What's the (metaphysical) difference between Good and true intuition, and the mainstream evil nonsense?

Everybody's belief is ultimately rooted in intuition. 

What, then, is the difference between Good intuition that leads to a Romantic Christian commitment (if Jesus's promises are what the person most deeply desires); and the kind of evil-affiliated, totalitarian-believing stuff that the mass majority of the West have chosen?

The difference is that: most people's intuition is rooted in some-thing that denies the validity of the intuition itself. 

For instance; many people (it seems) have an intuition that the universe is purely material, happened entirely 'by physics', has no purpose, and that my own life arose through the blind algorithmic processes of natural selection and therefore has no objective or eternal meaning. 

Thus my thoughts, my deepest and surest convictions, can have no possible objective connection with reality. Intuition is just a temporary, subjective, meaningless emotional response.  

In other words, the intuition is rendered meaningless by its own conviction: because my intuition is that intuition is meaningless! 

But this self-refuting incoherence is obscured by a somewhat roundabout argument, with several steps - and few people choose to think for long enough or sticking to the subject such that they realize that their beliefs are self-contradicting. 

Good intuition is different because Good intuition is coherent. 

Good intuition is in-place when there is an intuitive belief in a scheme of understanding - i.e. a metaphysics - that itself explains why the first intuition is valid.

So the first intuition is that the nature of reality itself explains how it is I personally (here and now) can intuitively understand reality. 

In other words, the first Good intuition if of a metaphysical scheme that itself explains how true personal intuition is possible. 

The confirmation of this first intuition comes when this metaphysical scheme that explains the validity of intuition is itself intuitively affirmed. 

Thus, in Good and true intuition - we have coherence of many mutually-supporting intuitions, and of the scheme-itself of mutually-supporting intuitions as-a-whole. 

More on intuition, creativity and 'life'

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As I wrote yesterday, I feel that human thinking is essentially undivided, but that styles which could be called intuitive and rational have different absolute and relative strengths in different individuals.

The intuitive style of thinking is the non-rational basis of creativity, and works by a different kind of 'logic' (or anti-logic).

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I conceptualize intuition as (very roughly speaking) working by association of emotions and by 'subjective' semantic categories (i.e. by categories of meaning that - according to mainstream culture, are partly inborn, and partly the result of individual experience).

This can be seen in remembered dreams, with their strange changes of direction in narrative. Usually, these changes of direction can be 'explained' by some individual association based on the emotions generated.

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It is a bit like the way we categorize personal names in our mind; we have certain categories of names Rebecca and Emily might go together (because of an 18th century feel); or Charles, William and Robert ('King's names); or Nicola and Tracy (tow girls who were best friends) - and this association leads to slips of tongue. The same applies to cities, and (I believe) all the way through are structures of knowledge - even abstract knowledge such as science: there are spontaneous and not-rational (or not necessarily rational) association between chemicals, numbers, colours and so on.

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So we have a grammar of intuitive thinking which will - to a greater or lesser extent, vary between individuals - and will cut across the categories of rational thought.

And the reinforcement of intuition comes from emotions: our associations are validated by emotions.

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The sense of 'depth' which we crave and which we may experience in life, in social relations, in art, even in science; this sense of depth comes (I believe) from these personal and spontaneous associations.

So a 'deep' experience is one which triggers many associations that hang together, and these associations seem to go on and on, rooting the experience deep in our minds.

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By contrast, non-intuitive reason, for example formal logic, lacks this emotional back-up; so that even when we regard it as correct our decision is not validated by emotions.

So we acknowledge that one place is better than another; a particular car is better than another; a composer is better than another - 'on paper' or rationally and yet we may not feel this emotionally, and our assent is shallow and weak - and indeed alienating.

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So if a person believes rationally that Mozart is better than Rossini yet Rossini feels deeper to them at an intuitive level and Mozart just comes across as tinkling noise - then it is alienating to spend all ones time listening to Mozart and trying to manufacture an appreciation.

Likewise, if modern life is superior to ancient life in all rational respects, yet feels shallow, meaningless, purposeless - it is alienating to try and live by the belief that modern life is superior.

Likewise, if one's perspective on life (one's philosophy of life, or religion) feels shallow, meaningless and purposeless - yet apparently is supported by reason - this is alienating, profoundly alienating.

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What we seek is 'the good' such that our perspective on life is rationally true, beautiful and virtuous, and that all valued things are TBV, and each unit of experience has 'depth' such that all which is TBV is linked to all other entities that are TBV - no matter how far back we push.

Anything less than this feels incomplete is experienced as incomplete, is uninvolving, isolating - we can almost feel our minds crumbling at the prospect of such a life! Hence the need for inducing numbing indifference and distraction in modernity.

And if we are told that we are being unreasonable to want more than shallowness, then we are even more alienated!

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Yet if intuition and subjectivity are 'merely' the result of evolved predispositions and individual experience, then alienation becomes a personal problem; which may elicit sympathy, but which cannot be acknowledged as having any general validity.

The mismatch between intuition and reason is a profound criticism, a refutation of life as it is experienced - and this is probably the basis of nihilism - the disbelief in the reality of life - and because nothing is real, then nothing matters except therapy.

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Nothing matters except therapy...

Yes indeed, for secular modernity, the bottom line of all action is therapy.

For each individual, life is a matter of therapy - self-therapy and therapy from others (especially the therapeutic state - the politically correct state): a matter of making ourselves feel good, or at least less-bad, or blocking-out bad feelings with pleasure, or just obliterating all feelings with intoxications of one sort of another (drugs, or falling in love/ lust - it matters not which...).

For modern spirituality (New Age) - all is directed to therapy.

