Recently, in the midst of navigating some anxious feelings, I decided to pull a tarot card with an intended question in mind: “What would make me feel better about myself right now?” The card I pulled was the High Priestess: divine, all-powerful, and intuitive. Within minutes of pulling the card, I was writing down a list of everything I, on a soul level, knew to be true, which, in effect, calmed me about the situation at hand. I later learned that what I was actually calling upon was one of the four psychic clair senses: claircognition.

“There are four ways of receiving extraordinary information psychically: claircognition, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and clairsentience,” says Alex Caiola, a claircognizant astrologer, tarot reader, and co-host of Priestesses Prescribe. “It’s my belief that some of us come in with a predisposition to these abilities, but we can all tap into and hone them over our lifetime. These abilities are crucial for guiding us on our individual paths of transformation and help to raise our collective consciousness.”

Sounds intense and hyper-mystical, but, ultimately, they’re just asking you to be hyper empathetic with yourself and others in order to make beneficial decisions. Want to know more? Below, Caiola breaks down the four psychic clair senses.

Below, learn about the 4 psychic clair senses, and how to use each to plan ahead.

1. Claircognition

Claircognition is really all about having intense gut feelings and using that information to guide you. For instance, Caiola says she uses her claircognition (or psychic knowing) in tarot readings to decode messages from the universe. Doing this allows her to tap into the energy of a situation or individual, and “energetically download” information about their past, present, or future.

“This can be as productive for predicting a working relationship as it is acute for observing the end of a career path,” says Caiola. “This ends up being a steady ‘channel’ of communication that flows through me to the person who needs it.”

2. Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance refers to psychic seeing, and every medium has different depictions of what they see and how they see it. Very often, this comes across as a sort of screen that pops up before them to provide messages in the form of pictures and symbols. It may also show up as a visual of a person with distinct characteristics, or a warning of the future scenario. They may see a person with their distinct individual visual characteristics or warn you of a scenario they see in your future.

“My beloved psychic Mike is clairvoyant and has described the physical characteristics of my current boyfriend—two years before I met him—and will tell me to ‘lower my shoulders,’ seeing they’ve crept up while on a phone call,” says Caiola. “One of the most well-known psychic mediums, Laura Lynne Jackson, describes a ‘widescreen TV’ that opens in her mind to serve as the mainframe for the psychic messages that come through in her readings.”

3. Clairaudience

Pull the “audi” out of clairaudience, and you can probably deduce that it’s describing psychic hearing, or being able to have messages really amplified.

“Messages that come through via clairaudience will sound like a thought, but louder and more pronounced during a channeling session.” —Alex Caiola, astrologer and tarot reader

“Messages that come through via clairaudience will sound like a thought, but louder and more pronounced during a channeling session,” says Caiola. “I experience this form of channeling as well, and can describe it as words popping into my head and coming through unfiltered, directly to my client to further illustrate a point.” For example, in a recent reading, Caiola blurted out that a client was coming off as controlling, “which I would normally cushion in my own communication style,” she says. “Instead of being offended, she took to the information instantly and constructively. Sometimes, your guides need you to hear a particular word above all others!”

4. Clairsentience

The final of the four clair senses is clairsentience, which is a tactile psychic feeling. “Picture this: You’re reading a passage and have the chills come over you when describing a particular place,” says Caiola. “Or, you shake hands with a person and their touch sparks a comfort in you like you’ve known them your whole life. These are examples of clairsentience, also known as psychic sensory experiences. These vibes are meant to clue you into the particular feeling itself for extraordinary information.”

Caiola says she often experiences clairsentience when shuffling the tarot cards during readings. “Before I even pull the cards, they may move in a particular way, which taps me to pay attention,” Caiola says. “Recently, I shuffled completely differently from my normal routine, almost backward, which I interpreted as a possible strategy for my client to ‘back into’ the scenario she asked me about.”

Whatever the method, the clair senses are really all about following your inner High Priestess (regardless of whether you pull the dedicated tarot card, and letting her knowledge guide you to whatever your next adventure is (maybe even contacting spirits—who knows).