On Intuition

A Collection of Thoughts

Intuition (noun)

  1. immediate apprehension by the mind without reasoning.
  2. immediate apprehension by a sense.
  3. immediate insight.

Concise Oxford Dictionary

Intuition is the apprehension by the mind of reality directly as it is and not under the form of a perception or conception, (nor as an idea or object of the reason), all of which by contrast are intellectual apprehension.

H. Wildon Carr, Philosophy of Change, p. 21

The traditional mode of perceiving the invisible is intuition. Intuition also includes what I have called mythic sensibility, for when a myth strikes us, it seems true and gives sudden insight.

In psychology intuition means "direct and unmediated knowledge", "immediate or innate apprehension of a complex group of data". (1) Intuition is both thoughtless and also not a feeling state; it is a clear, quick, and full apprehension, "the significant feature being the immediacy of the process". (2) Intuitions "occur to a person without any known process of cogitation or reflective thinking" (3).

Another important characteristic of intuition is the way it works. It does not expand slowly as a gradual suffusion of mood; nor does it advance by thought, step by step; nor does it come to its insight by a careful examination of sensate details that compose the whole object before me. As I said, intuition is clear, quick, and full. Like a revelation it comes all at once, and fast. It is quite independent of time – just as myths are timeless, and fall apart when we ask of them temporal questions such as "When did this occur?" "What is the origin?" "Did the myth develop?" "Are there no new myths?" "Don't they result from historical events?" And so on.

James Hillman, The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling, pp. 97-99,

(1)& (3) H.B. & A.C. English, A Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological and Analytical Terms

(2)H.C. Warren, ed., Dictionary of Psychology

Just as we call the revelation of physical things “sensation” we will call the revelation of spiritual things “intuition”. Even a very simple thought which already contains intuition, because we cannot touch it with our hands or see it with our eyes; we must receive the revelation from the spirit by means of the “I”.

Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy, p. 51

To have knowledge of a spiritual being through intuition means having become completely at one with it, having united with its inner nature… Imagination brings us to the point where we no longer feel that perceptions are external qualities of beings; instead we recognize in them the emanations of something that is soul-spiritual in character. Inspiration leads us still further into the inner nature of beings and teaches us to understand what these beings are for each other. In intuition, we penetrate into the beings themselves.

Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science, p. 338

Intuition is a comprehensive grip of the principle of universality, and when it is functioning there is, momentarily at least, a complete loss of the sense of separateness. At its highest point, it is known as that Universal Love which has no relation to sentiment or to the affectional reaction but is, predominantly, in the nature of an identification with all beings. Then is true compassion known; then does criticism become impossible; then, only, is the divine germ seen as latent in all forms.

Intuition is light itself, and when it is functioning, the world is seen as light and the light bodies of all forms become gradually apparent. This brings with it the ability to contact the light centre in all forms, and thus again an essential relationship is established and the sense of superiority and separateness recedes into the background.

Intuition, therefore, brings with its appearance three qualities:

Illumination. ...The light to which I refer is that which irradiates the Way. It is "the light of the intellect", which really means that which illumines the mind and which can reflect itself in that mental apparatus which is held "steady in the light". This is the "Light of the World", a Reality which is eternally existent, but which can be discovered only when the individual interior light is recognised as such. This is the "Light of the Ages", which shineth ever more until the Day be with us. The intuition is therefore the recognition in oneself, not theoretically but as a fact in one's experience, of one's complete identification with the Universal Mind, of one's constituting a part of the great World Life, and of one's participation in the eternal persisting Existence.

Understanding. This must be appreciated in its literal sense as that which "stands under" the totality of forms. To have true understanding involves an increased ability to love all beings and yet, at the same time, to preserve personality detachment. ... Intuitional understanding is always spontaneous. Where the reasoning to an understanding enters, it is not the activity of the intuition.

Love. ... When the intuition is developed, both affection and the possession of a spirit of loving outgo will, necessarily, in their pure form, be demonstrated, but that which produces these is something much more deep and comprehensive. It is that synthetic, inclusive grasp of the life and needs of all beings ...which it is the high prerogative of a divine Son of God to operate. It negates all that builds barriers, makes criticism, and produces separation. It sees no distinction, even when it appreciates need, and it produces in one who loves as a soul immediate identification with that which is loved.

These three words sum up the three qualities or aspects of the intuition and can be covered by the word, universality, or the sense of universal Oneness.

Alice A. Bailey, Glamour: A World Problem, pp. 2-5

As with truth of religion, so with the highest and deepest truth of beauty, the intellectual reason cannot seize its inner sense and reality, not even the inner truth of the apparent principles and processes, unless it is aided by a higher insight not its own. As it cannot give a method, process or rule by which beauty can or ought to be created, so also it cannot give to the appreciation of beauty that deeper insight which it needs; it can only help to remove the dullness and vagueness of the habitual perceptions and conceptions of the lower mind which prevent it from seeing beauty or which give it false and crude aesthetic habits: it does this by giving to the mind an external idea and rule of the elements of the thing it has to perceive and appreciate. What is farther needed is the awakening of a certain vision, an insight and an intuitive response in the soul. Reason which studies always from outside, cannot give this inner and more intimate contact; it has to aid itself by a more direct insight springing from the soul itself and to call at every step on the intuitive mind to fill up the gap of its own deficiencies.

Sri Aurobindo, Social & Political Thought, pp. 132-3

That wisdom which is like the essence of life and which is to be found within oneself can only be attained by first making the mind obedient; and this can be done by concentration. If a person's mind is not under control, how can he use it? It is one thing to learn, and another thing to make use of one's learning. It does not suffice to learn a song: that does not make a person into a singer. He must learn to produce his voice also. And so it is with intuitive knowledge. When a man has become qualified by studying for a long time and yet cannot use his knowledge, what is the good of it? There is a sufficient number of learned people; what we want today is people with master minds, those who see not only the outer life but also the life within, who draw inspiration not only from the outer life but also from the life within. Then they become the expression of that perfect Being which is hidden, hidden behind the life of variety.

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Spiritual Dimensions of Psychology, p.206

In the Buddhist sense, imagination does not so much transform as reveal what is already present, the mind's inherent creativity realizing its essential unity with all situations.

Ian Baker, The Heart of the World, p. 126

Through inspiration one acquires the knowledge of the relationships between the beings of the higher world. It is possible through a higher stage of cognition to understand the nature of these beings themselves. This stage of cognition may be designated intuitive cognition. (Intuition is a word misused in everyday life for an obscure, uncertain insight into a fact, that is, for a certain idea which at times agrees with truth but the justification of which is at the time not provable. What is meant here has naturally nothing to do with this sort of intuition. Intuition denotes here a cognition of the highest, most illuminating clarity, and, if one has it, one is conscious in the fullest sense of its justification.) —To have knowledge of a sense-being means to stand outside it and judge it according to the external impression. To have knowledge of a spiritual being through intuition means to have become completely one with it, to have become united with its inner nature.

Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Occult Science, Anthroposophic Press: Spring Valley (NY), 1972 pp. 309-10.

[Currently published as An Outline of Esoteric Science]

All quotations from: where you will find thoughts on the intuition from almost 100 writers, artists, scientists and thinkers.

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