Given the limits of logic, it is fortunate that there is another human capacity uniquely suited for dealing with complex issues – the marvelous human ability known as intuition. Jean Jacques Rousseau captured its highest possibility as, “The sovereign intelligence which sees in a twinkle of an eye the truth of all things.” Plato, understanding that intuition takes us out of our everyday minds and reveals a higher perspective, called it “divine madness.” Even Kant, after saying that we must follow reason, was forced by his intellectual honesty to admit that “imagination” (by which he meant something very close to intuition) is the energy that “drives our being,” and that all of our “knowing” arises from this imaginative place.

At its best, intuition is an instantaneous, direct grasping of the pattern of things, of how things fit together, bringing the many pieces of a puzzle into an ordered whole. It provides, in a flash of insight, an answer to a problem or a question, taking all the relevant factors into account. It is as if the right combination to a lock has been dialed, and all the tumblers suddenly fall into place: the lock opens. Intuition can also present creative visions, such as Mozart experienced when he saw in his mind’s eye a whole new work of music in an instant. These powerful flashes, whether solving a problem or offering creativity, bring with them a deep sense of “knowing,” a profound sense that the right answer has been found, the right path has been discovered. The certainty of such moments makes intuition the source of our deepest truths and most important realizations, as well as the fountainhead of creative visions. No wonder Kant had to bow to its importance.

The power and importance of intuition are not new discoveries. Since earliest times it has been valued, cultivated, and understood as crucial to human knowledge. Aristotle, St. Augustine, Descartes, Bergson, Spinoza, and Whitehead (to name but a few) are philosophers who saw it as foundational in the acquisition of wisdom. Many traditions speak of the “still small voice” from which understanding and knowing can arise. Even that staunch empiricist, John Stuart Mill (stepping out of his empirical position for a moment that all knowledge is derived from the senses), had to admit: “The truths known by intuition are the original premises from which all others are inferred.”‘

In the scientific domain, intuition is the ground from which many, if not most, of the greatest breakthroughs arose – from Descartes’ dream-inspired vision for his life contributing significantly to the development of the scientific method to Einstein’s first glimpse of relativity while in a “drifting” state on a train leaving Zurich. Many other examples could be given, such as August Kekule von Stradonitz’s molecular structure theory, which began with a vision while riding on a streetcar in London (and called by one observer “the most brilliant piece of prediction in the whole history of science”), or the Bohr model of atomic structure, which came to Niels Bohr in a dream, and won for him the Nobel Prize in Physics. ¹

These are far from isolated examples. In Quantum Questions, Ken Wilber highlights the philosophical writings of the founders of modern physics, showing that as they penetrated the mystery of the microscopic and macroscopic worlds, they became self-avowed intuitionists and transcendentalists. What other path was open to them, for they were coming to see that time and space, the containers through which we experience life, are not hard and fast material things, but deep intuitions. (Einstein’s theory, considered outlandish at the time, that clocks traveling at different relative speeds would not keep the same time has now been demonstrated to be true.)

Harvard professor Pitirim A. Sorokin, one of the 20^th century’s greatest sociologists, was a life-long explorer of and advocate for the importance of intuition. His many years of study led him to the conclusion that there are three forms of truth – sensory, rational, and intuitive – and that of these three, “there is hardly any doubt that intuition is the source of real knowledge. It is especially indispensable in the apprehension of those aspects of true reality which are inaccessible to the senses and to reason.”

For Sorokin, intuition is “the source of true knowing,” for it provides the possibility of knowledge that has an accuracy and appropriateness far beyond the capacity of the senses and reason. Intuition provides a connection to “an awareness that flows through the underlying deep connectivity of things and events.” In other words, it yields a glimpse into the underlying pattern of things.

Intuition in our Daily Lives

All of this leads inexorably to the conclusion that in working through the important issues of our lives, the cultivation and development of intuition is crucial, for it is the only faculty that can take into account the whole picture, the whole gestalt, as a decision is being made. Since our conscious minds can only focus on a limited number of things at a time, intuition is the one tool that can grasp the whole, can “see” how the whole picture – both conscious and unconscious elements – fits together.

