IT WAS AUTUMN of 2001, and Bridget Pilloud awoke suddenly in the middle of the night.
Bridget has a medium build and wears her dyed dark red hair short and a little spiky—her style is a little hippie, a little rocker. I talked to her for a few hours and later calculated that she said “weird” about once every seven minutes.
So, she awoke in the middle of the night back in 2001, and what happened to her actually was pretty weird:
“I sat up in bed, really wide awake, and was like, ‘Why am I awake?’ And I was filled with this overwhelming sadness. I looked over at the dog bed where Beaulah, my Weimaraner, was and she was sitting up. I heard her say, ‘What did I do?'”
Bridget adopted Beaulah from Weimaraner Rescue about six months prior. Beaulah’s former owner got engaged to a girl who told him she would only marry him if he got rid of his dog. (I know.) So he got rid of the dog and married the girl.
“When I heard Beaulah’s voice I was like, ‘What?’ ‘Cause I was, you know, kinda freaked out.”
“What did I do to make him send me here?” Bridget heard Beaulah ask.
“And I was like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. He’s a jerk.’ And I just talked to Beaulah and told her we love her and we’re sorry this happened. I told her, ‘I’m sure your former owner just doesn’t realize how wonderful you are.’ We just talked it out.”
Then Beaulah went to sleep.
“And I sat there and thought, ‘Huh. That was really weird.'”
THE RELUCTANT PSYCHIC
Before becoming a full-time intuitive—which is how she describes her profession—Bridget held down a corporate job as a marketing manager. She was kind of into tarot and stuff, she remembers, but just as a hobby.
“I’m kind of a reluctant psychic,” she says, “because I’m a pretty normal person.”
“I was dragged kicking and screaming into an intuitive mindset. I didn’t really see myself as an intuitive person and was skeptical about intuitive things. Everybody I knew who was intuitive was of that sort of flaky, scarf-wearing, crystal ball, and woo-woo kind of person. I’m not that way even though I know I’m wearing a scarf right now.”
After that conversation with Beaulah, Bridget realized that she might have the ability—at least a little bit—to communicate with animals. She wasn’t a complete stranger to the idea. She’d actually hired a pet psychic a couple years before to help her other dog with a peeing problem: As in, the dog was peeing everywhere.
“She used my living room as her bathroom,” Bridget remembers. The psychic helped the dog pee outside instead of inside.
That’s the reason most people hire pet psychics—to deal with their animals’ behavioral problems; whether they have a dog that pees inside, a cat that knocks things over, or a horse that sometimes grabs his owner violently by the boob and hurls her across an arena. (For real.)
Bridget once talked to a “total OCD cat” that would walk around on top of his owner’s desk knocking over cylindrical jars designed for holding pencils, paper clips, and other office supplies.
“What’s the deal?” Bridget asked the cat.
The cat said the jars needed to be in an odd-numbered group.
“It needs to be three or five. Right now it’s four, and it’s really bothering me.”
Yep. Sounds weird. But you know what? Bridget told the owner, and after she started keeping five jars on her desk, the cat stopped knocking them over.
Still weird.
THE DOG LIKED CEREAL
In her work with animals, Bridget has become well acquainted with the “other side” and talks to quite a few dead pets. She helps people come to terms with the fact that their animals have crossed to the other side, and lets them know their animals are now happy and safe. She tells of one woman whose eight-year-old dog died suddenly of a heart attack. Bridget says all she was given was a photo of the dog, his name, and how he died.
“So I, you know, dialed him up, and he kept showing me a grocery store. Specifically a New Seasons. Like, I could see the New Seasons signage. I was like, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ And he was like, ‘You need to tell my mom that I finally got in the grocery store.’ And then he started showing me boxes and boxes of cereal, all these boxes of cereal, and he was really excited about them. I’ve had enough experience with the other side to know that you can create pretty much any reality you want up there. So he had created the reality of New Seasons and cereal. I couldn’t figure out why he was eating cereal—because dogs like meat, right? But I told his owner what he said anyway.”
“‘Omigod,’ the owner told me. ‘That’s where I shop, and he used to sit out in the car. I knew he felt bad he couldn’t go in with me.'”
Bridget then asked why the dog was showing her boxes of cereal.
“I knew for about five months before he was going to die that he had severe heart disease,” the owner said to Bridget. “So I just decided to treat every day like it was a great day. He loved cereal… so I fed him cereal every day.”
Bridget thinks animals show her these specific details because their owners need that kind of closure.
“Animals don’t fear death like we do,” she says. “They incarnate way more, so they’re kinda used to the routine.”
