Claircognizance in Everyday Japanese Life

In a previous post, I briefly wrote about claircognizance, which is an extrasensory, or psychic ability, to be able to intuitively understand or read energy (read about it here). In this post, I want to talk about a very common example of how Japanese people deliberately use this psychic ability everyday.

In Japan, there is a concept called “空気を読む” (Kuuki wo yomu), which is usually translated as “read the air”. This is a concept that describes how Japanese people interact with each other in social settings.

First, let’s break down the word “空気” (Kuuki), which means “air”, or “atmosphere”, so we can get a deeper meaning of this Japanese concept. The first character means “sky”, and the second character means “energy” or “spirit”. So the word “空気” is essentially referring to the energy, or vibes in the ‘air’.

So what “空気を読む” is referring to, is the idea of reading the vibes or energy of other people during a social interaction. This is essentially the same concept as claircognizance, as applied to a social setting. Japanese people are using claircognizance on a daily basis to facilitate their social interactions.

In social situations in Japan, it’s very important to be sensitive to, and to be able to read what other people are trying to communicate. This is because Japanese culture is very indirect, and Japanese people will usually not say things directly, as it may come across as rude, or too straightforward and aggressive. Instead, Japanese people rely on their intuition as they ‘read the air’ of the other person’s vibes, so that they can indirectly infer what is trying to be communicated.

As a common example, there are many times when I’m at the supermarket and I’m looking for something which I can’t find on my own. Sometimes I’ll ask a staff “Do you have ‘x’?”, and if they have what I’m looking for, they will gladly lead me to it. If they don’t have it, this is where things can become kind of amusing to someone who isn’t used to Japanese culture. The staff will usually have an exaggerated apologetic, nervous look on their face while saying something like “Uhhhhh, that’s a little… sorry”.

The point is that Japanese people want to avoid being direct by giving you a straight “no”. This is why the Japanese staff will have a very amusing apologetic look of exaggerated nervousness, especially when talking to a foreigner. They want you to take the hint that they are trying to say “no”, but they are worried about making you uncomfortable from a direct “no”.

This is why foreigners in this country will often notice a look of nervousness or fear in a Japanese person’s eyes, right before an interaction. One thing that Japanese people are afraid of is offending others, being seen as rude, or breaking social harmony. This is why they don’t want to communicate in a direct way. It’s much more comfortable for them if they can be indirect, and they feel at ease if the other person is sensitive enough to pick up or read what they want to communicate.

Japanese people are aware that most Westerners have a very direct form of communication, and this is why Japanese people get nervous about interacting with Westerners. They are not used to the different flow of communication, and may be worried that they won’t be understood, or that they might be seen as rude if they try to communicate directly as well. One thing Japanese people often say about foreigners, is “空気を読めない” (Kuuki wo Yomenai), which means “Can’t read the air”. Westerners are just not accustomed to using claircognizance in social situations on a daily basis.

But to get back to the point of this post, Japanese people are very adept at using claircognizance in social settings. They are able to intuitively infer what other people are trying to say by ‘reading the air’, or reading the other person’s vibes. This is why Japanese people can be so indirect in their communication. In other words, Japanese people communicate in a much more psychic way than Westerners do. Instead of solely using words to communicate and interact, Japanese people read body language and other sub-communication on a daily basis in a very effective and harmonious way.

This is one of the things I actually admire a lot about Japanese culture. They are very sensitive and considerate of other people’s feelings and intentions, in an attempt to keep social interactions harmonious and respectful. This is one of the things that Western cultures could learn more about and improve from.

The thing to note is that whether a culture uses a direct or indirect form of communication, neither one is better than the other. They are two sides of the same pole, and it would be ideal if cultures around the world embraced both forms, and could use either one in the appropriate situations.

Claircognizance and Teaching

Today I realized that, while teaching English to my students here in Japan, that it is actually possible to use psychic abilities to help you teach a language.

In my last post, I mentioned claircognizance, the ability to understand or read energy. Maybe this post will give you a deeper understanding of how this ability works.

So I was teaching a Japanese woman today at my job as an English conversation teacher. She was telling me that she likes to read novels about traveling.

I asked her what she liked about those kind of novels, and that’s when claircognizance came in handy. She knew what she wanted to say, but she didn’t know how to say it in English.

To those who don’t understand a lot about claircognizance, you might have heard that communication is not just about words, but also about the feeling or energy behind those words. That’s why some things can have very different meanings, depending on how they are said.

The same is true even when the person isn’t saying any words at all. They have a feeling or energy that they are trying to put into words, and it’s possible to pick up on that energy and understand what is trying to be expressed.

This is especially easy in the context of teaching a language because very often, a student will have a thought or feeling in mind that they want to express, but they have difficulty putting it into the right words, using the right grammar.

This situation was made easier in my case because my student was using some words to try and explain herself, but she was having a lot of trouble using the right grammar to properly articulate her feeling. The words she said may have been interpreted in many different ways if I had no way of interpreting her energy or feeling.

The claircognizance came in when I was able to pick up on the feeling she was trying to put into words. After that, all I had to do was teach her the proper grammar to be able to put that feeling into words.

