talk about the ethics of interspecies telepathic communication in every one of my classes, even the beginning ones, and I teach a whole class on it. (Ethics and Energetic Boundaries.) And it’s the reason that I have created a comprehensive Animal Communication Professional Training Program to help people to learn how to do this work accurately, clearly, and ethically.

None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes, and if we can take responsibility for them, they can be great opportunities for learning and growth. There is a difference between receiving or translating something inaccurately, and needing to be right, an authority, or putting ourselves in a position of superiority and “specialness,” where we make our viewpoints, choices, and experiences “right” and another’s “wrong.”  It’s vitally important that we approach this sacred work of facilitating communication between people and their beloved animal friends with an openhearted, humble attitude of compassionate inquiry and service that honors all beings involved.

Many years ago, Penelope Smith wrote a Code of Ethics for Interspecies Communicators that continues to be a guiding document for work in this field. In this age of online marketing, quick fixes, and promises of easy paths to pretty much anything, the Code of Ethics reminds us that we need to be impeccable with our own personal work and spiritual growth in order to be clear translators for the animals.

My colleague Teresa Wagner, who is a trained therapist with years of experience in animal communication and counseling, also has an excellent article which discusses these issues: Client-Centered, Empathy-Based Approach to Animal Communication, Grief Support & Healing.

Being a translator for animals and their human companions is a sacred trust. It is holy work. It is a calling, not a job. It requires the deepest commitment to personal and spiritual growth, ethics, integrity, and honesty, and sometimes ruthless self-awareness of our human limitations. It’s not easy.

As animal communicators, we have a deep responsibility to be sure that our work is not clouded by our own judgments, preconceptions, agendas, emotions, or ideas. Learning to work with ourselves, to be clear and accurate translators for the animals,  and to create a healing container where both animals and their human companions are compassionately heard and understood, is our greatest responsibility.

Let’s use this work wisely, with appropriate safeguards, humility, and training. The animals, our human clients, and our global community deserve nothing less.



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