Clairvoyance

CLAIRVOYANCE. - A fully satisfactory definition of c. is difficult. Etymologically: "clear vision, clarity of perception." Even the most competent authors differ on the meaning to be given to this word; hence, instead of c., various names are used: "metagnomy," "second sight," "lucidity," etc. The definition proposed by E. Servadio (Enc. Ital., IX, p. 997), among the happiest, is detrimental to the doctrinal unity that must, as far as possible, bind together the apparent multiplicity of phenomena. In fact Servadio excludes from his definition of c. all those facts in which the acquired cognition originates from a mentality extrinsic to that of the perceiver. Therefore, taking into account the multiplicity of hypotheses on the nature of c., the following definition is proposed, which is intended to be comprehensive of the various tendencies, adequate to the essence of the phenomenon, while remaining fairly similar to that of Servadio, whose informing idea it reproduces, albeit with amendments aimed at unifying the congeries of phenomena into doctrinal unity: "C. is a term comprehensive of all those facts of knowledge whose object is an event or any entity whatsoever placed in space and time, and which occur without the use of the empirical senses." A negative definition, but the only one possible today, because the intimate mechanism of c., by now an established fact, completely eludes us. The proposed definition says that the essential element of c. consists not so much in the position that the event or entity has locally and in time with respect to the knowing subject (the perceiver), as in the para-normal mode of knowledge, which seems to occur only in suitable circumstances and in particularly gifted subjects, although, according to the latest research carried out in America and elsewhere (Duke University of Durham, Columbia University of New York, Hunter College, etc.), it appears that anyone may possess such a faculty, more or less, susceptible of development and appropriate education (v.: J. B. Rhine, J. G. Pratt, B. M. Smith, C. E. Stuart, J. A. Greenwood, Extra-Sensory Perception after Sixty Years, New York 1940; J. B. Rhine, The Reach of the Mind, New York, Italian trans. by G. D'Agnano under the title: I poteri dello spirito, Rome 1949).

Whoever is endowed with such a power knows where others, being deprived of it, do not know, sees where others do not see at all, has clear vision, whence the value of the term c.

The practical mechanism by which c. is effected, or at least is claimed to be effected, is manifold: for example, by looking at shiny objects, such as glass or metal plates (crystalloscopy), or even at luminous objects; by using suitable revealing instruments; by placing oneself in intimate contact with the object to be tested, chosen in an appropriate manner (psychometry, from the Greek ψυχή = "soul" and μέτρον = "measure"), a term however improper and equivocal because of the use made of it in scientific psychology, with a quite different and correct meaning. Richet proposed a more suitable terminology, instituting the term pragmatic cryptesthesia (from the Greek κρυπτός = hidden, αδάφησις = sensibility, πραγματικός = practical); but this term has not been fortunate.

The differences in technique generally depend on two factors: the nature of the event or entity that one wishes to test, and the difference in the mode in which it is opined that the clairvoyant process must unfold. As is clear, the effectiveness of the technical procedure adopted depends on the greater or lesser correspondence it has to the objective laws that regulate the mechanism of clairvoyance. Certainly the matter would be fairly easy if those laws were known. But here the true and radical difficulty arises: these laws are still extremely obscure today. The studies of Rhine (Duke University) have brought some clarification, but in general we move in the deepest darkness and amid the gravest uncertainties. There remains only one remedy, namely to have recourse to the criterion of probability, constructing hypotheses and theories as close as possible to what, on the basis of experience, is believed to be the intimate reality of the phenomena. But for now none of the theories is satisfactory.

