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Cayce maintained that we all have psychic ability and that experiences such as dreams and intuition are proof of that. He also believed that if a person had good intentions and love in their heart they would always have a steady supply of psychic power to tap into.
CEREBRAL ANOXIA
The medical term for a lack of oxygen flowing to the brain, which sometimes triggers sensory distortions and hallucinations. Some believe it to be the physical means by which phenomena such as near-death experiences and out-of-body episodes might be rationally explained.
CHAFFIN WILL CASE
An unusual case in which a father who had died appeared to one of his sons to tell him about an unknown will. Many believe that this case provides proof of survival after death, but others believe it can be explained by clairvoyance.
James L Chaffin was a farmer from Davie County, North Carolina, who had four sons. In 1905 he made a will, formally witnessed and signed, in which he left his farm to his third son, Marshall. No provision was made for the other members of his family. In 1921 he suffered a fatal fall.
In June 1925 Chaffin’s second son, James P Chaffin, started to have vivid dreams. In these he saw his father standing at his bedside. What he saw is best described in his own words, as given in a sworn statement that was taken down by a Mr Johnson, a lawyer and a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, who visited the family in 1927 to interview them about their unusual experience.
In all my life I never heard my father mention having made a later will than the one dated in 1905. I think it was in June of 1925 that I began to have very vivid dreams that my father appeared to me at my bedside but made no verbal communication. Some time later, I think it was the latter part of June 1925, he appeared at my bedside again, dressed as I had often seen him dressed in life, wearing a black overcoat which I knew to be his own coat. This time my father’s spirit spoke to me, he took hold of his overcoat this way and pulled it back and said, ‘You will find my will in my overcoat pocket’, and then disappeared.
The next morning I arose fully convinced that my father’s spirit had visited me for the purpose of explaining some mistake. I went to mother’s and sought for the overcoat but found that it was gone. Mother stated that she had given the overcoat to my brother John who lives in Yadkin County about twenty miles northwest of my home. I think it was on the 6th of July, which was on Monday following the events stated in the last paragraph, I went to my brother’s home in Yadkin County and found the coat. On examination of the inside pocket I found that the lining had been sewed together. I immediately cut the stitches and found a little roll of paper tied with a string which was in my father’s handwriting and contained only the following words: ‘Read the 27th chapter of Genesis in my daddie’s old Bible.’
At this point I was so convinced that the mystery was to be cleared up I was unwilling to go to mother’s home to examine the old Bible without the presence of a witness and I induced a neighbor, Mr Thos. Blackwelder, to accompany me, also my daughter and Mr Blackwelder’s daughter were present. Arriving at mother’s home we had a considerable search before we found the old Bible. At last we did find it in the top drawer in an upstairs room. The book was so dilapidated that when we took it out it fell into three pieces. Mr Blackwelder picked up the portion containing the Book of Genesis and turned the leaves until he came to the 27th chapter of Genesis and there we found two leaves folded together, the left hand page folded to the right and the right hand page folded to the left forming a pocket and in this pocket Mr Blackwelder found the will.
The 27th chapter of Genesis tells how Jacob, the younger brother, supplanted Esau in winning his birthright. The paper that they found was in the father’s handwriting and it read as follows:
After reading the 27th chapter of Genesis, I, James L Chaffin, do make my last will and testament, and here it is. I want, after giving my body a decent burial, my little property to be equally divided between my four children, if they are living at my death, both personal and real estate divided equal if not living, give share to their children. And if she is living, you all must take care of your mammy. Now this is my last will and testament. Witness my hand and seal. James L Chaffin, This January 16, 1919.
The will, although unwitnessed, was legally valid under the laws of the state of North Carolina, but by the time the second will was discovered the son who had inherited the farm had died and the property had passed to his widow and son. In December 1925 the three remaining sons brought a suit against them to recover their share of the estate. On the day of the trial, after the selection and swearing in of the jury, the widow and her son were shown the second will for the first time. They immediately admitted that the document was genuine, and withdrew their objections to having it certified by the court as his valid will.
