Wednesday, January 23, 2013

My (first) Outline

Update on my interview: It went very well. I have about 35 minutes of material. Some of it I have to use, some I won't be able to. I can't show it straight thought, there will have to be a lot of editing.

First outline (this is very loose: I don't have a thesis, this is my most basic layout). Additionally, it should be noted that I am writing "section" instead of "paragraph". This is because there will be multiple paragraphs per section.

1st section: What is Clairvoyance?

  • Definition of clairvoyance
    • What is clairvoyance and what isn't (e.g. Oracle of Delphi is not, tarot is questionable, readings are clairvoyance.)
  • How it connects to other forms of ESP
  • Types of clairvoyance
    • Clairaudience
    • clairsentience
2nd section
  • Clairvoyance in history
    • hindu religious texts (clear seeing)
    • Marquis de Puységur
    • Edgar Cayce
    • spiritualistic period in the 19th century
    • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
    • Charles Richet
    • Government funded "psychotronic" experience against the Soviet military
  • Clairvoyance as relates to the history of fortunetelling, soothsaying
3rd section
  • Controversial Clairvoyance
    • J.B. Rhine
    • Fight against science
    • Photographing of auras
    • New Age science
    • Chakras that turn out to connect to real pressure points

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Success! First interview set up

Now that I have a formal interview set up with David Pierce of Intuitive Way (though I really should work on fixing my camera) I can list my questions for him. I'm planning on the interview being a half hour, so I think I'll have 15 Questions prepared, and end up asking about ten.

1) How would you define Clairvoyance?

2) What do fully-trained clairvoyants have the ability to do?

3)How would you compare what "clairvoyance" means to what "psychic abilities or powers" means?

4) How does clairvoyance work?

5) What concepts do you teach when holding a class on clairvoyance?

6) What is the relationship between intuition and clairvoyance?

7) What is a reading?

8) What would a reading look like, to both a casual observer and to you? In other words, what would someone on the outside see, but what do you see yourself doing?

9) There are those who define clairvoyance as "the ability to predict the future". To what level are they correct?

10) The Institute of Noetic Sciences says that they  "identify three principal areas of interest: extended human capacities, integral health and haling, and emerging world views". Does this connect to clairvoyance at all?

11) Could you comment on the controversies surrounding clairvoyance, such as the claims that say all clairvoyants and psychics have tricks?

12) Would you say that clairvoyance is a "sixth sense"?

13) How could one connect clairvoyance to faith healing?

14) Would you say that one could connect "clairvoyance" to something that we would other wise define as "magic"?

15) Psychics and clairvoyants have been around for a long time. Can you think of other names that they are known by? In other words, perhaps a few centuries ago they would not have been known as psychics, but perhaps as fortune tellers, witches, or mediums?

I put Noetic Sciences as number 10, because even though it doesn't necessarily connect to talking about what clairvoyance is, it is technically a science, and if the interviewee can agree that clairvoyance connects to the definition given of Noetic Science, then that is progress towards giving clairvoyance some validity.

While the last question may be a bit difficult to understand, and is not relevant to proving the validity of clairvoyance, it is important to ask that in order to connect clairvoyance to history.