JEFFREY MISHLOVE: Hello Wisdomland! Our program today is about interspecies communication and my guest is Miranda Alcott. For thirty-two years Miranda has assisted people through her spiritual and intuitive work. She has devoted the past ten years to helping people understand their animal partners. Guided by her special talents, people strengthen the unique bond they have with their animals, leading to a more harmonious living experience for all. Miranda studied with the internationally known animal ambassador, Linda Tellington-Jones, creator of the Tellington TTOUCH. TTOUCH is a technique, which promotes healing, training, and communicating through touch with animals. Miranda is a fully certified TTOUCH practitioner. But more than that she has since the age of seven evidenced extra sensory perception, which was tested in a class, facilitated by Dr. Thelma Moss at UCLA. She also experienced visions and dreams, which were, years later, verified by national newspapers. Her parents, as board members of the American Society of Psychic Research, introduced her to Lotte Von Strahl, an important figure in the field of parapsychology. Von Strahl’s influence left a lasting impression on Miranda, providing her with guidance she has been using ever since. Miranda lives in New Mexico and travels extensively throughout the United States teaching clinics and offering guidance and assistance to animals and their people. She has shared her talents with both wild and domestic animals. She has volunteered with humane societies, worked in animal training facilities, researched in wild animal refuges, taught at ranches, and counseled in private practice in the western United States and Canada. Welcome Miranda.
MIRANDA ALCOTT: Thank you, Jeffrey, I’m very happy to be here.
MISHLOVE: It is a pleasure to be with you. Your work really involves not just animals. It involves relationships between animals and people?
ALCOTT: Absolutely! It’s something I’m very excited to be doing because after having worked with people for so many years, to add animals to my practice was a very important step for me personally, as well as the people who I work with. We have a deep bond with our animals. Perhaps sometimes we overlook the opportunities to grow, and the opportunities to improve the environments for our animals and ourselves by looking at those relationships with our animals and the bonds that we have.
MISHLOVE: How did you get started?
ALCOTT: Actually, I came into this life remembering more than most people remember and I assumed that everyone knew what I knew when they came in. So I was a little bit miffed to find out that not everybody had remembered where they came from or what had gone on before. But at an early age, I received from society and my parents, that it was not all right to talk about these things out in public. So I spent a lot of my childhood working with people who understood and knew what I did but did not tell their friends or talk about it very much. That was an ‘undercurrent’ of my life at that time but I was still able to work and grow from being private about it. So that was more or less the beginning of how it started. I had visions when I was very young and later we read about them in the newspaper or they would come to pass and it would be very obvious that that was what had occurred. Then I went through a phase when I was bout nine of actually bringing through information and speaking in different languages in my sleep. So I really went through a wide variety of experiences.
MISHLOVE: Your psychic gifts began unfolding at an early age.
ALCOTT: Very early. There are lots of things that I remember and lots of things that I came into this life wondering. For instance. . . why I was here.
MISHLOVE: And having parents who were board members of the American Society for Psychical Research probably created a more conducive home environment to allow your abilities to settle in to be grounded.
ALCOTT: That’s true. You know, its funny, when they’re your own parents you think they’re strange, to begin with because they’re your parents! However as time has unfolded I’ve been so grateful and so happy about what happened in my family. There was a difference between my mother and father because my father was very much the researcher who wanted to prove everything and my mother was very much a believer in the intuitive side. Having parents who both sort of took those positions, left me in the middle. My father and I used to have many conversations at the breakfast table, at the dinner table. He would say how important it was for these things to be proved, that it was important that research is done, and the world needed to learn about this. I remember Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder came out with their first book and I was at a conference that they gave in Los Angeles back in the sixties. I remember that I felt very good that there were people who were doing this research.
MISHLOVE: "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain?
ALCOTT: That’s the one! That big thick book.
MISHLOVE: Yes, it had a big impact on me when it came out as well.
ALCOTT: I don’t know what kind of impact it had on you, Jeffrey, but for me it made me wonder why as a country we were so slow in using the talents that we were given and the skills that we had as people, in our own nation.
MISHLOVE: The influence that book had on me was actually to lead me to pursue a career in parapsychology and to get a doctoral degree in the field.
ALCOTT: On that book?
MISHLOVE: Yes, that book was very instrumental. It was certainly not the only factor but it was a very important factor.
ALCOTT: You know, its interesting it had a similar effect on me in that I felt that it was the public manifestation, that I had a right to be who I was. That book was wonderful support! I hope one day to meet those ladies because I hold them in high regard.
MISHLOVE: I did have the privilege of interviewing them as a matter of fact.
ALCOTT: Did you?
MISHLOVE: Yes, over twenty years ago.
ALCOTT: Ah, that’s wonderful!
MISHLOVE: Back in my early days in radio.
ALCOTT: Prenatally, I’m sure. [both Alcott and Mishlove laugh]
MISHLOVE: Wouldn’t that be nice? So what about your affinity for animals?
ALCOTT: I always had an affinity to animals and I think if we all look back into our lives as children, most of us do remember that we listened to animals; that we either spoke to them or had ‘imaginary friends’, as adults called them; that were not imaginary friends. Animals do speak and it was hard for me because even though my parents were as "enlightened as they were for having followed that path, it made them very nervous when it came to animals. They got extremely quiet and as I remember one evening actually when my parents were having some friends over for dinner, I was outside the window where they were eating, dancing on the lawn. My parents said, "Oh, let’s go watch her dance! She loves to dance!" So they came out to the green area where the grass was and they said, "Now Randi (that was my name as a child) and what is it you’re dancing?". I was dancing the dance of the animals. I told them and started to tell the people what the animals were saying to me and magically these people were escorted back into my parent’s house. They disappeared off the green area and I was left alone wondering why that had happened. I remember that I was very sad but I kept dancing with the animals. That was my job and that was what I did.
MISHLOVE: So this is an affinity, you might even call it karmic.
ALCOTT: I think we can definitely call it karmic, definitely. I think as well that those of us who perhaps did not understand animals in previous lifetimes or previous situations, which we are here now expressing more information and affinity with animals based on what our karmic past has been.
MISHLOVE: I know sometimes you have referred to yourself as a "star person", suggesting you have a sense of your spiritual origins apart from your earthly origins on this planet.
ALCOTT: That’s true. I think we all draw a lot of information from the stars. I think it’s really important for each of us to discover perhaps originals that are greater than or more ancient than our earthly domain.
MISHLOVE: So you combine within yourself being really grounded on the earth plane and the realm of nature and having an affinity for the cosmos. I’m speaking with Miranda Alcott who is an interspecies communicator. We’ll be talking for the next two hours and go into a lot of depth about the kind of experiences she has had talking with animals. We’ll be back after a few messages from WisdomRadio. Stay with us.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome back to Virtual U. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mishlove, and my guest is Miranda Alcott, a specialist in interspecies communication. Miranda, you basically use two different methods for communicating with animals. One is through touch and the other is through I guess telepathy would be the best term.
ALCOTT: Basically yes, and I stress basically because I use all of the talents and skills that I’ve worked on my whole life. But, yes, in the classes that I teach, telepathy is exactly what we begin with. That means that we are not interfering, we are opening our minds and our hearts up to receiving communication in a noninterfering, noninvasive way.
