Over the years of investigating paranormal phenomenon, I’m sometimes faced with what seems to be a “dead end.” When this happens, many paranormal investigators simply give up, while others turn to the aid of psychics, clairvoyants, or sensitives to get some badly needed clues and hopefully some answers. It is a common practice with even the best metropolitan police departments like New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta, or government agencies like the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, and the ATF just to name a few. Let us not forget all four branches of our military as well. Many even have multi-million dollar budgets, facilities, and detectives on their teams who are ready, willing, and able to point any investigation in the right direction.
But what exactly is the difference between a clairvoyant, a psychic, or a sensitive (sometimes referred to as an empath)? And why on earth should we trust or believe them? All of these are very good questions! But before I proceed to answer these questions, let me point out the history behind the ‘rap’ some of the gifted people that really do possess the talent have had to live with.
The Spiritual Movement of the Victorian Age
During the end of the Victorian Age of Spiritualism (1850-1900) people had been searching for answers about life after death and often turned to séances and psychics for these answers. This included many people like Thomas Edison, Houdini, Henry Ford, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, many of the so-called “mediums” of the era did not possess any ability with these gifts at all, and simply tried to cash in on the craze.
Spiritualists of the time believed sensitive people who called themselves “mediums” were able to communicate with the dead. These “mediums” would then put themselves into a trance state in order to make contact with spirits in the next world and pass those messages to the living in this world. Sometimes these mediums were referred to as “message mediums.”
The Spiritualists actually believed that the dead did in fact communicate through these “mediums.” They were super-sensitive persons who were in touch with the next world and, while in a trance, could pass along messages from the other side to this one. In addition to the “message mediums,” there were also practitioners who would later in the movement produce physical phenomena that was said to be the work of the spirits. These phenomena included such things as unearthly lights and music, the levitation of objects, disembodied voices, and even actual apparitions.
