The Clairvaux mystic vs. Clairvoyance

“You will find more lessons in the woods than in books.

Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.”

-St Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church

God’s plan cannot be revealed from non-God sources using counterfeit shortcuts. If we want to know something, let us ask God directly as St Bernard did. Through prayer and discernment, answers will come. The answer may be "not now." It may not be the right time, place or action. While the occult may promise control, certainty or secret knowledge—St Bernard insists that authentic clarity comes only through Christ, Scripture, the sacraments and prayer. Anything else is a demonic temptation.

St Bernard of Clairvaux was a mystic and theologian, whose insights came from grace and not an occult “second sight” or clairvoyance. His voice moved popes, healed schisms, reformed monasteries and stirred nations. His deepest legacy was — the development of the interior.

• “We must allow divine charity to reorder the soul.”
• Renewal is contemplative before it is active.
• Holiness was surrender so that “the heart returns to its Maker.”

In todays’ age of Internet spam and surgically attached earpieces, St Bernard’s voice calls to us today: “Let the soul be a valley where God may rest.”

From Clairvaux to Clairvoyant: the devil does him dirty

The term clairvoyant emerged in 17th-century France, describing someone like St Bernard, with unusually sharp perception and insight. Only later did its meaning shift toward the occult definition of someone possessing “second sight” or unnatural knowledge. Occult practices use non-God sources to obtain unnatural knowledge that fractures relationships between Creator and creature. Below are examples of occult practices that have been sanitized over time and sold to us by Satan. All are dangerous. 

• Clairvoyance claims hidden knowledge without God’s revelation. Canonization is positive evidence that the Clairvaux’s mysticism was from God.

• Divination seeks future knowledge outside God’s will. This violates the First Commandment.

• Feng shui treats spiritual harmony as human-manipulatable energy. This elevates spatial superstitions at the expense of God’s grace.

• Fortune telling pretends to reveal God’s hidden plan, which is spiritually misleading and morally unsafe.

• Mediums attempt to communicate with spirits. This opens the door to deception and spiritual danger.

• Palm reading assigns destiny to bodily marks instead of God’s freedom; which negates free will and replaces it with fatalism.

• Occult practices seek hidden forces and secret knowledge that is inconsistent with trust in God.

• Ouija boards invite unknown spirits' input, who know nothing about God’s plan. Only God can give us the graces and guidance to become saints.

• Spirit-consultation invokes powers not from God which contradicts Scripture and Church teaching.

• Tarot uses cards with symbols to predict destiny which replaces prayer with pseudo-mystical guidance.

• Astrology and horoscopes are spiritually dangerous because they replace God with cosmic forces, distort human freedom, and open the soul to divination.

The Catechism 2115-2117 warns that divination “contradicts the honor, respect, and loving fear that is God’s alone.” The above practices are distractions that invite spiritual harm by actively seeking deceptive influences.

Eponymous or Coincidence

His silent abbey was a contemplation factory where God’s voice was clear. This launched a massive wave of monastic foundations. Did his mystic gifts and graces inspire the term “clairvoyant?” Arguments go both ways. Named a doctor of the church, his theology centered on the love of God, the humility of Christ, and the silent strength of Mother Mary.

His writings—especially On Loving God and his sermons on the Song of Songs—are foundational. His honeyed eloquence earned him the nickname, "Dr. Mellifluus."

In 1153 A.D. St Bernard died at age 63 and was buried at Clairvaux. During the French Revolution, he was moved to Troyes Cathedral in Champagne. St Bernard helped found 163 monasteries across Europe. Cistercians honour him as one of the greatest early Cistercians. 

St Bernard reminds us, “…our soul must guard its interior valley, keeping it clear for God and God alone.” His feast day is August 20.

Prayer to the Most Holy Name of Jesus

—by St Bernard of Clairvaux

Jesus, the very thought of Thee with sweetness fills the breast!
Yet sweeter far Thy face to see and in Thy presence rest.
No voice can sing, no heart can frame, nor can the memory find
a sweeter sound than Jesus’ name, the Savior of Mankind.

O hope of every contrite heart! O joy of all the meek!
To those who fall, how kind Thou art! How good to those who seek!
But what to those who find? Ah! This, no tongue nor pen can show
the love of Jesus, what it is. None but His loved ones know.

Jesus! our only hope be Thou, as Thou our prize shalt be;
In Thee be all our glory now, and through eternity.

Sources:

Catechism of the Catholic Church | USCCB

Pope John Paul II. 1986. Address on Spiritism and Divination | EWTN

St Bernard of Clairvaux. 1153. On Loving God | CatholicSpiritualDirection.org