Developing Clairvoyance – “Seeing the Spiritual World”

I often get asked if clairvoyance or intuition are something we can learn and develop in ourselves, or are we just born with the ability as a gift? And I usually reply, it’s both, it’s a natural faculty we’re all born with, that is usually chalked up to a “vivid imagination†and eventually “taught out of usâ€, or we suppress it through a form of ridicule of some kind. What we refer to as the “spiritual†world or plane of existence is primarily invisible to the material senses, and is filled with beings and forms as invisible natural forces of some kind. These forms differ in many ways, but the two main ones are whether they’re caused by an object or a being. Our “world of thought and imagination†is the part of us that lives in and is a coherent part of the spiritual world. All thought is invisible in nature and can’t be seen or felt by anyone outside of us; yet it exists as real for us internally and is what makes up our experience of reality.

Astral Plane and the World of Formation

Because our mind, which is an invisible field of information and natural forces also, is an inherent part of the spiritual realm, our own feelings and thoughts can influence these forms and cause them to morph and fluctuate. This plane of form is traditionally called the astral plane in esoteric sciences, the World of Formation in Kabbalistic Philosophy, and has a broad range as higher (barely formed and still fluctuating) and lower (well-formed and stationary) regions within it as a range of expression that moves an idea from pure essence (unformed) as a universal archetype to a well-formed idea as a personalization of that idea. Forms that characteristically change with our every thought or feeling are produced by the mineral elements and are human made objects. Those formed by the plant element change less easily in response to our thoughts and feelings, and animals, which have a personality of their own, even less so.

Though the astral-etheric world is invisible, it acts to impress the mind (which is of the same plane) with distinct mental impressions that form subtle realities in the imagination. The imagination is the faculty of the mind that receives knowledge of the spirit through the astral plane of form. These mental impressions while never (hardly ever) solid or opaque, like the forms of the physical, are still quite distinct as a “feeling about something†that forms a chain of association as the qualities that permeate it and the forms that express those qualities in symbolic terms of the physical plane actually being the symbolic representation of concentrated energy from the spiritual plane.

These astral forms remain in a constant state of evolutionary flow as transformation taking place based on energetic influences from all levels of consciousness surrounding and interacting with it, most of which exists on the same plane as human thoughts, feelings, and emotions. These forms have a luster and iridescent quality that’s consistently shifting and fluctuating through sympathetic resonance and assimilation of similar frequencies in near proximity of it. They shift and reform slightly based on how they’re being influenced or directly interacted with, which is mostly being done unconsciously through our own thoughts and feelings in response to them.

These forms are full of life and movement and their mobility is largely due to the influence of our own thoughts and feelings, and to other causes beyond our control. Some of these forms are independent of the human mind and exist outside of our ability to influence them, and as a result, they act instead to influence us. Others are always interacting with us in feelings and thoughts that form “in us†as a natural response to the feeling sensations we’re always receiving and the activity they induce at the subconscious level, and so we often have no direct awareness of the influence our thoughts are having on others and the world around us.

Archetypes and Thought-Forms

While all natural living and non-living objects have energy fields which are impressed with the shapes of the qualities it possesses that forms its characteristics as a form of organic patterning that are produced as a natural emanation, there are many “thought-forms†created by people’s emotions, instincts, passions, and so on. These man-made thought-forms are similar to archetypes as universal memory that fluently populates the astral plane and can be “tuned into†and absorbed by the individual mind where they appear in the mind’s eye much like a normal memory or inspired idea. Through meditative observation we can realize that while our thoughts and feelings bear an influence on these man-made thought-forms, it’s only slight, unless we’re directly interacting with them. Other forms have only a negligible effect, if any, depending on what causes them.

Sensing Energy

When we learn how to reverse our normal thinking in terms of the spiritual world being symbolic of the material, and instead realize that all material form exists as the symbolic forms of the spiritual-energetic realm, we can realize that many behavioral characteristics of people are seen as an animalistic quality in the spiritual essence of their presence. So when energy is “sensed†it takes on or is perceived as the natural qualities themselves as they would exist in the natural world. They appear as animal-like, or as bearing the sensations of evil, grotesque, demonic, scheming, envious, lashing out, bitter, sulking, scared, dominating and aggressive, or as angelic like, soft, patient, calm, centered, reserved, protective, flowing, loving, and so on. The quality of the energy takes on whatever physical characteristics correspond to it. While animals always bear the energy of their species as a form of instinct, and remain somewhat consistent, humans possess many different qualities that make up their persona, and their energy is sensed as analogous forms to the natural world, and because of this, may completely contradict their physical appearance.