As far as talking to dead people, Bridget isn’t as comfortable:
“I don’t do that. I don’t do that. I have done it. I don’t like it. It feels really—I don’t know. It doesn’t feel comfortable to me.”
She pauses and thinks.
“The first time I tried it, a friend of mine’s dad had died and she asked if I could tune in, since I can tune into animals who have passed away. I wasn’t really thinking about where I was when I decided to tune into him, though. I was sitting in my bathtub, and he came through like that.” Bridget snaps her fingers.
“So I say, ‘Okay, I’m naked. And you’re like, some old dude and you need to go.'”
After that experience—being in a bathtub, covering up her naked body while in the presence of her friend’s dead father—Bridget has not been comfortable talking with deceased humans. Fair enough.
THE SUICIDAL PET
In general, cats have more existential anxiety than dogs, says Bridget. “‘Why am I here?’ and all that.” She said one of her cats, Stanley, committed suicide. He would have been eight years old this year. He got hit by a car and broke his back, leg, and hip. Bridget took him to the vet and got him fixed, but says he was never the same after the accident.
“He was very depressed. His body wasn’t the same.”
He was only a year and a half at the time, a very young boy.
“I came home and my sweetheart said, ‘You need to sit down.’ He said, ‘Stanley’s dead. He was lying in the neighbor’s driveway and she backed over him.’ I just knew he wanted out. He wanted out of that body. And I’ve talked to Stanley a little bit since then… on the other side. He’s happy over there.”
Stanley died right around the time Bridget was starting to learn how to communicate with animals.
“So I couldn’t really… I should have contacted an animal communicator.” She trails off.
A BETTER PERSON
These days, Bridget has clients all over the world and nearly 8,700 followers on Twitter (@intuitivebridge). Right now, she’s on a yearlong hiatus from animal communication in order to focus more on her intuitive work with people. She assesses the energy of people and their situations, and gives them advice about what they’re experiencing.
“I wanted to take some time to figure out other ways to help animals,” she says, “and one of the best ways to help animals is to help people to be better people.”
Bridget reads people’s chakras—vortexes that exist within bodies to receive and transmit energy. She says that when people have problems or experience trauma it can affect their chakras, so she works with those who need help… either with their personal lives or to improve their business relationships. Bridget goes in and removes the trauma, in an attempt to get their chakras balanced. She describes herself as a “chakra mechanic.”
The transition has been difficult at times. Bridget says she sometimes misses the lightness of working with animals.
“Animals are so much easier to work with than people. It’s much easier to stop a dog from peeing on a rug than to get someone to feel better about themselves.”
If you’re interested in reading more about Bridget Pilloud and her work, visit her blog at intuitivebridge.com, or her animal communication site at petsaretalking.com.
I dont know
if you can really talk to somebody’s dead animal, just kinda dial em up, would it be that much of a reach to just ask Jimmy Hoffa which interstate off-ramp he is buried in? Couldnt you ask Nicole Simpson if OJ did it?
Couldnt this person be more useful solving crimes or getting help from dead geniuses like Einstein and stephen hawking?
Stephen Hawking isn’t dead.
I can’t believe that this article even fucking exists, let alone she takes money from people and feels no shame about it.
OK, who saw the Jim Jarmusch film ‘Broken Flowers’ ??
Pet Psychic my ass.
So…are there people on the staff who believe in this stuff? Or you just think it’ll move papers?
I’m sensing something, a feeling now. A certain presence. Ah, it is Bridget herslf – in her unconcious sleeping mind – calling out to me.
Gosh, I’m a little scared by this. I didn’t choose to have this ability, but maybe by using it, I can help people out there.
Bridget is saying…. she is saying….
“THERE IS MORE MONEY TO BE HAD IN ‘TUNING’ WITH PEOPLE THAN WITH ANIMALS”
Check out her price list:
http://www.intuitivebridge.com/life-shift-…
Sure can tell she came from a marketing background.
It’s a little disgusting to see how many people just hate on Bridget and other “intuitives” without talking to them. I tried to get in touch with Georgia to talk about my experience with Bridget (full disclosure, we know each other through the twitters), but didn’t get a chance.
Bridget isn’t a psychic. At least, I don’t believe she is, I don’t believe that anybody can access the thoughts and inner spaces of another person transparently through magic. That’s just not real. What is real is that Bridget has a very keen ability to “cold read” somebody (if you want information on cold reading please look at a James Randi article about debunking some psychic or another), and from that cold read, plus a salting of information from your description of your problems or questions she asks, she generates a “reading”. This is a combination of stories or images that she uses and tunes (while talking to you) to provide a reasonable fairy tale that calls to her interpretation of your internalized issues. That’s what she does, that is the real, observable-by-science version of what she does.
