Clairvoyance

In parapsychology, clairvoyance (meaning "clear-seeing") denotes a form of extra-sensory perception in which a knowledge about a contemporary object, situation, or event is aqquired by paranormal means. Clairvoyance is different from telepathy in that the information gained by a clairvoyant is assumed to derive directly from an external physical source, and not from another person's mind. The term "clairvoyance" is often used as a blanket term, incorporating concepts like second sight, retrocognition, and precognition, as well as prophetic visions and dreams. Colloquially, the term has also been used to refer to fortune tellers. In more scientific arenas, the ability to clairvoyantly see an object from a distance is known as remote viewing.

As with all psi phenomena, there is wide disagreement and controversy within the sciences as to the existence of clairvoyance and the validity and interpretation of clairvoyance-related experiments.

The History of Clairvoyance

Most cultures throughout history have anecdotal reports of clairvoyance and claims of clairvoyant abilities. Often clairvoyance has been associated with religious or shamanic figures, offices, and practices. For example, ancient Hindu religious texts list clairvoyance as part of one of the siddhis, or skills that can be acquired through appropriate meditation and personal discipline. Additionally, a large number of anecdotal accounts of clairvoyance are of the spontaneous variety among the general populace. For example, many people report seeing a loved one who has recently died before they have learned by other means that their loved one is deceased. While anecdotal accounts do not provide scientific proof of clairvoyance, such common experiences continue to motivate research into such phenomenon.

Clairvoyance was one of the phenomena reportedly observed in the behavior of subjects put into a trance state by the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer believed that forces he called "animal magnetism" could be manipulated to heal illness. In the 1780's, Puységur discovered a state he termed "experimental somnambulism" (later termed "hypnosis") in peasants that he had attempted to "magnetize". While in this state, patients demonstrated telepathic abilities, vision with the fingertips, and clairvoyance. It should be noted that the early magnetists believed that the telepathy and clairvoyance demonstrated by the entranced subjects had a physiological cause, and were not paranormal in nature.

Clairvoyance was a reported ability of many mediums during the spiritualist period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was one of several phenomena intensively studied by parapsychologists. The first scientific investigation of clairvoyance is often attributed to Britain's Society for Psychical Research (SPR)

From the 1930's through the 1950's, a parapsychologist named J. B. Rhine conducted some of the most well known experiments in the history of clairvoyance, many of which made use of Zener cards. Rhine determined that differentiating clairvoyant phenomena from telepathic phenomena was difficult, if not impossible, and that both may be different manifestations of a single psychic function.

Another well known study of clairvoyance was the US government-funded remote viewing project at SRI/SAIC during the 1970s through the mid-1990s, where clairvoyance was investigated as a means of aquiring covert knowledge about enemy operations.

Types of Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance is often broken into three main catagories: precognition, retrocognition, and spontaneous clairvoyance. Spontaneous clairvoyance refers to the ability to see an event while it occurs, no matter how far away it may be. Precognition refers to the ability to view events before they happen, and post/retro-cognition refers to clairvoyance of past events.

Within these catagories, additional terms are often employed. For example, "clairsentience" refers to information clairvoyantly obtained primarily by means of feeling. With "clairaudience", information is acquired through paranormal auditory means. This may include both "impressions of sound", or thoughts of words and phrases, as well as actual perceptions of sounds that are not apparent to others or any recording equipment. Clairaudience may be positively distinguished from the voices heard by the mentally ill by the revelation of information otherwise unavailable to the clairaudient person through normal means (including cold reading). Other terms, such as "clairalience" (psychic knowledge obtained through the sense of smell), and "clairgustance" (knowledge obtained through the sense of taste) are less commonly used.

Scientific Investigation

As with most other psi phenomena, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the scientific investigation of clairvoyance. Parapsychologists claim that numerous studies have produced favorable results significantly above chance, and that meta-analysis of these studies dramatically increases the significanct of these results. Critics, on the other hand, call parapsychology a "pseudo-science", and claim that experimental protocol is often flawed, statistics are not handled properly, and that any result that differs from the expected value of chance does not necessarily prove anything more than a chance devation.

Clairvoyance was studied by parapsychologist Rhine using both Zener cards and ganzfeld experiments.

Parapsychologists claim to have discovered some interesting attributes of clairvoyance. Remote viewing experiments, for example, indicate that "right-hemispheric" functions, such as discerning shape, color, form, or texture are easier to do clairvoyantly than "left-hemispheric" functions, like reading words or numbers.

