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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clairvoyance | 1/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairvoyance | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:18:04.683720+00:00 | kb-cron |
Clairvoyance (; from French clair 'clear' and voyance 'vision') is the claimed ability to acquire information that would be considered impossible to get through scientifically proven sensations, thus classified as extrasensory perception, or "sixth sense". Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ('one who sees clearly'). Claims for the existence of paranormal and psychic abilities such as clairvoyance have not been supported by scientific evidence. Parapsychology explores this possibility, but the existence of the paranormal is not accepted by the scientific community. The scientific community widely considers parapsychology, including the study of clairvoyance, a pseudoscience.
== Usage == Pertaining to the ability of clear-sightedness, clairvoyance refers to the paranormal ability to see persons and events that are distant in time or space. It can be divided into roughly three classes: precognition, the ability to perceive or predict future events, retrocognition, the ability to see past events, and remote viewing, the perception of contemporary events happening outside the range of normal perception. The English connotations of seeing through time are not always present in concepts of clairvoyance in other languages. The French usage, for example, has more emphasis on spatial connotations and arises from the Latin etymology of clear-seeing/clear vision.
== In history and religion == Throughout history, there have been numerous places and times in which people have claimed themselves, or others, to be clairvoyant. In several religions, stories of certain individuals being able to see things far removed from their immediate sensory perception are commonplace, especially within pagan religions where oracles were used. Prophecy often involved some degree of clairvoyance, especially when future events were predicted. This ability is sometimes attributed to a higher power rather than the person performing it.
=== Christianity === A number of Christian saints were said to be able to see or know things that were far removed from their immediate sensory perception as a kind of gift from God, including Charbel Makhlouf, Padre Pio, Magdalena Gornik and Anne Catherine Emmerich in Catholicism and Gabriel Urgebadze, Paisios Eznepidis and John Maximovitch in Eastern Orthodoxy. Jesus in the Gospels is also recorded as being able to know things far removed from his immediate human perception. Some Christians today also share the same claim.
=== Jainism ===
In Jainism, clairvoyance is regarded as one of the five kinds of knowledge. The beings of hell and heaven (devas) are said to possess clairvoyance by birth. According to Jain text Sarvārthasiddhi, "this kind of knowledge has been called avadhi as it ascertains matter in downward range or knows objects within limits".
=== In China === The Chinese term for clairvoyance and clairvoyant is qianliyan (literally, "thousand-mile eyes"). The origin of this usage is Qianliyan, a Daoist guardian deity often depicted as a statute guarding Mazu temples in East Asia. Qianliyan's sight ability carried over to Buddhist representations, symbolizing divine faculties of seeing.
=== Anthroposophy === Rudolf Steiner, famous as a clairvoyant himself, claimed that it is easy for a clairvoyant to confuse their own emotional and spiritual being with the objective spiritual world.
== Parapsychology ==
=== Early research === The earliest record of somnambulist clairvoyance is credited to the Marquis de Puységur, a follower of Franz Mesmer, who in 1784 was treating a local dull-witted peasant named Victor Race. During treatment, Race reportedly went into a trance and underwent a personality change, becoming fluent and articulate, and giving diagnosis and prescription for his own disease as well as those of others. Clairvoyance was a reported ability of some mediums during the spiritualist period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and psychics of many descriptions have claimed clairvoyant ability up to the present day.