Clairvoyance literally means "clear vision." It refers to visual insights which sometimes override the field of vision in a spontaneous manner. These experiences may also be invoked through meditative states. For example, Dr. Judith Orloff is a contemporary psychiatrist who has learned over the years how to appropriately use her natural gift of clairvoyance to help clients. As she describes in her book, Second Sight (1996) regarding the ability she learned to cultivate, "It was a gradual process, but I became adept at staying attuned to many different levels at once. Intuitive impressions would often spontaneously pop up in the middle of a session. Sometimes there would only be a single image, sometimes many. I discovered that it wasn’t the number or complexity that mattered—simple, straightforward impressions can be the most potent."

Clairvoyance also pertains to the ability to see auras. It is not unusual for a psychic to be able to see auras, if not with the physical eye, at least with the inner eye. See the UMS course on Chakras & Auras for more information on the meanings of the colors in the layers of the aura. See the UMS course on Aura Viewing (Master’s curriculum) to learn more about techniques for seeing auras.

The way in which Dr. Orloff first learned to develop and "tame" her natural gifts was through her early experience in a paranormal phenomena research laboratory. This was located at the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of California in Los Angeles, and research psychologist Dr. Thelma Moss ran it in the late 1960’s. In her initial interview with Dr. Moss, the art of psychometry was introduced to Dr. Orloff, which is a process whereby objects belonging to a person are used to help induce psychic intuitions about them. By holding in her hands the house keys of Dr. Moss, who encouraged her to shut her eyes, relax, and describe the house, young Judith learned that her interior visionary capabilities were quite advanced. This form of psychic ability is called psychometry. Her accuracy and detail in the process of describing the house convinced Dr. Moss that she could be a valuable asset in the lab.

Dr. Orloff also had the chance to work with a research project called The Mobius Group in southern California, which worked in conjunction with police departments, insurance companies and private groups needing the assistance of psychics. There, she learned how to do remote viewing, which was the modus operandi of the group. This skill may be described as a concentration on a specific objective, such as the location or other unknown information about an object or person from a distance. In her case, she passed her hands, in a light trance state, over a map, feeling the energy change and guide her to certain locations. She was also encouraged to draw what she saw in her field of interior vision. It was through this training that she later learned to "read" her subjects while holding her attention on them at other levels simultaneously, as mentioned earlier. Remote viewing is another form of clairvoyance. Remote viewing means that a person can see what is happening in another place, or observe an object from a great distance. Many documented experiments were conducted where a viewer would report on what he or she was seeing in a different physical location than where he or she was present. This was verifiable information.