What is Mainstream Intuition?

What is

Mainstream Intuition?

Why don’t we kick it off with some different dictionary definitions of the word intuition.

Webster’s Dictionary quotes: 

1

a: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

b: immediate apprehension or cognition

c: knowledge or conviction gained by intuition

2: quick and ready insight

The sun setting through a dense forest.

Cambridge Dictionary quotes:

(knowledge from) an ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than facts:

Often there’s no clear evidence one way or the other and you just have to base your judgment on intuition.

[ + (that) ] I can’t explain how I knew – I just had an intuition that you’d been involved in an accident.

The sun shining over a ridge leading down into the shore. In the distance, a car drives down a road.

Wikipedia quotes:

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.[2][3][4] Different fields use the word “intuition” in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; inner sensing; inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition; and the ability to understand something instinctively, without any need for conscious reasoning.[5][6] Intuitive knowledge tends to be approximate.[7]

Although all three sources vary a little bit in description the generality of their statements is relatively the same. Basically stating that you are able to draw on knowledge that there is no reason for you to have.

 Now that’s a fairly simple statement and generalization of intuition however at its core that’s really what it is. It’s only the context on how a person uses it, is where the complexity comes from. This complexity is what allows for a lot of mainstream thinking to be able to say it’s no more than random or lucky thoughts. As an example: There was a paper published in Psychology Today that directly refutes that it comes from anywhere other than your subconscious mind that has been accumulating more information than you realized. However, that doesn’t explain certain situations, for example when somebody has the ability to know that somebody is going to call them on the phone. 

This is one of the main reasons why I think this particular gift is such a special one. Being able to see the good or the gift within something, that the person sitting right next to you is able to look at and see nothing! It’s a beautiful reminder on how special the person is who sees the good and the positive. It’s not the gifts that make the person special, it is that person’s ability to use what they have been given.

Throughout this course we’re going to be going a few steps further than what mainstream thinks intuition is. We are going to be exploring what guidance means, where intuition comes from, and how it comes to be. So, grab a cup of your favorite tea and let’s get started!