MISHLOVE: And how does the touch system work?
ALCOTT: The touch system is really a wonderful system for relating to an animal and perhaps seeing an animal from an animal’s perspective; in understanding that simply by using a TTOUCH with an intention of kindness, focused-ness, and observation, that we are allowed to learn and bond with our animals on a much deeper level, thereby beginning to learn perhaps their language, it might be said. I use it in my work extensively because I feel we spend so much time telling our animals what we want from them, perhaps not enough time to asking them what they need, which is why I provide the service that I do.
MISHLOVE: When you’re communicating with an animal, I would imagine for example that the animal expressed itself in a way that is not necessarily easily transferable into English grammar?
ALCOTT: That’s true, I have yet to find a Yale graduate amongst the whole lot. [Alcott laughs] But what it is they communicate is pictures. So it’s like any exercise or any muscle that you want to work at, it takes practice and repetition and you keep going and you take chances and you leave yourself open in receivership to any form that this animal chooses to communicate through. So in the beginning classes we start with pictures and as time goes on we open up all our senses to receive so that even senses that we are maybe not aware of, that we may be allowing ourselves to use in that way, receive information. But, yes, the basis of it is telepathy.
MISHLOVE: In the yoga tradition, what it really involves is sort of a kind of becoming one with the animal.
ALCOTT: Yes, right, but I caution this and I’ll tell you why. If we are looking to become ‘one’ with an animal, we need to take responsibility for what information we would receive from perhaps the part of ourselves that relates to that animal being. In listening to an animal, it is important to remain open but non-interfering in receiving the information. So for instance; when I think of someone saying they are ‘becoming one’ with an animal, that can be an incredible interference. I would ask the person who is doing this to be very specific about what their reasoning is behind the exercise of "becoming one". It’s different when you think of the harmonious environment with an animal or working in conjunction with an animal. But to ‘become one’ with an animal, we’re now talking about that animal’s spirit and that needs permission all the way around. That’s a whole different area that we’d be getting into.
MISHLOVE: What you’re suggesting is that you approach this work with great respect for the animal.
ALCOTT: Absolutely! I mean the bottom line is that they know more than we do. If we loose electricity, who do we think will survive? So they know a whole lot more about survival. They know a lot more about survival through the ages. They understand a lot more about our particular planet, this earth, how it works, how it functions, and what it means. I have animals in my environment that tell me about the weather changes and the earth changes that are occurring and many of my clients tell me about the earth changes that are coming. So, yes, I feel definitely there is no reason to not treat them with respect. The idea that we are a superior species unfortunately has taken hold in our species of humans and that’s something I work very hard to bring people’s awareness to; the fact that it is not real.
MISHLOVE: Well, maybe you say a little more about that because it’s very deeply ingrained. I mean, we’re the ones who have pets, we’re the ones who take care of those animals. I don’t know of any animals that have humans for pets but maybe it is that way.
ALCOTT: It is that way a lot of the time! When we look to our animals to learn from them, many times it’s what are we learning from them. Yes, we can have an animal live with us in our environment and we can say if its a domestic animal, for instance, what a nice parakeet or what a nice mouse or what a nice kitty. But if that is the only area that we are allowing them to communicate with us or to reach us, we’ve just closed off an entire opportunity to learn from a species that knows so much about the things that we are now questing these days. We are asking for knowledge about our earth, about our planet, about how to do these things. As far as the domestic animals go, they know so much more about who we are within our own life than we ever give them credit for. There are animals who have brought their people to me because they are concerned about their humans, because their humans are placing themselves in a very non-healthy position. May I give you an example of a case?
MISHLOVE: Yes.
ALCOTT: I had a woman come in who brought her two cats to me. One thing led to another and she said that her cats were very uncomfortable. When she took them out of the cat carrier, they had removed the fur from their chest so they were like leather on their chest. It was very uncomfortable to look at it. She said, "I can’t figure why they’re doing this. Please, please ask them why they’re doing this." In listening to them and what they had to say, the eldest cat said that she was living in the house with a male human who was violent and abusive right below the surface, that the woman was not aware of this, and they had no other way of getting her attention. This put me in an interesting position because it’s not my job to edit the communication that I receive. I explained to this woman that I would not be allowed to do this work that I do if I did edit or interfere in any way with this information. So I explained this to her and said, "All I can tell you is what your animals are saying and they say that there’s a human living in your environment who they feel is very dangerous and may be violent to you potentially." She laughed very nervously and said, "That was impossible, the only person there is my fiancé and there’s no way. He’s just not like that." And I said all I can tell you is what they’re telling me. So I asked if she wanted me to investigate further? And she said yes I do. So I said to them, "How serious do you believe this to be. Do you believe this to be life threatening?" And they said yes. And I asked them what is your concern? And they said, "How to escape, how would we escape from this situation?" And I asked where are you that you would feel you would need to escape? And they said that the only path that they have of escape is out the bedroom window and it’s on the second story. So I asked them, "In other words, what you’re saying to me is that to survive or to not be affected by this violent situation you would have to go out of the two story window?" And they said, yes. I asked, "Do you feel that your going out the two story window is better than staying inside?" They responded, "It is better than being kicked or thrown against the wall." So it was a very extreme situation. I relayed all of this to their human and she was in tears. That was an interesting thing because usually when people cry about their animals it’s because it hits a cord and they know there’s something in there that is true. So she left and I did not hear from her. About ten days later I called, my normal follow up call to see how she was doing, and I said I know this was kind of a hard session and I wondered how you are doing. And she said, "Thank you so much for bringing my attention to that because I love my ‘boys’ (referring to her cats) and I will do anything for them, anything for them. We’ll work it out, we’ll just work it out because they’re just wonderful and I’m just so glad you told me." And something didn’t ring true inside about what was going on. So about two months later she booked another appointment and came back in. She arrived and wrote down her questions and said, "You have to talk to them now and you have to tell them that they’re just going to have to get over this because they’re the ones with the problem and they’re the ones who just have to make this work because we’re doing what we’re going to do and either they want to stay with us or they don’t." So at that point I said to them okay I’m concerned about you and these cats and I know you love your cats but my sense is that maybe we need to think about re-homing them for their own safety. So the last I saw of them they were considering re-homing. That’s really about the best that I can do but it’s one of those situations where if we listen to the animals who live with us, they know a lot about what’s going on in our lives.
MISHLOVE: You don’t have any feedback about the domestic situation of the humans in that one?
ALCOTT: I have to be very careful about that because what I can do is present the information that is given to me through the animal but ultimately it comes down to the human. It is very hard when I see a case like that to not call the SPCA and say, "Gee, I think something is going to happen," but I can’t do that. And it really is that human’s lesson. It really is what they need to learn.
MISHLOVE: I’m talking with Miranda Alcott about interspecies communication. We’ll be back after these messages.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome back to Virtual U. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mishlove, and my guest is Miranda Alcott. We’re talking about interspecies communication. Miranda, you’ve just shared a story in which two cats complained to you that they felt that the person living with their owner, her fiancé, was prone to violence and that it was so bad that they feared for themselves. That’s a pretty specific message to be getting from a couple cats.
