In his best-seller, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell discussed perhaps the best-known way of using intuition: building and using a large database of information in what is typically called “the unconscious mind.” When you know a lot about a subject, answers to questions about it “just” come into awareness—no conscious searching for the answer is required.
It is easy for most people to accept and understand that kind of intuition. It is, after all, logical that those who know a lot about a subject can dredge up information about it. This is basically the same as being able to recall the telephone number of the house you grew up in. If you just remembered your childhood phone number, you have a sense of how it works: the phone number wasn’t “there” until you “remembered” it, was it….
Other kinds of intuition have often been relegated to women under the false belief that men are rational, while women are emotional and intuitive. It is true that in Western culture in particular, men have specialized in left-brained (linear, logical) activities, while women have specialized in right-brained (relational, holistic) activities. In the nineteenth century, middle-class men were often expected to read to their families after dinner, while women were expected to be able to entertain their families by playing music.
While women were allowed a certain amount of intuitive insight, it was often disparaged by men who considered themselves rational. Furthermore, too much intuition was often considered Satanic, and for much of European and U.S. history, the most intuitive were branded “witches” and were not treated well. Even today, while we no longer hang, drown, or burn witches at the stake, intuition has been considered more in the realm of the “lunatic fringe” rather than a natural part of human cognition. But times and perceptions are changing. Slowly but surely, the most rational of the rational—scientists—are discovering the biological bases for intuition.
The most important of these discoveries is mirror neurons. One of the most commonly cited examples of mirror neurons at work is emotional contagion in crowds. If something bad happens at one side of a crowd, fear spreads to the other side faster than information could be communicated. People at the far side somehow know know to be afraid before they have reason to be afraid. That is one form of intuition: the transfer of information by mirror neurons.
Intuitive phenomena are typically classed according to the sensory system used for the reception of information: clairvoyance (vision), clairaudience (sound), clairsentience (feeling), telepathy (exchange of thoughts), premonition (a feeling about something), precognition (knowing something before it occurs), and “channeling” (communicating with the nonphysical). Most people—and that includes those of you who are most skeptical of anything beyond the material—have experienced one or more of these phenomena. Because these skills are not well-understood and have been disparaged since the earliest days of scientific inquiry, most of us have forgotten about our experiences with them. Another problem with them is that they have earned a bad reputation because they are easily faked.
The vast majority of “professional” mediums and “fortune tellers” work from a script. They know what their clients want to hear, and they provide it for them. This isn’t all bad, of course. If Jim or Susan wants to communicate with a dead spouse, a medium can help create the sense of communication and faith that spirit continues after the body has died. The principal problems arise when the medium attempts to persuade Jim or Susan that no one other than the medium can provide ongoing contact with the dead spouse. A real medium would help John or Susan understand that such communication is a learnable skill. In that regard, it isn’t much different from learning a foreign language or how to play a musical instrument. Some people may be more “gifted” at a particular skill than others, but anything one person can do, others can as well. It is a matter of developing however much natural talent you have by practicing.
One of the most important things to remember is that people considered “game changers” and “history makers” are among those who relied on their intuition for many of their best known ideas. Henry Ford (assembly line) and Einstein (relativity) are just two examples: one a no-nonsense businessman and the other one of the most respected mathematicians and scientists in history.
I have chosen to write about this subject at this time because my own intuition has been “knocking on my door” with increasing vigor. I have decided to answer the knocking and explore what I can about developing my own intuition. I’m also interested in helping others, which is why Debra and I have committed to teaching the process of developing intuition, first as part of our online instructional program, and second through workshops. We have touched on this subject some in our other trainings. In one workshop, for example, we demonstrated that most of the attendees did a very respectable job of giving psychic readings while in deep hypnosis.
That hypnosis amplifies intuitive phenomena provides a clue to the source of intuition: it is the unconscious mind. I’m in favor of getting to know mine better. What about you—are you willing to explore yours?