Emotions, which can be thought of as natural forces or entities that have a singular nature and express only as the quality of that emotion, which produces a whole living process as a chain of association that spawns whatever we focus on, what memory we access, what we think about, how we feel, and what type of experience we act to create by way of it that produces a reality for us on the inner planes. This imagined reality creates a “thought-form†on the astral-etheric plane made up of light essence, which is what we shape in our imagination as a self-produced expression of that energy as an actual reality. The energy itself exists in its universal form as containing endless potential for expression, that when drawn into a person, undergoes a whole series of modification that adapt it to the individual, and based on how it enters into relationship with the personal reality, forms into one potential and expresses through us by forming a corresponding reality.

Example – anger, while expressed differently by each individual who experiences it, is still interpreted as anger. It comes across as anger and acts to systematically activate or trigger anger in everyone around them, all of which will express in a somewhat unique way while maintaining the basic characteristics assigned to anger, such as outbursts, yelling, criticizing, belittling, intimidating, attacking, aggression, hostility, or in other cases, frustration, overwhelm, severe anxiety, crying, or a temper tantrum of sorts. While everyone expresses anger in a way that’s unique to them, the basic feeling of anger as producing distinct characteristics and behaviors remains constant as a kind of theme. When energy is being sense around a person, regardless of what their physical appearance, is experienced as these same qualities. A perfectly calm and sullen person can be raging inside with anger, which is not only felt by the clairvoyant, but “seen†as distinct mental impressions that are surrounding them. This is a form of tuning into the inner (spiritually outer) thought-life of the individual and “reading their thoughts†as impressions that are not necessarily unique to the individual as a personal creation, but rather the universal and neutral expression of the quality itself as a possible variation.

Attributes, Qualities, and Characteristics

The spiritual world is not an ethereal, hazy or illusory replication of the physical world, but reveals itself in forms that are quite different. Qualities that permeate a physical form are seen as the images associated to those qualities, and the attributes of the forms “match†the quality of consciousness as behaviors or processes being expressed through or by a physical body or entity. This is the basis for why the spiritual realm is “seen†or portrayed as “animal powersâ€, is because certain qualities that produce specific behaviors in what we could think of as the instinctual field of the collective unconscious that governs all of life on the planet earth, and expresses through different species of animals as the form associated with those behaviors as classifications of the consciousness that governs and produces them.

So, for example, another human who embodies and demonstrates certain behaviors are “sensed†as their animal quality. An aggressive or deceptive  person might be seen as having lion or panther-like qualities; someone who constantly complains might be seen as a dog barking or whining; a docile and meek person like a lamb or sheep. Likewise, negative emotions being embodied and expressed are seen as attributes of that emotion; anger is perceived as jagged, sharp, chaotic, loud and aggressive energy that expands and clashes or shocks; whereas sadness is sensed as dull, vague, dark, tired energy that pulls within and almost disappears; loving emotions are very warm, buzzy and sensuous, gratifying and intoxicating, relaxing, and attract you to them. When these feelings are experienced, mental impressions often rise up as thoughts of a corresponding nature, and we have a kind of translucent vision as transparent imagery, or energetic composite that forms in our imagination that’s very different in the normal sense from the actual outer “appearance†of the person expressing the energy as emotional states.

Time, Eternity, and Evolution

The “forms†of the spiritual realm, which are really personal translations of feelings in their corresponding forms, reflects the “qualities of consciousness†being projected and acted out through the physical form, and often doesn’t resemble the flesh body at all. Though the flesh body does begin to take on characteristics similar to the emotions habitually expressed, this takes time and is subject to evolution on the physical plane, which is a slow and gradual process, whereas on the spiritual plane evolution is a constant movement that transforms instantly, and moves in and out of energy that stimulates a variety of images as a flux and flow that reforms based on the qualities it absorbs from the environment, which when assimilated through a form of equilibrium as coherence, reshapes instantly as the immediate expression of the new vibration. Time doesn’t exist as a linear process within the spiritual realm, which has no sense of past or future, but remains eternally in the present, and like a growth process of latent energies coming from the inner, invisible realm to the outer (somewhat) visible realm, is an unfolding process of becoming, rather than a linear process of modifications to an original form, which only takes place through habitual tendencies developed over extended periods of time. Change in the physical world is gradual and process oriented, whereas in the spiritual it’s instantaneous and synchronistic.