Before examining the most important hypotheses and briefly criticizing them, it is well to establish firmly the objective reality of the phenomena. In the first place, the facts are possible because, even beyond natural forces, God would always be capable, when He deemed it fitting, of producing them. But, setting aside divine intervention (which cannot be invoked except in the case where no other power were capable of producing the phenomena), the facts, besides being possible, really exist: the very abundant historical documentation proves it, especially that of today, whose genuineness, at least in general, is beyond any discussion. A serious objection: that the facts are due to chance coincidences. If such a possibility cannot be excluded in several cases, in very many others it can and must be completely discarded. To reach such conclusions, the phenomena have been reproduced in the laboratory in very great number, and then tested by statistical calculation. This has shown that, wherever man enters as the agent producing the phenomena, mathematical probability is always and by far surpassed, so that it is necessary to admit in man the existence of an extrasensory cognitive power ("ESP effect," that is, of extra sensory perception, the name adopted by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; director of these statistical works was Rhine). The use of the statistical method is not new; begun by Richet in 1880, he had by 1884 gathered 2,927 trials; Gurney 17,653. From 1880 to today 150 groups of large statistical-type experiments have been formed, corresponding to about 5 million individual experimental trials. Rhine and his collaborators have applied the statistical method to a body of nearly a million experiments. The greater part of such studies relates to clairvoyance, and especially to its so-called indirect form, that is, telepathic (a substantial part of the experiments concerns telekinetic phenomena, that is, the "PK" effect, namely mechanical impulses at a distance: v. METAPSICHICA): the results were brilliant and convincing. Besides Richet and Gurney, Dessoir, Sidgwick, Barret, Ochorowicz, Warcollier, Brugmans, etc., occupied themselves with these studies (v. METAPSICHICA; TELEPATIA).

It is necessary to consider separately the theories that relate to so-called direct clairvoyance and those that connect to indirect clairvoyance. In the first case, clairvoyant knowledge would occur by virtue of a direct action between object or event and percipient, considered direct even if obtained with the aid of "revealing" instruments (as, for example, in dowsing [v.]). In the second, the intimate mechanism of the phenomenon is bound to a transmission of messages from mind to mind, that is, by telepathy (v.), whatever the nature of the communicating mind: divine, angelic, human, of a living person or of a deceased one.

In examining the phenomena, the first thing of interest is to see to which category (direct or indirect clairvoyance) they can be ascribed. For this purpose certain fairly simple criteria hold; direct clairvoyance may be admitted as more probable when all of the following conditions occur: the entity or event perceived a) exists contemporaneously with the percipient, b) no human beings participate in it in any way (for example, if it is an event in whose occurrence man's activity does not enter). In the opposite case indirect clairvoyance is more probable, at least in general, especially when it is a matter of clairvoyance of the future, where, for reasons that will be touched on below, one must often refer outright to a divine intervention, mediated or immediate. After classifying a phenomenon in one or the other category, one may propose the hypothesis that appears most suited to explaining its occurrence.

The most authoritative authors, with regard to direct clairvoyance, propose the hypothesis that the phenomena are attributable: a) to the action of a "sixth sense" or other "special faculty" of the percipient (cryptesthesia of Richet); b) to the externalization of the subject's perceptive faculties beyond the normal limits of intensity and especially of place (telesthesia [v.], from the Greek «τῆλε = far and αἴσθησις = sensibility: literally therefore "far sensibility"); c) to the subject's capture of special radiations, still unknown, emitted by the perceived object or by the environment where in the past the event occurred and the object was located: in this case it is admitted that the object or event left its radiations in the environment (psychometric hypothesis, with which Fechner, Buchanan, Denton, Myers, De Rochas, Bozzano, etc., occupied themselves); d) to a hypothetical partial dissociation, not quantitative but active, of the action of the percipient's soul from his body, so that the soul, being independent of space as it is, could know instantaneously and at any distance any object or event whatsoever.

When instead it is believed more probable that the percipient knows the object or event by virtue of a message transmitted by another mind, and this is the case of indirect clairvoyance, since it is a matter of "telepathy between living persons," one might imagine a mechanism of action analogous to that of radio (Sinclair, Cazzamalli), or a direct "contact" between the souls of the agents partially dissociated from their bodies (telepsychism); however, rather than contact between souls, one should say contact between the activities of souls. The latter hypothesis enjoys some repute also in cases where one thinks of a message coming from a deceased person. When it is believed that the message comes from a pure spirit or even from God, one transcends into hypotheses that in metapsychics are not worthy of note, and in books of occultism are ridiculous, not rarely insane and blasphemous.