Another situation which you may relate to, in which you would use claircognizance to communicate is when you’re talking to your significant other. Sometimes you may have a difficult conversation where one of you is unable to put your feeling into words. The other partner may still be able to understand you because of the energy or feeling behind what you’re trying to express. If you have a relationship like this, be grateful, because it means that you have a deep connection to each other.

The point of this post is just to give an example of how we use these psychic abilities in our everyday lives. What I did today wasn’t extraordinary. We all do this to some extent when we communicate with others and try to understand what they want to express.

Emotions, Vibes and Psychic Abilities

What are emotions/vibes?

Emotions are just energy in motion. The emotions that an individual is experiencing gives off a specific “vibe”, which is really just a specific vibration of energy. When we say that someone gives you bad “vibes”, we take this to mean that they are giving off a “bad energy”, probably because they are experiencing a heavy “negative” emotion (such as anger, self-loathing or aggression). Most people can sense when a person is giving off bad vibes because it’s a natural innate human ability, and it’s purpose is to protect us from people who might harm us.
Most people don’t realize that being able to read someone’s vibes like this is actually a psychic ability. The mainstream connotation of a psychic ability is that of some kind of fake, pseudoscience nonsense, but the truth is that we use our psychic abilities everyday to a certain extent, without even realizing it. Some people are more aware of the situations when they use their psychic abilities, and are thus able to develop this skill more. So some people are better at reading someone’s energy (vibe) than others, just because they recognize their ability to do so, and practice it.

Telepathy
Let’s take this a notch up and talk about telepathy. Telepathy is just the next step above being able to read someone’s vibes and knowing how their feeling. Once you are able to read the general vibes (such as happy, sad, angry, ect.), you can get better at detecting more subtle emotions, such as jealousy, uncertainty, defensiveness, ect.

One who has developed their ability to read very subtle emotions has actually developed the ability to “read someone’s mind” in the sense that they can understand someone’s emotional state very precisely. You can get infinitely better at your skill to read vibes, to the point where you can read and understand a person’s emotional state completely without them having to say a word. When two people do this to each other, we have telepathy.

To sum things up, when you are able to sense how a person is feeling, you are tapping into a natural human psychic ability. We should recognize that we all have these abilities, and that it’s possible to develop these skills if we choose to.

Different types of psychic abilities when reading vibes

Different people can read, or understand energy/vibes in different ways. That’s because there are many different psychic abilities. When reading someone’s vibes, the psychic abilities that come to mind are claircognizance, clairsentience and clairvoyance.

It’s possible that there are other psychic abilities that people use to read other peoples’ energy, but I don’t have much knowledge about other psychic abilities. The psychic ability that an individual uses will depend on the person, in the same way that some people are naturally better at sports, and other people are naturally better at arts. We all have differing levels of skill in our psychic abilities, but everyone has all the psychic abilities to some degree.

Claircognizance means ‘clear knowing’, and it’s the ability to intuitively understand and know. When I meet a new person, I can, to a certain extent, read their vibe, the way they communicate, ect. and from this, I intuitively understand about what kind of person they are, the things they struggle with in life, their potential insecurities, and so forth. This is because I’m seeing things in this person that are present in myself, or things I have struggled with, or currently struggle with. And because I have done a lot work to develop my own self-awareness, I intuitively understand when other people share similar insecurities, fears, hopes, desires, ect. just from their vibe.

Clairsentience means ‘clear feeling’, which is the ability to feel energy. This is when you see a person, and you can actually feel their vibes, you can feel how they’re feeling (empathy), ect. This psychic ability is evident in your everyday life when you hang out with someone who’s depressed, and they make you feel kind of depressed too. It’s because you are feeling their energy and it’s taking a toll on your own energy. This ability is also why it feels so good to be around very energetic, positive people. It’s because we are feeling their energy, and we are kind of feeding off of it in a positive way.

Clairvoyance means ‘clear seeing’, and it’s the ability to see energy. Some people have the ability to see someone’s aura, which is just the magnetic energy that emanates from and surrounds a person. You can actually take a photograph of someone’s vibes, or aura, with a photography technique called Kirlian photography. I believe this technique is able to capture in color, the magnetic fields surrounding a living being. Google it if you need a scientific explanation of how it works. Different moods will change the color of your aura, so someone with this ability will be able to see how you feel by looking at the color, size, shape of your aura. This is perhaps one of those psychic abilities that has a strange connotation in mainstream consciousness, probably because it’s a more difficult psychic ability to tap into in daily life.

The thing about psychic abilities is that they have such a strange perception in mainstream society. This is because they are very misunderstood as something that only “crazy people” can tap into, when in reality, we’re all experiencing our own psychic abilities on a daily basis. Are you a “crazy person” because you’re able to sense when your best friend is feeling down? No, you are just being a normal human being, using your extra senses just as naturally as you use your physical senses. There is nothing “strange” or “crazy” about these abilities. We all need to wake up and realize that we’re repressing such a natural part of ourselves, which can be used for so much good in this world.