The article from Science Magazine about decision-making mentioned in an earlier chapter gets at the heart of the intuitive process.²

In one example from the study, those who were trying to select a new car reported greater satisfaction with their choice (as opposed to the control group) if they gathered all the facts, but were then distracted from thinking about it for a while, letting their unconscious deal with it until a decision arose. (The control group gathered all the information and then made a decision without being distracted.) Turning complex decisions over to the unconscious seems to work because, “Consciousness has a ‘low capacity’” for holding all the relevant information, and we can “consider only a subset of relevant information” at any one time. For this reason, our conscious process will “inappropriately weigh” the immediate information in the mind, compared to other important things we are not thinking about when we are making a decision. In contrast, “the human subconscious has a higher capacity to integrate more information, which can lead to better choices.”

The author of the original study, Dr. Ap Dijksterhuis, concludes, “we can think unconsciously and that unconscious thought is actually superior to conscious thought for complex decisions.” So in some mysterious way, our unconscious sorts through all the information we have collected about a subject, and at some point an answer or a glimpse of an answer appears, and the name we most frequently give to this ability is intuition.

It is crucially important to note that this study was focused primarily on practical decisions like buying a house or car. Imagine how much more its conclusions would apply to issues beyond the material realm – such as love, creative expression, hopes and dreams, and the values and beliefs we will use to guide our lives. For these things, the words of one of America’s greatest philosophers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ring clear: “Meantime, whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely, it is an intuition.”

To say this less poetically: When dealing with the most important issues in life, after considering all the facts as thoroughly as possible, the highest likelihood of a good decision comes if we turn the decision-making process over to the mysterious “black box” of our inner sense of things. And if Emerson is correct, this is the only door to deepest knowledge about life and living.

Let’s say, for instance, that I am considering something simple like choosing a hobby. (Most of us don’t exactly choose a hobby; it just seems to happen to us in a natural and unplanned way.) But lets say that I decide to be logical about it. I might read books about various leisure activities, talk to friends about what they enjoy, and reflect about what fits my nature.

All of this is valuable. But when decision time comes, it cannot be done logically, for there is no way to assign calculable value to most of the factors that are part of the consideration. How many points for the excitement I feel about one option? How many points subtracted for the difficulties involved with another? How would monetary cost be compared to excitement? How would anxiety over an option be factored in (using logic, would you say anxiety is a sign I should avoid an option, or a sign to pursue it because I would be benefited by overcoming the anxiety)? How many points for the recommendation of my spouse, or the negative council of a friend? These things simply cannot be compared in any objective way. After weighing all the factors as best I can, the only intelligent alternative is to let the decision simmer for a time, to turn it over to my mysterious inner processes, and hope that an “Aha!” arises – that a “felt sense” of what is right or best arises out of that inexplicable place called intuitive knowing.

Core principles

Most of us who were raised in democratic cultures take democracy for granted. It seems “reasonable” to us. But it did not seem reasonable to most inhabitants of our planet in the past. Nor does it seem so to many today. Looking back to the beginning of the great American experiment in representative government, consider the most famous words written by that child of the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson. Though fiercely committed to the Enlightenment’s attempt to ground all values and beliefs in human reason, Jefferson penned these lines to provide the ultimate justification for the founding of the United States: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Self-evident? To whom: The British? The Chinese? Most people in the world of that time did not accept the idea he was proposing as “self-evident.” Even most of his fellow colonists did not accept it. Further, most human beings in the long history before he wrote did not consider this idea to be self-evident. Nor can it be argued that Jefferson’s appeal was to reason, for asserting that something is “self-evident” is not a rational proposition. It seems clear that Jefferson knew his only possible starting point for the core principle of the new nation was an appeal to an underlying value, beyond reason and logic, beyond what most people understood at the time – something that he deeply felt was true even though it could not be logically or rationally proven.

