What is an empath? Empaths are people with extrasensory perception who can feel the emotions of other beings very strongly. Although very similar to psychic abilities, the word "psychic" implies of the
mind, whereas empathic abilities involve the entire nervous system, particularly the spinal cord and the "primitive brain".
Many people who call themselves psychic are also probably empathic...
they feel things rather than know them, for example. There are, however, some psychics who may not be empathic and some empaths who may not be psychic.
The two do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. I believe that the following abilities are primarily psychic: channeling, clairvoyance, clairaudience, and thought telepathy. I also believe the following
abilities to be primarily empathic:
clairsentience for pain and physical discomfort, emotional telepathy,
instinctual telepathy (clairsentient for instinctive responses), clairsentient for primal urges/responses. The ability of telekinesis is, I believe, primarily psionic in nature and is a shared
empathic/psychic ability. Telekinesis, including some phenomena classified as "poltergeist activity" is often accompanied by emotional and primal upheaval.
Empathic Information
"Empathy... is not sympathy. Sympathy is a way of reacting to someone who is suffering. Empathy is feeling that suffering as if it were you own. In it's simplest form, it is flinching when someone slams his finger in a door. At it's most sophisticated, it is their pain in your heart."
Over twenty years ago I began my search to understand my empathic abilities. There were few resources then on this topic, and I find that to be the case still. As a test, I checked Webster's dictionary
to find their definition of the word "empath" - there wasn't one.
There were definitions for "clairvoyant", "psychic", and "medium", however, no definition for the word "empath". There was a definition for "empathy". However, it was the psychological definition: "the
action of understanding, being aware of, sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and
experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner." At first blush, it would seem an adequate definition for empathic abilities, however I object to the term "vicariously" which suggests an imaginative or sympathetic experience rather than an actual sharing of the emotions, instinctive responses and/or even the physical sensations with another. Furthermore, some empaths, depending on their abilities may be clairsentient (clear sensing) of other people,
animals, plants, spiritual beings, the earth, and countless other possibilities.
The word "empathy" is derived from the Greek words "empatheia" meaning
"passion" and "pathein" meaning "to experience, suffer". An empath
experiences the feelings of others... not merely as a substitution of one's own feelings or a realization of how one would feel in a similar situation. An empath can feel another without even knowing the
other's situation. While many people have empathy, the ability to understand another person's feelings implicitly, they are not
necessarily empathic.
Additionally, the word empathy does not take into account the physiological, instinctual, and/or primal sharing that can occur with empaths. (For example, an empath may experience that pain of anotheror could have a psi-somatic reaction to another's illness.) For this
reason, I draw the distinction between "empathy" and "empathic".
Miriam-Webster's on-line dictionary defined "empathic" as "involving,
eliciting, characterized by, or based on empathy", and I find that to be a decent start... but while empathic abilities may be based on or involve empathy, they are more than empathy.
Having drawn a distinction between the psychological term "empathy" and empathic abilities, I'd also like to draw a distinction between empathic abilities and psychic abilities. On the one hand, psychic abilities and empathic abilities are virtually the same, as I believe that they come from the same source and use many of the same systems.
On the other hand, psychic abilities again have the common interpretation of dealing with thought energies while empathic
abilities are interpreted as dealing with emotional energies. There is a difference between thoughts and feelings. Additionally, I feel how our energies are channeled is the main difference between psychic and empathic abilities.
My research indicates that psychics tend to channel their energies mainly thru the heart chakras and above, while empaths mainly channel their energies through the heart chakra and below. People able to channel through most of all of the chakras easily are both empathic and psychic. "Chakra" is the Sanskrit word for "wheel" and they are the energy vortexes or gates in our bodies. There are seven major chakras and many "minor" ones, but all are important. We all channel some life energy thru all of the chakras, but some chakras are often more "open" than others. Empaths tend to have their lower chakras open while psychics (channelers and clairvoyants) tend to have their upper chakras open. An important point needs to be made: "lower" does not mean "less important" or "less powerful". It is an important point to keep in mind that - "lower" in this case does not mean "of lesser value." One is not better than the other, both empaths and psychics serve a different role in the scheme of things, so please don't get caught up in any other interpretations of the word "lower".
