ESP stands for extrasensory perception. A sixth sense. Paranormal activity! It is being able to perceive something with the mind and not with the recognised physical senses.
Whether you believe that domestic cats have ESP or not will be a very personal choice. Some people will believe it. I respect their points of view. But there will be no scientific evidence to support it.
My personal belief is that everything remarkable about cats’ abilities can be explained with the application of science, logic, common sense and a knowledge of physics and zoology. I would rather depend on science than a belief in ESP.
Dr. Desmond Morris
He agrees with me. He says that if people cannot explain a particular aspect of domestic cat behaviour, they might lazily state that the cat as ESP and can do these wonderful and magical things. But it is a lazy copout according to Morris. It is much better to find the answer in nature and evolution which is harder.
The domestic cat’s homing sense
Often ESP is given for the reason for the ability of domestic cats to travel sometimes 2000 miles to their old home after their owners have moved to a new home. That’s happened before in Australia.
The owners moved from the south of the continent to the north coast as I recall. Around 2,000 miles. The cat wanted to go home, back to his known home range and off he went. He got there many months later. The owner’s former neighbours found him.
We don’t quite know how cats manage this but it may be because of their ability to detect the Earth’s magnetic field and to memorise geographic markers which they would have picked up on their journey away from their former home range.
Predicting earthquakes
Once again, some people put down a domestic cat’s ability to predict earthquakes as an ESP skill. Dr. Maurice would suggest that cats are sensitive enough to detect very small vibrations or changes in the static electricity of their environment produced by the beginnings of an earthquake. He tries to find a scientific reason for the skill if indeed the skill exists.
Psi trailing
I have just updated a page I wrote about nine years ago on a domestic cat’s ability to do psi trailing. This is a psychic ability to find trails, in this case a trail home of the kind mentioned above under “the domestic cat’s homing sense”. When I wrote it, I wasn’t sure whether domestic cats have the ability but I am now of the opinion that they don’t and I agree with Dr. Desmond Morris.
Paranormal
What I’ve said doesn’t mean that I don’t believe categorically that paranormal abilities don’t exist. They might. Humans are evolving. There is a lot we don’t know. We are learning. We are quite ignorant. But perhaps in 2,000 years’ time if the human race exists that far into the future, we may understand nature far better and it may come to light that paranormal activity does indeed exist.
Almost something similar is the thought that plants can feel pain. Bizarre? Impossible? Probably. A recent study found that plants can make sounds as if they are communicating perhaps with other plants or insects. That’s almost as extraordinary as paranormal activity but it is science.
