I occasionally surprise myself with knowledge that I don’t remember obtaining. Do you know what I mean? Someone asks a question and you know the answer. You’re not sure how you know that, but you know it. Happened to me just this morning.

A Facebook user wanted to know how to remove bad smells from a room. My immediate reply was, burn some coffee grinds in that room. I mentioned it to my wife who replied, I’ve never heard of that. For confirmation I went to Goggle.

Google did confirm that burning coffee grounds would remove unwanted odors, along with a few other uses, like in a ritual. It included a scientific explanation on why it works, something to do with chemical composition.

Reading a little further I discovered there is a name for this, knowing things without knowing them, it’s called Claircognizance. I didn’t know that, but I knew about the coffee grounds. I think everyone has a bit of claircognizance. Where does that knowledge come from?

I think it must be things I have heard or read somewhere that my mind just stored away. I’ve heard that we only use 10% of our brain. That’s a myth, we use all of our brains, although not all at once. I do think everything we see and hear is stored away.

I have read L. Ron Hubbard and his Dianetics theory. I’m not a follower of scientology, however. I do think we may indeed have all our memories stored away. The ability to recall them at will varies from person to person. And sometimes, like with this claircognizance they just pop out on their own!

The strangest part about all of that is you are positive the answer is correct. Like burning coffee grounds, I just knew that it would work. I have never done that, never knew anyone that did but knew it would work. It’s like playing jeopardy, sometimes you just know the answer.

We hear about clairvoyance; we even pay people to tell us the future. Clairvoyance is the ability to see what others can’t, a sort of sixth sense. Science cannot prove or disprove that ability. It’s not exactly the same thing as claircognizance.

Claircognizance is what I would call a gut feeling, and you should always go with that. Like taking a multiple-choice test your first answer is likely to be the correct one. Science has proven that the 15 second rule really doesn’t work. You do know that rule, don’t you?

I wonder, will man lose this claircognizance ability in the future because of the reliance on google and other search engines? Will AI replace that innate ability in humans? Is it a part of our evolution? If I were clairvoyant, I would know that answer. Maybe claircognizance only works when someone else is asking the questions.