Speaking with a Forked Tongue

Okay, I didn’t write this up on April 1st for reasons that are about to become obvious. As you all know, I have long been a subscriber to FATE magazine because it is such an entertaining little periodical. If you want to know why FATE is so special, please read my blog on the scrumptious piece of periodic literature, written a couple of years ago. For those of you who haven’t the inclination to find that blog, I will repeat here that FATE is a magazine dedicated to the paranormal. If it’s weird, it’s in FATE.

You can always trust FATE for articles on ghosts, UFOs, Demons, Trolls, Faeries, lost continents, Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, The Jersey Devil, and other cryptozooilogical specimens (I’ve always wanted to opportunity to use that word). I have always been drawn to the regular monthly columns, “My Proof of Survival”, dedicated to stories which “prove” that the soul survives death, and “True Mystic Experiences”, dedicated to, well, true mystic experiences. Whether or not you believe in any of that crap, FATE is entertaining.

Recently, they have added a monthly column on animal communication. It’s sort of a “Dear Abby” for people who want to know what their pets are really thinking. I’m pretty sure that most pets would think that their people are nuts for writing in to a column on animal communications, but I could be wrong. Anyway, people write in explaining that their dog or cat is acting a certain way and could the psychic please explain what the dog or cat is thinking and why they are behaving so. I’m sorry, Paula, but your Bichon Frisé has developed a relationship with the rhodadendron in the corner and no longer feels the need for you company. And please change her kibble.

Somehow it’s a little odd to imagine some person sitting down and taking pen to paper to write to someone in hopes of finding out why the cat seems a little aloof lately. Mind you, I’ve actually called in the services of an animal psychic, too. So it’s not exactly like I’m a total skeptic about the whole thing. I’m guessing here that I just have no reason to put my faith in somebody who works for a pulp magazine and that person’s ability to “read” what is going on in my pets’ minds.

Normally, I would only share my interest in this magazine who truly appreciate how weird a person Big Daddy can be, and that would be all of you. Still, I let most issues of the magazine go by without comment. I wrote the one blog about FATE so that you could all enjoy the phenomenon that is FATE magazine on your own, or not, as is your choice. Yet this issue has an article which I feel compelled to share with you. It is an article of earthshaking importance. This issue has an interview of historical significance, as it is the first time, to my knowledge, that anyone has ever interviewed a snake.

Animal psychic Cathy Malkin-Currea interviews a snake recently adopted by one Phyllis Golds. The snake, a five-foot red-tailed boa constrictor, had been abandoned in an apartment for a month with no food or water. Cathy first tells us that the snake is a female and has expressed a desire to have a name that denotes value and healing. I would wonder why the snake would want any name given it by a human, myself. I won’t bore you with the entire interview here. Besides, then you would have no reason to read FATE. And the more readers FATE has, the more likely it is to remain in publication, allowing me the selfish pleasure of reading it. However, I will give you the highlights.

Cathy asks if snakes think. “Yes, we think. We just don’t think in the same way as humans do. We are wired to be more aware of our senses and learn to think through our senses and trust them. (interesting that a snake would know enough about electrical engineering to provide that metaphor—in fact, interesting that a snake would even USE a metaphor). Therefore we are much more sensitive to our environment than people are. Just by the nature of how we move, we are more in touch with what is around us. Our intelligence is not based on ego, but survival. Humans used to understand this principle as they once lived more like we do. Now humans tend to be led by their ego instead of their heart.” Wow. The snake is apparently a student of human history. The snake seems to understand what we think and what we USED to think, also. Cathy then askes the snake what it thinks.

“As I mentioned, we don’t think in the same way humans do, so it might be hard for you to ‘wrap your brain around’our thought patterns. (Hmmmm…the snake knows about brains. Obviously it also had time to study physiology, too.) …Our thoughts tend to be more or what is needed for basic survival, yet we have plenty of time for meditation and dreams.” Well, it’s hard to think about more than basic survival when you don’t have arms, legs, and thumbs. It’s nice that they meditate, though.

“…It’s my belief (the snake’s) that if humans did acccept that snakes along with all animals had thoughts, feelings, and viewpoints (I wonder who the snake likes in the next election), then people would never treat us so inhumanely.” Wouldn’t it be impossible, by definition, for humans to treat snakes “inhumanely”. However we humans treat snakes, we would, by definition, be treating them humanely. “Having no legs has nothing to do with why humans fear us…we felt we had to let them know that we were a force to be reckoned with. This is why so many stories and myths have been created in our honor.” Just when I thought that the snake was pretty damn eloquent, the snake goes and ends a sentence with a preposition. I guess the snake isn’t as smart as I thought. However, it does seem to have a grasp on our collective folklore. It’s a shame it never got the chance to talk to psychologist Carl Jung.

This is only a small portion of the total interview. It goes on for two more pages. I am sure you are as surprised as I was at how articulate a reptile could be. What would we do without animal communicators, eh? Otherwise, we might never have found out, as this interview indicates, that snakes would prefer to live free in the wild, as opposed to spending their lives in a cage eating feeder mice. Moreover, we might never have known that snakes were such students of the arts and sciences. But then, the snake does say that our belief that we are more intelligent than they is simply, “the construct of the human ego (who would have thought the snake would be Freudian?) and projection.”

So you see, without FATE magazine, we would never know these things. This March 2008 issue also has articles on the beast of Bolivia, laughing ghosts (sure, THEY can laugh, they’re dead), and UFOs over Texas. I can think of at least ONE illegal alien they must have dropped off. He’s in the White House now. Be sure to pick up a copy next time you’re in a Barnes and Noble or a Borders. Trust me, you won’t find FATE in the supermarket. It’s good to know someone is on the cutting edge of the paranormal. But then, I’m pretty paranormal myself.