What Is Psychic?

As with so many other words, we use the term psychic without a clear understanding of what it means. To some people, it's mysterious, to others it's other worldly, and some even regard it as demonic. In fact, it means none of these things. It comes from the Greek word psychikos, which means of the soul, and relates to that part of us that is also a part of our Source and Creator. Webster's Dictionary defines psychic as lying outside the sphere of physical science or knowledge; spiritual in origin and describes psychic abilities as those that are sensitive to nonphysical or supernatural forces and influences.

There are four basic types of psychic experience, although a given event can include aspects of one, two, three or all four types.

• Clairaudience (literally, clear hearing) is defined as the power or faculty of hearing something not present to the ear but which has objective reality.

• Clairsentience (clear feeling) means the ability to physically feel sensations that have objective reality outside the presence of an apparent causative force.

• Clairvoyance (clear seeing) means the power or faculty to see objects not present to the physical senses; perceiving matters beyond the range of physical perception.

• Intuition (to know) is defined as knowledge gained without evident rational thought and inference.

I receive psychic information through a combination of clairaudience, clairvoyance and intuition. Some examples from my own life best illustrate how these work.

The little voice that gives me answers and helps me better understand messages and information I receive through the other types of psychic reception is clairaudience. I hear the voice literally. For example, I receive information on winning lottery numbers this way: the little voice speaks, and I hear it.

My most painful psychic experience occurred in my early twenties and was clairvoyant, a vision warning me of the impending death of my best friend, Jimmy. As I left my future wife's home after a pleasant evening together, I saw a small tree turn into a mass flames. From the flames I saw Jimmy emerge, literally carrying his head. The message was painfully clear and needed no further interpretation. Jimmy did not heed my frantic warnings, and a week later he died in a tragic car crash.

As a youngster, I enjoyed playing backyard football with my friends. During one game, however, intuition told me to quit playing and go home. The feeling that I should leave grew as the game went on, but when I tried to go, my friends objected and I let them talk me into continuing. On the next play, I broke my arm. It was a hard lesson in learning to pay attention to intuition.

I often receive information through a combination of means. For example, when I received visions of Hurricane Andrew, the little voice kept repeating the month and day over and over, so that I was able to put the pieces of information together in a way that was relevant and helpful to those in the path of the storm. Similarly, as a young man I was on my way home one evening when I had a vision of a wrecked car up ahead on a curve in the road I was traveling. At the same time, the little voice urged me to slow down. I listened, and it probably saved my life, for I was able to avoid crashing into the car that had wrecked on the blind side of that curve.

Access to psychic abilities and information is open to everyone. Almost everyone has experienced at least one incident that revealed their own psychic abilities. Please join me in climbing the spiral stairway to the full manifestation of your psychic gifts.