ALCOTT: Very definitely a specific message. It’s interesting that the brother-in-law to-be came to me privately and I told him I was concerned because of the message and the effect on the family and I asked him if there was anything I could do to help and he said, "Believe me, you’ve already done it. But I will tell you this, I have to hand it to the cats because I didn’t have the guts to say that’s what was going on and in fact that was what is going on."
MISHLOVE: So you were able to get some independent confirmation.
ALCOTT: Yes and it certainly came from an unexpected area for it to come from. But yes, I got some wonderful (or sad) confirmation depending on how we look at it.
MISHLOVE: I think one of the concerns you must have, especially with your background or your parent’s background in parapsychology that we described earlier and their concern for verification and experimentation in this area is if animals are giving you messages or if you believe that they are it would be useful for you to be able to check out the validity. After all, even an animal can be wrong and we do have this phrase in our language "scaredy cat", scat cats can sometimes be quite skiddish and a new person can frighten a cat sometimes.
ALCOTT: That’s very true. But because of my abilities and what I do, I ask the animal to take me to the actual situation that they are talking about to show me what is going on. Short of setting up a video camera in someone’s private environment, there’s not a lot I can do other than the validation that comes independently. However, I will say that it’s not my job to validate my own work. There are others who do it. My focus and the reason that I am here and the work that I do is to do the work. So for instance; I was just working on an article with a local newspaper here and in this article the feature editor was very concerned because he said that the article the writer turned in about my work, was so positive that he felt that it was not critical enough and would he please call the State Board of Veterinary Medicine here and interview someone there about how they felt about animal communication and interspecies communicators. What was interesting was what came out of all of that. The the past president said that she herself, in fact a veterinarian, had referred a couple of people to animal communicators and that her suggestion was that not all the votes were in yet, but that she could not say that it was invalid either. That she was looking forward to seeing how it would develop. So, yes, I do have people who are interested in validating my work and what I do and I leave that up to them.
MISHLOVE: Would you say that in different species some are more or less capable of communicating sophisticated thoughts to you? Like are birds different than mammals or what about insects? Can you work with insects?
ALCOTT: Boy you just opened a whole another subject. Every animal, every species has it’s own language. It is important, and I’m sure that you have so many listeners who do work in parapsychology in other areas, that they would understand when I say this. I have asked for help in deciphering these languages because I certainly would not have all of the time to learn each and every language separately so I have guidance and I have help on this area. It is true that every species has a different culture. That’s the most important thing. We cannot treat animals as we treat ourselves. We need to treat a bee like a bee, we need to understand the representation that takes place within each species. What’s obvious to using our everyday lives is we don’t treat a cat the way we treat dogs. One of the reasons that we have cats and dogs in our environment is that they are so clear and good about communicating the differences in their cultures so they are training us to understand the difference in cultures and the difference in our species and their species. I have never met a cat who didn’t have an opinion. I just haven’t. And that seems to go with the species. Dogs are very easy to communicate with. They are a great place to start in listening because dogs are very patient and they have the natural bent that they want us to get this. They want us to open up again to receiving information so they are much more patient than other animals are.
MISHLOVE: When you say you have help, I’m going to assume for the moment here thinking of some sort of higher dimensional forms of help, non-human help.
ALCOTT: That’s correct. I also ask the animals for help because they are also trying to educate us in such a way that I will from time to time just plain say to the animal, "Help me out here" because I don’t understand something or "Can you show me something else that will be clearer to me?" And I say that to my client, "Wait just a moment, I’m asking for more help here" or "I don’t understand" or sometimes I will say to the client, "I don’t understand this but he says so and so" or "I’m being shown the picture of so and so, does that make sense to you?" Nine times out of ten, the client gets it and I don’t. It means a lot to them but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to me. For instance; a specific case of that was a dog who said it was time for her to cross over, meaning to leave the physical. This was a dog that was considerably older and was ready to leave. So in our last meeting in the physical with this animal I asked the animal as I usually do is there anything you would like to share with your human that you enjoyed or something you would like to do before you leave the physical? I said how about telling your human something that you enjoyed? This dog said just tell her that there weren’t enough hamburgers. So I said Dinky is saying to me hamburgers, does that make any sense to you? She says there weren’t enough hamburgers. And this woman burst out in laughter and said you know, when I first got her I didn’t know anything about food the way I do now and every time I went to McDonald’s, we’d drive through, I’d get one, she’d get one, and that was it. When I discovered what I was doing to my animal, it stopped abruptly. I said, well, she’s saying now that she wants another one. So one of the things that they did in their last week together was to drive through McDonald’s and get a hamburger. [Miranda laughs] So the animals give me all kinds of presents. They give me not only insights to wisdom and who they are but they give me wonderful presents that I get to give to their people back about how much they have enjoyed each other and respect each other and have grown and learned from each other. That’s the payoff for me!
MISHLOVE: Some animals, dogs and cats, customarily live with humans. You also work with animals that are not domesticated.
Alcott: That’s right. I work with sea creatures and all kinds of aquatic creatures and wild animals, as well as domesticated wild animals whom I don’t consider wild animals. But, yes, all different species. Which is not to say I’ve worked with every species on the planet. I have not. But you were asking me about the difference between listening to primates or elephants and then listening to a school of fish or insects. Insects are a challenge, insects are a real challenge. Not only is there a group thought pattern that is progressing in communication at all times, it’s more like if you walk up to an octopus and if you imagine that in an octopus in each tentacle there is in every sucker a form of communication in a brain. So who do you communicate with when you are talking to the group as a whole? You have to address the group as a whole but that communication holding together as a body is going on every moment every second. And so to single out one ant and say, "Would you not come in this direction because my food is here," you have to address it as a body but then you also have to get their attention. I have found insects to be the most challenging. Certainly flies are easier. There are different species in the insect world that are easier to communicate with. But the insects that live in huge burrows, and there are millions of them, are quite a challenge for me.
MISHLOVE: Could it be because their nervous systems are so very different. Their whole form of consciousness is different.
ALCOTT: I would say that "form of consciousness" would be the most accurate statement, yes. And to understand that they’re on a mission and so for you to interrupt that mission, you have to have a pretty good reason why. Then you have to get their attention because they’re kind of like the Blues Brothers, they’re on a mission! [Alcott and Mishlove laugh]
MISHLOVE: I’m talking to Miranda Alcott and we’re exploring her fascinating work in the field of interspecies communication. She has many, many more stories and we will be back again. We will be sharing them with you after these messages from WisdomRadio, so please stay with us.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome back to Virtual U. I’m your hose, Jeffrey Mishlove. We’re exploring today a fascinating topic, interspecies communication, and my guest is Miranda Alcott. Welcome back.
ALCOTT: Thank you, Jeffrey.
MISHLOVE: You had a career as a musician for awhile and the very first interview I ever did in the field of interspecies communication about twenty years ago was with a musician and what he loved to do was go out and play music with the animals. In his experience they would all play and he would record them. He went to a turkey farm once and started playing and the turkeys started playing with him. I wonder if your background as a musician has helped to facilitate this work.