There have been many explanations for this extraordinary case. Some think that James, upset at being excluded, forged a will and concocted a ghost story to back it up, but this does not explain why he waited four years, why so many people believed the second will to be genuine or why he created a ghost story. He could simply have said that he had found the will and this would have been just as plausible.
Other explanations put forward include the suggestion that James did know about the will but forgot about it until the memory was dramatized in dream form and brought back into his consciousness. It is also possible that this is an excellent example of ESP on the part of James. Finally it must be considered that a genuine apparition of the dead did appear to James and deliver information to him telepathically. As none of these explanations can be proved, the case remains inconclusive.
CHANNELLING
The process through which a medium communicates information from spirits and other non-physical beings, such as angels, deities or guardian spirits, by entering into a trance or some other altered state of consciousness.
The urge to communicate with the spirit world is as old as humankind itself. In primitive cultures certain individuals – priests, shamans or medicine people – would seek out the wisdom of the spirit world. The ancient Egyptians and Romans, as well as the early Chinese, Babylonians, Tibetans, Assyrians and Celts, all channelled spirits and entities, and holy men and women of Judaism, Christianity and Islam received divine guidance.
Divination and healing are forms of channelling, as is possession, when an entity seizes control of an individual. In the Middle Ages possession was seen as demonic rather than divine. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when spiritualism was at its height, channelling grew in popularity. The Fox sisters, three young women from New York, first brought public attention to channelling in 1848 when they announced the arrival of spirits in their séances.
One famous medium of the mid-nineteenth century was Nettie Colburn, a trance channeller whose spirit guides advised President Lincoln. Between 1861 and 1863 Mrs Lincoln called her to the White House to use her skills to advise the President on a wide variety of subjects – advice he was known to have followed. For example, Colburn channelled advice about how Lincoln could raise morale among the Yankee troops, and her advice worked.
After spiritualism declined in the early twentieth century, channelling did not receive widespread attention again until the early 1970s, when Jane Roberts published the Seth books, which were allegedly channelled to her by a non-physical entity called Seth. Channelling is no longer a hot topic, but popular interest remains to this day.
Different mediums have different ways of channelling. Sometimes it happens when the channeller falls into a sudden trance-like state, or it can be induced. Methods to induce channelling include meditation, prayer, hypnosis, fasting, chanting, dancing, breath exercises, sleep deprivation and taking hallucinogenic drugs.
Direct voice channelling occurs when another entity or personality takes temporary possession of the channeller’s body, often using voices and mannerisms different from those of the channeller. The channeller may be unaware of what is being said or done and may not recall anything afterwards. Mental channelling, the mediation of thoughts, words, images and feelings, is also done in a state of light trance, but this time the channeller is aware of the process. The channeller’s voice may or may not change, and he or she may communicate through automatic writing, a Ouija board or similar device, or even sleep or dreams. Physical channelling involves physical effects such as psychic healing, apports and levitation. In the wider sense of the term, channelling could also include intuition, inspiration and imagination, and as such it becomes a way for everyone to connect to a higher source of wisdom.
A number of theories have been put forward to explain channelling. The simplest is that channellers do actually get in touch with the spirit world. Others believe that channellers engage in deliberate fraud or that it is symptomatic of multiple personality disorder. The trouble with the latter argument is that mentally ill people do not tend to have control over their communicators, but channellers typically do. The view advanced by some psychologists is that channelled entities are not separate entities but part of the channeller’s subconscious that takes on the personality of an entity in order to express itself.
Many psychics believe that channelling is a skill anyone can learn and that it shouldn’t just be the preserve of professional mediums. It’s important to remember that everyone will have a different experience of channelling, and the insights received may come in any number of different forms. It is up to the individual to translate and interpret.
CHARISMATIC
Coming from the Greek charisma meaning a gift of grace, charismatic is a term often used to describe someone with psychic and/or spiritual gifts, which can include channelling, healing and the ability to perform miracles.
CHARLTON HOUSE
Now a municipal building but formerly a stately home, Charlton House in Greenwich, London, has been the focus of many paranormal investigations by ghost researchers.
