Translator: Giancarlo Castelo Alí Reviewer: Hélène Vernet
I am an animal communicator.
And I would like to talk to you about animal communication.
But first, I would like to ask you a question.
Who here has a mobile phone?
Okay. As I suspected, nearly everyone.
It's a pretty cool form of communication, right?
But, what if there is another form of communication,
that didn't need you to charge the batteries,
wouldn't cost anything,
and crosses the species barrier?
Wouldn't that be way cooler?
You already have this form of communication.
Everyone here can talk to animals.
That might seem obvious,
but what might surprise you is that they can reply to us,
and we can have a conversation with them.
I'd like to share a real life story with you
that illustrates just how beneficial animal communication can be.
Mermaid was a Jack Russell and he went missing from his home,
which was based over 100 miles away from me.
He'd been missing for seven nights
and his guardian, Nicky, had done everything possible to find him.
She knew he liked to go rabbiting down the holes,
in the sand quarry next to where she lived.
So she'd hired search dogs,
a mini digger, a JCB digger,
and a thermal imaging kit, but there was no sign of him.
Then, she emailed his photo to me.
I printed it out and I connected with him.
And immediately, he started to share images with me.
He showed me he woke Nicky's father up in the night by walking over him.
He then had been let out of the back door that was hinged on the right side.
And he'd crossed the path, gone through some wooden fencing
across a field...
I got a sense that there were lots of trees on the left hand side
and that he just kept going.
Nicky confirmed these details,
and that it was Mermaid's favorite route.
So I continued to communicate with him.
Using my intention,
I moved my consciousness out of my body and into Mermaid's.
Instantly I could feel water over my hands, his paws,
and when I looked out of his eyes,
I could see I was in a small square-shaped man-made structure
that felt hard like concrete.
When I looked up, I could see
there was just this glimmer of daylight high above me.
Then I realized that Mermaid was trapped underground.
I tried to see landmarks around his location,
but all I could see were brambles.
I asked him, 'How far are you from home?'
In reply, I heard the words in my mind, with my own inner voice: 'one mile'.
Nicky could not understand why there'd be water over Mermaid's paws
because she lived next to a sand quarry.
But then, she remembered a place, one mile from her home,
in the direction that Mermaid had described,
a deceased canal.
But she said to me,
'He's not there, Pea, I've already gone and there is no sign of him.
And anyway, how would I find him?
Because, if he is trapped underground, Mermaid never barks'.
And I thought,
'OK. This must be the only Jack Russell in the world that doesn't bark'.
I reconnected with him, and I explained to him:
Nicky is coming out to find you right now,
and it might be your last chance to be found.
If you hear her calling for you, you need to start barking,
and keep barking, Mermaid, until you can look her in the eyes,
in the eyes.
Within the hour, my phone was ringing.
When I picked it up, I heard Nicky screaming:
'We found him, he's here! Can you hear him?'
She must have held her mobile phone up
because all I could hear was a dog barking.
Mermaid had been trapped
down the bottom of a 12-foot-deep deceased canal shaft.
Nicky was unable to reach him
and eventually she had to call the fire brigade.
They managed to haul him up.
He'd never stopped barking!
Nicky scooped him up into her arms
and she held him face to face.
When he looked her in the eyes for the first time,
he stopped barking.
This is just one example of how beneficial animal communication could be.
I could share so many other stories with you.
But, I 'd like to take you back to the start,
to when I found myself attending
my very first animal communication workshop.
In 2004, I adopted this gorgeous rescue dog who I called Morgan.
He settled in, but I got this feeling that he was sad,
and I didn't know what to do about it.
I'd been brought up with cats and I understood them
but I just didn't know dogs.
Then the rescue sent to who saved him
an invitation for an animal communication workshop.
I thought this must be the latest politically correct way of describing
how to reach your dog's body language.
I thought this is going to help me with Morgan, so I went along.
But I discovered it was nothing to do with body language.
I found myself in a room listening to stories
about how it's possible to talk to animals and receive replies from them.
There were 20 people sitting in a circle,
and there were 19 people listening to the stories and crying
and then, there was me:
(Sighing)
You have to understand
that I'd enjoyed a 15-year career in theater stage management.
The work is very practical, and I consider myself a grounded person,
so I was feeling skeptical.
In the afternoon, we were partnered up
and we were asked to swap photos of our own animals.
A complete stranger had a photo of my cat, Texas,
and I had a photo of her rabbit.
Then we were told to ask them questions.
To my surprise, I did receive some answers from the rabbit
but the accuracy was very hit-and-miss,
and I just thought, 'I'm making this up'.
But then, this complete stranger who was holding a photo of Texas,
she was able to describe my hallway which is very distinctive,
the color of my sofa,
his favorite thing to sit on in the back garden at that time
and where it was positioned,
just as if Texas had given her a private tour of my home behind my back.
I've struggled with the concept
of communicating with animals through photos.
But this experience got me thinking,
there might be something in this.
I needed something more tangible, some proof.
So, I attended further workshops, with different teachers
and I also practiced with my friend's animals,
both face-to-face with them and through photographs.
I asked Morgan, 'Why are you sad?'
He was able to tell me
and from that moment, he let go of his sadness.
And Texas who'd been nervous around him,
immediately accepted him into the family.
I had a gut feeling:
I want to be an animal communicator.
