Psychic Abilities / Intuitive Abilities
My intention in writing this article about types of psychic abilities is that it will:
help you recognize ways you are already receiving intuitive/psychic energy impressions
describe more possible ways you can receive this information
inspire you to develop your natural abilities to include ones that you usually don’t focus on
encourage you to reach beyond the limitations inherent in any kind of naming or labeling (spiritual experiences are often difficult to describe, and can mean different things to different people)
demystify and be one more resource that helps to dissolve any possible fear related to intuitive/psychic experiences (fear influenced by messages of the media, entertainment industry and our culture at large)
With an open mind (and heart), intuitive/psychic information can show up in countless ways!
Physical vs. Spiritual Realm Experiences
For interpreting physical-level experiences, there are the five sense of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. If you want, you can choose to be more aware of one or more of these senses to “take in” an experience more fully. Like when you are eating your favorite meal and want to savor every mouthful, or are taking in the “sights” of your favorite vacation spot, or are smelling your way through a garden filled with fresh, ripened roses.
With the more inner-focused spiritual realm, there are different types of psychic abilities available to us. Developing and using these natural intuitive/psychic abilities can help us with interpreting, clarifying and expanding our experiences far beyond our five physical senses alone. Chances are you have already identified some of these abilities yourself! You might have also noticed that there are many different ways that people have named and categorized types of psychic abilities. The names are not important-the experiences are.
The "Clairs"
Some types of psychic abilities have names that begin with “clair,” which means “clear” in French. They are named to specify the way you are sensing or receiving information spiritually.
There is a correlation between which physical-level five senses you usually use the most, and which of the related ”clair” types of psychic abilities you usually use the most. This doesn’t mean you can’t choose to develop the other “clairs.” It’s just that it might be easier and inspire you the most to first strengthen the “clairs” you already use most naturally.
The “clairs” are:
clairvoyance (clear seeing, or psychic vision)
clairaudience (clear hearing, or psychic hearing)
clairsentience (clear feeling/sensing or psychic feeling/sensing, including clairempathy)
clairtangency (clear touching or more commonly, psychometry)
claircognizance (clear knowing or psychic knowing)
clairgustance (clear tasting or psychic tasting, sometimes also called clairambience)
clairalience (clear smelling or psychic smelling, sometimes also called clairscent)
Clairvoyance
Psychic Vision
During your day, do you usually pay the most attention to how things look? If so, you probably are most open to a visual perspective and clairvoyance, or psychic vision. You may remember or learn things best with visuals (as opposed to, for example, being told something new).
Some other things that could indicate psychic vision: having vivid dreams, visions, mental images and mini-movies that flash in your awareness; seeing the colors of the energy fields around people, plants, and animals; having an amazing sense of direction; easily visualizing solutions to problems; and/or being really good with visual-spatial problems, like rearranging furniture or even loading the dishwasher.
A couple of years before we welcomed our (now fully in Spirit - I don't believe in death) Miniature Schnauzer into our lives, I had a clear vision of her eyes-the exact color, softness and sparkle. I didn’t know the meaning of this vision until I saw and “recognized” our new friend at the local pet store.
My vision was an example clairvoyance, psychic vision, that involved precognition. I was seeing the future. Clairvoyance also clarifies and illuminates the truth in the present (the most common) and the past (also called postcognition). Precognition and postcognition experiences can also involve other types of psychic abilities, such as clairaudience or clairsentience.
By the way, the word clairvoyant is often used to indicate using all of the types of psychic abilities. If someone is called clairvoyant, it may mean they use other types of psychic abilities as well as clairvoyance.
Clairaudience
Psychic Hearing
Are you someone who really zeroes in on sounds, tones, what is said, rhythm and music?
When taking tests in school and trying to recall the right material, did you do best when you remembered hearing the teacher’s voice explaining the information (as opposed to recalling seeing the information in your notes)? Do you sing, play musical instruments or compose music? Can you easily hear when someone is lying to you?
If so, you might be more open to an auditory perspective and clairaudience, or psychic hearing.
Perhaps you have had experiences of hearing on the radio (or in you mind) the perfect song with the perfect message at the perfect time. Or hearing a still, small voice within (or from outside your body) with the answer to your question (always with a loving, positive conveying of information if it is coming from the bigger Spirit part of you!). Or overhearing the exact thing you need to hear from someone else’s conversation. Or picking up on thoughts of people around you or in your life (called mental telepathy).
One clairaudient experience I had when I lived in India involved overhearing someone else’s conversation. The thing was, I heard the answer from their conversation in English while their conversation was taking place in Hindi, a language I recognized but didn’t know beyond a very few words. With Spirit, there is no language barrier!
Clairsentience
Pyschic Feeling/Sensing
If you tend to focus most on how things physically and emotionally feel to you during your day, chances are you are most open to a feeling or sensing-based perspective and clairsentience or psychic feeling/sensing. What you remember and learn most easily is probably associated with emotions you felt and perhaps a physical or kinesthetic (having to do with awareness of your body’s position, balance or movement) experience.
Of all of the types of psychic abilities, clairsentience is often the first and easiest to develop when you open more to perceiving beyond the five senses. It’s intuitively sensing energies coming from the environment, other people and animals and from the Spirit realm, and it is felt in many ways.
