Talk to the animals …Psychic opens communication between pets, owners

As a professional telepathic animal communicator, she's worked with dozens of pet owners to help them gain insights into what makes their dogs and cats tick.

This type of interspecies communication takes place on a subconscious level, Benedict said, and it's doable because deep down all life is connected.

"I believe the energy in everything comes from the same source," she said.

She does not hear the constant chatter of animal voices in her head. The communication occurs only when she deliberately sets out to make it

happen.

To make contact with pets for clients, Benedict goes into a deep meditative state with the express purpose of reaching out to a specific animal. Beforehand, she has gathered enough information about the particular pet and his or her owners to establish contact.

Once the connection is made, Benedict said she spends most of the time listening.

"I'm finding that these animals don't get listened to very often, and they really have a lot to say," she said. "I don't do much talking. I spend most of my time doing automatic writing when they are talking to me."

Sometimes Benedict hears actual words. Other times, she receives visual pictures or picks up strong feelings. On rare occasions, animals send messages via smells.

Benedict realizes this sounds pretty far-fetched. She said she had plenty of her own skepticism and needed quite a few affirming experiences before she could trust and believe the information she was receiving truly was coming from the animals. Fear and doubt would often interfere early on.

"I thought the whole thing sounded pretty hokey, but I went to my first seminar with an open mind," she said.

That seminar took place in Helena in 1995.

It included a one-on-one session with the instructor, Jeri Ryan, and Benedict used the opportunity to communicate with her own pets through Ryan.

The insights she gained into her poodle's digestive problems and her cat's increasing refusal to use a litter box prompted her to start believing, and she decided to keep going to more seminars.

Her husband, Bruce Benedict, was home with their poodle, Rina, on the day Lyn attended her first seminar nine years ago, and he still has vivid memories of how the dog suddenly changed her behavior at the exact time Ryan was communicating with her. Rina had been lethargic all day, but right at noon, she "immediately went from being down and depressed to running around like she normally does," Bruce said. "It was quite dramatic."

On another occasion, Lyn picked up on the disappointment of Bob, their Samoyed, when Bruce forgot to take him on errands. When Bruce got home, she asked him if he had in fact meant to take Bob along but then forgot him, and Bruce confirmed that to be true.

After these and other first-hand experiences, Bruce, also a skeptic at first, believes there's something to this animal communication, and his advice to doubters is "to keep an open mind because it really does work.

"I've seen enough incidents where it seemed to be working that I couldn't deny it," he said. "When I've had personal experience and seen incidents where I could see the effects of what Lyn was doing — it's certainly brought me around."

The couple has lived in Butte for nearly

25 years. Lyn, 55, started her professional work with animals about 20 years ago as a conventional trainer, focused on building obedience and agility skills.

She still provides that type of training, and in 1998 she added "certified professional animal communicator" to her offerings. She didn't start charging for communication services until a few years ago, and she's also taught seminars on the topic.

"Animal communication is different than anything I've ever done before," she said. "And I didn't really have to learn it. It was just a matter of opening up to what I already knew how to do."

Client Adele Coon of Hamilton said in a recent phone interview that Benedict has helped her quite a few times.

Coon heard about Benedict's work through a mutual friend and first called her out of concern for Tisha, an African gray parrot.

"She was a rescue bird," Coon explained. "She had come from a difficult home and had pretty much pecked herself bald. I asked Lyn to talk to her and find out what was going on and see if there was anything I could do to help her out."

Through Benedict, Tisha communicated that spending time in a quiet room by herself listening to classical music would help.

"I had no clue and would have never thought of doing something like that," Coon said, but she acted on the information and the bird started to heal. "There are no bald spots now, and she was almost

completely naked."

Benedict has also communicated with Simon, Coon's other African gray parrot, and with her two emus and various wild birds and animals Coon has cared for at her home refuge.

"I haven't found her to be wrong at all," Coon said. "Even when she didn't know the animals, she picked up things about their personalities that were exact, so I'm a believer."

Coon said she had always felt a kinship with animals, but did not know this type of communication was possible until she met Benedict and then started reading and attending seminars.

She has since engaged in some animal telepathy herself, but does not plan to do it professionally.

"I just kind of use it because it's fun and I can use it to help some of my critters," she said. "If I have a serious question, I go to Lyn."

Benedict has clients in Butte and Whitehall, but none of the four contacted by The Standard was willing to go on record out of uncertainty over what the public reaction would be.

Benedict said she understands. This area has been slower to accept this practice than even other parts of the state. Most of her clients and supporters are from around Helena and Hamilton.

"We're all on a path. We don't have to be in the same place," Benedict said. "I'm not coming from a point of view that everyone has to believe as I do. I don't have to convince anybody."

At the same time, however, she believes it is time for people to start paying more attention to the animal kingdom for the sake of all species.

"If we keep on in the way we're going, there isn't going to be an earth to live on for any of us," she said. "At some point we're going to have to realize that we're responsible. This is not a place we can trash and trash and have it respond positively."

She said the animals realize they are dependent on humans to preserve their habitats and they're anxious to get their messages across.

"What this whole planet is about is us sharing it and getting along," she said. "Without that, none of us are going to be here."

She and numerous other animal communicators throughout the country have heard loud and clear from whales that they are very concerned that continued sonar testing in the ocean will bring their extinction, Benedict said. Bugs have also told her they wish insecticide use would stop because it's not healthy for any living thing.

"They're very supportive of anyone who's aware that there's more to them than just a bug," Benedict said.

Everyone is capable of telepathic communication with animals in Benedict's opinion. She believes children are born with this knowledge, but they lose touch with it after hearing repeatedly from adults that it can't be done or it's just their imagination.

For pet owners, she said animal communication is particularly helpful in cases where an animal is sick or dying and the owners are wondering whether it wants to be put to sleep.

It also commonly helps cat owners who are planning to move and fear the change will disturb their persnickety pets. Letting the cats know what's ahead will help them adjust.

"Communication increases awareness between the owner and the pet," Benedict explained. "It's all about relationships — seeing in a different body a soul that's every bit as knowledgeable as my soul."

A belief in reincarnation underlies Benedict's experience. She said she has communicated with insects that were human in past lives. One former client said she and her pet were butterflies together in a former life, and Benedict said her Siamese cat named Amy Sue had been a grasshopper just before.

When Amy Sue was a kitten, she'd make amazing extended leaps through the air, and she confessed to Benedict through a communicator that she was embarrassed over the hard time she was having adapting to the new cat body she inhabited.

Benedict believes animals are actually more in touch with their spiritual cores than humans, and this is another reason she believes it's critically important for people to start listening to what animals have to say. She views her pets — three dogs and two cats — as important teachers in her life.

And because of her deep respect for animals, Benedict will not help clients locate lost animals, as some other communicators do, because she believes animals deliberately separate from their owners for various reasons.

"If I step in and try to find an animal when it doesn't want to be found, I'd be going against the will of the animal," she said. "It's all about respecting animals and not thinking you're above them."

Reporter Roberta Stauffer may be reached via email at roberta.stauffer@mtstandard.com.