Charlton House was built in the early seventeenth century and sold in 1680 to William Langhorne, a wealthy East India merchant, who, desperate for an heir to his wealth, married for the second time, at 85, to a woman of 17. He died two months later, in 1715, before his new wife conceived. His restless ghost is said to haunt the house to this day, still looking for a woman who will bear him a child. There have also been sightings of a servant girl from the Jacobean period carrying a dead baby in her arms, and of phantom rabbits.
During World War I the house was turned into a hospital, and in World War II it suffered much damage from bombing raids. Workers found the body of a child walled up in one of the house’s chimneys. Today Charlton House is a public library, and employees and visitors have reported hauntings, especially in two rooms on the third floor: the Grand Salon and the Long Gallery, where a rabbit hutch used to be kept.
The house has been investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena and the Ghost Club. Some unusual phenomena have been recorded, including cold spots, unexplained sounds of explosions, objects moving and mysterious voices. In late 1995 an apport is thought to have manifested during a taping for a BBC show on the paranormal. Prior to the vigil, when the lights were turned off, the room was searched. Around 11 pm an explosion was heard in the room. The lights were turned on, and in the centre of the floor was a blue and white teacup, broken neatly and arranged into a circle of seven pieces, as though laid out by someone rather than having fallen to the floor. No one could identify the cup as belonging to Charlton House. The BBC team investigated, and no evidence of a hoax was found.
Vigils continue to be held to this day, with some investigators saying they make contact with spirits. One of the most dramatic contacts took place on 30 July 1999, with members of the Ghost Club. A loud noise was heard and a test object placed in the room by the investigators, a carved wooden mushroom, flew about ten feet into the air. Again, no evidence of a hoax was found.
CHARMS
The word charm comes from a Latin word for a song or chant, but today it is associated with magic and can mean much the same thing as a spell. It is sometimes said that someone leads a charmed life, meaning a lucky or happy one. Many people also wear what they call good luck charms – talismans and amulets. Most people think particular objects are lucky, such as a four-leafed clover, a rabbit’s foot or horseshoe. Whether or not these can bring luck is controversial, but one thing is sure: if the belief is there, the chances for good luck are increased, for the power of the mind actually does the work.
In folklore the world over there are also various charms against ghosts and spirits. Crossing oneself is a simple charm to ward off evil. Various gems, stones and metals like iron are thought to possess special powers to protect against ghosts. Salt scattered across the threshold or carried in a pocket and silver amulets, jewellery and crucifixes are also considered to be protective charms.
When a person dies various rituals are thought to act as charms against ghosts. For example, some say that all doors and windows should be left open so that the soul doesn’t feel trapped. The corpse should be carried out of the house feet first, otherwise the dead person may return; and during the funeral, furniture in the house should be rearranged so that if the ghost tries to come back it will not recognize anything. Finally, it is regarded as unwise to speak ill of the dead, in case they return to haunt the living.
CHASE VAULT
On the island of Barbados there is a burial vault in Christ Church cemetery known simply as the Chase Vault. In 1807 a Mrs Goddard was buried there, followed in 1812 by Dorcas Chase, a possible suicide. When the vault was opened a month or so later to bury Dorcas’s father, Thomas Chase, all the coffins had been moved from their original places. At first it was thought that the only explanation was grave robbers, but curiously, the seal of the tomb had not been tampered with.
In 1816 there were two more burials, and in both cases, when the vault was opened, the coffins already there had been moved into different places. Most peculiar of all was the fact that the casket of Thomas Chase, made of lead, weighing 240 pounds, and virtually impossible to move by a single individual, had also been relocated. Each time the coffins were put back in their proper places and the vault sealed with cement, but again in 1819 the vault was opened and the coffins had been rearranged.
This time the governor sprinkled sand on the floor to see if any footprints would be left and pressed his personal seal into the fresh cement. In 1820 when the vault was opened again, the coffins had been rearranged; some were even flipped upside down, even though the concrete seal was undisturbed and no footprints showed. The governor eventually ordered the coffins to be removed and buried elsewhere and for the vault to be left open. On investigation no water was discovered in the vault that could have shifted the coffins, and the possibility of earthquake movement was also ruled out. The mystery of the Chase Vault has never been solved.
