Psychic horses of history
Four-minute read
The history of animal telepathy is a long one. In 1780s London there was a novelty act called the Learned Pig. The poster read -
Greatest curiosity of the present day. This most extraordinary creature will spell and read, cast accounts, play at cards, tell any person what o’clock it is to a minute by their own watch, tell the age of anyone in company, and what is more astonishing he will discover a person’s thoughts.
But we’re supposed to be talking about horses, here. I needn’t mention Paul the psychic octopus, the mind-controlling hypno-dog or animals that can sense natural disasters and flee to safety before the humans even notice anything’s wrong.
There was a horse called Beautiful Jim Key, owned and trained by former slave William Key in the early 1900s. William was big into treating animals with kindness, and through gentle encouragement he was seemingly able to teach Jim to read and write, make change with money, do arithmetic with numbers below thirty, do trigonometry and cite Bible passages that mention horses.
His abilities blew away sitting president William McKinley at an expo in Tennessee, prompting him to describe it as the most astonishing and entertaining exhibition he had ever witnessed. I’m not surprised he felt that way. I’m sure I’d have been amazed to see a horse quote scripture too.
There are more famous horses to highlight. A foal born on a farm in Richmond, Virginia in 1924 became a living wonder of the world by answering questions posed to her by people around her. While she was still young, her owners noticed that she was a very bright animal and seemed to respond to their thoughts.
The couple, Claudia and Clarence Fonda, even built their horse a character board of letters and numbers so she could spell out answers to the public’s questions by tapping paddles with her nose. She could tell people all sorts of information about themselves and even sometimes predicted the future.
It’s a really fascinating slice of history, and I have to admit there are parts of her story that I really cannot explain besides coincidence. You can hear about Lady Wonder in more detail on Episode 322 of This Paranormal Life.
My personal favourite psychic horse was from Germany in 1895. Clever Hans was a horse owned by a maths teacher called Wilhelm von Osten. Just like Lady Wonder and Jim Key, Clever Hans could answer questions by tapping out numbers with his hoof. Wilhelm exhibited Hans throughout Germany but never charged a penny of admission. He just wanted the whole country to see how clever his horse was.
It’s so interesting that this has happened again and again throughout history. Bizarrely, I studied psychic horses as part of my animal behaviour degree but only in the context of debunking them. Luckily, the answer is just as fascinating as any supernatural explanation in my (completely biased) opinion.
Horses are prey animals. That means they’re constant on the lookout for attack from a big cat, wolf or a bear. That’s why their eyes are on the sides of their head. They’re far apart so they have nearly 360-degree vision. Plus, their eyes move independently so they can focus on a particular spot if they want to.
What I’m saying is, horses are perceptive. Their eyes even make close-up objects appear 50% larger than the human eye registers. They clock things that would go totally unnoticed by even the above-average person.
I’m going to use the example of Clever Hans, because his abilities were actually debunked in his lifetime. Trainer Wilhelm wasn’t trying to fool anybody, he was actually a victim of a scam inadvertently perpetrated by the horse.
When Hans was asked a question, most of the audience would know the answer. When he was tapping his hoof, he’d notice the audience getting still and quiet as he approached the right number of taps. He could sense people holding their breath when he was at the correct answer, and had learned that if he did this consistently he’d get food and praise and gentle ear scratches.
They’d trained the horse by accident. That’s how Clever Hans could answer maths questions. It’s how Beautiful Jim Key could recite Isaiah 31 verse 1, and it’s how Lady Wonder could tell a woman her maiden name. These horses could produce any answer as long as whoever’s asking knows the answer. Their behaviour and subtle bodily changes silently guide the horse to the right answer.
It just goes to show, animals may not fit our human definition of ‘smart’, but they’re capable of things complex enough to bamboozle generations of people. Animals deserve our respect, no question about it.
It’s my personal belief that domestic horses experience lives of abject misery. Just like captive dolphins, they’re ridiculously far-removed from their wild counterparts. They’re kept inside, often in individual stables and have to tolerate being around humans all the time. They get tied up so they can’t move, loaded into trailers and driven for miles and get used in movie productions, law enforcement and literal wars.
How terrifying must that be for an animal who has evolved to flee from noise, movement and danger for millennia? What we force them to go through is the opposite of how they are supposed to live. Free and wild.
I can’t help but finish a blog post with an anti-captivity rant. But think about it next time you see a horse freaking out on its rider, a trundling horsebox speeding along the motorway or an animal that falls in a race and loses its life so that some people have something to watch and place bets on. Notice these things and ask yourself, is it really worth it?
