monition

   The term monition comes from the Latin noun monitio, which means advice or warning. It was introduced in or shortly before 1922 by the French physiologist and Nobel Prize laureate Charles Robert Richet (1850-1935) to replace various older terms such as * veridical hallucination, *true hallucination, and *telepathic hallucination, which all suggest a relation between the percepts in question and events taking place in the extracorporeal world. His reasoning was that, in spite of their reference to a coincidence with actual events, they have a connotation of subjectivity and morbidity. As he argues, "I intentionally do not use the word 'hallucination,' even qualified by the epithets 'veridical,' 'telepathic,' or 'symbolical.' It seems to me that the term 'hallucination' should be reserved to describe a morbid state when a mental image is exteriorized without any exterior reality." Richet distinguishes three types of monitions, which he designates as monitions on trivial or serious matters other than death, monitions of death, and collective monitions (i.e. those observed by several individuals simultaneously, as in * collective hallucinations). Today the term monition is used in parapsychology to denote a warning or revelation of a past or present event, received by other than the regular senses. The term monition of approach is used to denote an unaccountable idea or image of an impending meeting with some other person. Monitions and monitions of approach are typically experienced in the form of an intuitive feeling, thought, or message-bearing hallucination. They are commonly auditory and/or visual in nature.

   References

   Melton, J.G., ed. (1996). Encyclopedia of occultism and parapsychology. Volume 1. Fourth edition. Detroit, MI: Gale. Richet, C. (1975). Thirty years of psychical research. Translated by de Brath, S. New York, NY: Arno Press.