CHIANG-SHIH
In Chinese folklore Chiang-shih, or ‘hopping ghost’, is a combination of spirit monster and unburied corpse, which vaguely resembles a Western vampire; it comes to life and wreaks death and misfortune. The Chinese believed that an unburied corpse was a great danger because it could easily be inhabited by evil spirits.
Traditionally the Chinese would bury their dead in garments that bound their legs together, so the spirit was thought to hop instead of walk. The Chiang-shih are blind but intensely powerful, with great supernatural powers, including gale-force breath, swordlike fingernails, incredibly long eyebrows that can be used to lasso or bind an enemy, shape-shifting powers and the ability to fly.
The Chiang-shih is created when a person dies a violent or painful death or when the soul has been angered because of an improper burial or improper preparation for burial, or when improper respects are paid to the dead. Something even being buried in the wrong location can cause a person to become a Chiang-shih.
Traditionally the Chiang-shih were believed to suck the breath out of their victims. The main items used in defence against Chiang-shih are death blessings, written on yellow paper and stuck to the forehead of the deceased, garlic, mirrors, straw and chicken blood.
CHICKAMAUGA
One of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War was fought in Tennessee on the morning of 19 September 1863. Nearly 125,000 men fought at Chickamauga, and the combined casualties numbered 37,129. They compare with the 23,582 suffered at Antietam, known as the ‘bloodiest day of American history’.
The name Chickamauga is derived from an ancient Cherokee word meaning ‘River of Death’. Not surprisingly, there are several legends about hauntings there, but one of most bizarre concerns Old Green Eyes, a soldier who died in the battle. According to legend he is the ghost of a Confederate soldier whose head was severed from his body by a cannonball. Only his head was found, and his ghost is thought to roam the battlefield, moaning mournfully, searching for his body. There have been many sightings, some as recent as the 1970s, of two big, glowing eyes moving in the dark and reports of groaning sounds that send shivers up and down the spine.
CHILDREN
It is generally thought that psychic ability, often referred to as intuition or gut feeling, is natural in childhood, but as children get older they tend to lose that instinct and are taught to regard psychic experiences as imagination and superstition. Children’s minds can easily accept the existence of the non-physical, but don’t yet have boundaries of space and time and other models of perception that develop when they become adults. Their imagination is a reality to them, and they can see and comprehend things that adults no longer can do. They can cross the line into a fantasy world that adults have long since forgotten and exist in an altered state of reality that Edgar Cayce called unmanifest reality.
Anyone wanting to develop their psychic ability must start by returning to that childlike, dreamy state of mind where imaginary friends, gut instinct, make-believe, fantasy, awe of the amazing world we live in and the endless possibilities of our inner world are natural and real to us.
There are those who believe children are our real teachers and that their first task on earth is to teach adults about aspects of life they are neglecting. It may be something as simple as unconditional love or as complicated as resolving complex situations from the past. Unfortunately, many adults ignore the demands and idle chatter of children and don’t grasp this opportunity to get back in tune with themselves, missing a fabulous opportunity to learn and grow up again.
CHUREL
In India, the ghost of a low-caste woman who cannot find peace as she died in childbirth or during ritual impurity, i.e. during menstruation. Churels are thought to haunt graveyards or squalid places and take the form of a young woman with reversed feet and no mouth. They entice young men to them and hold them captive until they are old. Burying the corpse of a potential churel is said to prevent the ghost from escaping. If this fails, the area needs to be exorcized.
CIA, STAR GATE PROGRAMME
In 1972 the CIA, concerned by reports that the Soviet Union was dedicating substantial resources to what it called psychotronics – research into potential military applications of psychic and fringe science phenomena – began Project STAR GATE, a programme of psychic spying, or remote viewing. The project cost $20 million (£12 million) and lasted 23 years until the US military shut it down in September 1995.