Since we are on the topic of words, however, the ideal word to use to
describe the abilities I am focusing on would have been "telepathy", which originally meant "far feeling." Unfortunately, the common interpretation of telepathy is thought communication and I feel that this interpretation would be a distraction for most people. I prefer the term "empath" to specifically describe telepaths who pick up emotional, physical and instinctual responses from others. The jury is still out on whether this word is adequate too, however. I've received some angry letters from psychics who seem upset that I am "spreading confusion". So let me put my own spin on things: how a person chooses to identify themselves is a personal one. Granted, accuracy may be important in communication, but we are all human, and we are prone to interpret things based on our own experiences and beliefs, so I would argue that most communication is inherently inaccurate to a degree anyway. As Lao Tzu said, "The Way (Tao) that can be described in words, is not the Way (Tao) at all." Additionally, the semantics are not really what is important.
Questions/Explanation
Question 1: How often do you feel waves of emotions sweep over you from a source outside of yourself?
Psychics, empaths and vampires can all feel the emotions of others to an extent. I believe that psychic and empathic abilities fall on the same spectrum and are not mutually exclusive. The more sensitive a psychic, empath or vampire is, the more often they tend to feel the emotions of other beings.
The basic types of emotions usually felt and the level of enjoyment one feels in experiencing them:
Psychics tend to be more attuned to the positive emotions that they describe as bliss, love, celestial guidance etc. and they tend to enjoy these feelings.
Empaths tend to be most sensitive to negative emotions: anger, isolation, sadness and emotional pain. While they can also love to laugh and prefer happy moments, empaths are particularly prone to depression. They feel the pain around them and it can cause sadness within them.
Sometimes these waves may be so intense, they may seem to be
overwhelming...the empath may experience mood swings that have no
overt physical or psychological cause. Many empaths will describe a feeling of being overwhelmed by these emotions or even feeling smothered by them.
Those who feel positive emotions but can not enjoy them or enjoy negative emotions may be exhibiting vampiric tendencies.
Questions 2: How do you feel about most animals?
Empaths usually have a strong affinity towards all animals, perhaps slightly more so than psychics, but I don't know if there is significance to this yet. Indicating that one can't stand animals, however, is typically non-empathic.
Question 3: How do animals tend to react to you?
If you recall I mentioned before that empaths operate on a lower level
than psychics... a level approaching the level of energy that animals sense and appreciate. Many animals are amazing generous with their energy and empaths often feel very happy and comfortable with animals and vice versa. There tends to be a cooperative link established. I often refer to this ability as the "Gift of St. Francis", as St. Francis of Assissi was an empath with amazing abilities to communicate with animals.
Psychic vampires, however, may experience a complete rejection by
animals or feel that animals respond to their psychic commands.
Question 4: How often do you get the sense that certain people drain
(or attempt to drain) you of energy?
Albert Einstein's famous equation "E=mc2" tells us that energy is matter and vice versa. I believe that almost everything is basically energy and power. Certain people, whether consciously or not, attempt to drain us of our energy and often they are successful. Psychics, psionic and empathic people are usually quite sensitive to these attempts and the more sensitive one is to the attempt the more often one will feel it occurring. Psychic and strongly psionic people seem to be the best at blocking these attempts, quite probably because people with vampiric tendencies were or are empathic themselves.
There may be other reasons why psychics seem to be better able to handle psychic vampires, however.
Point 5: Deals with sensuality and touch.
People with vampiric tendencies tend to despise touch unless they are initiating it, yet they also feel they are extremely sensual people.
This is not to say that all people who have difficulty with issues of touch are vampires. Many people who have experienced abuse in their lives also may express some difficulty with people touching them.
Psychics and some empaths tend to enjoy touch as much as or slightly more than the average person. People with strong empathic abilities, however, tend to be extremely sensual people. They are often very sexual and/or erotic (root chakra is quite strong) and enjoy physical touch a great deal.
Point 6: Deals with the feelings people have towards certain beings.
Feelings towards werewolves does not seem to have significance for either psychics or empaths. I tend to think that people with vampiric tendencies also do not relate with werewolves, but I'll withhold judgement until after the analysis.
Both empaths and psychics may find themselves fascinated with sprites
or faeries, while vampires would probably be revulsed by them.
Empaths are either strongly fascinated by vampires, revulsed by them or both. Psychics are usually revulsed by them and vampires are usually fascinated by them. This choice is a strong flag of abilities because the vampires represent very real vampiric experiences that psychics, empaths and vampires have felt in different ways.