Still with regard to indirect clairvoyance, it is interesting to examine the most notable criteria by which scholars believe they can recognize, with some probability, the nature of the transmitting mind (living person, deceased person, pure spirit, God). If it is a matter of an object or event present or past, if the perception is of a symbolic, finalistic nature, or in any case such as to reveal an intelligent elaboration, one may forthwith admit indirect clairvoyance; yet it is very difficult, even in theory, to determine whether it is a matter of the intelligence of a living person or of a deceased one; the possibility of identifying the transmitting intelligence with that of a deceased person would resolve nothing less than the problem of the survival of the soul after death. This is suggestive (v. SPIRITISMO); notwithstanding the alleged "identifications" of deceased spirits (Bozzano, Trespioli, etc.), for lack of a scientifically acceptable experimentation and because of the numerous frauds detected precisely in the cases most invoked by spiritists in support of their thesis, the decision on survival, at least by this path, is still sub indice.

Of particular importance is the interpretation of the phenomenon when the event or object is future; in that case the only credible hypothesis is that of indirect clairvoyance. Setting aside for now the possibility that the transmitting intelligence is that of God himself, telepathy between the living must immediately be excluded. For the one who transmits would find himself in the identical difficulties as the one who receives, that is, in the impossibility of knowing a future event, which therefore does not yet exist (unless it be foreseen in the causes that must produce it, as, for example, the exact date of a lunar eclipse).

The problem becomes arduous if we ask ourselves whether other intelligences, distinct from that of God and of living man, can know the future. Considering the matter well, no other recourse seems possible than to the intelligence of a disincarnate soul (a deceased person) or to a pure spirit (angels, demons). Whoever it may be, however, it remains well established that a future event, not being by definition yet knowable in itself precisely because it does not yet exist, can be known only in its causes. If the future event is due to the decision of a free cause, for example man, it cannot be known in that cause with certainty, but only conjecturally; if it were otherwise, with manifest absurdity, the cause would be at once free and predetermined. If the future event is due to a non-free cause, it could be known even by an intelligent being distinct from God, capable nevertheless of placing itself in contact with that cause, of knowing it and of analyzing sufficiently its mechanism of action, as much as is necessary to derive from it the foreknowledge of the future effect. Such would be the case of the premonition of the death of some individual due to illness, when, through the deficiency of human science, this remained obscure even to physicians, yet clear, instead, to the incomparably more powerful intellect of a pure spirit. On the contrary, it is not easy to accept the intervention of a deceased person, since one cannot admit in him an intelligence endowed with a natural power superior to that of the living. This is because, even granting that the deceased, through a mechanism of action totally unknown to us today, can naturally (that is, with the sole forces deriving from his nature as a disincarnate soul, without, therefore, the aid of God) place himself in contact with living man, for example, with the individual in the case proposed; one does not see how his mind, not superior in power to that of the living, and therefore, in the example, not even to that of physicians, has the capacity to discern what they cannot see. Nor can the fact that the deceased exists in conditions different from ours come to the rescue; one does not see in what manner his powers could be strengthened by his state of existence, certainly inferior to that of the living, in which the soul is united to the body, that is, to its natural instrument of vital action and therefore of knowledge.

Beyond dispute is the possibility on God's part of transmitting to man any premonition of future events, whether secondary to determined or to free causes. Here very grave questions arise, concerning the manner in which God knows free future events and concerning the harmony between divine foreknowledge and human free will; for their solution, one is referred to the treatises of speculative theology (cf., e.g., H. Hurter, Theologia dogmat., II, Innsbruck 1885, from thesis 97 to thesis 106). God's intervention must be admitted only if every other cause determining the phenomenon proves inadequate; certainly, in the case of the exact (that is, not conjectural) premonition of a free future, the cause of the prophecy can only be God.

Students of metapsychics have recourse to hypotheses that make the fact of premonition of the future plausible, while remaining proportionate to the knowledge of the living and to the nature of disincarnate souls; hypotheses, however, that are all untenable, often ridiculous. Three of them are cited: a) life, which we believe to be a succession of events in time, is instantaneous, but we are not conscious of it; b) the soul, before becoming incarnate, determines its entire future and even the date of its death (a prenatal, fatalist, reincarnationist theory); c) the events of this life, future for us, are already present and existing in an order different from ours, which could be the divine essence (that is, God), or a "fourth dimension," or the order in which disincarnate souls and pure spirits exist (such an order, outside of time, would permit the simultaneous vision of human events).

