Direct knowing is the Only knowing (Anything we do not grasp immediately, can never be known)

Human consciousness has changed over the generations; so that now we no longer understand language, pictures, or "symbols" in general.

This is obvious everywhere. It does not matter what is said, shown or expressed; people cannot understand it spontaneously. 

In the past it was Just Obvious to (almost) everyone, what things meant - but not any more. 

Things that used to be common sense and obvious, we are unsure about, they become subject to debate, to the application of rival theories and explanations - and once that has happened, we no longer know.  

Learning, discovery, understanding - came all together; and from outside.  

This is what "inspiration" properly means: knowledge was as if (but in a sense literally) breathed-in, imbibed from externally - perceptions came already-packaged with their meanings.  

The same has happened to the world of spirit and religion. Some people still have what they are confident are religious experiences, spiritual visions, "contacts" with other beings. 

Some people have paranormal or supernatural experiences - contact with the dead, ghosts, telepathy; do magical things like spoon bending; report out of body experiences; have extraordinary coincidences/ synchronicities; see UFOs or explore crop-circles... All sorts of things. 

And some people, at least, can - by methods such as training in meditation, developing habits, focused attention, seeking altered consciousness; or by "systems" such as ritual magic, alchemy, astrology, Traot cards etc - have extraordinary experiences. 

These things are possible and happen to some people - yet the people do not know what they mean. 

People do not know what ordinary everyday experiences mean; and they do not know what religious/ spiritual/ paranormal experiences mean. 

The meaning is the problem. 

They may spend their lives trying to understand what their experiences mean. And this applies no matter how strange and overwhelming are the experiences! 

Philip K Dick's life was changed by a series of intense religious experiences; but after eight years of intensive and sustained attempts to understand what it meant - he died without finding-out.     

This is how things are for people here-and-now. 

The question for Christians is why would our good, loving, creator in Heaven have made us and the world, such that we do not understand our experiences? 

There must be a reason why God has made matters thus; and it must be a good reason - a reason for our own good.  

I think God's intent and hope is that we cease to try and understand things indirectly - that is, via language, visions, symbols, and experiences; and instead base our understanding upon what I have called Direct Knowing - which is simply that which we know without intermediary. 

What we can know must therefore be grasped in one go, as a whole - without explanation, without interpretation, without reasoning.

This means that we need to stop looking for understanding from other things; and instead turn our attention to what we do know. 

My model of this is that we have a conscious and personality self, which is what we are spontaneously aware of; and which "observes" the world via symbol, language, pictures etc. 

But we also have a primal self, which knows directly. It is this which is eternal, which is divine (albeit very partially so compared with God); and this primal self is what is in communion with the Holy Ghost   

If we are to know, we must turn our personality self towards our primal self - and discover what it knows.   

I think we always know unconsciously what the primal self knows directly - and our task is to become aware of what we already know. 

The knowing of the primal self is very simple indeed. It is like a plus or minus applied to the world; it is a discernment. 

What the primal self knows, it knows in a single grasp of thought in which understanding is built-in. 

What this seems to mean, is that to know anything, understanding must come with discovery. 

And if anything is discovered that we do not grasp immediately, then we can never know it. 

No matter how much we try or for how long; we will be stuck forever at the level of inconclusiveness and ambiguity.