clairvoyance

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clairvoyance Part of the larger phenomenon know as extra sensory perception (ESP), clairvoyance is the ability to discern images not readily detected by the five senses. Those with this ‘sixth sense’ receive messages transmitted over both temporal distances — visions of events occurring in either the past (retrocognition) or future (precognition) — and geographic distances — events happening simultaneously but in different locations. Other terms for clairvoyance include second sight, shadow sight, prophecy, and spiritual communication. Related abilities include clairaudience (hearing inaudible sound), telekinesis (moving objects without touching them), and psychometry (determining the history of an object or its owner through handling the object). Parapsychology is the study of these abilities.

Clairvoyance is based on increased sensitivity and awareness of potential channels for communication. On some level everyone possesses the ability for prophetic sight: an inner voice warns the woman not to get on the elevator with the stranger, a man decides not to board a plane only to learn later that his flight has crashed. Often clairvoyant abilities surface during or following times of heightened stress, such as serious illness or accident, extreme physical danger, or near death experiences. A smaller proportion of the population, those traditionally thought of as clairvoyant, appear to have mastered the control of their brainpower, resulting in stronger psychic abilities.

Clairvoyant episodes can occur in a fully conscious state, or while dreaming, fasting, or using hallucinogenic drugs. Messages can also be received while the person is in a suspended state or trance. Often clairvoyants will engage in the practice of scrying; concentrating on the shiny surface of an object such as a mirror, stone, or pool of water to help visions materialize. A common image of such is the fortune-teller with her crystal ball.

While the term ‘clairvoyance’ first appeared in English in 1840, the phenomenon of second sight itself is much older. Prophetic predictions have been made for thousands of years in cultures and religions all around the globe. Aristotle wrote on prophesying through dreams. Nostradamus offered many predictions for the coming centuries. Other examples include visions by Russian, Scottish, and Japanese seers as well as numerous Australian and North American aboriginal tribal elders. In some cultures, those with second sight are called sages or wise ones. In other cases, such as Europe in the Middle Ages, such abilities bring charges of witchcraft or heresy.

Often during times of escalated conflict between scientific discovery and religious philosophy a bridge is sought for the gap between the physical and spiritual worlds, and interest in phenomena like clairvoyance, ESP, and the occult rises. Throughout Europe and North America during the second half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, numerous people advertised their services as clairvoyants and spirit mediums. Many subscribed to the belief of spiritualism, and hosting séances became a popular form of social gathering. Following World War II, interest in such activities waned, but with the approach of the new millennium interest in predicting the future increased, and clairvoyance has now gone high-tech with the help of psychic hotlines and the Internet.

Lynne Fallwell

second sight. The power to envisage events, frequently unpleasant, that have not yet taken place was widely accepted in vernacular Celtic tradition, especially in Gaelic Scotland. A person endowed with second sight might see a phantom funeral cortège passing down a road escorting a man then still robust and little expecting to die but who did die shortly afterwards. Having this power does not cause events to take place, nor does it bring any joy in seeing them. Some visions from second sight have taken place. The 17th-century Brahan Seer, Kenneth MacKenzie, foresaw the decline of the Highlands and the building of the Caledonian Canal. Even those not endowed with full powers of second sight might see an occasional ‘forerunner’, like the bright light of a locomotive at night where no trains yet existed but where a railroad line was later to be constructed. The Fenian hero Diorruing was credited with second sight. Ir. fios; ScG taibhse, dà shealladh [two sights]; Manx aa-hilley.

Bibliography

See Norman MacRae , Highland Second Sight (Dingwall, Scotland, 1908).

clair·voy·ant / kle(ə)rˈvoiənt/ • n. a person who claims to have a supernatural ability to perceive events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact. • adj. having or exhibiting such an ability. DERIVATIVES: clair·voy·ant·ly adv. ORIGIN: late 17th cent. (in the sense ‘clear-sighted, perceptive’): from French, from clair ‘clear’ + voyant ‘seeing’ (from voir ‘to see’). The current sense dates from the mid 19th cent.

clairvoyance , alleged power to perceive, as though visually, objects or persons not discernible through the ordinary sense channels. Clairvoyance may occur in a supposedly normal state (second sight) or more generally in a trance induced by various agencies, such as drugs, fasting, illness, or crystal gazing. See spiritism and parapsychology .

clair·voy·ance / kle(ə)rˈvoiəns/ • n. the supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact.

sec·ond sight • n. the supposed ability to perceive future or distant events; clairvoyance. DERIVATIVES: sec·ond-sight·ed adj.

clairvoyance XIX. — F., f. clairvoyant (in Eng. also XIX), f. clair CLEAR + voyant, prp. of voir see (see VISION).

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