At the end of the year's training, I left theater,
and in 2006, I turned professional.
You might be wondering,
can anyone really communicate with animals?
And the answer is 'Yes'.
This is not a gift for the special few.
This is a natural ability that we all possess.
This is normal practice in the lives of indigenous people.
Children are particularly good at this
because they are still in touch with their intuitive nature.
I've now been communicating with animals for 10 years.
I also teach workshops all over the world.
A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching in Amsterdam
and there were people attending from nine different countries.
Word is spreading about animal communication.
This is 150 people, all communicating with each other's animals.
This took place in London earlier this year.
So, what is animal communication?
It is the ability to telepathically communicate with animals.
It is based on intuition, which is defined
as 'the ability to understand something instinctively
without the need for conscious reasoning'.
I believe we are all born with an intuitive nature.
We are experiencing intuitive moments all of the time.
We might think of a friend, and then the phone rings, it's them.
Or, we might think:
'I feel that I need to go to my back door to let my cat in'.
And when you get there, there they are, waiting for you.
What I think is happening, is that we are picking upon energy.
Advances in quantum theory tell us that the universe is filled with energy.
Energy is everywhere and takes any shape.
We ourselves are beings of energy and vibration,
radiating our own unique signature, a bit like our own fingerprint.
Animals are also radiating their own unique energy signature
because they are beings of energy and vibration too.
In 2012, a group of neuroscientists
addressed the issue of animal consciousness.
They signed the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness,
and this stated:
'The weighed evidence indicates that humans are not unique
in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness'.
They included all mammals, all birds,
and many other creatures, including the octopus.
The former executive director of the Mind Science Foundation,
Joseph Dial said,
'Animal consciousness and human consciousness are of such similarity
that we have to ask ourselves how we treat animals
and why we treat them the way that we do'.
At the moment, one elephant is killed every 15 minutes
for its ivory.
Experts calculate
that two thirds of the planet's wild animals will be gone by 2020.
We urgently need to change our relationship
with our fellow species.
I believe a powerful way of doing this is by communicating with them.
We communicate using a universal language.
It's the language of energy.
The energy impressions we receive are then translated
into the language that we comprehend.
They're also interpreted by our body as data, using the senses.
So we might perceive an image or emotion, a thought
from physical sensations, smell or taste.
We might have a gut feeling of knowing.
I tend to receive words, or thought forms.
That's probably because I spent 15 years in theater pawning the sense,
actively listening to words in the rehearsal,
then from the side of the stage.
This goose is called Lucy.
When she went missing, she gave me the words: 'bus', 'stop'.
I thought, 'No, it can't be right'.
But we found her next to a broken down old bus,
next to a bus that had stopped.
We can communicate with animals to find them.
And wouldn't we also love to know what they are thinking?
Sometimes I'll ask Texas, 'Where are you?'
And, he'll reply, 'On important cat business'.
Then, it's like the phone goes down, we're disconnected.
Of course, he's reminding me that animals do have free will.
When we communicate with them,
we come from a place of unconditional love.
It is a route to understanding them on a deeper level,
and for them to understand us.
It's not about control or dominance, or getting them to do what we want.
Animals are not products.
They are sentient beings.
Communicating with them
and giving them a chance to express their feelings
can really help with changes, loss,
relationships and rehabilitation.
A client needed me to help her with her stallion, Moscow,
who had been labeled dangerous.
He'd been boating for no apparent reason.
His guardian, Maggie, had done everything.
For four years, he'd been shut down.
He wasn't interacting with the horses at the yard,
or taking an interest in anything.
Maggie had seen various equine experts.
Moscow told me that he missed a horse friend.
I got the sense that he really lacked self-confidence.
Giving him the chance to express his feelings
and to be really heard helped him,
much like a human being receiving a counseling session.
Within months, he regained his self-confidence
and with winning dressage competitions.
More than that, he was showing empathy to others.
If there was a person at the yard who was feeling sad or upset,
he would wrap his neck around them until they felt better.
Or if a horse had just arrived
and was feeling all unsettled by the change,
he would put his nose on them until they became calm.
We can communicate with domestic animals.
But we are not limited to them.
We can also communicate with wild animals,
those living freely and also those kept in captivity.
We can communicate with all creatures.
We can communicate with lions, dolphins, whales,
flies, mice and beetles,
and Guinea pigs like Trevor,
chickens like Sophie,
and cows like Esther.
The only limit is the one that we put there.
Neuroscientist Doctor John Lilly said,
'What I found,after 12 years of working with dolphins,
was that the limits weren't in them, the limits were in us.
So I had to go away and ask myself: Who am I?'
People come on my workshops because they really want to help animals.
What they realise very quickly is that the animals are helping them
get back in touch with who they really are,
reminding us all that we are a part of nature.
I discovered my life's purpose when I adopted Morgan
and he introduced me to animal communication.
I am truly honored to be able to do this work.
I'm also very grateful I was able to help my own dog, Bodie.
A few weeks ago, I started to write this talk.
He was approaching the end of his life.
Because I knew I could communicate with him,
I was able to ask him what he wanted, what he needed from me.
In those final weeks, and then days,
and then hours,
I was able to honor his wishes.
The truth is:
animals have things to say,
and they're just waiting for us to listen.
I would like to invite you to start the conversation.
Thank you.
(Applause)