Parapsychological research studies have produced favorable results significantly above chance, and meta-analysis of these studies increases the significance to astronomical proportions. For instance, at the Stanford Research Institute, remote viewing experiments undertaken between 1973 and 1988 were analyzed by Edwin May and his colleagues in 1988, and the odds against the results being due to chance were more than a billion billion to one. The SRI results were replicated at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory. (Radin 1997:91-109)

Skeptics contest, however, that if clairvoyance were a reality it would have become abundantly clear. They also contend that those who believe in paranormal phenomena do so for merely psychological reasons. According to David G. Myers (Psychology, 8th ed.)

The search for a valid and reliable test of clairvoyance has resulted in thousands of experiments. One controlled procedure has invited “senders” to telepathically transmit one of four visual images to “receivers” deprived of sensation in a nearby chamber (Bem & Honorton, 1994). The result? A reported 32 percent accurate response rate, surpassing the chance rate of 25 percent. But follow-up studies have (depending on who was summarizing the results) failed to replicate the phenomenon or produced mixed results (Bem & others, 2001; Milton & Wiseman, 2002; Storm, 2000, 2003).

One skeptic, magician James Randi, has a longstanding offer-now U.S. $1 million-“to anyone who proves a genuine psychic power under proper observing conditions” (Randi, 1999). French, Australian, and Indian groups have parallel offers of up to 200,000 euros to anyone with demonstrable paranormal abilities (CFI, 2003). And $50 million was available for information leading to Osama bin Ladin’s capture. Large as these sums are, the scientific seal of approval would be worth far more to anyone whose claims could be authenticated. To refute those who say there is no ESP, one need only produce a single person who can demonstrate a single, reproducible ESP phenomenon. So far, no such person has emerged. Randi’s offer has been publicized for three decades and dozens of people have been tested, sometimes under the scrutiny of an independent panel of judges. Still, nothing. "People's desire to believe in the paranormal is stronger than all the evidence that it does not exist." Susan Blackmore, "Blackmore's first law," 2004.

Developing clairvoyant abilities

Current thinking among proponents of clairvoyance posits that most people are born with clairvoyant abilities but then start to subliminate them as their childhood training compels them to adhere to acceptable social norms. Numerous institutes offer training courses that attempt to revive the clairvoyant abilities present in those early years.

Another school of thought claims that our "sixth sense" grows when we do spiritual practice. With regular spiritual practice done according to basic spiritual principles we increase our "spiritual level" and are able to perceive and experience the "subtle world" to greater degrees.[1] Clairvoyance is one of the abilities that may be gained by such discipline.

According to many Taoist- and Buddhist-related practices, abilities such as clairvoyance and many other 'supernormal' abilities are by-products of spiritual awakening and the elevation of human consciousness. Integral to spiritual and mind expansion is breathing meditation. The vast majority of people only normally use one-third of their brains and one-third of their lungs. In Taoist and Buddhist thought this is not a coincidence. By expanding lung capacity and learning to use the lungs as a 'bellows' to push qi (Chinese: meaning "air") around the body and open the energy channels we also naturally expand the mind and elevate consciousness. This is how these seemingly miraculous powers develop, though they are not truly miraculous. They are believed to be latent abilities that everyone possesses but need 'waking up.'

Such abilities in some schools of thought are considered distractions from the true path of Enlightenment and can lead to the practitioner falling off the true path. The re-discovery of these energetic abilities relies on the activation of the 'Dan Tien' (Chinese: meaning "pubic region") that is the central energy reservoir just below the navel. When the practitioner learns to 'turn' it and move it as if it were a fifth limb then qi can begin to be pushed around the body. The Dan Tien is strong as a baby but quickly slows to a crawl as one ages. A major part of Taoist and Chinese Buddhist practice is learning to activate the Dan Tien once again. This may also explain why such abilities are a bit stronger as a child and quickly disappear as one ages but can be awakened again at any time by the proper practice of arts such as Nei Gong and Qi Gong to expand the mind and spirit. There are many abilities that can be developed in this way ; telepathy, prediction, astral travel, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, levitation, empty force, and energetic healing.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• "What is Sixth Sense" by Spiritual Science Research Foundation

• "Is there ESP" by David G. Myers

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