Animal Talk: Interspecies Telepathic Communication [Paperback]

Opening her book at random, I found the statement: "Most of the companion animals I have communicated with on the subject [of spaying, neutering] are relieved and happy to have their sexual urges and reproductive cycles out of the way." I find that hard to believe. That seems more like the anthropomorphic projection of a perimenopausal woman than the response of a dog or cat to surgical removal of its reproductive organs.

While Ms. Smith has good pointers for encouraging animals' acceptance of humans (quiet observation, freedom from expectation, receptivity, etc.), I am by no means convinced that she has the key to telepathy. Many of her accounts of her conversations with animals up and down the phylogenetic scale strain credulity ... for example her alleged telepathic communication with insects.

On page 112 of "Animal Talk", Ms. Smith describes a plague of bugs she once had in her kitchen cabinets ("buggles"). Since she didn't wish to kill them and says she never resorts to poisons, she had a conversation with the leader of the bug horde. She asked him why his followers had come to her house. He replied that they were "attracted by the wonderful energy here, that they wanted to be a part of our family and help in interspecies communication." She says that she "made it clear that from my human viewpoint, having millions of buggle bodies crawling over my kitchen was undesirable. Couldn't they just be present and contribute in spirit?" The leader saw her point and transmitted the message to the bug community.

In her book, Ms. Smith describes what happened in the weeks that followed--after she had planted containers of diatomaceous earth in the four corners of her kitchen: "hordes of buggles marched into the containers and dried up, and their physical population gradually disappeared from my house."

A website on yard-care products that I found on the Internet describes diatomaceous earth as a product that "kills common household and garden pests like roaches, ants, fleas, beetles and many others. It is a long lasting control -- sprinkles easily into cracks and crevices where bugs hide and wipes them out! When soft-bodied insects come in contact, diatomaceous earth causes massive loss of body fluids and death."

It seems, then, that Ms. Smith's "buggles" committed suicide to accommodate her needs by voluntarily marching into pesticide containers that she provided for their convenience. Draw your own conclusions.

Ms. Smith's true genius may lie in her ability to accommodate a growing market for information and inspiration on the subject of interspecies communications. I don't doubt that she loves animals. Does she read their minds? I wonder. Readers who find half-truths and fantasy unsettling substitutes for truth may want to skip "Animal Talk," and look for other, more reliable sources of information.