In essence, Jefferson’s appeal in the Declaration of Independence was to ask everyone to look deeper, to use their intuition and see that the value he was enunciating as the founding principle of the new nation was true, beyond all logical argument, in some deep and ultimate way. He was asserting that this idea was not simply being made up by the American revolutionaries, but that it had an independent existence in some deep ground of truth, and that everyone who looked deeply enough would discover that truth for themselves. This is what he meant by “self-evident.”

If there is any doubt about this interpretation, simply read the next lines from Jefferson’s pen for confirmation: “We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.” In this there is absolutely no doubt that Jefferson, the ultimate humanist, is saying that there is some deep ground we all share, and the “rights” of the citizens of the nation he is founding find their final justification in that ground. Jefferson saw, with Emerson, that the only door to this ground is an intuitive awakening to this core knowledge.

Many other examples could be given for the crucial role intuitive knowing plays in the creation of human values and principles. Several subsequent chapters will deal with this theme in art, religion, and societal mores, so I will give but two more examples here from the political arena. We like to believe that our system of justice is logical and law-based, and in some ways it is. But at the heart of the American justice system is trial by jury. Even with its flaws, it is a noble concept, and an amazingly effective procedure compared to the alternatives. However, many studies have shown that when jurors reach the point of decision, they turn neither to logic nor to the law, but to a “gut sense” of guilt or innocence, to a feeling sense as to what is right and fair. In other words, they turn to intuitive knowing.

Another example: The core organizing principle of representative democracy is a vote of the people. On what basis, then, do citizens make this foundational decision? Study after study has shown that, after taking into consideration the facts and arguments, most voters arrive at a “feeling sense” as to the candidate who seems best to them.³ The factors they recount have to do with impressions of the candidate’s character, image, or philosophical alignment. They might give arguments to support their position, but the gut decision precedes the argument, rather than the other way around – arguments being marshaled to justify the decision after it has been made. How else to explain the fact that thoughtful, intelligent people are continually coming to completely different decisions as to who to support in an election? Committed partisans are always able to give what they think are “rational” arguments as to why they are “right,” but this does not persuade their equally “rational” adversaries. How could it be otherwise, for there is no way to quantify the hundreds of factors at play in an election. For both good and ill, elections force us to fall back on our intuitional feel about the candidates.

The Problem with Intuition

There is, of course, a great problem with intuition: How do we know, at any given moment, whether what seems like a deep intuition is really that, or just a whim or desire masquerading as wisdom? In politics, how do we know our feeling sense about the worth of a candidate is correct, when many politicians are masters of the charade (as history has demonstrated countless times, to humanity’s detriment). Concerning life issues, how do we know for certain which decisions are arising from a true knowing, versus those which are being distorted by our fears, prejudices, and fantasies?

Most of us have had the experience of thinking we have a clear “knowing” about something, only to discover later – to our chagrin – that things were not as we envisioned. Was the intuition wrong, or were we mistaken that it was a true intuition in the first place? In either case, we humans have a strong tendency to rationalize whatever position we have taken, so if we are in error, it is very hard to admit it to others, as well as to ourselves. Four centuries ago, Sir Francis Bacon observed this dilemma clearly:

How do we discern, then, as Bacon suggests often happens, when we are lost in our prejudices and calling it an intuition?

For me, the unfortunate answer to these questions is that it is quite difficult – basically a lifetime’s work. In doing this work, there are four different situations in which I sometimes find myself:

1) Clear Knowing: I have had experiences that correspond closely to the profound knowing states described by Thoreau, Plato, Rousseau, Sorokin, Jung, and so many others, states characterized by a clarity and sense of certainty that is unmistakable. This is Thoreau’s “genius” within, and a few times this knowing has been so strong for me that there was no doubt about its validity. The insights from these moments have almost always proven to be true. However, moments of this degree of clarity and conviction have occurred only rarely in my life.

2) Clear knowing with resistance: In a second category are moments when I have a sense of knowing, but “I” don’t like what I am hearing. I usually take these moments to be times in which my ego does not like what my deeper intuition is saying – my ego self would prefer a different path or conclusion, so it strongly resists the “intuition.” In almost all these cases, in retrospect, my intuition was right, whether I followed the guidance or not. As I get older, I make a greater effort to follow such guidance even if my ego self is not very happy about it.

