Clairvoyance is a paranormal term originating in the French language. In French, ‘clair’ means ‘clear’, and ‘voyance’ means ‘vision’, so a ‘voyant’ is a visionary. Therefore, ‘clairvoyance’ means ‘clear vision’ and a ‘clairvoyant’ is someone who is a ‘clear visionary.’ Unfortunately, this literal translation is neither helpful nor really accurate.
One thing that further complicates the definition is the fact that the term ‘clairvoyant’ has been used over the years to refer to different things. ‘Clairvoyant’ has gradually been used as a term that applies to an individual that displays various ranges of psychic or paranormal abilities. The definition that accurately sums up what a clairvoyant is a person that is able to know specific thins about a person, location, event, or object with a means other than the five physical sense. In summary, clairvoyance refers to the use of ESP or extra-sensory perception.
Clairvoyance usually involves a clairvoyant person knowing about something that is happening right then, but far away or otherwise out of range of their physical senses. However, there have also been documented cases of a clairvoyant knowing of something that happened in either the past or the future. Because of this, clairvoyance is considered by some to be a form of precognition, or prophecy.
The means through which a clairvoyant learns hidden information varies, but generally breaks down into one of six categories. Clairvoyance is perhaps most associated with the first form, the phenomenon of ‘remote viewing.’ In remote viewing, a clairvoyant sees a person, object, location, or event hidden from them. This sometimes takes the form of a visual hallucination, and other times as the clairvoyant ’seeing’ something in their ‘mind’s eye.’
The second form is called clairaudience. In clairaudience, the clairvoyant gets their remote event information by sound. They might hear noises or voices that people and recorders are unable to hear. There have been cases where the clairvoyant hears voices of the dead. In this case, the phenomenon could cross the line into mediumship.
The next kind of clairvoyance is known as clairsentience. With clairsentience the individual is able to gain knowledge of remote events through touch and feeling. There are cases that have taken the form of feeling and actual object that is not really there. In other instances it is more of a feeling or a vibe that is felt from locations, events, and people that are remote.
The fourth type is clairalience. In clairalience, the person gains knowledge of remote locations and events through their sense of smell. For example, they may smell the grass and wildflowers of a spring meadow, followed by gunpowder and the tang of blood. Of course, no one else around can smell these things, and there is no apparent source for the various scents.
The next and fifth type of clairvoyance is known as clairgustance. In clairgustance a clairvoyant with an empty mouth is able to taste different flavors even though there is no obvious source. These clairvoyants are able to precisely describe the different taste of things from a distance.
The sixth and final form of clairvoyance is claircognizance. This is perhaps the most hard to define or explain. In claircognizance, a person knows something about a remote person, object, location, or event, but can’t explain how they gained that knowledge?they just know it. To some extent, claircognizance is a catch-all category of clairvoyance.
There have been many documented occurrences of people who are clairvoyant throughout history from different cultures around the globe. Instances of clairvoyance have also been incorporated into some of the world’s most widespread religions.
In Buddhism for example, clairvoyance is considered of the six special senses humans are capable of at advanced levels of meditation. In this case, it refers to being able to feel vibrations put out by other people.
Among Catholics, clairvoyance is often considered miraculous. Over 500 hundred years ago, Saint Claire, a disciple of Saint Francis, had a vision in which she witnessed the death of Saint Francis, even though she was miles away at the time. Interestingly, the Catholic Church made Saint Claire the patron saint of television. ‘Television’ translates to ’seeing over a distance.’
Of course there are people that are skeptical of clairvoyants. It is normal human nature for individuals to deny that something exists just because it is not understood. For example, even the existence of magnetism and electricity was denied by ’scientists’ not that long ago historically.
No matter what is said by the skeptics, no one can disprove clairvoyance and there are increasing amounts of evidence to show that there are many clairvoyants among us. In general parapsychologists, scientists and the general public are becoming increasingly open-minded and are ready to accept the reality of clairvoyance.
Despite the fact that we do not quite understand how it works, this is no reason to ignore its existence. It has been suggested that in the distant past, all humans used to be clairvoyant but for some reason lost their powers. It is thought that everybody could again become clairvoyant if they make the effort and choose to develop these powers.