ALCOTT: It definitely has. Although I don’t work with sound as much as I might. That does have to do with my background. But sound is really a language that has no boundaries on most planes of existence, (if I may say that, I’m sure there’s a better way I could say that). So the way we think of music, really crosses all the boundaries. We say it is the ‘international language.’ sound is much more far reaching than that. When we look at some of the species in the ocean, when you think about water touching your body all over and any change in the motion in that water you can feel, no matter how far away it is, is affecting who you are in that environment. Some of the most rewarding work I’ve done has been with animals who are in water and their sensitivity is so far heightened to who I am as a human being in this body and what I’m used to, that sound has a great effect and I get to experience it through them and their aspect of sound.
MISHLOVE: For the benefit of our listeners, I probably should clarify. I know you are not working a lot with sound these days. You have lost a lot of your hearing and our listeners don’t know it but we actually have a Sign Language interpreter here in the room with us, Janet Riley, who is taking my words and interpreting them for you into American Sign Language so that you can respond. So your work with animals these days is based on touch and on telepathy, not on sound.
ALCOTT: That’s correct, that’s correct. Although I do have clareaudio so I use a lot of different skills that I was born with and given and have developed. So, it’s true, I don’t work with sound in the traditional sense. So when people say to me, "When a dog talks to you, what does he sound like?", I always laugh because my basis for sound is not what other people’s basis for sound is. I would say that most musicians and people who touch a wall or feel the front of a speaker cabinet can relate to feeling vibration. That’s a very physical sense. If you try to transpose that or imagine it in your mind that it becomes a nonphysical sense, then put a color to it perhaps, or put a wave length to it, or put fog or attach something to it and then watch what happens. So I still do sense sound but not in the way that I used to. Definitely.
MISHLOVE: As a vibration?
ALCOTT: As a vibration and as a way to communicate with other realms.
MISHLOVE: Now let me also push this a little, if I may. My experience as a parapsychologist and in the field of intuition is people who are disabled in one of their senses often find ways to compensate because, after all, the brain itself is still there and it’s an incredible organism. I would imagine that since you lost your hearing, you have compensated and perhaps developed other kinds of senses so that your work in animal communication in some sense might have been aided by your hearing loss.
ALCOTT: Absolutely, and my interspecies work as well. What’s interesting is when I lost my hearing, it allowed me to focus more, and that was not something that had even occurred to me was going to come out of all this. I thought that it was a nuisance and it was very painful and I went through a lot of emotional changes and definitely a whole life change because I was no longer a member of the hearing culture. I was now in the non-hearing culture. Which is a whole other ten years of experience in what happens in non-hearing cultures.
MISHLOVE: Which could well be the subject of a whole other radio program.
ALCOTT: Definitely! But what I asked for was help in developing my other senses to a greater depth and then it occurred to me to leave myself open for even more senses than those that we recognize in this plane of existence. And so, yes, in fact my senses have increased greatly and I have added some senses as well. As an artist as well. Painting for instance; the colors became deeper and more intense and I was able to see more than I had seen before. My peripheral vision developed to a great extent, much more than it had ever been and I indoctrinated something into my life called visual noise, which is when someone like me would listen to an advertisement. For me a visual noise is something that is visually very upsetting or visually a distraction and that’s visual noise. So I do my best to stay focused on my work by getting rid of the visual noise as opposed to thinking about the audio noise. So I don’t have white noise anymore, which is a blessing. I don’t even have pink noise anymore, which is a blessing [Alcott laughs] for all the musicians who are listening to your program.
MISHLOVE: Well, back to animal communication. You mentioned that you worked with schools of fish.
ALCOTT: Yes, they’re fascinating. Oh, they’re just fascinating. It’s interesting because when I work with schools of fish, they understand for the most part when I am there. They recognize where I am and who I am as far as communicating in a different way than most humans, but there are times when they wonder what I’m doing in the middle of their school because they can’t figure out why I’m there. If I understand who they are, then they assume that I know who they are and what they’re about and so they can’t understand sometimes why I’m in their area. I always ask permission. Always, or I would not proceed. So I began by asking permission and with the fish they have such a different feel to them. They have non-physical lines of electricity, that run between each of them, that is ongoing. Its a different sense, and so it’s hard to describe, Jeffrey, but if we were to think about having tentacles to each other, that would be the closest I could come to it. But this particular pathway or tube, per se, that runs between these creatures contains all kinds of information. It contains . . . . ah, it’s hard to talk about it. It contains all kinds of senses like touching and feeling and sensing and talking to each other and understanding where the school is going. I mean how many times have we thought how remarkable it is when a whole school of fish or a flock of birds knows how to fly or turn, and what is that communication that goes on. Now as scientists we can pull it apart and we can say you know it has to do with sonar, or it has to do with signals they are giving each other. But what I’m expressing here is that there is a level of consciousness and communication that is on-going that we have yet to touch on through the scientific part of our lives. We have yet to even barely come close. Dr. Randall Eaton is doing a lot of work with whales right now improving our understanding of their forms of communication. It’s fascinating some of the studies he has done about what some of the whales can ‘see’ and sense and send back in information. They can sense the insides and the back-sides of objects that they can not even see within their own tanks. Objects or obstacle courses that are not even in their immediate tanks and yet they have this information. It’s very, very fascinating to get, again, the proof of the pudding from someone who does research.
MISHLOVE: Why are you with these schools of fish?
ALCOTT: It depends on where they are. Regarding this particular school of fish, sometimes I work with other groups of communicators to turn animals and sea creatures away from the coast lines when we know there is going to be a commercial fishing, when we know that there are going to be whales taken down. Then we work as a body to communicate to get the creatures to leave the area or to acknowledge that it’s dangerous and that they shouldn’t be there. Another situation I had was a particular school of fish that I was working with. It was a pond of goldfish and the humans were trying to get the goldfish out of the area they were in because it was believed that there was something in the water that was dangerous to their health. So we needed to explain to them that they were going to be removed from their environment and that it was not meant to be harmful but it was meant to be assistive to them because there was something in their environment. What was interesting was that particular session led to how aware I became of fungus. It was fungus that was in their water and I became aware of the energy that fungus carries and their life force and how they communicate.
MISHLOVE: Really? So, now fungus is more like a plant, I think, than an animal.
ALCOTT: That’s right. So, now we all need to go and remember that we read the book many years ago "The Secret Life of Plants".
MISHLOVE: So your interspecies communication is not just with animal species.
ALCOTT: That’s correct, that’s correct. Not just with humans and not just relating to one area.
MISHLOVE: So we have a lot to talk about.
ALCOTT: This is true.
MISHLOVE: I am speaking with Miranda Alcott and we’re talking about interspecies communication. If you’ve enjoyed this conversation with Miranda and would like to reach her let me suggest you log onto my web site, www.mishlove.com, that’s m-I-s-h-l-o-v-e, and on my web site I will post information about how you can reach Miranda Alcott. We’ll be back again after these messages from WisdomRadio. We’ll be back at six and one-half minutes after the hour so join us for another hour of fascinating conversation into the remarkable world of interspecies communication with Miranda Alcott.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome to the second hour of my discussion with Miranda Alcott on interspecies communication. Miranda is an individual who has been working in this field for the past thirty-two years. She has worked in a technique called the Tellington TTOUCH method, communicating with animals through touch, but she has also used extrasensory perception. Her parents, in fact, were board members of the American Society for Psychic Research and they introduced her to Lotte Von Strahl, an important figure in the field of parapsychology, who had an influence on Miranda. It is her goal that in her work with animals that her clients gain insight and awareness that improve their listening skills so that they have a better understanding of their animals and its needs. Welcome back, Miranda.