3) Not knowing: A third category consists of times when I feel no sense of “knowing,” or, if one is present, the clarity and conviction are weak. At such times, which are frequent, I have learned it is almost always best to wait for a clearer conviction, making time to walk in the mountains, meditate, sing, pray, take a trip, talk to a friend – things that have helped foster clarity in the past. (Sometimes these help, and sometimes they do not. The muse cannot be compelled.)

However, sometimes waiting is not possible; a decision must be made: Someone is in trouble right now; do I help, or continue on with my own plans? Do I speak out on an issue that is being decided right now, although speaking out will alienate friends and possibly jeopardize my position? Do I accept or reject an invitation I just received to speak or meet or socialize? A job is offered, do I take it? Do I begin a relationship with a person I just met, or let that person pass on through and out of my life? In these and similar moments, to wait is to freeze the flow of life. Much of life is to act, and refusal to act is a dramatic statement and action. Since the normal human state is to move and to act, to break that flow can result in paralysis, and we can easily find ourselves becalmed in the brackish eddies of life. (Yet sometimes it is important to wait, to pause before action.)

Having spent much time in these paradoxical waters, I have come to see that it is much like being a river pilot (as Mark Twain burned into my mental imagery at a young age). It is learning to get the “feel” of moving through life’s streams, where the shoals are constantly shifting, and new sandbars arise and dissipate overnight. Often there is no “right” decision, the best solution being simply to move with the current of one’s life as best one can, making mistakes of action rather than passivity. (Yet sometimes it is crucial to wait.)

As I try to move with the life-stream, intuitions sometimes arise, and sometimes they do not, but the river of life keeps flowing; then, like the river pilot who has heard reports from others that a clear channel exists, reports from others that there is an intuitive way of “knowing” encourage me to make the effort to find that channel for myself, and to trust its whisperings when they arise.

4) Knowing that misleads: A fourth category concerns moments in which I have a sense of “knowing,” and follow it, only to discover that things are not working out very well. What went wrong? If I am really honest with myself, I can usually tell – in retrospect – that what I took for intuition was not that at all, but merely an aspect of myself wanting gratification or achievement or pleasure, carrying me along a path that did not fit with the overall flow of my life. Looking back, I can see that I fooled myself, or a particular whim or desire tricked “me” – using my trust in intuition to get what it wanted. (The comedian Flip Wilson used to justify his questionable actions with, “The devil made me do it.”)

So how do we know when an inner voice is a deep knowing, the true whisper of intuition, versus one of our desires masquerading as insight – the devil in disguise? (An obscure novel by James Hogg published in 1824, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner [long before Freud] develops this theme with amazing psychological insight; a man is being led down a path by the counsel of a “friend,” advice that part of him wants to believe. Too late does he discover the true nature of his “friend,” and the disaster the advice has brought to his life.)

A personal example: A strong sense arises that I need to tell someone the “truth” about something I feel they have done wrong. I tell them, maybe a little righteously, then gradually (or suddenly) comes a chilling sense that I was not following deep intuition at all, but an urge to be “right’ (or to show how smart I was, or to show the other person up). The urge to be right, along with urges for sexual gratification, power, fame, and fortune are powerful forces, and lead to actions that arise from a much murkier place than clear intuition. Yet the feeling to act in such moments can seem strong and right.

This fourth category is the hardest to deal with, for when I think I know the right path, why would I pause and reflect before acting? How do I find the patience and the perspective from which to question my own sense of knowing, and how do I know when to do so?

There are of course no easy answers to any of these questions. Painful honesty with myself is a help, through which I gradually develop the ability – by trial and error, mistake after mistake – to discern the difference between a true knowing and a small and self-centered one. (A Zen master was asked, “How did you become enlightened?” His reply, “One mistake at a time.”) Perhaps a lot of mistakes, and a persistent reflection on those mistakes is the only way to develop discernment and self-knowledge, to develop wisdom. If we come to know ourselves well enough through this process, perhaps we will begin to catch the small clues that distinguish fantasies and whims from true knowing. If we can remember that intuitions are not always as they seem, then close and honest attention will help us navigate these treacherous waters more and more skillfully.

