Clairsentience, Mesmerism, and the Mystery of Shared Perception

Rosemary Ellen Guiley classifies clairsentience as a type of clairvoyance. Clairsentience refers to the alleged extrasensory perception of smell, taste, touch, emotions, and physical sensations. In modern parapsychology, this "clear feeling" is frequently associated with other specific faculties—such as clairaudience (clear hearing), clairalience (clear smelling), clairgustance (clear tasting), and claircognizance (clear knowing)—which help distinguish the diverse ways these "internal" signals are received.

The history of psychology reveals that some researchers held spiritually inclined views towards such phenomena. Charles Mesmer and his followers of Animal Magnetism, for instance, believed that a mysterious, universal cosmic fluid connected all elements of the universe, to include healer and patient. The "magnetizers" believed that this fluidic substance could be channeled and directed among individuals, the net result being a kind of communication through a fluidic medium of thoughts, emotions, and sensations. It is worth noting that these early "mystical" theories of rapport eventually paved the way for modern clinical psychology and the development of hypnosis, as researchers transitioned from studying "fluids" to exploring the depths of the subconscious mind.

This rapport could become so intense that patients sometimes became obsessed with their healer. The condition apparently became even more pronounced when the mystical rapport-at-a-distance had an erotic, sensual component. The pop singer Bjork perhaps similarly speaks of a mysterious "sex without touching" in her album Post (1995):

Look at the speed out there
It magnetizes me to it
And I have no fear
I'm only into this to

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

I wish I'd only look
And didn't have to touch...
How can I ignore?
This is sex without touching
I'm going to explore

Bjork’s lyrics effectively capture the same psychological sensation of "rapport-at-a-distance" that the mesmerists attempted to systematize centuries earlier.

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However, it's difficult to know what alleged mystics are really talking about due to the essentially interior nature of their experience. But this isn't just a problem with the inner life of the mystic. Some philosophers of conventional perception contend that a similar problem arises with statements about external reality. We encounter the concept of qualia—the internal, subjective components of our sensory perceptions—which leads to the ‘color inversion' problem: does one person's perception of the color 'x' match another's perception of the color 'y'?

Until advanced neurological transplants become commonplace, we'll probably never know. Yet, sliding into pure solipsism—the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist—misses the mark. As a practical matter, solipsism collapses under its own ethical weight: if others don't truly exist, our actions carry no moral consequence, whereas if they do—which our shared base sense data strongly implies—how we treat others matters infinitely. Since we cannot prove otherwise, abandoning solipsism isn't just logically sound; it is an ethical necessity. Even if our private translations of the world differ, it seems prudent to believe and behave as if we are all responding to the same, underlying reality.

Busy nurse taking a break and clearing her head of the hospital vibes - AI