By Shar Jason.

Many people are familiar with clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing), claircognizance (clear knowing) and clairsentience (clear feeling), but there are also two other clairs that don’t get as much attention. All our physical senses (seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling) have an equivalent psychic version, and all of them can be developed. Sure, they may not be as exciting as seeing or hearing psychic messages, but clairgustance (clear tasting) and clairsalience (clear smelling) can come in very handy, particularly if you are interested in taking a holistic approach to developing mediumship skills.

Clairgustance or clear tasting, allows you to receive a taste in your mouth from ‘Spirit’ or a person in the spirit world and is a common way for mediums to receive information. Have you ever heard a medium say something like “I can taste cigarettes, did your mother smoke?” They are getting this information from clairgustance. It is also helpful for medical intuitives as they may get a taste in their mouth that can help them to diagnose and treat their client.

Clairsalience is clear smelling. This psychic sense is surprisingly strong in many people, they just don’t realise it. Do you often smell your deceased grandmother’s perfume or a rose garden that reminds you of your deceased aunt? That is clairsalience. Your loved ones can communicate with you in many ways, including sending you these smells. It is likely that if you have a good sense of smell and taste in your daily life, then your clairsalience and clairgustance will also be strong.

As a psychic medium, I use clairsalience and clairgustance, combined with my other psychic senses, whenever I do a reading. I recall a reading where I described the ingredients of a Polish cake I had never tried before to my client. I did so by describing the various smells and tastes the woman in spirit was giving me – listing each ingredient out. This turned out to be a cake she often cooked, so my client quickly associated with what was being described and confirmed it as evidence of a connection. Sometimes the smells are overpowering, particularly aftershave. Older gentlemen in spirit love to send me the smells they used to wear, such as Old Spice or Brut (not my favourite smells in the world by the way!) A subtle example of this at work in my daily life is when I have found myself strongly and suddenly tasting beer when talking to a friend on the phone, only to find out that they are enjoying that beverage as we chat.

So How Can You Develop Your Clear Smelling And Tasting?

• Get some variety in your life – Eat and smell a lot of different things. This is a great excuse to go wine tasting as you can practice smelling and tasting the subtle differences between the wines. Or go and smell a range of different perfumes. The more you give your nose and taste buds a workout, the bigger reference you will have to receive psychic information. How will you know ‘Spirit’ sent you the smell of a sardine if you’ve never smelt one before? It’s also a great idea to really make the effort to taste the separate ingredients. Throwing your food down in record time like Homer Simpson probably won’t help, so take your time eating and thinking about the flavours and smells of what it is you are eating.

• Time for some tuning – Get a friend to play a game to help to test and train your ability to smell and taste. Get them to pick out some different ingredients (when you’re not looking) and with a blindfold on, try to guess what they are by smell and/or taste. Do you know the difference between the taste of an orange and a mandarin, or cinnamon and nutmeg? Here you are fine-tuning your senses – the better your sense of taste and smell, the better the psychic versions can be.

• Now try it without the food – Try and remember what something smells and tastes like. Imagine that you’ve just eaten a lemon – that may even get your mouth watering. The memory of the smell and taste of the lemon is an indication of what the psychic equivalent may be like for you. Run through as many smells and tastes as you can think of – cigarettes, whiskey, a cupcake (or two!), or maybe toothpaste.

• Get help from the spirit world – Sit quietly for a few minutes and ask for one of your deceased family members or friends to send you a smell that relates to them. Or ask one of your Spirit Guides to send you a smell or taste that will remind you of your childhood. Then sit and wait for a few minutes and see what you can smell or taste, and remember it may be very subtle.

• Test your skills – Ask a friend to eat or drink something when you’re on the phone to them or at a preorganised time (without them telling you what it is they’re eating or drinking of course). Then sit down and tune in, and see if you can smell or taste what it is they are enjoying. Don’t expect a strong scent or flavour (especially if you’re just starting out), just pay close attention for a couple of minutes and see what happens.

It is also worthwhile doing some work to balance your throat chakra. It is believed that clairaudience, clairgustance and clairsalience are all connected to the throat chakra, so opening and balancing that chakra may help you with all three of these clairs. Signs you may have a throat chakra issue can include:

• Having trouble saying what you really mean
• Having physical issues in your throat area, such as a thyroid condition or weak voice
• Feeling depressed due to a lack of expression
• Eating excessively

To help snap this chakra back into shape, try:

• Singing
• Saying what you really mean (or writing it in a journal if it is not safe to do so)
• Wearing blue
• Eating blueberries (and tasting them of course!)

Next time you get a strange taste in your mouth or smell a random scent, take the time to ask yourself “Is this a message from a loved one in spirit, or is there something that I need to know?” You may surprise yourself at how quickly your skills develop once you start to give them some attention. What is the strangest or strongest smell or taste you have received from the spirit world?  I’d love to know, please leave me a comment below.