What she does with that information is pretty much exactly what a traditional counselor does with gathered data. She generates a few litanies for you to read and internalize (pray or meditate, take your pick), which, hopefully, help your brain break down problems into manageable sizes. That’s it. That’s what she does. And she’s amazing at it. She’s not magic, but she has a gift for dissecting the baser worries behind your words. I am a skeptic and a non-believer, but — with the help of some strategic, “open minded” cognitive dissonance — she helped me get over some real serious compulsive worry with a smile, a warm hug, and her “psychic” reading.
Haters to the left.
I’d rather be a hater than a COMPLETE FOOL who gives money to this charlatan.
She claims to speak to animals (!!!!) and was visited in the bath by an old dead guy ??
And seeing an old dead dude in the bath, she brilliantly thinks ‘wow, don’t look at me naked’ ?? Oh, c’mon.
I’m glad you brought up James Randi, the great debunker. He’d have a field day with this woman.
Some of the drawings here in the Merc is by another fool woman who is in her ‘testimonials’. Sheesh.
I realize that stories like this, about these types of charlatans, have entertainment value. But I worry that some poor fool reading the article will think the MERC is endorsing this madness, and go off and give this woman their hard-earned money.
It’s alot cheaper to buy a self-help book.
You are just like the people who claimed that the Sun revolved around the Earth just because we didn’t yet have the instruments to prove otherwise. Cultures all over the world have access to all kinds of information that most of us in the U.S. are too fucking “scientific” to access. Does our inability to access it make it inexistent? Or does it mean we are ignorant, like a blind person claiming color doesn’t exist because he can’t see it? There are numerous anthropologists, for example Edith Turner, who have written about witnessing spirit forms while doing cross-cultural research on healing.
But actually, it is normal to be skeptical until you’ve had your own experience, so enjoy your narrow material existences until then.
I loved the article, and there are TONS of people in Portland who are into and open to spiritual healing. I thought it was well done and surprisingly respectful for the Mercury.
I dunno that the analogy about the sun revolving around the earth is such a great one to use, as it was SCIENCE that disproved it.
But hey, if you really think cats care about having odd-numbered jars on a sill then there ain’t nothing I can do for you.
In general, cats have more existential anxiety than dogs, says Bridget. “‘Why am I here?’ and all that.”
Oh, for fucks sake, please. Get real.
Besides, dogs are smarter. Everyone knows they mask their insecurity about their existence with a wagging tail. They don’t want to push their negative thoughts lazily off on people, so just act that way.
In fact, my dogs are smarter than Bridget.
Everybody deal with it. There are animals, those animals have interior monologes, and some folks, can hear it. Reincarnation. Ghosts. Wizards. All of it, happens all the time weather or not you give a shit. A sane person can still believe in all of that, and, encounter it, weather or not it agrees with your cynical perception. Being a bitchy guy on the internet does not stop any of the any of the spiritual shit from happening, or occasionally, being discussed.
If Bridget only wanted to bilk people for money, she would have stayed in the corporate world, where that is a very accessible option for an opportunist.
I know its very uncomfortable for a snark commenter to even consider, but too bad, because you just read the whole article, like a total sucker, and have been considering it since.
Science, while true, is not the only aspect of reality. Some people just straight up have other more spooky aspects of reality shoved into their purview.
Magnets, how do they work?
I’m sure your wizards make magnets work, honey.
@ Carolyn, webcomic idea: “Douche Trollington & The Case of the Missing Micropenis.”
[SPOILER: the villain is a clammy mouse.]
haha. Clearly my wizard magnets work like a MOTHERFUCKER. Now stop condescending to my vagina.
Awww…I came in here SPECIFICALLY to fuck with FrankieB and CC did it better than I ever could.
As usual.
OK, fucking with me aside (and yeah, Colin did it quite funnily) Colin and Kiala, do you seriously buy this shit?
I’ve met Bridget and she is the nicest, most down to earth persons ever. And yeah…she seems to intuit stuff really quickly so while I’m skeptical of everything I also like to keep an open mind about some things. Especially when the person is not trying to indoctrinate me into a cult and/or any kind of organized worship of a space jesus.
2 questions:
Did you pay her?
Do you believe she can talk to animals?
I’m with you on getting indoctrinated into a cult of space jesus…but….
Dude do you really think Bridget could be a Rasputin who sucks money out of everyone she meets? No wonder you are afraid of her.
Look, it ain’t about fear – it’s just that as much as I don’t like to see these ‘preachers’ on TV asking for money from weak-minded folk (usually elderly and without much money too),
I also don’t like to see people taken for a ride from anyone claiming they can talk to animals.
Did you read her conversation with the rare giant turtle in China about reproducing? Hilarious.
I’m curious why women tend to fall for this particular type of crap more than men. Look at her ‘testimonials’ – 80% are women. Why is that anyway?
I wonder if men are more willing to buy into things I did as a ignorant boy – Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle, than women?
I wonder why people who question God, the Bible, Jesus rising from the dead, parting of the Red Sea, etc, seemingly have no problem sometimes NOT questioning a womans claims to speak to animals – or any of the batty things this woman claims.
I’m sure she is a nice person. Great mom. Good friend.
But being your own boss while getting these kind of ouragous fees from people has surely got to be better than going to a corporate job everyday.
Charlatan.
Well, alot of people were falling for snake-oil at one time too. Some things never change in humanity I suppose.
Oh, this ‘intuitive’ wording seems to be a way to tone down the ‘psychic’ critisisms. But as you age, all people get more intuitive by lifes lessons and encounters with more and more types of people. It ain’t rocket science.
Oh, there was a reason to ask kiala if she paid Bridget for her time (or was it merely a social encounter?):
If she paid her, then she wouldn’t be in a position to critisize her, or else it would make her look a fool.
I’d imagine that people who felt they got ripped off wouldn’t be chiming in either.
I also asked kiala simply if she thought this woman could talk to animals, as she deftly avoided this question in her response.
Her silence is deafening now.
Enough of you telling the internet which women you consider foolish. You are the kind of ass that is not worth listening to. And that is why people do not. Enjoy mining your Foreveralonium.
I did not nor have I ever paid Bridget for anything. And yes, why not? Why can’t people talk to animals? It doesn’t hurt anyone to believe they can.
Ohhh, this is why frankie hasn’t been on that IA post about Occupy. He’s been spending all his time HERE. Did the hippies finally wear you down, Frank?
To me, some crazy woman claiming she can speak to animals is no big deal. Millions of crazies out there in the world. Or, you can say this is just entertainment of a form. No harm.
But if she is charging quite the tidy sums of cash while claiming she can talk to a beloved dead pet, then she is preying on the lost love an owner feels, and is a FRAUD.
kiala – even Koko the Gorilla had to use sign language to communicate.
This thread is so stupid. I feel like Bill Murry here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRg5-TIF9LQ
Next week in the Mercury: Why Scientology might make sense after all!
Its really easy to make fun of things that cant be proven, and might be a lie. As the client, who handed over cash dollars to Bridget, I could not be happier to have paid for that exchange. It was some of the best money Ive spent in my life. You being mad about it wont alter that exchange.
While I could never prove to anybody resistant any of the more supernatural things Ive come to embrace, Bridget is way different from Ron Hubbard in that she’s not starting a cult and she barely ever talks about aliens. Im not asking you to believe me about anything wizard, Im just asking that you allow me room to believe so, without being a giant cunt about it. I will have some strange beliefs from now on, due to the things Ive encountered in my life thus far. Im fully out of the closet about that, and I wont apologize. It doesnt make me wrong if you disagree, it just makes you a dick when you have to call other people stupid, for having tiny portions of faith. Just like George Michael taught us with his butt, long ago.
If you’re going to disparage a person’s character, put your actual name on it. Then we can enter into a real conversation.
I’m not going to talk with someone about my work if they can’t even put a name to their words. Say what you want. In your anonymous state, it means very little.
Bridget!! How is that rare turtle doing anyway? Did she finally get preggers or what?
Did you act as the turtles mid-wife too?
I enjoyed this article very much. I don’t normally post messages on boards such as this one.
I’ve been a client/friend of Bridget’s for a few years and greatly appreciate what she is able to do. Her ability to heal and bring about change for people is something she does well. I think of her as a person who could certainly have an achiever’s career in the traditional sense, but goes out and achieves in this different cutting edge way that takes courage. I suppose it is a way that is more healthful, and authentic to who she is. And turns out to be more healthful and authentic to the way a lot of people desire to be.
So making the standard jackass comment on a site such as this might be a force of habit for some people, because maybe you’re like a barking dog at an unfamiliar intruder. So take it easy, have a biscuit, take a few breaths and think about what you can take from this article. I enjoyed it!
