The Missoula skeptics have been interviewed for a piece in the Silver State Post/ Philipsburg Mail Newspapers. Author Kate Schwab did her readers a favor not only with a well written article, but also by covering the critics of “psychics.” More than what most other papers do. Thanks Kate! Unfortunately these papers do not have an online edition, so I will post the entire article here!
Pet communication claim raises eyebrows
By Kate Schwab
Reporter
While animal communication continues to gain prominence in western Montana, both the spiritual and scientific sides of the communicators’ efforts remain controversial.
Kathleen “Keek” Mensing, a practicing animal communicator from Missoula, plans to hold adult education lectures in Deer Lodge on Feb. 6, 7 and 14. She will also cohost a book signing at Browsing Bison Books on Feb. 13 from 2:30-5 p.m. (See related story, p. 9.) Mensing will be promoting her self-published compilation of animal communication stories, “The Way I Hear Them.”
In an interview Monday, Mensing acknowledged her religious and scientific detractors but said her psychic work enables her to do good.
“All I know is that the work I do changes lives for the better,” she said, citing multiple instances where she believes tapping into her own intuition helped her detect cancer and prevent suicides and gas poisoning. “If that’s the work of the devil, then boy, I don’t understand. I’m not out to proselytize. Those people who believe what I’m doing is wrong, they obviously don’t need my services.”
Respect for animals, and human attempts to communicate with them psychically, are common in New Age philosophy and in Eastern and pagan religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, shamanism and Wicca.
Islamic tradition also references saints who talk with animals. Muslim prophets commanded their followers to be “kind to the creatures of God.” Numerous verses in the Qur’an hold that God reveals things to animals, and they respond with adoration and worship.
Tom Wilson, religious activities coordinator for Montana State Prison and pastor of Vineyard Christian Fellowship, confirmed Mensing was a regular volunteer at the prison. He also confirmed that some religious circles frown on animal communication.
“From a conservative, evangelical point of view, that’s an occult practice,” Wilson explained. Because they acknowledge a spirit world, some Christians believe animal communicators are indeed communicating, not with the animal itself, but with a demonic spiritual entity, Wilson noted.
Proponents of animal communication are quick to point out that the Bible’s Old and New Testaments are filled with references to the idea that God created and cares about animals, and that God uses animals to instruct people. The Web site http://www.dogshavesouls.com, for example, cites Ecclesiastes 3:19-21: “All have the same breath, man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
Rev. Phil Maxwell, president of the Deer Lodge Ministerial Association, was unavailable for comment.
Jeff S. Piotrowski, PhD., a postdoctoral associate for the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Montana-Missoula, responded to a message through the Missoula Skeptical Society, which recently criticized Mensing in a series of Internet postings.
“Basically, to provide evidence of psychic ability, from a biological and physical perspective one would have to provide evidence of a mechanism for information transfer from one mind to another,” Piotrowski explained via e-mail Monday. “Specifically, is there a cell or cellular pathway that can receive a transmission from outside the body not mediated by our normal senses? There has never been a description of such. Even the most recent functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies have not found any evidence of psychic powers. To date, there is not even a plausible biological mechanism for what psychics claim they can do.”
Mensing said she believed the error was in the testing, not the psychics themselves. Creating a test, she added, is difficult due to the scientific community’s dismissal of psychics’ results.
“What they call ‘anecdotal’ is, 80 percent of the time, the animals I’ve talked to change,” Mensing said.
Piotrowski said he was open to the possibility of psychic experience but added that scientific analysis of psychic claims has yielded little despite decades of attempted study. Some studies in the 1980s cited certain psychics who tended to score a little higher than 10 percent above chance, but those studies were later discredited because they used a “flawed methodology, ”Piotrowski explained.
In the 1970s, James Randi, a former magician turned skeptic, began offering a $10,000 cash prize to any psychic claimant who would work with him to test their gifting scientifically. The money has never been paid. It now stands at about $1.1 million.
Despite his skepticism, Piotrowski said he would like legitimate psychic phenomena to exist.
“It would be the coolest thing in the world,” he said. “Trust me, I want that to be a possibility because that would be so awesome.”
Mensing herself admits that the actual way her technique might work is a mystery even to her. Even the best psychics, she says, are accurate only about 80 percent of the time, a statistic echoed by renowned interspecies communication leader Penelope Smith.
That inability to provide consistently correct results bothers Piotrowski. He believes Mensing, and others who claim psychic talents, operates on guesswork.
“What Kathy does is basically cold readings,” Piotrowski explained. “She leads owners with questions or statements that have a high probability of being right (e.g. ‘I see a black dog with curly hair’). The owners ignore her misses and embrace the hits. This is called confirmational bias, and is how ‘psychics’ dupe folks and make a living. Kathy’s ‘abilities’ are easily explained as simple mentalism tricks, cold readings, probability, and the client’s willingness to believe against all evidence.
“Kathy knows, and admits her powers are not reliable…. She admits she cannot pass the James Randi $1.1 million psychic challenge to prove her skills. Yet she charges people for parlor tricks, plays the odds of animal behavior, and when randomly something works for her, she writes a book about it.”
Butte resident Lyn Benedict, who has been a professional animal communicator since 1998, said approaching animal communication in a negative way may affect the results, causing an unsatisfactory experience for both client and communicator.
“People who bring negativity in the first place, who want to test it and aren’t sure, I wouldn’t recommend that they try it,” Benedict said. “I’m here to help those people who really feel this is going to work for them.” She compared finding a talented communicator to obtaining a doctor’s opinion. “If you don’t click with a communicator, I always suggest you work with someone else.”
In the meantime, Mensing doesn’t anticipate slowing down. After her signing in Deer Lodge, she’s headed on a six-month, cross-country tour. She’ll be teaching classes in Switzerland in May. And she’s working on her next book: “The Man Left, the Dog Died, and I Woke Up Psychic.”
