Most people wrongly assume that psychics and mediums must invariably be clairvoyants. In reality, clairvoyance is just one of many different psychic abilities, which also include clairaudience.
Defining Clairaudience
First coined sometime between 1860 and 1865, the term 'clairaudience' is a combination of the French word 'clair', meaning 'clear', and the word 'audience' (as in the state or act of hearing). Subsequently basically meaning 'clear hearing', it is defined by dictionaries as:
- "the supposed ability to hear (voices or) sounds beyond the normal hearing range" (British Dictionary).
- "the power (ability) to hear sounds believed to exist beyond ordinary capacity or experience's reach, as, for example, voices of the deceased" (Dictionary.com).
- "the faculty or power to hear something that is not present to one's ear, but considered to have objective reality" (Merriam-Webster).
- "the presumed faculty to perceive, as though by hearing, that which is inaudible" (Oxford Dictionaries).
Please note: These definitions have been paraphrased to avoid copyright infringements.
So what exactly does this mean?
In essence, a clairaudient psychic or medium has the ability to 'hear' sounds that cannot be heard 'normally' by the human ear or recording equipment (including voices, music, tones and other noises; even the sounds of moving cars, trains or planes). Able to 'tune in' to different frequencies (almost like tuning into a radio station), they may perceive these sounds either in their head (through their so-called 'inner ear') or by actually hearing them as audible sounds (through their 'outer' ears).