In the physical realm, even the images produced by the individual mind are based on memory of some form, which while that memory may play out as vivid in our mind, usually differs significantly from the actual event that produced it. We form our own interpretation of the event as a re-presentation, where each time its recalled, it’s modified by how we use it to form a similar interpretation of our current situation to make it “mean†the same thing. Through constant recall and new applications we evolve and transform the memory throughout our life, retelling it slightly different each time, until eventually, it doesn’t even resemble the actual event or original memory. Spiritual experience is much like memory, except it doesn’t refer to the past imagined experience, but rather to the present soul and spiritual aspects of our environment and the events taking place in the moment. These “soul-like†memories, similar to what are commonly called archetypes as a form of universal memory or holograms, don’t have anything to do with the personal conditioned memories of the body, but of the memory as a classification of standardized forms and qualities that animate them that are of the larger, universal soul-mind, which we’re always tuning into and sensing within our present situation, that serve to stimulate and call forth our personal memories as a correlation.

The Cosmic Mirror of the Imagination

When we refrain from the need to interpret experiences, and simply observe them with a neutral and unbiased mind, they form the same type of mental impressions as personal memory and scenarios or moving images that form mental impressions in the imagination, that lack meaning (in the personal sense), while existing purely by reasons that exist independent of us. The spiritual realm is perceived in much the same way as a form of invisible reality viewed in the mind, though not actually seen, that’s alive within the present situation, rather than being resurrected from the past and reused to create the present as an illusion. The mental impressions formed in the mind in response to feelings and the sensations they give rise to, is how we “perceive†(see) the spiritual within the physical. Not as a mirror image that duplicates it, but as an image that resembles the reflection seen on glass or a dark shiny surface. Yet the images themselves appear nothing like the physical body they inhabit and act to animate through thought processes that produce behaviors as their equivalent. The idea of a mirror image is referring more to the nature and quality of the mental impressions themselves, rather than the actual image, which in spiritual terms is quite different.

Feelings, State, and the Nature of Vibration

Though in the reverse sense, a feeling we get in the spiritual sense forms a very distinct mental image as a reality that expresses in the physical as the same form associated to the feeling. In reality, the physical is the expression as “form†of the spiritual; the spiritual is not symbolic of the physical. We have to reverse our way of thinking. The spiritual is the “feeling state†(vibration) that acts to produce and give rise to a correlating physical reality as animated imagery that forms composite images, scenarios, or events that are the processes inherent in the feeling as spiritual law. The living patterns of vibration create processes as structure and function. They shape astral light (starlight) into forms with distinct behaviors that express the principles governing them. These astral shapes are formed as variations of the same idea (archetype) based on the adaptation they undergo through the relationship they form with all other factors involved in the situation or circumstances that act to modify it to some degree as a kind of reformulation of the same fundamental properties, changing what’s emphasized and enhanced, yet, forming out of the same fundamental properties as a formulae or dynamic patterning.

Thematic Patterns and Symbolic Correspondences

When we move from thinking that the physical world is the basis that gives rise to the spiritual, which seems symbolic in comparison, and realize fully instead that it’s the spiritual as vibration that exists in its potential state as a “thematic pattern†that gives rise to the physical as a symbolic correspondence, then we can begin to understand the spiritual world through feelings that when held in a calm and open mind form into natural imagery that’s in a constant state of movement as fluctuating qualities that transform through a state of “becoming†while maintaining the same basic form as an archetypal idea. For example, if we hold the archetypal idea of a lamp in our mind, and we’re simply present with that idea, we may form impressions of all sorts of different types of lamps, yet they’re all still a “lampâ€, and they all represent the same type of idea.  As we hold an idea in our mind, a form of free-association as a chain of associated ideas naturally unfolds in our imagination as correlating and corresponding ideas of the same nature.

