Clairvoyance is defined as a form of extra-sensory perception whereby a person perceives distant objects, persons, or events, including "seeing" through opaque objects and the detection of types of energy not normally perceptible to humans (i.e. radio waves). Typically, such perception is reported in visual terms, but may also include auditory impressions (sometimes called clairaudience) or kinesthetic impressions.
The term clairvoyance is often used broadly to refer to all forms of ESP where a person receives information through means other than those explainable by current science. Perhaps more often, it is used more narrowly to refer to reception of present-time information not from another person, there being other terms to refer to other forms: telepathy referring to reception of information from another person (i.e. presumably mind-to-mind); and precognition referring to gaining information about places and events in the future. The term clairsentience is often used in reference to psi phenomena falling under this broader context.
There have been anecdotal reports of clairvoyance and claims of clairvoyant abilities on the part of some throughout history in most cultures. Often these have been associated with religious figures, offices, and practices. For example, ancient Hindu religious texts list clairvoyance as one of the siddhis, skills that can be acquired through appropriate meditation and personal discipline. But a large number of anecdotal accounts of clairvoyance are of the spontaneous variety among the general populace. For example, many people report instances of "knowing" in one form or another when a loved one has died or was in danger before receiving notification through normal channels that such events have taken place. Similar presentiments that are not eventually fulfilled are soon forgotten, however. While anecdotal accounts do not provide scientific proof of clairvoyance, such common experiences continue to motivate research into such phenomena.
While experimental research into clairvoyance began with SPR researchers, experimental studies became more systematic with the efforts of J. B. Rhine and his associates at Duke University, and such research efforts continue to the present day. Perhaps the most well-known studies of clairvoyance in recent times was the US government funded remote viewing project at SRI/SAIC during the 1970s through the mid-1990s.
Results of some parapsychological studies, such as the remote viewing studies, suggest that clairvoyance does exist (though that interpretation is disputed strongly by critics), and that it does not in general require another person to send the information being received, i.e. it can to some extent be distinguished from telepathy. However there are as yet no satisfactory experiments designed that cleanly separate the various manifestations of ESP. Some parapsychologists have proposed that our different functional labels (clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition) all refer to one basic underlying mechanism, although there is not yet any satisfactory theory for what that mechanism would be.
Current thinking in clairvoyant circles posits that most are born with clairvoyant abilities but then start to turn them off as children are brought up to adhere to demonstrable social norms. Numerous institutes offer training courses that attempt to revive the abilities present in those early years.
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