The aim of the programme was to close the Cold War ‘psychic warfare gap’ and discover how serious a threat there was from Soviet psychotronics. Parapsychologists Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ of the Stanford Research Institute were asked to look for repeatable psychic phenomena that might be useful to military intelligence. Working with psychic Ingo Swann, the duo developed what they called ‘a perceptual channel across kilometer distances’, in other words, the ability to witness objects, people and events at a distance: remote viewing.
Initially called SCANATE, meaning ‘scan by co-ordinate’, the project required the viewer to describe what they could see at map grid references provided by the CIA. Early signs were encouraging, and the programme expanded. Also known as SUN STREAK, GRILL FLAME and, finally, STAR GATE, the programme was used to help many US military and intelligence-gathering operations over its 23 years. There were a few successes, but more than a few failures.
The team is said to have located Soviet weapons and technologies, such as a nuclear submarine in 1979, identified spies, helped find lost SCUD missiles in the first Gulf War and located plutonium in North Korea in 1994. All in all, more than 20 psychics were employed. With lives at stake, many of them found the work traumatic, some ending up in psychiatric hospitals.
The project was closed down in 1995, probably because the Defense Department lost confidence in it, but even today some psychics continue with police and government work; one assisted the FBI – clearly unsuccessfully – during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in late 2001.
CIRCLE
A symbol of oneness, completion and protection, the circle is believed to represent a sphere of personal power or psychic energy. It is often used for séances, where participants hold hands around a circular table. Ceremonial magic rites are also often performed within the sphere of a magic circle, which functions to concentrate the user’s power and protect against psychic entities. In ritual, a circle represents a holy space that protects from negative forces on the outside and facilitates communication with spirits and deities on the inside.
CLAIRAUDIENCE
The word clairaudience comes from the French and means ‘clear hearing’; it is the ability to receive psychic impressions of sounds, music and voices that are not audible to normal hearing.
Humans have been guided by their inner voices since the beginning of time. The Bible refers to the Voice of God speaking to the prophets and kings. The ancient Greeks received guidance through daimons or divine spirits that offered guidance by whispering it into the ears of men and women. The shamans of many cultures use the voices in their heads for divine guidance. In Yoga the energy centre for clairaudience is the throat area, and it is thought that when it is clear you can open yourself up to inner hearing. Great men and women in history have experienced clairaudience. For example, Joan of Arc claimed to hear the voices of her angel spirit guides St Catherine, St Margaret and St Michael. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries messages from the spirits received clairaudiently were an established part of many séances. Today clairaudience often occurs in psychic readings.
Clairaudience differs from the disembodied voices heard at séances and poltergeist cases, which are considered to be collective apparitional phenomena. It also differs from telepathy, which is the ability to read the thoughts of another person. Clairaudience can be identified in many different ways. You may hear sounds or voices that you know aren’t happening in the real world and that you know aren’t the same as your own inner voice. These voices may come when you are awake or in your dreams. They may be the voices of dead relatives or the voices of spirit guides. Besides voices, certain sounds may provide you with psychic insight. Some people hear ringing in one or both of their ears and
Tuning In: an exercise to develop clairaudient ability
If you’re a good listener, if you find certain sounds and noises unbearable and if you are good at noticing changes in tone, pitch and frequency of noise, chances are you’re more likely to receive psychic information through clairaudience. We all have some degree of clairaudient ability; we all experience those words or thoughts or ideas that seem to come from nowhere, but we tend not to recognize them or we take them for granted. You may wonder how you can tell if the voices you hear are psychic information or your own daily thoughts. One way to figure this out is to listen carefully. Your intuition tends to speak to you in a kind, loving and positive way. Self-talk tends to be harsher.
Find a place where you feel comfortable and won’t be disturbed. Sit down, relax and breathe deeply. Imagine a shield of golden light around your ears for hearing and protection. Next, imagine a tuning knob such as on a radio in front of you. With this knob you can tune your hearing to a new frequency – that of your higher awareness – where you can receive clairaudient guidance. Sense a subtle sound change as you adjust the frequency. Note whatever information you receive. You may receive very little at first, but keep trying, and after a while you may find that your ears automatically tune to receive clairaudient information whenever you focus.
believe this to be a message from the universe. Others hear music, whispers, laughter, crying, bells ringing or other sounds.