ALCOTT: Thank you. It is wonderful to be here.
MISHLOVE: We’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve talked about the TTOUCH work with animals, we’ve talked about your background in psychic work with animals, and you’ve shared a number of stories about your work with different species (fish, insects, dogs and cats). It seems to me that it’s worth focusing on one of the points that you mentioned earlier, that the animals themselves seem in some way closer to nature than we are. Closer perhaps, to the ecological cycles. Animals are giving you information not just about their relationships with people but about the earth itself and about the natural environment itself.
ALCOTT: Absolutely. What’s important here is to note there are students in my classes that ask me what the difference is between the communication from domestic animals and from wild animals. Domestic animals, if we think about it, ask us to take them to the park, they ask us to get out of our home environment, they are leading us back to the country where the wild animals are. The animals who are domesticated are still in touch with their non-domesticated partners so we cannot say that they are absolutely disconnected. That would not be true. Therefore, receiving information from domestic animals who are in our environment about the ecological situations we’re in, about the earth changes that are here that are already occurring is very valuable and is something that you can find out from your own animal. I’m not saying that everyone can do this, I don’t want to say that because I know there are many teachers who travel around the country and say everyone can do this. My personal belief is that we all had these gifts as far as being able to listen to animals many, many, many thousands of years ago and we have forgotten. I would not want to mislead anyone and say anyone can do what I do. But I do believe that each of us has a gift that we can wake up and work on. We just have different gifts. That’s why there are so many of us. So as far as the earth changes go, I guess some of the case histories that I can tell you about is that I have seen earth changes coming and they were given to me for many, many years. Certainly when I came across the Edgar Cayce material it became very apparent that I was not the only person who got this information. And, as a matter of fact, he had gotten them long before I was born. So in investigating with some of the animals, I left myself open to what they had to say about what is changing on the earth. What their sense is of when the changes are taking place. I have stumbled into some information that was very important and helped me as far as my deciding factors of where I move to or where I live. Or what I do based on what the animals have shared with me. One of those cases was as recent as about two and one-half years ago. In this animal session there were two dogs this woman said she had had for nine years and they had started barking in the middle of the night now and she couldn’t get them to stop. So she came to me at her wits end saying that the neighbors are complaining, "I’ve never had this problem. I love them, I’ve asked them and I can’t understand what’s wrong." In asking these animals what they were doing, they said, "We’re trying to get our human’s attention." And I said, "Well you have our attention now. So what is it you are trying to communicate and you want us to know?" And they said to me that there is great water coming where she lives and that the area that she lives in will be flooded and that she needs to relocate before this happens because they cannot help her if she waits until its flooded. There is nothing they could do. She had lived in this area for years and years. In her investigations she discovered that the section of damming around the house where she lives and the aquifers were starting to overload and were coming up through the drainage system in her area. With the rains that I have been shown, were coming in her area, and through her knowledge of what is not being done that was promised through local and state government to work on their system, she now has the breeding ground for exactly what her animals were talking about. That is overflowing of the aqueduct systems that are right by her house. That means her property would then be flooded. So in this particular case this woman has now made arrangements and has put her house up for sale and she is moving to higher ground, literally.
MISHLOVE: So that’s one example. You mentioned that some of the knowledge of earth changes has already come to you intuitively.
ALCOTT: Yes, absolutely, and not only intuitively but in visions and being shown what is coming and to what strength. And all of that has already started. I mean it started years ago but it has increased. I don’t think there is anyone on the planet right now who would disagree that our whole weather system has changed. We are no longer in the months and the systems that we’re used to. Certainly in my area, everyone begins the sentence by saying, "Well you know how in July we usually have---, well it’s not like that now. Now we have--- and this is February weather, or this is so and so weather." So everyone is acknowledging that it is changing.
MISHLOVE: It certainly does change but I guess we know about global warming and we also seem to know that weather patterns maybe have always changed.
ALCOTT: To a certain extent. But certainly based on the statistics that we have in the last hundred years we are seeing what a major effect our environment has and the causes that we have perpetrated onto our environment and the changes that are taking place.
MISHLOVE: In addition to global warming?
ALCOTT: In addition to global warming. In addition to global warming, when we look at what we’ve done as far as shoving toxins into the earth, when we look at what we’ve done to our streams, it is a domino effect.
MISHLOVE: Now we are animals.
ALCOTT: Yes we are.
MISHLOVE: Some people have probably forgotten. And possibly some are more animal than others.
ALCOTT: Yes, that’s true.
MISHLOVE: So interspecies communication may even imply other ways of communicating within our species.
ALCOTT: That’s correct, that’s correct. I have a student now who is a very exciting student to have. I feel very blessed to have her because like any good student she is my teacher as much as I am her’s. She came to me with these beautiful blue eyes, with this incredible wolf-like energy, so strong, that if you saw her I think, Jeffrey, you would think you were looking at a wolf. That’s hard to say because she’s in a human body. But she came to me saying that she was having dreams of wolves and it was scaring her and she didn’t understand why. And it’s ironic! It’s one of those wonderful pieces of humor in the universe, where someone is standing next to a telephone booth and says, "Can you tell me where I can find a phone?" Here’s a person who carries so much wonderful spirit and it’s wolf spirit, saying why am I thinking about wolves. And so she has been a very satisfying woman to work with because she has been opening herself on a daily basis. I’ve been watching this wonderful blossoming of her discovering her medicine and what she carries, and it’s beautiful to watch.
MISHLOVE: Now we’ve opened up the whole issue I guess of what you could call totem animals.
ALCOTT: Yes?
MISHLOVE: There is an enormous culture of spiritual relationships that people have with different animals. I know I have such relationships myself and I barely understand them. So that will be a topic that we’ll come to after our break. I’m talking with Miranda Alcott who is an interspecies communicator. I’m learning many, many things about this fascinating profession and we have many things to explore when we return after these messages from WisdomRadio.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome back to Virtual U. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mishlove, and today we are exploring the field of interspecies communication with Miranda Alcott. We got into the subject a moment ago of totem animals, the kind of spiritual connections that humans have with animals, and I guess the culture of totem animals is pretty much indigenous amongst indigenous peoples.
ALCOTT: Yes. Wherever anyone lives they can certainly find an indigenous culture that represents and honors animals for for guidance and wisdom and communication and lessons that could be learned. Every culture has it to a certain degree. Some cultures revere animals more than others. Certainly we have a lot to learn from these cultures. But there are many animals that come to people and they don’t know why. They discover there are certain kinds of animals that they seem to keep collecting and in studying those animals in relation to those humans, there is a wonderful reciprocation that occurs in lessons learned, from both sides.
MISHLOVE: Do you have totem animals yourself?
