Truth or Consequences

When is it a Scam?

Making Money off Death

The death industry has been alive and well ever since ancient man splintered off into various civilizations. Costs accompany burial or cremation, and many religious traditions, such as Jewish shivas and Christian wakes, also send the price tag skyrocketing.

Many people sign up in advance for prepaid funerals to minimize costs because when they die, they know their relatives will often descend into an agony of guilt and despair. This can lead to the purchase of needlessly expensive coffins and extras.

This is great for funeral directors but not so great for mourners, who must foot the bill along with other debts and obligations of the decedents. Plaques, memorials, and headstones are also pricey add ons that can drain the pocketbook. The business of death also includes heavy expenses for flowers, burial plots, and ceremonial receptions that take place after the funeral.

These spiraling costs are all too familiar for most people my age who have buried one or more parents or close relatives. But there’s another aspect to the death industry, and that is paranormal profiteering.

Many grieving people who are anguished over losing their loved one's may seek mystics or psychics who say they can contact the dead via energy fields, vibrations, ESP, and other paranormal phenomena. Some people attend seances, where a group of people hope the psychic can reach their dead relatives and provide answers to the living.

I know little of this paranormal aspect except what the media and Hollywood have presented as fact. What I know for sure is that a similar psychic phenomenon has sprung up in the pet world now that animals have gained greater importance as human companions.

Animal communicators or psychics have carved out a niche for themselves, and pet owners are happy to pay. Communicators aim to bring comfort to those whose pet dogs and cats have died. Eager to learn if their cherished friends have crossed over into an afterlife and how they are faring, pet owners seek people who sympathize about their loss and reward them with the across-the-board belief that their pet still loves them and is energy now that it has traded its sick and decrepit body in for eternal life.

Since my 15-year-old schnauzer died a few months ago, I’ve been researching the subject of Animal Communicating for the same reasons as other pet owners: I miss my pet and would like to hear a message from him if there really is such a thing as an afterlife for pets.

In my research on the Internet and in various related books, I have learned that there is a directory of psychics practicing throughout the United States and in Europe.

After reading Karen Anderson’s The Amazing Afterlife of Animals, Lynn Ragan’s Signs from Pets in the Afterlife, Brent Atwater’s After Death Signs from Pet Afterlife and Animals in Heaven, and Kim Sheridan’s Animals and the Afterlife, I was amazed at the amount of documentation and effort to show that the messages received from deceased pets are not just coincidence.

I also registered at a Facebook website called the Animal Communication Planet Practice Group, where laypeople such as myself and administrators led by well-known animal communicator Karen Anderson practice telepathy by looking at photos of recently deceased animals. This was a new and unique experience for me and allows you to mingle with other people who share the same quest.

As with many areas of the paranormal, you wonder if the medium or animal communicator is really engaging in telepathy or whether he/she is just feeding you a mixed bag of information culled from talking with you and perhaps a bit of research on the Internet. Those who are skeptical of psychic powers attribute the success of many “fake” communicators to “cold” readings at which time psychics mix ambiguous responses with obvious inferences and questions.

Since I’ve joined Karen Anderson’s practice group, I have practiced with at least three or four photos of deceased animals. Anderson believes, as do the other mediums, that telepathy can be learned. Of course, some people may have more inherent and intuitive abilities than others.

Although ESP, parapsychology, and mediums have been studied for years, I’m unsure to what extent I believe in them. There may be some people with exceptional native powers and those who have mastered telepathy simply with hard grit and determination, but it’s hard to tell who’s for real and who’s fake. Like anyone, I don’t care for being scammed and made a fool. Even more so, I despise the thought that vulnerable people — those in the throes of grief — are receiving false hope about their deceased pets.

I don’t believe that I’m going to communicate with Mork at the level at which I want since I don’t have the time or inclination to practice telepathy a lot, so I’m shopping around for an animal communicator. The prices vary, but a telephone interview using a photo of the pet begins at $75 for 15 minutes. There are even reviews of mediums in Yelp. But when it comes down to it, there doesn’t seem to be a litmus test for expertise.

So, I imagine I’ll be diving in at my risk. The temptation to go beyond knowing about my pets in this life and finding out more about them in the afterlife is so great that I know I’ll have to risk being scammed.

To be continued after my upcoming animal communicator date.