CLAIRFRAGRANCE
Often considered a form of clairsentience, clairfragrance occurs when a person smells the fragrances of those who are no longer alive, for example, the perfume of a deceased loved one when no one close to them is wearing or using that perfume, or from which the source is unidentifiable, for example whiffs of flowers or plants when none are around.
CLAIRGUSTUS
Experiencing sweet or sour tastes in the mouth that are not associated with eating or belching. Often classed as a form of clairsentience.
CLAIRSENTIENCE
The word clairsentience comes from the French and means ‘clear feeling or sensing’. It involves the ability to pick up information through smell, taste, touch, gut feeling or intuition.
One of the most important experiments to test clairsentience took place
Investigate your clairsentience
Are you an emotional person? If so, what moods do you feel? Can you feel the moods of other people and animals? Can you feel the moods of specific locations or from objects? Can you feel the moods of spirits who have died with unresolved issues? Do you feel emotions about certain events in history and don’t know why? Do you feel the emotions of friends or family or people close to you? Do you ever get a gut feeling that you should contact someone immediately? When you touch something or someone, do you get a rush of feelings? Do you sometimes experience physical sensations such as warmth or cold for which there is no external cause? Do you often have gut instincts about people or places you know nothing about? The following exercise is a fantasy meditation that is designed to stimulate clairsentience – your awareness to sense, read and respond to the feelings and atmospheres around you.
Find a quiet place and sit down in a comfortable position. Breathe deeply, and imagine you are a beautiful fish in the ocean. Enjoy the feeling of freedom as you glide through the water. Now imagine yourself to be one fish in a school of brightly coloured fish. You swim in rhythm with your group, sense its mood and shift your direction in perfect time and rhythm with the others. Now take this one step further and imagine yourself to be able to feel the mood of an entire oceanic world. You automatically sense and locate where to feed, play and swim and where you will be safe. You feel in total harmony with your ocean world.
in 1922 at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, where a psychic by the name of van Dam was tested in psi guessing games. The experimenters tried to transmit telepathically colours, tastes, feelings and moods, and the results were impressive.
Feeling what is around you is the most common way to receive psychic information. All people experience clairsentience through fleeting impressions but just aren’t aware of it. For example, we all feel drawn to some people more than others for no apparent reason. But if a person is emotional, empathetic and compassionate by nature, and often affected by the moods of those around them, then chances are that psychic impressions typically come to them through clairsentience rather than through clairvoyance or clairaudience.
CLAIRVOYANCE
Parapsychologists consider clairvoyance to be one of the three classes of psychic perception or extrasensory perception (ESP), along with telepathy and precognition, although there is overlap among the three. The word clairvoyance comes from the French, meaning ‘clear seeing’, and refers to the power to see an event or an image in the past, present or future. This type of sight does not happen with your physical eyes, but with your inner eyes. A person with clairvoyant ability can receive information in the form of visual symbols or images. Some clairvoyants describe it as a bit like having a movie screen in your head with images moving across it. Other clairvoyants may see symbols that they learn to interpret, or perhaps people and animals in their spirit form.
Psychic visions typically appear internally, through the mind’s eye, and this is called subjective clairvoyance, but in rare cases they can also appear externally, in the environment around them as if they were real, and this is called objective clairvoyance. Many people think of the term ‘inner eye’ as a figure of speech, but the yogic tradition also uses the term. According to Eastern tradition, the third eye or sixth chakra is the seat of clairvoyance. Located in the centre of the forehead, it is the screen that receives clairvoyance, whether in the form of visions or imagery. In mediumship, clairvoyance may account for the ability of mediums to provide unknown information at séances.
There are several different types of clairvoyance, including the ability to see auras (auric sight), to see into the past (retrocognition) or into the future (precognition). Different states of clairvoyance also include the ability to see through objects (X-ray vision), the ability to see health conditions in other people or animals (body scanning), the ability to see things from far away (travelling clairvoyance), the ability to experience visions in dreams (dream clairvoyance), the ability to see things that transcend time and space (spatial clairvoyance), and the ability to see astral, etheric and spiritual or divine planes (astral and spiritual clairvoyance).
