The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World. Theresa Cheung
In India, the ghost of a low-caste woman who cannot find peace as she died in childbirth or during ritual impurity, i.e. during menstruation. Churels are thought to haunt graveyards or squalid places and take the form of a young woman with reversed feet and no mouth. They entice young men to them and hold them captive until they are old. Burying the corpse of a potential churel is said to prevent the ghost from escaping. If this fails, the area needs to be exorcized.
CIA, STAR GATE PROGRAMME
In 1972 the CIA, concerned by reports that the Soviet Union was dedicating substantial resources to what it called psychotronics – research into potential military applications of psychic and fringe science phenomena – began Project STAR GATE, a programme of psychic spying, or remote viewing. The project cost $20 million (£12 million) and lasted 23 years until the US military shut it down in September 1995.
The aim of the programme was to close the Cold War ‘psychic warfare gap’ and discover how serious a threat there was from Soviet psychotronics. Parapsychologists Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ of the Stanford Research Institute were asked to look for repeatable psychic phenomena that might be useful to military intelligence. Working with psychic Ingo Swann, the duo developed what they called ‘a perceptual channel across kilometer distances’, in other words, the ability to witness objects, people and events at a distance: remote viewing.
Initially called SCANATE, meaning ‘scan by co-ordinate’, the project required the viewer to describe what they could see at map grid references provided by the CIA. Early signs were encouraging, and the programme expanded. Also known as SUN STREAK, GRILL FLAME and, finally, STAR GATE, the programme was used to help many US military and intelligence-gathering operations over its 23 years. There were a few successes, but more than a few failures.
The team is said to have located Soviet weapons and technologies, such as a nuclear submarine in 1979, identified spies, helped find lost SCUD missiles in the first Gulf War and located plutonium in North Korea in 1994. All in all, more than 20 psychics were employed. With lives at stake, many of them found the work traumatic, some ending up in psychiatric hospitals.
The project was closed down in 1995, probably because the Defense Department lost confidence in it, but even today some psychics continue with police and government work; one assisted the FBI – clearly unsuccessfully – during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in late 2001.
CIRCLE
A symbol of oneness, completion and protection, the circle is believed to represent a sphere of personal power or psychic energy. It is often used for séances, where participants hold hands around a circular table. Ceremonial magic rites are also often performed within the sphere of a magic circle, which functions to concentrate the user’s power and protect against psychic entities. In ritual, a circle represents a holy space that protects from negative forces on the outside and facilitates communication with spirits and deities on the inside.
CLAIRAUDIENCE
The word clairaudience comes from the French and means ‘clear hearing’; it is the ability to receive psychic impressions of sounds, music and voices that are not audible to normal hearing.
Humans have been guided by their inner voices since the beginning of time. The Bible refers to the Voice of God speaking to the prophets and kings. The ancient Greeks received guidance through daimons or divine spirits that offered guidance by whispering it into the ears of men and women. The shamans of many cultures use the voices in their heads for divine guidance. In Yoga the energy centre for clairaudience is the throat area, and it is thought that when it is clear you can open yourself up to inner hearing. Great men and women in history have experienced clairaudience. For example, Joan of Arc claimed to hear the voices of her angel spirit guides St Catherine, St Margaret and St Michael. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries messages from the spirits received clairaudiently were an established part of many séances. Today clairaudience often occurs in psychic readings.
Clairaudience differs from the disembodied voices heard at séances and poltergeist cases, which are considered to be collective apparitional phenomena. It also differs from telepathy, which is the ability to read the thoughts of another person. Clairaudience can be identified in many different ways. You may hear sounds or voices that you know aren’t happening in the real world and that you know aren’t the same as your own inner voice. These voices may come when you are awake or in your dreams. They may be the voices of dead relatives or the voices of spirit guides. Besides voices, certain sounds may provide you with psychic insight. Some people hear ringing in one or both of their ears and
Tuning In: an exercise to develop clairaudient ability
If you’re a good listener, if you find certain sounds and noises unbearable and if you are good at noticing changes in tone, pitch and frequency of noise, chances are you’re more likely to receive psychic information through clairaudience. We all have some degree of clairaudient ability; we all experience those words or thoughts or ideas that seem to come from nowhere, but we tend not to recognize them or we take them for granted. You may wonder how you can tell if the voices you hear are psychic information or your own daily thoughts. One way to figure this out is to listen carefully. Your intuition tends to speak to you in a kind, loving and positive way. Self-talk tends to be harsher.
Find a place where you feel comfortable and won’t be disturbed. Sit down, relax and breathe deeply. Imagine a shield of golden light around your ears for hearing and protection. Next, imagine a tuning knob such as on a radio in front of you. With this knob you can tune your hearing to a new frequency – that of your higher awareness – where you can receive clairaudient guidance. Sense a subtle sound change as you adjust the frequency. Note whatever information you receive. You may receive very little at first, but keep trying, and after a while you may find that your ears automatically tune to receive clairaudient information whenever you focus.
believe this to be a message from the universe. Others hear music, whispers, laughter, crying, bells ringing or other sounds.
CLAIRFRAGRANCE
Often considered a form of clairsentience, clairfragrance occurs when a person smells the fragrances of those who are no longer alive, for example, the perfume of a deceased loved one when no one close to them is wearing or using that perfume, or from which the source is unidentifiable, for example whiffs of flowers or plants when none are around.
CLAIRGUSTUS
Experiencing sweet or sour tastes in the mouth that are not associated with eating or belching. Often classed as a form of clairsentience.
CLAIRSENTIENCE
The word clairsentience comes from the French and means ‘clear feeling or sensing’. It involves the ability to pick up information through smell, taste, touch, gut feeling or intuition.
One of the most important experiments to test clairsentience took place
Investigate your clairsentience
Are you an emotional person? If so, what moods do you feel? Can you feel the moods of other people and animals? Can you feel the moods of specific locations or from objects? Can you feel the moods of spirits who have died with unresolved issues? Do you feel emotions about certain events in history and don’t know why? Do you feel the emotions of friends or family or people close to you? Do you ever get a gut feeling that you should contact someone immediately? When you touch something or someone, do you get a rush of feelings? Do you sometimes experience physical sensations such as warmth or cold for which there is no external cause? Do you often have gut instincts about people or places you know nothing about? The following exercise is a fantasy meditation that is designed to stimulate clairsentience – your awareness to sense, read and respond to the feelings and atmospheres around you.
Find a quiet