ALCOTT: Oh, I certainly do. I have many animals. As a matter of fact it’s funny because certain friends of mine who work in psychic work as well, have told me that they have seen this llama that seems to follow me around. He seems to be seen mostly in airports and on airplanes. I’ve been trying to figure out how he fits in the airplane. [Alcott laughs] Little joke there. But he does travel with me and it depends on who I’m working with and what part of the country, who travels with me, and who’s around. But, yes, I do have animals that are animals that I learn from and I think it is a good process to think of opening one’s heart and one’s mind to learning from animals. Whether you take one or two or three. Whether you believe that you need an animal for every direction, or whether you believe that you need animals to help you through certain difficult situations. There are many societies that are based on drum beats that match the heart beats of the animals they wish to have back them up and give them power. So there are many ways to learn from the animals. Certainly totems are certainly something that you can rely on and use and give back to.
MISHLOVE: Now I know about totem poles, you see them in various native folk American cultures, but can you define what a totem animal is?
ALCOTT: A totem animal certainly in present day and how we’re using them would be an animal that has come to you and there are many different methods on bringing totem animals to you. There is Jaime Sams’ system of the Medicine Cards, and those are wonderful to spend time with. There are people who know that in their family perhaps they have had passed down figurines of certain animals, there are animals that perhaps when you go to the zoo you feel a certain affinity with and you’re not sure why. But if you take a moment to look inside or study about that animal, first on the surface, you will discover in the behavior of that animal that there probably is something there you can learn from, if you spend time and be quiet. A great place to do it would be to go to a zoo or to a place you felt you could get some focus, close your eyes, and leave yourself open to understanding what that animals does and what that animal might have to share with you as far as wisdom or a perspective you might not have.
MISHLOVE: It’s as if each species has its own particular essence.
ALCOTT: It’s exactly that. It’s not "as if", it is "exactly" that. Each species has a wisdom they innately carry within that particular species’ culture and then within that particular individual as well. So you might get a bear who is very obviously a very strong individual, very focused individual, who is very ferocious at protection. But that same individual might actually be teaching you about inner power as far as protection goes.
MISHLOVE: And I suppose that at the spiritual level it’s said that each animal species has a group spirit?
ALCOTT: Yes, that’s right. Absolutely, and that’s what I was sort of addressing about the fish. There is a school mentality, there is a school spiritual belief system and a way of interacting. And sometimes the lines between individual culture and group culture are very, very great.
MISHLOVE: In your work as an interspecies communicator, one of the things that you have alluded to several times now, of which I wasn’t really aware, is that this seems to be really an established profession. I had assumed that maybe you were one of the rare interspecies communicators on the planet but you speak of it as if there were many people out there now doing this work.
ALCOTT: Yes, there are. There are more and more. I don’t know how many of them have been doing it as long as I have but, yes, I would say in the United States there are probably two to three thousand of us at this point, just in the United States alone. There are many people who begin by taking classes and then my suggestion is that they continue on with that work and keep working at it because it is something that takes quite a while to understand, more than conceptually. And then also a big challenge is to get your own self out of the way so that you are not interfering with the information that comes through. Of course, any studying you can do about each species only adds to your understanding about receiving.
MISHLOVE: I suppose when most people come to you it’s because their animals is ill or there’s a behavior problem, some situation about their animal they just don’t understand.
ALCOTT: That’s true. Usually they’re in crisis when they come to me the first time. We spend a lot of time listening to what the animal says. I can tell from what the person writes and what they’re expressing that this issue is something they’ve already expressed to their animal, probably numerous times before they get into my office. So I spend a lot of time asking the animal, "This is the situation I’ve been presented with. What can you tell me about this?" Something that’s fascinating is I think we all have a tendency to say that the animal did this, or the dog did something unprovoked, or the horse threw me and there was no reason for it. There is never a ‘no reason’ status with an animal. Unprovoked does not exist. There is always a reason! There is always a reason why an animal is doing something. It’s more the question of: are we aware of what we just did or are we aware of where this animal has come from. One of the things I do is donate a certain amount of time to rescue groups because they have animals that come to them and they need to try to help them find homes and they don’t understand why they are having certain behaviors. When these behaviors are exhibited, what do we do about it? Many times going in and talking to the animal about it and having the animal speak to us about what has occurred relieves the tension, much like a human. It relieves the tension so that now it’s not this deep, dark secret. Now we know what happened. I have many animals ask me all the time why are humans this cruel, or why are they brutal, or why do they do this? Why? They just want to know. They want to understand. I can only answer honestly. I can only answer friends of mine and for myself. I tell them, "We don’t do that. I cannot tell you why some humans are so sick and abusive. I can tell you that I’m very sorry and that this is not the way it needs to be and this is not the way it used to be. But I’m sorry that it is the way it is now." To the best of my ability I’m trying to undo some of what as a race we have done, and give back. But I cannot say that I know why people are cruel to animals.
MISHLOVE: I have been to the dog pound and some of the dogs I have seen in there look like they’ve been severely mistreated. In fact so much so that I wonder if it would be possible to live with a human again.
ALCOTT: Many times it’s not. In speaking to those animals about their anger and about what has occurred to them, I go in and ask them to see if there is a sense that we can get past a certain event. Or, if this animal is willing to trust again or to even open to the trust factor. There are times I don’t blame the animal for saying, " no, I’m not interested and it’s just too hard to undo what has been done." There are experiences where animals are just looping continually. For instance, and this is just off the top of my head; if there is an animal let’s say who was smelling fresh cut grass when it was beaten and now this animal has gone through the Humane Society and is adopted out. Then when the animal goes to the new home, all of a sudden one day the woman is mowing her lawn and the animal becomes vicious. The person would say to me that this was unprovoked. I would then ask that animal if this was something it felt we could get past, because we have options. We can say let’s make sure that the animal never gets exposed to cut grass. I’m not sure that that’s very realistic in the way that we all live as humans. At the same time if we tell the animal there is a good chance you will be smelling grass often in your life and I need you to work with me and see if we can get past this. If we can I want you to tell me what you want to happen. At that point the animal chooses what they feel they would like their path to be. I have had some animals tell me, ". . it’s just too hard, I cannot do this, it’s too hard for me, this is what has happened to me in interaction with humans, and you’re asking me to get over it and I can’t."
MISHLOVE: It sounds as if you’re doing psychotherapy with these animals.
ALCOTT: What I’m trying to provide is an interspecies bridge.
MISHLOVE: I’m talking with Miranda Alcott about interspecies communication. We’ll be back again after some messages from WisdomRadio. I’m Jeffrey Mishlove, host of Virtual U. We’re going to be exploring further the question of illnesses in animals and we’ll even look at the question of animal deaths and the transition that animals make. Stay with us.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome back to Virtual U. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mishlove, and my guest is Miranda Alcott, who is an interspecies communicator. At the end of our last segment Miranda, we started to observe that the work you’re doing with animals is in some ways akin to psychotherapy. If it’s not, it certainly suggests that there is a need, that animals who have been abused suffer much the same way as humans who have been abused.