You might have physical symptoms or signals that you come to associate with positive or negative situations. Like feeling really peaceful, happy, or like you have butterflies in your stomach with a positive situation. Nauseated and tense (stomach, back, forehead, jaw) may come to indicate a negative situation. Or you may have a gut feeling or hunch about someone or something. Or a sudden impulse to do something you wouldn’t usually do, that results in a welcome surprise or something you’ve wanted.
The experiences of an intuitive/ psychic empath would also be considered clairsentient as far as the types of psychic abilities go. These experiences are sometimes called clairempathy, and involve the ability to sense and feel the emotional experience (and sometimes physical symptoms) of a person, group of people, place or animal(s). This can feel overwhelming at times if the empath is unaware of what is happening, is energetically ungrounded, if they feel like they have no control over their experience or are not skilled in dealing with it. Skilled empaths can enjoy these expanded perceptions as inspiring and deeply moving when they learn to honor themselves with personal energetic boundaries around these experiences and ways to focus their awareness/energy.
Clairtangency
Receiving Impressions
Another form of clairsentience is clairtangency, most often called psychometry. It describes the experience of receiving information or impressions about a person, place, animal or event as a result of your sense of touch. It is one of the easiest of the types of psychic abilities to open up to experiencing more.
Developing the ability of psychometry can assist you with developing all types of psychic abilities. The impressions received through touch can be experienced as clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairempathy, claircognizance, mental telepathy, clairgustance or clairalience.
All of this through touch! A hug, a handshake, brushing up against someone, sitting in a chair used by someone else, holding someone else’s jewelry, article of clothing or handwritten letter could all illicit psychometric impressions.
Of course, it’s important to tune into and share psychic/intuitive impressions only when it benefits others and with their permission. This permission could be verbal, or through intuitively asking their higher self/Inner Being and receiving a clear “Yes,” as in the case of children or those beings unable to verbally communicate with you.This honors the energetic boundaries of others.
Clairgustance and Clairalience
Pyschic Tasting & Smelling
Clairgustance (or psychic tasting) and clairalience (or psychic smelling, sometimes also called clairscent) are psychic abilities that are less commonly experienced. With clairgustance, the tasting of the essence of a substance or food occurs without anything that could cause the taste being in your mouth. And with clairalience, the smelling of a substance or food occurs without anything that could be the cause of the fragrance or odor being in your physical presence.
So clairgustance and clairalience are types of psychic abilities where you receive and interpret intuitive/psychic taste and smell impressions that can hold specific meaning for you.
Some mediums, communicating with the spiritual consciousness of others (in physical or nonphysical form) may experience smells or tastes associated with those they are communicating with. Examples would be smelling cigar smoke or specific perfumes, or tasting favorite foods.
On two different occasions, when thinking about something related to a spiritual teacher and mentor of mine (who is very much alive), I suddenly smelled the sweet, strong smell of jasmine. This is her favorite scent. I didn’t have jasmine anywhere in my house at those times. I know the clairalient experiences signified my connection with her spirit. And the timing was also significant for me.
An example of a clairgustant experience I had when I was pregnant was for the purpose of guidance. I woke up with a clear dream about eating steak with friends. This was strange for me, since I had at that time been vegetarian for about ten years.
For a long time after I woke up, I was still clearly tasting the delicious steak. When I used my intuition to tune into this I got that I was anemic-which was later validated by my medical practitioner. It turned out my body was needing the iron in the steak. The continued clairgustant taste of steak was guidance. And yes, I did then have steak!
Claircognizance
Psychic Knowing
Claircognizance (or psychic knowing) and all other psychic abilities make perfect sense considering who we really are. A small part of who we are has expression physically here on Earth. And the bigger part of who we are is nonphysical, our spiritual Source within. All types of psychic abilities give us access to communication with our nonphysical Inner Beings.
So with claircognizance, you are receiving wisdom and information from your Inner Being, in the form of ideas, concepts, and thoughts that suddenly come into your mind. With your receptivity, you have access to information you didn’t have before, in much the same way as a computer does once it’s finished downloading something. The skill comes in knowing what is claircognizance and what is your own mind chatter.
Have you ever known how to fix or assemble something, without instructions or any experience with the design of the thing? You just somehow know with certainty. Or have you ever had ideas about a new, timely invention?
Or have you ever written, said or otherwise expressed new ideas or explanations about something you had not even thought about before? Or a totally new approach to some problem, whether personal or professional, coming to you from out of the blue? Do you ever just know exactly how a brand new relationship you or someone else is having will turn out-and then you are right? All claircognizance.
In my first year of college, I had a claircognizant experience that saved my life. The intoxicated driver of an 18-wheeler truck didn’t notice my car as he began to cross the highway directly ahead of me. My mind went blank. Then in a split second, I just knew how and when to turn my steering wheel, which I immediately did. Following this guidance exactly kept the main impact from crushing my driver’s door and me. My car was spun around up in the air. And I walked away from my totalled car without a scratch! Talk about appreciation and awe!
Remember, it’s not a question of whether or not you are intuitive/psychic, but rather how you are already using your extrasensory perception. So, which psychic abilities did you feel most familiar with in this article? Identifying this is a great starting point to experiencing communication with the bigger Spirit part of you even more!
I would also like to recommend a book for those of you who are interested in learning more about your natural, psychic gift. This is a book that I have purchased and read myself and I found it to be refreshing and informative. It is called:
The book is written by the Jamison twins, better known as the psychic twins and they really have some great tips, tricks and advice to bringing out the psychic in you. They emphasize that everyone has a sixth sense and with everything else it requires practice and understanding.