The five "clairs": Identifying and developing psychic senses

Remember learning about the five senses as a schoolkid?  Psychic ability is often considered to be a sixth sense, and that's one way to think of it.  But there is a more precise construction, which posits five psychic senses that correspond to the five physical senses.  These are sometimes called "the five 'clairs,'" after the French word stem that they all share.  Today, we're going to define all five, and discuss how they're used and different ways to develop them.

Clairvoyance ("clear sight").  Clairvoyance is the ability to see objects remotely, or to receive other true visual impressions through visions or dreams. Clairvoyance is probably what comes to mind first when people think of psychic abilities.  This makes sense, because for most of us, sight is the sense we rely on the most to navigate the world.  There are many sub-categories of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyant information most often comes spontaneously, through brief flashes of mental pictures.  The skill of a trained remote viewer is a very focused kind of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyant ability is what allows certain people to see auras and subtle energy, spirits, elementals, and other discarnate beings.  We can even classify mystics and religious visionaries as clairvoyants, if we're willing to venture that the realms they access have some external validity.

Some clairvoyants see things with their physical eyes open.  Some see them as mental images or behind closed eyes.  Some can receive images at any time; others get visions only in a trance or dream state.  (No way is better than another.)  Visions vary in intensity, too.  They can be as crisp and colorful as a movie, or lack detail, color, definition or motion.

Clairvoyance and other psychic gifts are almost certainly inborn, to some extent--but it is also possible to strengthen and develop your abilities through practice.  Clairvoyance is traditionally linked to the third eye chakra, so try searching for practices designed to stimulate and develop it.  (Too many to cover here.) Visualization exercises are a great way to improve the clarity of your visions (and enhance dreaming and artistic ability, besides).  And of course, if you're ready for it, scrying is one of the best ways to learn to awaken and control clairvoyant functioning at will.

Clairaudience ("clear hearing").  Clairaudience, or psychic hearing, is a gift that is similar to, but distinct from clairvoyance.  Clairaudients can hear sounds playing elsewhere, or receive spoken messages from beyond the range of normal hearing.  Have you ever sat down next to a friend, and "heard" a song playing, only to find out she had that song stuck in her head?  That's one example of clairaudience.  (All five of the "clairs" can involve telepathic contact, but "hearing" the thoughts of others in proximity to oneself is one of the most common forms of telepathy.)  Some, but not all mediums have clairaudient abilities that allow them to hear spirits' voices.  (Mediums who are clairvoyant, but not clairaudient, prefer to communicate through symbols and gestures.)

Clairaudients sometimes report hearing ancillary sounds, such as ringing or buzzing, that accompany the onset of psychic hearing.  Sometimes there is speech that isn't easily discernible--a murmur just outside of the range of hearing, or several voices speaking at once.  This is said to be most common when clairaudience is undeveloped or just awakening.

Needless to say, the process of developing or discovering clairaudience can be disorienting and frightening.  I suppose this is true of all psychic perceptions, but more so with clairaudience because the experience can be so similar to symptoms of mental and physical illnesses.  Of course, diagnosis of these ailments should be left to the professionals, and you should get help if you're concerned about your health.  However, if you find that strange audio perceptions occur when you're feeling spiritually open (e.g. during meditation or when you're around new people and places) and not the rest of the time, that may help rule out the more mundane causes.

People with clairaudient gifts can focus and improve their abilities through the process of sound scrying.  Similar to visual scrying, a device--a seashell or glass held to the ear, rushing water, or a white noise generator--helps creates a blank space of sound through which clairaudient impression can manifest.  Automatic writing is another way to learn to focus the flood of words into a usable stream.  Clairaudience is linked to the throat chakra, so again, you could try searching for practices to stimulate and strengthen that psychic center.

Clairsentience ("clear feeling").  Clairsentience has got to be the most common psychic phenomenon. Who hasn't had a bad feeling about a person or place, that later turned out to be completely correct? Clairsentience covers a broad range of bodily sensations that provide with information about people, places, and decisions.  This information comes through in the form of tickling or tingling sensations, changes in temperature, and pleasant or unpleasant "gut feelings."  The ability to experience intuitive leaps without any sensory information has another name, claircognizance--but mind and body are so closely linked that this distinction is mainly theoretical.  Both clairsentient and claircognizant folks describe the phenomenon of "just knowing" things, without being able to describe where this knowing comes from.

Some clairsentient people are sensitive to the energy of places or objects--they may have trouble remaining around places that have a buildup of negative energy, without necessarily being able to say why.  Clairsentients who pick up on the emotions of people and animals are also known as empaths.  Often, the pain or emotion an empath's body picks up from others can seem so real, it's hard to separate from their own experiences.  This isn't reserved for the extraordinary few.  Anyone who's ever had a close physical relationship--as a parent, as a lover--has experienced an intermingling of energies at least bordering on clairsentience.

Clairsentience is probably the most widespread of the psychic gifts--it would seem that nature has endowed all conscious beings with the ability to "feel" danger, and also to experience connection with others.  But because it's so subjective, it can be hard to learn to trust hunches and feelings.  One really "out there" clairvoyant experience is usually enough to convince someone of the reality of psychic abilities, but clairsentient experiences tend to be less evidentiary.  Clairsentient awareness builds over time, as you learn what different feelings mean to you, and as you gather that your impressions are usually correct.

Clairsentience is associated with the heart chakra (especially in the form of empathy) and with the solar plexus chakra (the source of the proverbial "gut feeling").  Dowsing (e.g., with a pendulum) can be an ideal divination method for those who have strong clairsentient impressions, but perhaps lack the visualization

Clairalience ("clear smelling").

The last two "clairs" are the least often discussed, but they can be very useful, especially as supplementary skills.  Biology tells us that smell and taste are our oldest senses, the ones connected with our animal past.  In human beings, they're somewhat atrophied.  Most other creatures routinely gather information about their environments through smell, but for us, this ability is so rare that it seems to border on the supernatural.

In folklore, clairalience is most often associated with spirit presence.  It's very common for the dead to announce their presence with a whiff of a familiar perfume or tobacco.  In the realm of ceremonial magic, scent also plays an important role.  Many spirits, gods, and astral places have fragrances that are associated with them, and the proper incense or perfume can be used either as a tool to draw them near, or as a signal of their presence.

If you want to develop your sense of psychic smell, try meditating to get back in touch with this vestigial sense.  When you smell something, you're actually taking molecules of it into your body through the air.  How weird is that?  (And yet, its an apt description of how we move through the mundane and psychic worlds alike, never isolated, always taking in and putting out stuff.)  Close your eyes and see how many smells you can discern in the room around you. You can also practice "visualizing" (or recalling) familiar smells, trying to recreate them in your mind as vividly as possible.

Clairgustance ("clear tasting").

Clairgustance is the least-discussed of the five "clairs"--I've never met anyone who claims to be a gifted third-generation clairgustant.  I once heard a phone psychic describing the experience of tasting the peanut butter sandwich one of her clients had been eating before the call--but that's the only example I can think of.  Taste and smell are very similar, biologically speaking, so I would imagine that anything said about clairalience would also apply to clairgustance.

In conclusion, I'd like to point out that this discussion of the five "clairs" is meant to be helpful for identifying and exploring a variety of psychic gifts.  Obviously, these categories are somewhat arbitrary and the boundaries are blurry--so there's no point in getting hung up on them.  For instance, if you ask a question and hear the spoken answer "yes," is that clairaudience or clairsentience?  In a vision, you smell an orange so clearly it makes your mouth water--are you developing your clairalience or clairgustance?  And so on.  Have fun!