Hearing Voices: The Intersection of Clairaudience, Mysticism, and Science

Clairaudience is the alleged inner hearing of sound different from, or beyond the range of, normal human hearing. Rosemary Ellen Guiley notes that the term comes from the French, "clear-hearing."¹

Depth Psychology, Philosophy and Religion

The spiritually inclined see clairaudience as a phenomenon common to saints, mystics and seers throughout the ages.

The recently canonized Catholic Saint Faustina Kowalska (1905-38) writes in her Divine Mercy Diary that she often heard a quiet inner voice, accompanied with a feeling of grace. This synchrony lead her to believe that the voice was from God.²

St. Joan of Arc (1412-1431) heard voices which prompted her to masquerade as a man and enlist in the French army. She was eventually declared a heretic by the Catholic Church and burned at the stake at age 19 under a politically predetermined trial. Not until almost 500 years later did the Church canonize her in 1920.

St. Teresa of Ávila provides a more intellectual assessment of hearing voices, which she calls "locutions." In her spiritual classic, Interior Castle, she says one must learn to discriminate among locutions that are from God, from the devil, and from the imagination. Locutions from God, she adds, are usually quite simple and accompanied with a strong and undeniable feeling of peace.³

In the Biblical Old Testament the voice of God tells King Solomon of his great wisdom. And the New Testament Christ beseeches Paul from the heavens, "Why do you persecute me?" Both of these examples could be interpreted as instances of clairaudience.

Other presumed examples clairaudience are found in the religious and even philosophical literature. Plato's Socrates, for instance, has a daimon hovering about him, forever cautioning him what not to say.

The Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo writes of a voice which lead him to establish an ashram in the French settlement at Pondicherry, India. Aurobindo also speaks of "false voices." These, he says, come from dark beings, called asuras, which forever try to distract and deceive spiritual seekers.⁴

The Swiss depth psychologist C. G. Jung writes of a "ghost guru," whom he called Philemon. Philemon apparently guided Jung via clairaudience until Jung got tired of his direction and stopped listening, at which point Philemon went away.

The British scholar of religion Evelyn Underhill writes that genuine mystics must apply rigorous logic and sincere self-analysis to ensure that inner voices are not products of the imagination or evil spiritual entities.5

Concerning the belief in evil spiritual influences, practically every religious tradition in the world suggests that evil spirits actively deceive (or impart partial truths cleverly combined with lies), while Godly spiritual beings always tell the truth.

Along these lines the gospel writer of Matthew says that one may judge alleged prophets by their deeds---that is, by their fruit.

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Matthew NIV 7:15-20).

While many fundamentalists uncritically uphold this passage, for thinking people, some methodological issues do arise. For instance, how long must one wait to determine whether a prophet's utterances are true or not? For that matter, will a prophet's truth be realized within a given lifetime?

According to the Christian tradition, Jesus Christ, himself, spoke actual words that the people around him did not understand. And it wasn't until after his death that the subtlety and power of his prophesying was realized. For example, Jesus' words "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days" (John 2:19 NIV) is often interpreted to refer to Jesus' own death, descent to hell and resurrection, a sequence of events which, according to scripture, lasted three days. But in his day, many would have supposed that Jesus was simply talking about a physical building.

With a misunderstanding like this arising from real, spoken words, it seems that ordinary people could be even more confused by inner voices.

Contemporary Views

While historical figures often framed these voices through a spiritual or esoteric lens, contemporary science and psychology offer alternative frameworks for understanding the phenomenon. Neurology and cognitive neuropsychology explore auditory verbal hallucinations through concrete mechanisms, such as source-monitoring deficits, where the brain fails to recognize internally generated thoughts or inner speech as one's own, mistakenly attributing them to an external source. Furthermore, functional neuroimaging studies show that areas of the brain responsible for speech production (Broca's area) and speech perception (Wernicke's area) activate during these experiences, suggesting the brain is essentially listening to its own internal monologue played back externally.

Beyond clinical pathology, anthropology reveals a broader cultural canvas: in many global traditions, hearing the voices of ancestors or spirits is viewed as a normal, adaptive, and prestigious part of community life rather than an automatic sign of mental illness. This perspective is echoed by modern peer-led initiatives like the Hearing Voices Movement, which destigmatizes auditory experiences by viewing them as meaningful responses to personal life history and trauma. From a purely psychological standpoint, depth perspectives also suggest that inner voices can represent deep projections of the unconscious mind, archetype integration, or the splintering of the psyche completely independent of supernatural entities.

Science or Social Norms?

Interestingly, contemporary psychiatry distinguishes between unhealthy hallucinations and healthy beliefs expressed with a socially accepted religious tradition. So if an established social-religious group believes in something, psychiatry tends to give it a free pass, which arguably enters more into politics than science.

Individuals - often vulnerable individuals - are usually not so fortunate. When an individual experiences something 'religious' outside of approved institutional structures, it is more readily pathologized.

However, psychiatric theories still cannot fully nor definitively explain how the brain creates auditory hallucinations, leaving room for alternate hypotheses involving an interplay of biological, developmental and spiritual influences, both positive and negative.

To me, it's obvious that in both individual and organized, traditional religious instances of clairaudience, societal biases come into play in just how these unusual phenomena are interpreted. But most psychiatrists and lay persons seem oblivious to this glaring and highly unscientific double standard that some folks must wrestle with today.

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¹ Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience, 1991, p. 109.

² Saint Maria Faustina Helena Kowalska, Divine Mercy in My Soul, 2^nd edition, Stockbridge Mass.: Marian Press, 1990.

³ St. Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, trans. E. Allison Peers. Image Books, 1961, pp. 138-148.

⁴ Aurobindo Ghose, The Riddle of This World, Calcutta: Arya Publishing House, 1933, pp. 56-57.

⁵ Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (New York: The New American Library, 1955 [1911]), p. 361.