A panorama of animal ghost folkore
Written: Apr 27 '04 (Updated Apr 27 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Even "dumb" animals have a life after death
Cons: Could use more cat stories
The Bottom Line: Anyone who likes animals and enjoys paranormal folklore should love this collection of true stories.
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| adriennefoster's Full Review: |
If animals each have their own individual personalities, then it stands to reason they have some sort of soul. Through the centuries, they have turned up in ghost folklore as either symbols, morphs, or apparitions of their living selves. Psychic Pets and Spirit Animals is a collection of true experiences reprinted from Fate Magazine. It has a wide variety of uncanny stories that lovers of animals and folklore should enjoy.
This 1996 book is organized into eight sections depending on the animal's perspective in the story. The categories comprise ESP, ghosts, magic, omens, human interactions, life after death, mystery animals, and protectors. Most of these revolve around some death variable. It includes international stories of not just dogs and cats, but horses, birds, raccoons, et cetera. Most of the stories are personal experience accounts while a few are a little more complex and go into more depth from research.
This volume provides stories of dogs who are inconsolable after the deaths of their caretakers, even though the canines saw their owners alive just a few hours before. One man keeps seeing a neighbor's white cat--who died a year before. After one of three geldings dies, one man swears the young mare continued swish her hoof in a trough of water until he and his wife lost a second. Old European legends document on how the appearance of ravens always portend a death of the Austrian Hapsburgs.
Dogs do predominate this volume. Since many of the stories were originally published at a time when they were the U.S.'s most popular pet, it's almost expected. Fortunately, with big dogs currently so unpopular in the San Francisco Bay Area, these are mostly positive stories, showing that they can be just as attached to us as we are to them.
It's puzzling no one takes credit for editing this collection. Even if these pieces remain unaltered since their original publication, someone had to select them. Fate is also a market well known for giving many new writers their first-time professional sale, so the style, approach, and quality of the writing varies.
Most of the tales told in Psychic Pets and Spirit Animals are about humans and animals expressing their attachment toward each other and rather heartwarming. Anyone who likes animals and enjoys this type of folklore would probably enjoy this volume.
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Originally posted at Amazon.com on February 24, 2001.
Recommended:
Yes
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