ALCOTT: That’s very true in the sense that our environment provides the situation that may add to whatever the abusive situation is and it’s important to undo that. Plus the fact that it is in most cases, abuse by a human. So as a species we have, as far as I’m concerned, a lot of work to do to undo or to give back to those we have affected. So who better than a human to go in and see if I can’t provide or at least assist in perhaps some of that healing. I work with quite a few rescue groups as well. I donate time for animals that have been rescued because those wonderful people who do all the rescue work, end up with animals themselves and they don’t understand why they are exhibiting certain behaviors. I go in and we try to either undo that behavior or see if we can place that animal in an environment where that situation would not come up. It becomes very challenging because at some point there are animals that do not feel they can get past that situation. So for instance let’s say that animal that was abused in a yard that had fresh cut grass; We now place that animal in a home with two people who are doing very well with this animal. Then one day someone decides to go out and cut the lawn and this animal turns vicious. Of course, the person says, "This was unprovoked!" In my work I go in and uncover what it is that this animal has gone through. We may in fact discover that we cannot get past this issue. If that’s true, then I ask the animal what that animal’s choice would be: wanting to continue in this lifetime, not wanting to continue in this lifetime and I leave that up to the animal. Then I present it to the human client and see what they can work out.
MISHLOVE: I am a psychotherapist so I know sometimes in the therapeutic context the person may have an issue and they may tell me, "I cannot, I absolutely will not, get over it." I realize that that’s part of their process and it’s necessary for them to say that but that’s not the end point of the process at all. Sometimes just the very fact that they could say it in such a strong way means that the change is already beginning and in therapy we know that just listening to people, just having an opportunity for them to really know that they are heard makes a difference. Is it this way with animals?
ALCOTT: Yes, in some cases it is and in some cases it isn’t. It is in that if I sense that the animal needed to make this statement, then my suggestion to that family is that since we have understood what your animal is saying, and I check by asking the animal, "Do you feel that we understand what you have said to us?" (Animal), "Yes," then I say,
MISHLOVE: Let me interrupt for a second. When you "say" to the animal, is this telepathic or through touch?
ALCOTT: It’s telepathic, it’s psychic, it’s on many different levels, many different forms of communication. If I have an animal that is wilder more than domesticated, then I use primarily pictures to communicate or sense of smell. I leave myself in receivership at the same time that I am sending so that I am getting a complete picture to the best of all of our abilities.
MISHLOVE: Okay, I’m sorry for the interruption.
ALCOTT: That’s alright, that’s alright. So at that point when I present to the animal that this is what we have received is this accurate and the animal says yes, then I suggest to the family that they take some time to think about it. I would usually set up about a week’s time for them to think about it so they have a chance to go home and think about what are the other alternatives. What kind of time are they willing to invest with this animal. If the animal says they are now open to work, then I give the family a week to think about it and to come back and we discuss it again. But for the most part I think too, Jeffrey, some of what you’re asking is does an animal ever change their mind? Animals are not like us and this is where it’s very important. That’s why I encourage people who are starting out in this work to do case after case after case and do your case studies as a student because animals are very straight ahead. They do not have a reason for protocol, they do not have a reason to adapt manners, therefore they are easier to work with in some cases than some humans, which is why there are more animal communicators cropping up. They are much easier to work with than humans, they do not have an agenda to get over. If they are angry, they are very clearly angry and you ask them why and they will show you why. So it’s not a lot of digging. Where the work comes in is asking an animal who’s been abused by a human to trust a human again. There are times when it’s certainly not for me to find a reason why this animal should trust a human again. So that’s where it falls again onto the back of the animal as to whether this is an area they want to invest in or not; giving humans still another chance.
MISHLOVE: Well, in psychotherapy we have a process called desensitization, especially if there is a phobia, fear, or conditioned response. If a human has so mistreated an animal that the animal now won’t trust humans, as a psychotherapist I might say the more positive experiences with humans an animal has, then eventually those positive ones would come to outweigh the negative.
ALCOTT: And this is why the decision is up to the animal because we can conjecture about it from our standards as a human but from an animal’s perspective it deals with survival. It’s very cut and dry. If they feel that their life is threatened, then all of that fight or flight kicks in and the fear kicks in and they are fighting for their lives in instances where something has triggered it. So we’re now talking about a thousand pound animal in the case of a horse and if the horse feels that it is fight or flight and it’s a small round pen or something that they can’t escape, we’re now looking at the human being hurt very badly. So it is something that needs to be worked on and depending on how the animal feels and depending upon what kind of work the human is willing to do, we take it from there.
MISHLOVE: I would assume that in some cases like an animal in a dog pound or worse, there are very few options because it’s hard to take an animal who’s been abused, especially a domesticated animal, and just release them in the wild. There’s always going to be a human somewhere.
ALCOTT: That’s true. Releasing animals into the wild, that’s an interesting subject that you bring up upon using that phrase, because this discussion is now sort of hedging towards euthanasia. If an animal says that they cannot change to the extent that they feel is being requested for living in a domestic environment and we know that this animal will not survive because this animal has been domesticated enough that it’s not an option to be released into the wild, then we have a situation that we need to look at. Asking this animal how they feel about life, how they feel about crossing over or relocation (however we want to call it, transitioning, death of the physical body), and how they feel about euthanasia and what their sense is of that. That is an option. I will tell you what the animals tell me about dying which has been fascinating to me. They say they do not feel about their bodies the way we as humans do. They think of their bodies as clothing. If it’s too tight, if it doesn’t fit, if it hurts, they want a new body. It is not something that they attach a one-lifetime, one-shot-deal, this-is-it, you better get-it, there’s-no-other-thing. So if you look at some of indigenous beliefs, life being a circle, if you place one door on that circle, is it a door in or a door out? If you say this is the only lifetime, then that door can stop you. But if you give yourself the opportunity that it’s not, as animals do, then animals wish to continue on their circle whether it’s in a new body or not. This is hard for some humans to understand who are, for instance, have a terminal situation with their animal. They bring their animal to me and the animal has been diagnosed as very sick. For instance, I have a case now that has been diagnosed as lymphoma carcinoma. This animal is now mid process of making her transition. The communication between her and her human is just astounding. It’s so beautiful because each partner, the human and the animal, knows this is it for the physical so they want to make sure they are listening very carefully. But each of them is very clear about the fact that this is not it as far as their involvement together. This animal has made a commitment to return to this person, not in the physical, but to be with her for quite some time to come. So this means we are not looking at the end but the changing of the relationship in the sense of how they communicate together and with each other.
MISHLOVE: So in other words, people who have lost their animals still feel spiritually connected. Certainly if they leave themselves open to that, then they aren’t snipping it or shutting the door.
ALCOTT: The animals resent when we snip and shut the door because we are then determining whether they can communicate.
MISHLOVE: The animals are more comfortable with that idea of a spiritual role, maybe more so than many humans.
ALCOTT: I would go so far as to say animals are very frustrated with the way we humans don’t deal with it comfortably. Yes, it’s natural to them.
MISHLOVE: That is quite interesting. I’m talking with Miranda Alcott about interspecies communication and we’re looking at some of the very profound questions of life and death amongst animals. We’ll be back after these messages.
