Clairvoyance

Many of us probably wished we had some degree of clairvoyance. Think of the all the problems we would be able to anticipate and prevent only if we could be clairvoyant. Unfortunately, in our modern understanding of clairvoyance, only “special” people have this capacity and therefore, only they can “see” more that what meets the eye.
In our lives, we do meet individuals who sense more, sometimes they say they see, other times they hear, and other times, it is more of an overall experience. In reality, most of us have an experience like this at sometime or the other. We call it gut feel or hunch or even intuition. What it seems to indicate is that possibly, just possibly, we might experience the world in a much broader sense then we normally do through the five senses. I remember reading something once which said the humanity generally experiences the world primarily through sight. However, this accounts for less than 10% of the total experience. When we see how much visual bombardment we endure on a daily basis, we can also understand why sometimes, we need to take a rest and not see. We’re just too tired.
But what does all this have to do with clairvoyance? Looking at the word, it is possible to see two words in this one word. The first is “clair” which is related to clarity and means clear. The second part of the word is “voyance” which, with a stretch of the imagination, is related to “voyeur” which means seer or the one in the act of seeing. So it is also possible to understand clairvoyance as meaning “clear seer” or one who sees clearly. This only raises more questions. What does it mean to be a clear seer? And what is it that they see? Let us look at a practical example.
I was in a school meeting once and was asked by a fellow parent why a certain “religious” painting was placed in the classroom considering that the school was secular. The painting was there and I picked it up and showed it to all the parents and asked them what did they see. Right away many blurted out that they saw the Madonna and child, that they saw angels, etc. Of course, it didn’t help that many knew the title of the painting. So I repeated the question and asked them to tell me what they saw. By this time they thought I had lost the few marbles I had in my head because the answer was obvious. Then I asked them how did they know it was the Madonna? How did they know that these cute chubby looking kids were angels? How did they know or is that what they saw? What became clear to them was that there were several experiences occurring at the same time. They physically saw the painting. They called up memories and compared these with the painting. They formulated conclusions that it was a Madonna, it was the Christ child, they were angels. They also actually saw a painting of what appeared as a female holding a child floating in the clouds, and so on but no one actually said that this is what they saw. Following the exercise, we returned to the original question. What makes the painting religious as opposed to spiritual? Everyone had a particular feeling experience when they saw the painting as well and no one even brought this out. It was only slightly reflected in their tone of voice. In other words, there was more to the experience of seeing this painting then simply saying it is religious. So what happened to all those other experiences? Were they forgotten or were we all simply blind to them? Did we see clearly or were we happy to see what we had as memories? Tough questions. Is it possible that what we see is only what we want to see and not what we really see? Is it possible that this is similar to prejudging something? If we prejudge, is it safe to say that we are prejudiced?
The exercise is not meant to deny the application of our memory to our daily experiences. However, the exercise underscores how limited our view, our sight, of the world could be. Imagine the old days when people could not read and they depended on pictures, paintings in churches to tell them the story of the Bible. Can we even try to imagine what they saw? For them every detail, every plant, every color on clothing, every gesture of every image spoke volumes. To us, it’s just a painting and we apply our own experiences of beauty to experience it. What happened to this capacity see clearly what is in the painting?
Is it possible that clairvoyance was a capacity to see the world clearly, unclouded by alternative imagery and prejudice? If this is so, then all of us could be clairvoyant; we have simply forgotten. Modern life has filled our world with visual images, often even replacing our own memories. Our daily experiences are so full that we choose to ignore some just to get through the day. But do we ignore the correct ones? Often we choose to let our daily experiences “be responsible” by saying we have to no choice to do a certain deed because the circumstances force the situation. When this happens, and when we have no choice, we cannot be responsible. But what did we really see that made us say we had no choice?
On office mate once asked me how is it possible that I can leave the office early. I said, “Its simple. I pack my bag and walk out the door.” Of course they thought I was joking and they repeated the question. I gave the same answer. Then the question of responsibilities arose. I said, by choosing to pack my bag and walk out the door, I have also decided to be responsible for the consequences of my decision.
Our daily lives are full, crowded, stressful. We do need to be clairvoyant, to see clearly what happens and to try to understand the experiences we encounter. We need this to know what is important for the moment so that we can still the other images for just an instant. Then we can cope and be responsible for all our actions. And it is possible. Then, we can all go home early.