Is a pet psychic more or less bullshit than a regular psychic?
Dr. Doo-Bridget, can you answer the question posed by manticore?
Bridget, I didn’t realize you can communicate with pets all around the world, picking up their energy! My gosh, what a talent.
How about we put you to the test?
So, if we had a quiet puppy or cat in Box 1, and another quiet puppy or Kitty in Box 2, both boxes in the same room with you even…. and you a short distance away.
How many times do you think you could correctly identify which dog / cat was in the box by communicating with them?
I’ll be willing to BET whatever sum of money you are willing to lose that you can do no better than the odds of random chance.
Not your animals, either, nor your house. Maybe the Merc would like to lend its’ office space for this test of your ability??
I mean, if I am wrong, think of the publicity opportunities!
PROVE me wrong. If you can communicate with the dead animals, read their thoughts, etc bullshit etc, you should easily be able to get one of the pets to say ‘Oh, I’m over by the bowl of water’ … the door, etc etc.
Yours truly,
frank
frankieb, It’s clear you’re spending an awful lot of time and energy on Bridget – 5 hours of posting and additional research. I’m curious, is it a crush that inspires you? jealousy? a lonely existence….?
My apologies Frankieb, looks like you’ve been following this for about 42 hours, not just 5.
I’m on a Mission to expose frauds like Bridget wherever I can, as a service to humanity.
So, all you big supporters of hers out there – let’s put it to the test then.
Will she dare to accept? Surely, with a talent like hers she has nothing to hide, right?
PROVE IT BRIDGET.
I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU.
Pretty sure she already has.
No, she hasn’t.
PROVE IT BRIDGET !!
Frankieb, of all the posts here easily HALF of them belong to you. What’s the matter, you got bored with Occupy?
Missed me?
Occupy is getting boring. Besides, I gotta help society here by exposing charlatan frauds.
Still waiting to hear back from Bridget and her followers to take me up on my challenge.
PROVE IT BRIDGET.
I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU.
In defense of Blogtown, this pet psychic stuff got zero comments when it was on the Portland Monthly blog. Not sure if it was in the print issue or not. http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/health-a…
OK, now I’m REALLY pissed. This phoney gets to meet my fave, and the cutest Go Go – Jane Wiedlin?
Life just ain’t fair.
Georgia really seems to like pushing this story.
So Georgia – why don’t you arrange for us to TEST THE ‘PSYCHIC’ at the Merc office in front of all to see and witness?
Give you all another story too. There are all sorts of ways we can test them to prove, as I believe THEY ARE 100% FULL OF SHIT.
And, if I’m wrong, I will humbly submit to any demeaning task you guys can think of.
Clean the ‘occupy’ toilets? Sure. ANYTHING.
Maybe watching James Randi debunk these idiots affected me more than I thought.
Interesting watching James Randi this morning on the subject of ‘psychics’ – the harm they can cause, and also blaming THE MEDIA (hello there Georgia) for the propagation of this foolishness.
For Bridget: Still waiting for you to BACK IT UP WITH A SIMPLE TEST.
C’mon, you know that you can’t refuse a DOUBLE DOG DARE.
Bridget, I’m amazed to read about you! A real psychic! In my hometown!
There is an amazing opportunity for you to use your psychic powers to make a real difference in this world, and it’s easy as cake.
If you can prove to the James Randi Education Foundation, in an actual scientific test, that you truly have supernatural abilities, $1,000,000 will be donated to the charity of your choice. (You could keep it too, but I’m sure you would never use your psychic gifts to make money off other people.) I’m sure many animal shelters could use a cool million, as could hungry people, underfunded schools, or whatever charity you’d like to support.
Bridget, learn more about how you can truly use your gift to make a difference here: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
One needn’t be a psychic to tell that frankieb’s heading for a coronary.
frankieb appears to be about to suffer some kind of psychotic break, but that doesn’t make the subject of this story any less of a fraud. She’s either lying to herself or lying to her customers, and neither is a spiritually healthy thing to do.
@Todd, how did you know about what happened on the Portland Monthly blog? ARE YOU CHEATING ON US WITH ANOTHER BLOG?
Todd, you slut you.
I occasionally play touchy-feely with other blogs, but I only get naked and slathered in molasses and Karo syrup with Blogtown.
Man, i think frankeib cares waaay too much about this.
So can I get this Bridget person to have a little chat with these raccoons that’ve moved in underneath my garage? I think the fat one with the long tail is up to something bad, but I don’t speak raccoonese (which sounds a lot like Italian, BTW) and am not telepathic, so I’m basically living in fear.