concerned with healing, first and foremost.
This is not a book full of information about seeing ghoulish apparitions, holding seances, indulging in psychic espionage or being able to do supernatural party pieces. To be more precise, it does not reflect the view of psychic abilities that we may have received through the mass media. Television, particularly, has a tendency to entertain by being as thrilling, shocking or controversial as it can be whenever the subject of psychic awareness is ‘in the frame’. Fortunately this has improved in recent years as more people working behind and in front of the cameras have developed a healthier view of psychic phenomena. However, like me, you may have grown up with pantomime horror movies that were filled with images of clanking chains, seances that have gone terribly wrong or ‘spooky’ people who can look into our minds. If this has left you with any fear of developing your own psychic potential, then let that go now. What we are about to explore is completely safe and, if you choose to continue the exploration, is ultimately much more valuable and entertaining.
This is a book about spiritual evolution and positive personal development. The doors that I will help you to open can also help you on your path to greater joy, fulfilment and success, enabling you to become more aligned to your higher awareness and enhancing your essential nature. If you have an ability to see or hear people in spirit or are able to intuit what other people are thinking or feeling, then there is plenty that will support your abilities here.
Let us begin by discussing some of the main areas of psychic ability. As you read through the descriptions of these sensory areas, notice if your instincts draw you to one or two in particular. Do you already have abilities in these areas or do you have a hunch that you may be able to develop them? Read on!
CLAIRVOYANCE
Clairvoyance literally means ‘clear sight’. A person with developed clairvoyant abilities has a strong sense of inner vision, and is able to receive information in the form of visual images or symbols. Most clairvoyants receive their information internally: some describe having something akin to a cinema screen inside their head with images moving across it; others receive individual symbols that they learn to interpret. Some clairvoyants receive information externally: they are able to see people or animals in spirit, or can observe the subtle energy that circulates around themselves when they walk into a room.
Clairvoyance is a term that is often incorrectly used to apply to a wider range of psychic abilities than just the visual ability to perceive and receive information. Indeed, the language of psychic abilities is very visually-orientated. We talk about someone being able to ‘look’ into the future, and describe a person with this gift as being a ‘visionary’ or a ‘seer’. Perhaps this is indicative of the many people who have a natural aptitude for developing clear sight, or perhaps it indicates that many more people who are skilled in some other area also have a degree of developed clairvoyance.
AURIC SIGHT
Auric sight is easily linked with clairvoyance because it is an ability that also relies upon a visual sense. However, while many clairvoyants may have, in addition, a developed sense of auric sight, there are many differences between the two skills, not least in regard to the nature of the information received.
The aura is a subtle energetic emanation that surrounds all living things and, as surprising as this may seem to some, surrounds all inanimate objects too. To explain it as simply as possible, it is often described as being like a subtle electrical or magnetic energy that radiates from human beings, animals, plants, stones, machinery, buildings, household objects and anything else that you can think of. Even your favourite sofa or armchair has an aura.
Most of us feel auras even if we do not see them. It is quite common these days to talk about a person having a particularly positive aura. Aside from all of the physical information that we receive about a person’s appearance, body language and voice tone, the information that we receive from someone’s aura has a profound effect on how we feel about that person when we first meet. Some people are considered to be particularly charismatic or compelling. This is often because their aura is bright, attractive and engaging.
A person with auric sight will not only feel these subtle emanations but will also be able to see them. For some, the auric field will appear as a very subtle movement of energy or light around a person or object of focus. This can be a bit like a double or ‘ghost’ image around figures on a television set when it is not correctly tuned in to the signal. Others will see auras in this way but will also see some subtle colouration within that energy, commonly a silvery blue or grey. People with the most developed auric sight will see a full range of bright, vivid colours. Although as a child I had always seen subtle energetic fields around me, I was initially startled when, at 17, I first started to see colours in this way. Whilst alone and meditating I suddenly found that I could see colours around everything: my hands, my body, the mirror on the wall and even the bed that I was sitting upon. It was as if someone had flicked a switch and everything was bathed or surrounded with colour.
Most people who are willing to practise are able to develop some degree of auric sight, and there are many positive uses for this kind of information. If you have already experienced any of the phenomena that I have described above, you may have a strong, natural ability to see in this way.
CLAIRAUDIENCE
Clairaudience is the term used for psychic hearing abilities. It can be literally defined as ‘clear hearing’. A clairaudient person receives psychic information in the form of subtle sounds, words or ideas that are perceived and interpreted through the hearing centres of the brain. Some people report that they hear voices which give them direct information about themselves or about the needs, feelings, actions or motivations of other people. Others do not tangibly ‘hear’ in this way, they just seem to know things as if they had heard about them.
Latent clairaudients often report a range of sensations within or around their ears. Many seem to be able to ‘feel’ with their ears as well as listen. Some may have such an acute ability to hear that their ears and their temperament become oversensitive to loud, sharp or persistent noise. Their mood, attitude and health can be easily affected by the sounds that surround them, and they may actively choose to live in a silent or peaceful environment for this reason. Many more will avoid extremely noisy or discordant environments whenever possible.
Many people have a degree of clairaudience but do not recognize it as such because, like so many other psychic abilities, it has always been there. We may have always received words, thoughts or sounds of inspiration inside our mind without ever questioning their source and their precise nature. Numerous ‘good ideas’ may have originated as clairaudient messages or as information perceived through one of our other psychic senses. We sometimes expect the first stirrings of our psychic potential to be accompanied by fanfares and fireworks, and this can sometimes be the case, but often we are so used to what we can hear, see or sense that we do not particularly notice it.
CLAIRSENTIENCE
Clairsentience is particularly common, especially amongst women and children, who are still generally more emotionally based than men. As children we are all quite open intuitively and emotionally; then, as we grow, we may learn to shut out these aspects of our awareness. Boys and men still receive messages that they have to be logical and dispassionate, and that emotional sensitivity is a bad thing. Male or female, to develop good clairsentience we need to unlearn the judgements and restrictions that were applied to us when we were growing up and become more emotionally and intuitively ‘vulnerable’.
Clairsentience is a term used to define the range of senses that are operating when we get a ‘gut feeling’ about another person or a ‘gut reaction’
