The recent controversial killing of Avni, the tigress who was allegedly a man eater, set me thinking. Given the tragic manner in which she was shot dead and the fact that she has left behind two ten month old cubs, will her soul be at peace? Very unlikely. “Aw, why are you so bothered, she was just an animal after all”, a friend interjected during a discussion . Yes, Avni was an animal, but animals too have souls. “The Egyptians believed that when the spirit of an animal is separated from its body by violence, it does not go to a distance, but remains near it. It is the same with the soul of a man who has died a violent death; it remains near the body—nothing can make it go away; it is retained there by sympathy; several have been seen sighing near their bodies which were interred.” This was written by Antoine Augustin Calmet, an Abbot monk and an 18th century Lorraine scholar of the Benedictine Order, in his Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al.
In ancient Egypt, the punishment for killing a cat was death. Buddhist monks still worship cats as living gods and earlier when Europeans arrived in Burma, they were fascinated by a Buddhist temple which was at that time the only place in the world where Burmese cats existed. In India, even today, if you kill a cat you are supposed to donate a cat made of gold to some religious institution or/and perform rituals at some holy place like Haridwar to bring peace to her soul. Don’t forget, Avni the tigress belonged to the cat family too—she was a “big cat”. Will she now haunt those who were instrumental in her killing? Its quite possible, and as an animal lover, I hope she does.
I’ve written earlier about a boy who kicked a dog to death in Delhi and was subsequently possessed by the dog’s spirit and began behaving like a dog and other stories involving animal possession—both of living humans and other animals being possessed by sad or angry animal spirits and corpses of both humans and animals being possessed by animal spirits. Like human spirits, animal spirits too possess great power, which is perhaps why they have been both feared and revered down the ages.
The Japanese believe, says Ancient Origins, that should a cat be disrespected or mistreated, its tail would split in two and the cat itself would become a nekomata, a demonic cat bent on seeking revenge. It could then raise the dead and send them to torment him. A legend that is almost world wide states that when a cat sees a person for the very first time, it sees exactly the time, the place and the manner in which that person is going to die. In addition to this, if someone does not treat a cat well, that person should fear the cat’s curse which lasts for seven generations.
Lions, leopards, jaguars, crocodiles, eagles, crows, centipedes, spiders, foxes, snakes are some of the other animals, birds and insects often associated with the paranormal. In India, the belief in Icchadhari snakes who are usually humans during the day and snakes at night is widespread. It is also said that the “snake deities, the Naga, live underground in beautiful palaces adorned only with the most precious stones and metals and they are constantly at war with the Garuda, the solar birds.”
The Greeks believed that snakes are messengers between that which is above and that which is below, that is, between the human world and the world of the dead. They became the guardians of the gates of the underworld and “they were believed to be able to mediate the contact and the communication between the two worlds…”
According to Ancient Origins, “Animals can also be haunted or, in turn, they can haunt and even possess…The most common cases of possession caused by animals were said to be those in which a man was possessed by the spirit of one or more hyenas. The human would begin to walk on all fours, roll on the floor, bite, eat raw meat and even make those guttural sounds that characterize the hyena’s laughter.”
According to Yokai. Com—Yokai by the way are strange and supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore—in Japan some kitsune or a fox spirit are able to possess human beings and cause them to behave in strange ways. Compared with other types of animal spirit possessions, kitsune tsuki is a relatively common form of possession in humans. A person possessed by a fox spirit often develops physical features that appear fox-like, such as sharper teeth or a streamlined, pointy face. People possessed by kitsune sometimes run naked through the streets, foam at the mouth, and yelp like a fox. Kitsune can speak through their hosts mouths. Victims are often able to speak and read languages that they previously had no knowledge of. Incidentally all kitsune love fried tofu and azuki beans and a possessed person will strongly crave these foods.
Just last year, the UK Mirror carried a startling story headlined “Possessed” young man hisses like wild animal and bares his teeth as exorcist “rids him of demon”. The story, written by Keyan Milanian, said the 23-year-old in Chile was filmed laughing manically, writhing and even trying to bite to the exorcist. “In a remarkable video, the 23-year-old man—said to be ‘possessed’… can be seen sitting in a chair and writhing. He shakes and screams while clenching his teeth as the older exorcist places his hands protectively on his shoulders. At one stage, his eyes bulge and he hisses and bares his teeth at those around him…The video of the process was shared online by parapsychologist Josep Riera…”
Animal souls are supposed to have the power to possess and animate dead bodies of other animals and humans as well—technically a sub-power of Meta-Possession or the power to possess anything and everything. However, they are unable to “renew” a dead body or restore any decay-related damage to a possessed corpse and such corpses may decompose at varying speeds. Science is yet to comprehensively investigate the phenomena of animal spirits and animal possession. But certainly, it has been proved scientifically that animals have “more developed senses than humans and that they are more susceptible to subtle energies and paranormal events”. Perhaps Avni the tigress will use the “more developed senses” in a spirit state as well. How she will use them remains to be seen. May her soul rest in peace soonest.