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MISHLOVE: Welcome back to Virtual U. My guest is Miranda Alcott. We’re talking about interspecies communication. Just at the end of our previous segment we began to get into the question of euthanasia and the spiritual values of animals. You stated very firmly that animals are more spiritually grounded than we humans are.
ALCOTT: That’s true. If we give ourselves as a species, as humans, a chance to learn from the animals, our lives would be a whole lot easier. You know in the suggestion or discussion of death and euthanasia, there are people who come to me and say to me, "Well I want my animal to die naturally. I know she’s dying, I want her to die naturally." This is an interesting question and I have asked the animals to please talk to us about what ‘dying naturally’ means. What they have shared with me, which is what I share with my clients, is that naturally is out in the wild. That is where ‘dying naturally’ occurs. In the kitchen is not ‘dying naturally’. So we need to look at how we can give back to these animals on their terms. After a wonderful lifetime of service to us, usually the one thing the animals ask for is a way to release the pain or a way to be released from their bodies. It used to upset me greatly when I would watch nature shows where the animals were taking each other down and I thought to myself, why did they do this? It seemed so cruel and it was just so hard. I asked the animals right then and there could you please explain this to me because as part of the human species, this seems very cruel to me. What they told me was, "It is the greatest of honor to be taken down by your own species, because you are contributing to the growth and health of your species survival by allowing yourself to be taken down by those who are stronger." So there is a continuing thought that they are adding their heart, their consciousness, and their power to the rest of the pack that survives.
MISHLOVE: You mean like in the case of deer or animals where the males will fight each other?
ALCOTT: That’s right, or if there is a weak baby that is left that it seems so cruel. There are some species that will not leave their babies that are sick. There are others, like cats, who kill or suffocate or allow their children to die and then eat them because it is not in the strength of the best for all to continue. Since they don’t have the clinging desperateness to one lifetime, it doesn’t carry the desperate importance of making sure that every single life continues on, no matter what the physical state is.
MISHLOVE: You seem to imply that the animals have a natural feel for reincarnation.
ALCOTT: Absolutely! I’ve met some wonderful animals who have come back and told me wonderful stories about where they’ve been. One of the most rewarding parts of my part practice is to be working with a client who has come to me with an animal who is terminal and after we have worked through every phase of the illness, complete with a crossing over ceremony during the actual euthanization, after giving them time to heal, having the animal show up again. Usually what happens when we are in the state of the terminal illness, the animal says to their human, "You don’t understand. I’m not leaving you, I’m just changing locations." The human says that they don’t understand how this is possible and they’re very distraught, all of which is very understandable. After the animal transitions the human tells me I’m so lonely, I don’t know how I can do without my animal, and this is so hard. Then the human sort of comes to a place where they give up, they sort of let it go. The next thing I know, my phone rings and they say, "You know you told me my animal was going to come back to me and I have to tell you Miranda, I thought you were crazy when you said that. But last night, in the middle of the night, I felt her jump up onto the bed. I realized I was asleep and I woke up to see her and I opened my eyes and I realized that she was here but she’s not in the physical. You’re right, she’s here, she’s with me, I can feel her." Unless you have been through that transition, it is very hard to believe because of our belief systems, because as a culture how locked in we are to one lifetime and this is it. But I see it all the time and it’s one of my favorite parts of my practice! It’s so rewarding to have someone call me in tears because they’re happy because their animal has communicated with them and, in fact, they got it! It wasn’t this thing that they were never going to be able to touch. They actually got it right in their own home!
MISHLOVE: And it suggests that for us also that the boundary between the worlds is very thin and animals are one of the ways that we can breach that boundary.
ALCOTT: Perfectly said! Absolutely! Animals are such a bridge to knowledge that far surpasses ours. The fact that we can access them and they can access that; however we want to set up that chain or that link, they’re such a wonderful bridge. That’s one of the reasons why I love my work because I get to be a bridge, between we as humans and earth species and animals and other species. It’s very rewarding work.
MISHLOVE: It’s been a real pleasure sharing these two hours with you, Miranda.
ALCOTT: Thank you. I’ve enjoyed this extensively.
MISHLOVE: I know you have many, many more stories.
ALCOTT: [laughs] That I do!
MISHLOVE: I hope to be able to interview you again someday.
ALCOTT: Thank you. We would love to come again.
MISHLOVE: For those of you who have been listening to this two hour program with Miranda Alcott and would like to contact Miranda, let me invite you to log on to my web site: www.mishlove.com. That’s spelled just the way it sounds, m-I-s-h-l-o-v-e. On that web site you’ll be able to link to Miranda’s communication coordinates when she gets a web site, if she gets a web site.
ALCOTT: Oh, it’s up. We just don’t have the address yet.
MISHLOVE: Okay, when it’s ready we will link it to my web site so it will be available to all of our listeners and the web site mishlove.com serves as a multimedia resource that accompanies this radio program. I have links to the web sites of all of my guests, past, present, and future. You’ll be able to see a photograph of Miranda on the web site. We have audio clips of various guests and we have published the written transcripts of many of our interviews so it’s really a wealth of information. It’s a resource for all of our listeners and I encourage you to take advantage of it. Miranda, we have just a few minutes left now. I wonder if you have any final thoughts to share with our listeners.
ALCOTT: Yes. People ask me what is the most important thing they can do when they bring a new animal home. To celebrate bringing an animal into your family is the most incredible experience. To state what your commitment is to that animal, what you are willing to give, and who you are willing to become in the name of growing and learning more is so important. I guess one of the most joyous parts of my practice is that I do welcoming ceremonies for animals into new families. So I would encourage people when they go to the pound and say, "Oh, I don’t know what happened but he was there and it was almost as though he just picked me out," and then what the animal’s mind has shared with me is, "Well, fifteen minutes and she should be here any second." [Alcott and Mishlove laugh] So for everyone who says it was as though this animal picked me out or knew that we were supposed to be together, they most definitely do know that they’re going to be together.
My web site address by the way will be www.mirandaalcott.com, so It’s not hard to remember.
MISHLOVE: Okay. Can you say a little more about the ceremony?
ALCOTT: Definitely. You look at your animal and talk about your commitment to this animal. It’s very important to define. You could do this in your own home, you could invite friends. I have been invited to go to many different ceremonies that were so exciting. People are now branching out and creating their own ceremonies. Invite your friends over, have ice cream, talk about how you love this animal, how the animal got its name, where you plan to go with this animal, and maybe even in the few days that you’ve had this animal, something that you’ve learned. To name and tell our animals what we have learned from them is the gift that we can give back. The most rewarding story is a woman who just recently told me her dog will be dying soon. Her dog said to her, "I have learned so much from you and I am so proud of you." And she said in response, "How could you be proud of me? You’re the one I’m proud of." And the animal said, "Because until I met you, I did not know that humans could grow ears on their heart." That just really touches me every time I think about it. Her name is Choco and she is a chocolate lab. She is quite a teacher.
MISHLOVE: I’ve been talking with Miranda Alcott, interspecies communicator. It’s been a joy, Miranda. You have such a zest and enthusiasm for your work.
ALCOTT: Thank you. Thank you for asking me here.
MISHLOVE: It’s been a great, great pleasure.