Dear Joe:

Combat clairvoyance? The Church does not have to combat clairvoyance. The Church warns against clairvoyance because it is a grave sin, a violation of the First Commandment. Hopefully the faithful will respect that and love God enough to not delve into that grave sin. Of course, if someone does commit the grave sin, the Sacrament of Confession will cleanse the person and restore them to friendship with God.

Clairvoyance is defined by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary: "the supposed faculty of perceiving events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact."

No one can know the future except God. Angels and Demons cannot know the future. And there is no such thing as a so-called psychic or clairvoyant actually knowing the future. Such things are either psychological or demonic delusions.

The attempt however to gain knowledge of the future is a grave sin against the First Commandment, which forbids idolatry. This activity is idolatry because it seeks information that only God can know from someone, or something else besides God.

The same is true for that aspect of clairvoyance that purports to knows things about people or things in a way beyond normal sensory contact. This is an attempt to secure a power over time, place, and usually other people in the exercise of these so-called powers. Normally, any actual power to know something from this occult method is not a genuine ability of the person, but a demon informing the "clairvoyant" about people or places.

The Church teaches in the Catechism about such things as clairvoyance:

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary