#claircognisance

How interesting for you to bring this up 🙂

I have a degree of clair-sentience or -cognisance which has been present from a young age. It gives me an instinctual knowledge of whether a person is trustworthy, whether they might deceive or harm me.

Sometimes I can tell at a glance. Other times the instinct gradually makes itself known as the person speaks and interacts with me. It can feel like instant alarm and suspicion, but more often I feel the subtle reservation and discomfort you mentioned. They don’t have to do or say anything particular, I simply observe and my instincts stir.

One of my favourite examples of this happened when I brought up my 'people senses' in a conversation with a couple of housemates at university. They were talking about former friends who had mistreated or betrayed them. Out of interest, they showed me a few group photographs of themselves and their friends.

Their question: "In this photograph, who are the people I'm no longer friends with?" In other words, who were the 'friends' that had mistreated them.

I looked at each of the faces on the photographs, and asked myself if I would trust that person. I pointed out the ones I would not trust. I was right about every single one.

I suspect that 'voice' rings louder the more harmful and unreliable someone is. But people are complicated.

There are those who have good intentions and fail to follow through. There are those who are deeply, sincerely kind, but have so little control over their lives and their emotional impulses, that they end up hurting you anyway. There are those whose perceptions are riddled with ignorance in some places, clarity in others. There are people trying to be kind and virtuous, but are lacking in skill or experience. And there are people who are just innately incompatible with you for one reason or another.

These are the people who inspire that sense of reservation. "They're not bad people, but maybe I should keep a distance..."

Also, there are people who are intimidating, irritating, even offensive - but not truly harmful. All bark and no bite. Sometimes they are kind underneath, other times they are simply not worth the trouble!

My 'people sense' is most noticeable with those that bite, but don't bark. People who seem ordinary, and have not revealed themselves as potential harm or trouble. Yet for some unknown reason I feel I cannot, must not, trust them.

I can't always use it to tell whether someone is lying to me - it depends - but by proxy I can tell if they would lie to me. Or, if they are prone to being deceived themselves and would likely spread false information.

Logic and experience feeds into this. If you can read body language, or simply observe a person's interests and ambitions. Who, where and how they spend their time. That information will mingle with your clair senses.

Remember that it's never "either or". Everyone has strengths and flaws, and so can be trusted with some things, but not others. And that will depend on how your life and your needs intersect with theirs.

The main obstacle that interferes with my instincts is that I have a soft and forgiving heart. If there is any evidence of a person's goodness, then I want to give them a chance, to watch and wait and understand them better. This is a virtuous thing, but it must be balanced out with decisiveness and self-esteem.

My mother also has a degree of claircognisance. She can spot a troublesome person with a single glance. She has a way of predicting the future too, in a rather mundane way. However, she is different to me, in that she focuses on the negative qualities of others. Thus she's prone to isolating herself and assumes more pessimistic outcomes.

This sort of subtle skill requires empathy, observation, and the dissolving of personal biases. This is what allows one to perceive the disposition of others and what their tendencies are.

As I've grown older, I get less of the 'alarmed' response and more 'general caution'. People have fewer means to hurt me because I've grown more resilient and resourceful, and so whether they can harm me is a question of whether I let them. But for the same reason, I trust more easily. I meet people who I just know I am safe with, because I sense their kindness and intelligence.

It can be easy for biases to overrule this subtle sense. And since it doesn't come with any visions or extraordinary sensations, it can be easily dismissed as well. At times it's also bothersome because I know if I can trust someone, but not why or how. Nonetheless, it is an underrated source of protection and good fortune.

I originally wrote this to help another reader. Take it as starter tips and adapt to your own psychic abilities. This applies for reading someone with their approval/knowledge! If you do it without it at your own risk.

✦ Having a tag log helps. ✦

In real life, when you know the person’s appearance, voice, name, or energy. It’s quite easy. You might not even think about it.

Online, their username helps but might not be enough. If you read anons, it’s even more difficult to single out your querent from the sea of virtual personas. You will get really vague or general messages. Or you might not be able to pick anything at all. Or worse even, you’ll pick someone else’s energy !

Ideally, a full name and a picture works best. But name, initials and/or zodiac signs can help. Anything that helps you focus and « lock in » on your querent’s energy.

I can’t read everyone to the most accurate degree all the time. But with practice you can definitely can consistent results. Having your « target » being open/receptive to it (i.e. asking others to tell you about a thing) really helps ! If there’s no permission, the message is fuzzy or on a mundane detail more often than not.

✦ How to strengthen those intuitive gifts ? ✦

I think it’s regular, daily training that helps. I just often try to guess things about random people, especially IRL (zodiac, number of siblings, etc), do intuition games like @hillarysss sometimes does with her cards. Trying with people that let you try to guess a thing about them or their day and then telling you the correct answer. Feedback is key!

It’s also way easier when you’re well-rested, fed, hydrated and are not in a stressful environment. You can extent your stamina by practicing in golf conditions and avoid the dreaded psychic headache. If you’re Black, some conjured items can help. Let me know if you want me to indicate suggestions. Otherwise some spells, crystals or incenses can help. Some people like purple, blue or clear crystals to heighten intuition. Amethyst, clear quartz, optical calcite could help.

I’d suggest also asking your cards or doing some research on claircognizance/clairvoyance/clairaudience etc to see which one is your forte and train one for a little while.

Resorting to your « weakest » clair ability first before using your strongest ones will have you witness tremendous progress in it.

And of course work on trusting your gut feeling before reaching out to divination.

✦ using divination tools ✦

But pip decks/simple tarot decks also help with intuition to me. The less imagery there is on a card, the more your intuition has to work. Same with playing cards divination !