Clairvoyance is considered to be a paranormal term that originated in the French language. In the French language the word ‘clair’ means ‘clear’ and ‘voyance’ translates to ‘vision’, so a ‘voyant’ would be known as a visionary. Therefore, ‘clairvoyance’ translates to ‘clear vision’ and a ‘clairvoyant‘ would be known as an individual that is a ‘clear visionary.’ However, the literal translations are neither very helpful nor accurate.
The term clairvoyant is further complicated because of having been used as a reference for different things in the past. The description of someone who uses powers of clairvoyance, has been used to describe an individual who has exhibited abilities in psychic or the paranormal. A total encompassing definition which fits is that a clairvoyant has the ability to know things about an event, object, location or a person. Without using the five physical senses. They use what is considered a form of (ESP) extra-sensory perception.
For the most part, a clairvoyant only perceive extrasensory knowledge about current events. However, there have been clairvoyants who have received information about the past or the future. These cases fall more into the category of precognition or post-cognition, however.
The methods by which the clairvoyant gathers the hidden information can vary, but they usually fall into one of six major categories. Clairvoyance is probably most associated with the first form. The first form is known as remote viewing. While remote viewing, the clairvoyant is able to see a person, event, object, or location that is hidden. This usually takes the form of a visual hallucination or seeing something from within their minds eye.
The second form of clairvoyance is call clairaudience. A clairvoyant receives their information by sound. Hearing noises or voices which cannot be heard by other people or recording devices. The clairvoyant, in some cases, may hear voices of the dead. In this case the clairvoyant may cross the line into that of a medium.
Clairsentience is analogous to our sense of touch. Also called psychometry, clairsentience refers to information which comes as tactile extrasensory input. The clairvoyant may feel vibrations from people, places, events and things or even be able to feel objects which cannot be perceived by anyone else present.
Clairalience is an extrasensory ability to perceive smells. A clairvoyant will smell the scents of another place (for instance, grass and flowers in a field). These scents cannot be smelled by anyone else and come from no apparent source.
Clairgustance is analogous to our sense of taste. Clairvoyants may sometimes taste flavors at a distance or those which come from no apparent source.
The last and sixth type of clairvoyance is claricognizance. This type is perhaps the hardest one to explain and define. With claircognizance an individual somehow knows something about a location, person, event, or object and they are unable to explain how they got the knowledge. They jut know it. To some degree, claircongnizance is known as the catch-all category of clairvoyance.
There are numerous documentations of occurrences of individuals with clairvoyant abilities historically within many cultures worldwide. The instances of clairvoyance have been found in many of the worlds widespread religions.
Clairvoyance is part of the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well. In the Abrahamic religions clairvoyance is believed to be a miraculous experience granted to the clairvoyant by divine intervention. In Catholic tradition, St. Clare is believed to have had a vision of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, even though she was many miles removed from the event. In honor of this vision, the Catholic Church named St. Clare the patron saint of television. It?s a fitting assignment; after all, the word television literally means to see at a distance.
Clairvoyance in Catholicism, for instance, has been considered miraculous. More than five hundred years ago, a disciple of Saint Francis, Saint Claire, had a vision of the death of Saint Francis despite that Saint Claire was miles away when she had the vision. Saint Claire, interestingly enough, was sainted the ‘patron saint of television.’ Televisions literal meaning is ’seeing over a distance.’
Many, of course, are skeptical of clairvoyance, but it is a part of human nature to deny something?s existence because they have no understanding of it. Not long ago, in our earlier history there were skeptical scientist who had even denied the existence of electricity and magnetism.
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.
In spite of the fact that we do not really understand how clairvoyance works, is no reason to dispute its existence. It has been suggested that, in the distant past, all humans were clairvoyant. But the ability has been lost. It is though that the ability is still there, and is dormant, but can be natured and developed by anyone who wants to develop these powers.