Throughout history clairvoyance has been used and cultivated by prophets, fortune-tellers, witches, and seers of all kinds. Some were gifted naturally with clairvoyance while others learned how to develop it through training. In the 1830s the first scientific experiment to study clairvoyance was conducted on psychic Adele Maginot, and impressive results were achieved. Tests for clairvoyance of concealed cards began in the 1870s with French physiologist Charles Richet, and Richet’s work was taken further in the 1930s by American parapsychologist J B Rhine. Rhine developed a special deck of symbol cards to conduct tests. In the years since considerable evidence has been accumulated to suggest that clairvoyance exists in both humans and animals, although sceptics disagree.
Under your eyelids
People who have strong visual skills tend to be particularly attuned to clairvoyance. If you think in pictures and notice how things look or appear first, rather than how they sound, feel, taste or smell, you may have clairvoyant abilities just waiting to be developed. Perhaps images that you can’t relate to anything currently taking place just pop into your head. The following exercise will help you identify and work with your clairvoyant ability.
Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed, and sit comfortably. Take a deep breath, and feel a protective bubble of light surround you. Let your eyes go out of focus as you concentrate on your third eye chakra. When you are ready, focus your mind’s eye on the images that are behind your eyelids. What do you see? It’s possible you will not see anything at all, and if so, that’s OK. Clairvoyance may not be your strength or you may need to practise some creative visualization exercises. If you do see images, can their meanings be understood? When you are ready, take a deep breath, exhale and return to consciousness in a positive, relaxed mood.
CLOUD BUSTING
Also known as cloud dissolving, this is the psychokinetic ability to make clouds disappear by thought or will. Sceptics argue that clouds naturally appear and disappear every 15 to 20 minutes on their own, and tests on cloud busting have never been conclusive. However, various cultures around the world perform weather control ceremonies in the firm belief that humans, being connected to all things living, can influence the weather. Whether or not this is possible remains unknown.
COCK LANE GHOST
From 1762 to 1764 in Cock Lane, London, so-called poltergeist activity both terrified and fascinated onlookers. The story was written down by Andrew Lang and published in 1894 with the title Cock Lane and Common Sense.
It all began in 1760 when a stockbroker, Mr Kent, rented a house in Cock Lane from Mr Parsons, a parish clerk. At the time, a Miss Fanny was Kent’s housekeeper; the two fell in love and decided to make wills naming each other as beneficiaries. Not long after, Kent and Parsons had a disagreement over money. Mr Kent moved out of the house and began legal proceedings against Parsons. In the meantime, Fanny died of smallpox, and Parsons seized upon the chance to get his revenge on Kent. He concocted a story whereby Mr Kent had murdered Fanny for the inheritance, and in 1762 Parsons began to claim that Fanny was haunting the house. He alleged that Fanny had told his 12-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, that she had been poisoned by Kent. Parsons invited a committee of 20 or more men to his house to witness Fanny’s ghost possessing his young daughter. Elizabeth, apparently under the influence of Fanny, declared once again that she had been poisoned and that the only way she could rest would be if Kent were hanged.
Before long Cock Lane was full of the curious – Parsons even took to charging a fee for people to enter the house and listen to the ghost knocking. There were, however, many who were suspicious of the ghost tale, and their suspicions were confirmed when the ghost failed to appear as promised when Kent was brought to Fanny’s vault. Parsons tried to argue that the ghost did not appear because Kent had moved Fanny’s coffin, but Mr Kent countered this by taking several witnesses to the coffin, which he had opened to reveal Fanny’s body. Afterwards, Kent indicted Parsons and his daughter for fraud. Parsons was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison.
COLD READING
A cold reading is a psychic reading made for someone the psychic has never met. This type of reading is different from one in which there may have been previous contact or one in which the psychic has a certain amount of information already about the person being read. Typically, people visit their favourite psychics on a regular basis, and when this happens the readings are no longer cold, as the psychic becomes familiar with aspects of a client’s personality and life.
Psychic or Fraud?
