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In parapsychology, Clairvoyance is a form of extra-sensory perception in which a psychic aquires knowledge about a contemporary object, situation, or event via 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. Clairvoyance does not necessarily contain precognitive knowledge Clairvoyance is also 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 (see Parapsychology).

Clairvoyance through history

There have been anecdotal reports of clairvoyance and claims of clairvoyant abilities throughout history in most cultures. Most of these episodes are experienced during young adulthood . Often clairvoyance has been associated with religious or shamanic figures, offices, and practices. For example, ancient Hindu religious texts list clairvoyance as one of the siddhis, skills that can be acquired through appropriate meditation and personal discipline. But 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 somnambulists, people who were mesmerized and in a trance state (nowadays equated with hypnosis by most people) in the time of Franz Anton Mesmer. The earliest record of somnambulistic clairvoyance is credited to the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Mesmer, who in 1784 was treating a local dull-witted peasant named Victor Race. During treatment, Race reportedly would go into trance and undergo a personality change, becoming fluent and articulate, and giving diagnosis and prescription for his own disease as well as those of others. When he came out of the trance state he would be unaware of anything he had said or done. This behavior is somewhat reminiscent of the reported behaviors of the 20th century medical clairvoyant and psychic Edgar Cayce. It is reported that although Puységur used the term 'clairvoyance', he did not think of these phenomena as "paranormal," since he accepted mesmerism as one of the natural sciences.

Clairvoyance was a reported ability of some mediums during the spiritualist period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was one of the phenomena studied by members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). Psychics of many descriptions have claimed clairvoyant ability up to the present day.

While experimental research into clairvoyance began with SPR researchers, experimental studies became more systematic with the efforts of J. B. Rhine and his associates at Duke University, and such research efforts continue to the present day. Perhaps the best-known study of clairvoyance in recent times was the US government-funded remote viewing project at SRI/SAIC during the 1970s through the mid-1990s.

Some parapsychologists have proposed that our different functional labels (clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition etc.) all refer to one basic underlying mechanism, although there is not yet any satisfactory theory for what that mechanism would be.

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. Clairvoyance is one of the abilities which may be gained by such discipline.

According to many Taoist and Buddhist related practises, 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 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 distracions from the true path of Enlightenment however 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' which is the central energy reservoir just below the belly button. When the practitioner learns to 'turn' it and move it as if it were a 5th 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 Buddhist practise 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 practise 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 Travelling, Pyrokinesis, Telekinesis, Levitation, Energetic Healing and Empty Force.

Science on clairvoyance

Scientific opinion appears divided regarding phenomena such as clairvoyance. As a general rule, while trained scientists may not be as likely to believe in parapsychological phenomena as the general public, they are far from monolithic in their disbelief. Surveys of this group are rare, but in their 1994 paper in the Psychological Bulletin entitled Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer Daryl J. Bem and Charles Honorton quote a 1979 survey:

A survey of more than 1,100 college professors in the United States found that 55% of natural scientists, 66% of social scientists (excluding psychologists), and 77% of academics in the arts, humanities, and education believed that ESP is either an established fact or a likely possibility. The comparable figure for psychologists was only 34%. Moreover, an equal number of psychologists declared ESP to be an impossibility, a view expressed by only 2% of all other respondents (Wagner; Monnet, 1979).

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. (To refute those who say pigs can’t talk would take but one talking pig.) 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

Why, then, are so many people predisposed to believe that ESP exists? In part, such beliefs may stem from understandable misperceptions, misinterpretations, and selective recall. But some people also have an unsatisfied hunger for wonderment, an itch to experience the magical. In Britain and the United States, the founders of parapsychology were mostly people who, having lost their religious faith, began searching for a scientific basis for believing in the meaning of life and in life after death (Alcock, 1985; Beloff, 1985). In the upheaval after the collapse of autocratic rule in Russia, there came an “avalanche of the mystical, occult, and pseudoscientific” (Kapitza, 1991). In Russia as elsewhere, “extrasensorial” healers and seers have fascinated the awestruck public. “Many people,” declared a statement by 32 leading Russian scientists in 1999, “believe in clairvoyance, astrology, and other superstitions to compensate for the psychological discomforts of our time.” (From Psychology (8th ed.) by David G. Myers. © 2007 by Worth Publishers, Inc. Used by permission.)

See also

• Parapsychology
• Ailene Light
• Seth Jane Roberts
• Douglas James Cottrell
• Anomalous cognition
• Astral projection
• Out-of-body experience
• Near-death experience
• Paranormal phenomena
• Planes of existence
• Retroactive clairvoyance
• Spirituality
• Subtle bodies
• Third eye

References

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

• "Is there ESP" by David G. Myers

1. http://parapsych.org/glossary_a_d.html Parapsychological Association website, Glossary of Key Words Frequently Used in Parapsychology, Retrieved January 8, 2006
2. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena by Dean I. Radin Harper Edge, ISBN 0-06-251502-0

• Spirituality
• Esotericism
• New Age
• Telepathy
• Parapsychology
• Psychic powers