Myers, with his considerable authority, upheld these doctrines (though not all of them), taken up before and after him by various treatise writers. But the hypothesis of the instantaneousness of life does not agree with the reality of facts; the prenatal theory stands in clear contrast with the Catholic faith, with the results of the psychological sciences and with the facts which attest that our life is not the fruit of decisions preceding birth, and therefore of fatality, but of our free effort. The last theory may be accepted provided one does not claim to maintain that the intellect of the perceiver already sees the divine essence directly in this life: this indeed is identified with the errors of ontologism, condemned by the Church (Decr. S. Uff. of 14 Dec. 1887 against the errors of Antonio Rosmini-Seebati; Denz-U, nos. 1891-1930); moreover it is contrary to reason and to experimental facts. The hypothesis of the "fourth dimension" is without value. The admission that for the deceased and the pure spirits our life is already entirely present, and this merely because they are outside of time, has no foundation: for it would amount to admitting that a being simultaneously exists and does not exist, which is absurd.

In conclusion, the following may be said: it is certain that clairvoyance exists, but it is difficult to recognize the causes: these in very many cases are natural and must be ascribed to a power inherent in living man, which is capable of manifesting itself under favorable conditions; in some cases, instead, divine intervention is necessarily required. The admission of pure spirits, as the cause of the phenomena, is normally quite improbable; sometimes credible, indeed certain; that of the deceased, even less probable, always uncertain.

Alighiero Tondi

C. SPIRITUAL

In the language of mystical theology it is the supernatural gift of discerning from which spirit, whether good or evil, a soul to be directed is moved; or of reading the secrets of hearts, or of seeing and manifesting past or even present events, but at a distance, which otherwise could not be known by natural means alone or according to natural laws alone. According to some, spiritual c. would be an aspect of "prophecy," understanding prophecy in the broad sense of knowledge of things past, present and future unknown to the prophet (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 131, a. 3); more commonly and more properly, however, the term "prophecy" is restricted to the knowledge and foreknowledge of the future (Benedict XIV, De serv. Dei beatificatione et beat. canonizatione, l. III, cap. 45, n. 2).

An example of spiritual c. would be the knowledge had in Rome, on 7 Oct. 1571, by St. Pius V of the victory of Lepanto, at the very decisive moment of the struggle (cf. Pastor, VIII, pp. 579-80); and that had by St. Teresa, at Medina del Campo, on 15 July 1570, of the massacre of 40 Jesuits, at sea, off the Canary Islands (cf. St. Teresa, Autobiografia, Ital. trans. by C. Mella, Modena 1871, pp. 333-36); such too are the numerous instances of reading of hearts, narrated in the life of the holy Curé d'Ars (cf. F. Trochu, Les intuitions du Curé d'Ars, 2 vols., Lyon 1931).

The facts of spiritual c. must naturally be sifted according to the norms of severe criticism so as not to fall into errors or illusions or credulity; but even leaving aside those that can be explained by recourse to science and psychology, others will remain that, both for their content and for their circumstances, will require the intervention of a supernatural agent. For example, the most intimate secrets of hearts, which concern the state of conscience, vocations, God's designs upon souls, cannot in many cases be read except in the interior light of the Holy Spirit, who "penetrates everything, even the depths of God" (I Cor. 2, 20).

One of the distinguishing characteristics of these facts is the clarity, the precision, the certainty about what has thus come to be known: "The Lord, though not showing Himself under a sensible form, impresses Himself on the mind with a notice so clear that it seems one cannot doubt it in the least, because He wills that the object remain so deeply engraved in the mind that we cannot conceive a doubt of it, any more than of what we see with our eyes; indeed, even less" (St. Teresa, op. cit., p. 366).

As for the manner in which spiritual c. occurs and unfolds, those very persons who are its subject find no words suited to explain it: "God instructs the soul and speaks without speaking. And this language is so heavenly that down here it can hardly be conveyed, however much we try to say it, unless the Lord teaches it by experience" (ibid., p. 366).

It remains to be noted that spiritual c., being a gratuitous gift, like prophecy, does not give holiness, nor does it presuppose it; and therefore even a sinner can be its subject; generally, however, it is granted to holy souls, so that they may feel themselves more and better helped in the mission entrusted to them by God.

Celestino Testore