Fascination with angels may be an indication of psychic (clairvoyant
and channeling) abilities, while revulsion may be an indication of vampiric tendencies. Fascination or revulsion of aliens may be a mild indication of psychic abilities. I'm withholding judgement on this, though, until after the statistical analysis.
Are you an Empath PT-5b
Question 7 (Parts A and B) If you are not ashamed or embarrassed about your body, do you ever wish you could find a place outside to run naked and free?
If you experience shame and embarrassment about your body, do you feel strongly restricted by these feelings?
As I've said, empaths tend to be very sensuous people. Logic is not enough to fill the gaps in their understanding of the universe, empaths need to sense and feel. Since strong empaths tend to feel closed in and smothered by the feelings around them, they often prefer peaceful rural settings where they can tune themselves in to nature.
Empaths who are very strong often wish they could go back to the simple life of Adam and Eve, running naked in nature feeling the energy flow unencumbered by the insulative qualities of clothing.
Remember that empaths seem to operate mainly through the lower chakras, which are usually covered by clothing which blocks some of the energy flow thru these chakras. Since the throat, forehead and crown chakras tend not to be covered most of the time by clothing that restricts energy flows, psychics may not feel this yearning. Some empaths, especially in our society, were brought up in a shameful environment and shame may be a tremendous block for them, and they tend feel very restricted by these feelings. Shame is one of the more powerful blocks to empathy.
Point 8 deals with common fears.
Empaths tend to be very much in touch with animals, and will probably not fear them. Empaths and psychics will probably not fear witches or pagan rituals. Many empaths and psychics believe that they live prior lives including lives in which they were accused of witchcraft or heresy because of their beliefs and abilities, so they tend to have an affinity to witches, if anything.
Fear of vampires may be an indication of psychic and/or empathic abilities for reasons previously stated. The fear of drowning or being smothered is a very strong indication of empathic abilities and possibly psychic abilities. If you recall, I mentioned that some empaths may feel that they are being smothered by the negative emotions of others. This feeling may represent itself in our psyche as a fear of drowning, being smothered or even claustrophobia.
Additionally, there may be another reason: those empaths and psychics who feel that they lived previous lives as witches may fear drowning and being smothered because the preferred method of execution for those convicted was drowning, suffocation by hanging or suffocation by being crushed with stones. (While some witches were indeed "burned at the stake", most it seems died by suffocation or drowning.
Question 9: Which colors which energize you the most?
People with vampiric abilities tend to pick "black" and "red"
People with empathic abilities tend to pick "black", "red", "orange", "yellow", "green"
People with psychic abilities tend to pick "green", "blue", "indigo", "violet" and "white"
There may be two reasons for these findings:
1. People commonly associate emotions or ideals with colors. For example, red is often associated with anger or passion. Orange is often associated with warmth and yellow with sunniness and happiness.
Green is often associated with health. Blue is associated with calmness (or alternatively with sadness.) Violet is often a symbol of wisdom, regality and psychic awareness. Black is a somber color for some while white is a symbol of celestial purity for others. Given that empaths are very passionate people who enjoy warm feelings but often experience somber feelings, it may be that they are drawn to the colors that remind them of this. Psychics, I believe, tend to desire a sense of calm understanding, wisdom and celestial purity and could be drawn to the colors which represent these ideals.
2. Some of the colors represented are associated with the major chakras of the body. Red is the root chakra located at the base of the spine. Orange is associated with the pelvic chakras just below the waist. Yellow is associated with the solar plexus chakra. Green is said to be the color of the heart chakra. Blue is associated with the throat chakra. Indigo is traditionally said to be the color of the "third eye", located in the middle of the forehead (some say this color is actually violet.) Violet is traditionally said to be the color of the crown chakra on top of the head, however some say this chakra is white, some say it is gold, and some say it contains many colors. (Not being a clairvoyant or a channeler, I personally have difficulty seeing the colors in the chakras.) People may therefore be choosing the colors that correspond to the chakras they feel are most attuned.
Are you an Empath Pt-6
#10: pick one color which you need more of in your life.
For possibly the same reasons stated above, most empaths seem to choose "green", "blue", "indigo", "violet", while most psychics seem to choose "green", "yellow", "orange" or "red". Vampires it seems usually choose "green" which I find interesting because green is associated with the heart chakra, and my belief is that psychic vampires experience difficulties with the heart chakra (the chakra most closely tied to our feelings of caring and well being for others.) Choosing "green" though is not an indication of vampiric abilities since it is often a common choice for both psychics and empaths as well. "Blue" seems to be the most common choice for empaths, either because they seek the calm, peace and cooling effects it has or because it is associated with the throat chakra (which seems to be the weak chakra for many empaths - myself included.)