An archetype can be thought of as a kind of universal (non-personal) idea as a pattern, living template or prototype that forms a mental impression as a specific “type of form†in the imagination of the individual, which uses it just like a personal memory to create experiences in their life that are of the same idea, modified by how its embodied and applied, not only through the consciousness of the individual, but to their exact set of circumstances and conditions. We “conceive of†an idea whole and intact as a form of insight, that we then personalize by how we think about it, what emotions we associate to it, what scenarios we apply it to in order to create it, and we reform it into a personalize version as a result. The idea conceived as an insight or inspiration is “pictured in the mind†in much the same way as a memory is. It appears like a reflection on glass as a see-through or translucent image. The imagery is the translation as an interpretation from pure feeling to a full-fledged physical reality as a mental construct or internal representation. We modify the original idea by how we apply it to our current life situation that presents it to us in a new way as a modified format or configuration. The basic idea being used as a theme for creating is modified through the process of adaptation which reforms it.

The feeling that we get that’s present in any moment as an emanation of the energies involved, when we create an open space in our mind for the feeling to take hold within us and rise up in our mind as a living scenario or animated form within our imagination, we can see the nature of the energies as the forms their vibration creates, which are the expression of the “qualities of consciousness†birthing them as realities in the astral plane of the imagination. All vibration has patterns inherent in it along with a self-organizing mechanism that shapes essence into forms in the faculty of the imagination.

The imagination is the faculty of the mind that shapes astral light as programmed essence into forms as the expression of the vibratory frequency they’re programmed with. The vibration as movement organizes and structures light – the astral remnant of movement between two poles that form dimension – and a matrix of tension (electromagnetic field) that hold everything into fluctuating, shimmering, lustrous patterns. These patterns as shapes translate into living realities of the physical plane. The physical plane is produced, maintained, and governed by spiritual laws, which are the energetic intelligence as information that form and express as properties that naturally undergo certain types of processes and form natural behaviors based on the chemical properties of their form and the level of consciousness equated to it.

The Field of Potential and the Particle of Existence

So the spiritual world and the physical world are extreme aspects of the same plane comprised of multiple dimensions where pure consciousness as a wave-form containing billions of potential is drawn down through the planes and into physical reality as the expression of the information inherent in the wave-form, that collapses around “one†potential as a possibility that’s used to form a single, individual personalized reality. That reality then forms into a memory, which draws it back up the planes and returns it to its universal state as an archetype or pattern as an idea that’s represented by a basic form that can be used to create numerous more experiences through using the memory as a general idea or meaning that becomes a template for creating more experiences of the same nature, shaped by the meaning it has that evolves it through a series of modifications by how it’s adapted to fit a new set of circumstances or situation.

This memory (whether universal or personal – because one is used to create the other) when used repeatedly, creates a field of energy (consciousness) as an electromagnetic field that habituates it, making it a main theme for creating our life story by solidifying it as a thought-form, which continues to exist in the soul-astral plane of mass consciousness, where it becomes a form of substitute for an original thematic idea as an archetype, and can be tuned into, accessed, and received by other minds, who also use it to create in a similar fashion as a basic idea. In this way, archetypes are not only evolved constantly by how they’re applied and modified, but birth new archetypes through the same method as a form of genetic (information) modification.

The world of thought-forms as a form of collection or accumulation of archetypes evolved by humans through application and personalization, also refer to a mass consciousness or the “instinctual field†of the collective unconscious that produce natural behaviors that are conceived of unconsciously, is also referred to as the “Book of Life†where every action (as a new vibration) is “recorded†(impressed) in the Akashic Field. These terms are all referring to the same idea, which is also the basis for the modern scientific discovery of morphogenic fields and torsion fields that populates the field of human instinct and subtle energy as the ghost-like, invisible energy that emanates and produces distinct physical properties and behaviors.

Unconscious ideas are natural thought processes that form basic behaviors that are thematic in nature and natural to us. These are ideas that we didn’t acquire through awareness or intentionally but without direct awareness that exist as thought-forms imprinted within the soul-field or astral plane that we tune into and draw into us as natural and automatic thoughts that we begin expressing by creating experiences as imagined representations that we form our personal memories out of. These universal ideas that propagate our internal awareness become themes that govern our whole life because we continue to use memories of the past to create more of the same type of experiences in the present, usually without ever realizing that that’s what we’re doing.

Dr. Linda Gadbois   

Integrative Mind-Body Medicine Consultant and Mentor for Spiritual Development