Reason’s Return

And here we come full circle, to the importance and value of reason as partner to intuition. Not reason in the narrow or logical sense, but reason in its role of consciously considering everything from the broadest perspective, of weighing all the factors in one’s heart and head as carefully and fully as possible. Reason brings us back to a consideration of duty, of values, of others, of life plans, and of our relationship to culture and community. Intuition might consider these things, but we do not know this to be true, for the very nature of intuition is that we do not know from whence the sudden flash comes, or the factors that influenced its arising. For that matter, we do not really know the perspective from which intuition speaks: Does it serve the ego, or some transcendent purpose?

This question of perspectives is the final argument for the importance of reason. We are not sentenced to follow our intuition. We have a human choice as to the perspective our life will serve, and I simply cannot discern the final perspective from which my intuition arises. Combining this realization with the fact that we can easily fool ourselves about our intuitive knowing provides powerful motivation to include reason in my decision-making process. After the intuitive flash, to consider everything from the broadest possible conscious perspective is the essence of being human.

Thus for me, the ultimate human act is to listen to my intuition as best I can, and then to make a conscious choice as to who I will be, and how my life will be lived from the wisest place I can find in each moment. This is the role of reason heralded by philosophers and theologians for thousand of years. Does reason include intuition? Some have defined it so. But for me, there is such a difference between the feel and function of reason, as compared to intuition, that I prefer to think of them as separate but complementary partners.

Which takes precedence, reason or intuition? Perhaps contradicting myself a bit from the last chapter ⁴ (in which I might have suggested that all those thoughts parading through the mind do so without any order), the actuality is that when I consider a question or an issue, the process in my mind isn’t totally random. Images and feelings that I do not control certainly cascade through my mind, and my thinking frequently jumps around to topics other than the one on which I am trying to concentrate. But although I do not control this process, I do participate in it. I can decide to focus on a topic, and this decision makes it more likely I will focus on the issue I have chosen. And if I can exercise the discipline to keep returning my mind over and over to a topic or a problem, I am much more likely to have an intuitive flash in that chosen area.

This is not a logical process, yet there is some way that reason and consciousness interact with the intuitive realm. Patterns of thinking emerge, and certain currents begin to gel into recognizable coherence. Some of these patterns of thought persist in me over time, and become an integral part of my identity. This process is not subject to my conscious control, yet it is not completely separate from conscious input either. In the best case, it is a dance, with the partners moving in harmony, one taking the lead for a moment, and then the other, neither knowing when the transition occurred, nor when the lead with shift again. This is the dance of reason and intuition as it moves and guides my inner being.

But since this chapter is on intuition, let me close with a paean to the beauty and importance of this marvelous trait. In many ways Friedrich Nietzsche ushered in the modern era (which is less favorable to intuition than most) with his critique of the “weak-minded” spiritual systems that had gone before. Yet even this apostle of the end of the transcendent, this hard-nosed realist, waxed eloquent in his most famous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, glorifying the mysterious realm of knowing called intuition:

If there is even a small chance that this is true, that each of us can touch for an instant this state of knowing that Nietzsche and so many others have described, then the potential rewards are great, and one of the most crucial tasks of life is to find a way to experience this knowing for ourselves. How then, might you access this “freedom,” this “power,” this connection to “divinity” in your own life? — remembering all the while the necessity of discernment between deep intuitions and the promptings of less profound urges and desires. (At this discernment, Nietzsche did not succeed.)

1 Several of these examples are presented in Willis Harmon’s book Higher Creativity. For further discussion on this topic, and more examples, it is a good source.

2 The following quote is from an article written by Megan Rauscher for Reuters Health, discussing the article in Science Magazine in the February 17, 2006 issue.

3 For one good analysis of this topic, see The Political Brain by Drew Westen

4 It is hard not to exaggerate for effect when writing.