# 11: pick one color which negatively affects you the most.
This is actually a question of vampiric tendencies. Most people who consciously choose to be vampiric seem to be bothered by the colors "yellow", "green" and to a lesser degree "white". Alone this information is useless, but used in conjunction with other points of information, this question can be a decent indication of these tendencies. I'll be running a analysis to see if there is statistical significance to this.
# 12: whether a person prefers rural or urban areas.
This question is mostly significant to empaths. Empaths usually prefer the peacefulness of rural places away from the negative emotions that flood them in urban settings. It would seem, though, that if strong empaths prefer rural settings, then preferring an urban setting would be a sign of not being empathic. This is not the case, however, as empaths who are less sensitive may enjoy the flow of energy from crowds and may seek out urban settings to recharge.
(These empaths, however, should be wary of recharging by taking energy from others without their explicit permission. This habit could lead into psychic vampirism.)
Energy exchanges in urban areas can be extreme however, they can also
sometimes become a violent maelstrom. I am convinced that one of the reasons violence tends to occur in urban settings is because of the energy flows that occur there. Consider the way many people in urban areas live: small apartments with other apartments close on either side as well as above and below. Add to the equation the tremendous amounts of electromagnetic energy from numerous power sources, and unnatural lighting sources such as sodium vapor and fluorescent bulbs, then subtract the natural energies blocked by tall buildings and the natural energies lost due to fewer plants and animals.
Most strong empaths and psychics experience difficulties with extended
visits to the city, however, there are a select few who are able to channel those energy flows to their benefit. (These empaths and psychics are usually extremely adept at blocking, shielding and cleansing negativity.)
#13: Sky/Earth.
Empaths seem to consider the earth as their domain, while psychics look to the sky. (Many psychic have told me that they love to fly!) Some people want more choices (like the oceans), but the two choices used seem to be very significant in determining whether one leaned towards being psychic or empathic.
#14: in times of trouble do you rely more on feelings from your head, heart, gut or none of the above?
Empaths tended to say the "gut", psychics tended to say the "head" or "heart".
Conclusion
Question 15: to get out of a dark mood, who do you usually seek?
Both empaths and psychics tended to say they sought solitude or the company of friends. The most telling answer, though, was the company of people you don't know very well... an answer someone with vampiric tendencies might lean towards. The desire to borrow energy anonymously during times of difficulty is a vampiric trait.
Question 16: how often do you get "feelings" about other people that often turn out to be correct?
This question is to help gauge sensitivity for all. Obviously the more often one gets these accurate feelings, the more sensitive one is.
Pts. 17 and 18 deal with how one perceives his or her own sensitivity
and how they perceive others would describe one's sensitivity.
Both empaths and psychics describe themselves and are described as being very sensitive. Being described as insensitive or overly sensitive, however, may be a sign of vampiric tendencies since others may feel that the energy exchanges in one's relationships are not on an equal level. In other words, if others see you as insensitive or overly sensitive, they may feel that you are pulling energy from them or draining them. If you choose to be insensitive as a way of blocking people from draining you (not being vulnerable), there are other effective ways of blocking while maintaining your sensitivity.
Pt. 19: describe the energy exchanges between yourself and others.
Psychic and empaths usually seek to keep energy exchanges on an equal level or may choose to give energy to others.
People with vampiric tendencies often pull energy from others. People who are not sensitive in terms of psychic/empathic abilities tend not to be aware of energy exchanges. Pt. 20 Rate your healing abilities and tendencies.
While vampires may have the ability to heal, their tendency may be to harm. Empaths and psychics tend to have strong healing abilities.
The degree of healing ability may be an excellent indicator of the strength of one's empathic and psychic abilities.
The feelings one has in the chakras helps determine whether one is leaning towards empathic or psychic abilities, and whether one has blocks.
An important note: I use the term "psychic vampires" to describe a certain set of people who tend to consciously or unconsciously pull life energy (ch'i) from others. There are many types of vampires: some archetypal, some psionic, some blood fetishists, some non-corporeal, etc. A future page will deal with a specific type of psychic vampire shortly.