And therapy is this-worldly and temporary, a matter of aspirins and band-aids, because there is no possibility of anything else.

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For modern secualr culture, art is - at root - merely aspirins and band aids, so is any absorbing job or hobby, so is love - (nothing more than) a chance to live imaginatively and temporarily in a world of apparent meaning and purpose (or, a world where absorption obliterates all thoughts of meaning and purpose), even though we 'know' that this is not real, just a temporary 'escape' from the reality of nihilism.

In secular modernity we seek - as our ultimate goal - strong medicine.

And since we become tolerant to strong medicines, we need a perpetual procession of new strong medicines; of inventions, novelties, of change. 

Even philosophy, even religion is conceptualized as nothing more than a strong medicine (which works for some people, not everyone).

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So intuition points elsewhere than reason, but intuition and reason cannot be brought together under a materialist, this-worldly perspective - since at this level of analysis intuition merely points to therapy.

What we crave is a world where intuition and reason are merely different sides of the same coin; where all reaosn is intuitive and vice versa.

Untill we find such a perspective, we are right to be dissatisfied.

The profoundest therapy is successful Zen - a living death, a state of utter detachment and indifference and acceptance of meaninglessness and purposelessness.

Yet if the Zen perspective is really true, one might as well die now and have done with it! Why struggle and meditate for years to achieve indifference?

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Therapy cannot be an ultimate goal in life, because therapy points to death as the only answer to life.

The therapeutic culture is the consequence of a culture which regards intuition as important, but ultimately intuition as something we are 'stuck with' - due to heredity and individual experience.

For New Age spirituality, intuition is at root merely an unfortunate obstacle in the path of humans accepting (as they rationally ought to) the meaninglessness and purposelessness of real-reality.

For secular modernity - even New Age Spirituality - intuition is important only because it makes us unhappy. Modernity aims to provide an ersatz satisfaction of intuition - but the satisfaction will be, must be, fake - because there is no real form of satisfaction.

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What we yearn for is meaning and purpose of life; and that requires a framework of reality not therapy, and reality requires rooting outside of this world, and beyond of reason and intuition.

We seek, therefore, a perspective which contains both reason and intuition and in which both are really-real.

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Because secular modernity acts asif reason/ logic was objectively true, while intuition/ creativity is subjectively-validated. 

In fact neither reason not intuition are objectively true in terms of a secular and materialist analysis - because for this to be the case it would be necessary that both reason and intuition were self-validating.

People act asif reason were self-validating. Secular modernity makes this assumption.

But on the slightest reflection it is apparent that reason cannot prove the validity of reason any more than intuition can prove the validity of intuition.

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So, both reason and intuition are either not objectively valid (on a materialist and secular perspective) - in which case we have no real knowledge of anything; or else either/ or both reason or intuition are validated by something hierarchically higher and beyond themselves - which is divine revelation.

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(This is why the most fully rational person who ever lived was religious - viz. Thomas Aquinas. He was fully rational because he believed that reason - indeed the selective sub-set of reason that was scholastic logic - was validated by God. I think Aquinas was incorrect and misguided in the emphasis he placed on logic, even when conclusions were unsupported by intuition - but it could not validly be said that Aquinas was irrational (or, if Aquinas was irrational, then everyone who ever existed before and since has been even-more-irrational); and Aquinas was of course deeply religious - being a Roman Catholic Saint.)

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So, those who sense that reason (or logic) is necessary but insufficient as a guide for life, but who find that secular modernity regards intuition as contingent and idiosyncratic, should consider that intuition may be validated from the same source as reason - and in the same kind of inevitably partial and distorted way as reason is validated.

The conclusion would be that, like reason, intuition is necessary. And, like reason, intuition is valid - but in a partial and biased fashion.

Both reason and intuition are both necessary yet partial and biased because underlying reality (i.e. transcendental reality) is a whole, in which reason and intuition are merely aspects of a single mode of thought.

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What is intuition? How do we know it?

Intuition is self-validating - and intuition is the only self-validating form of knowing.

Intuition is the foundation of all knowing - all valid knowledge derived from reason and evidence can be traced back to an intuition. If not traceable back to an intuition, then it cannot be known to be valid. 

A valid foundation is an intuition; any other foundation is arbitrary. 

Intuition is the same thing as direct-knowing; it does not come from 'evidence'.

Intuition is a simple knowing-the-truth-of something; and that can only be in response to a simple question that is emerged or posed in a state (probably momentary) of absolute clarity, with absolute sincerity, with the pure motivation of wanting to know.

Once something is known from intuition, it will be confirmed by later 'evidence' - so long as that evidence is itself confirmed by intuition.

No amount of any other kind of 'evidence' should ever be allowed to overcome an intuition. 

The confirmation of an intuition comes from being able to repeat the experience of intuition whenever the same state of simplicity and clarity can be attained.

Intuition is a gift, and one we are all born with, and have access to - but for most people most of the time intuition is not looked-for - and arbitrary assumption is preferred, as being short-term expedient. Even worse, the gift of spontaneous intuition is disbelieved, disdained and rejected.

So, our first intuition must be to know the validity of intuition... 
 

Intuition comes before Evidence, Imagination before Reason, Meaning before Facts

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“For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.” C.S Lewis.


So, we need both reason and imagination - but which comes first?

The answer is imagination - because truth must have meaning before it is truth (otherwise it is just decontextualised 'facts').

This is a matter of crucial importance.

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If we are talking about reasons for being a Christian, or for being one kind of Christian rather than another, then we are confronted with external Evidence and our own Intuition - but which comes first?

Most Christians would probably say evidence comes first, but they are wrong: the answer must be intuition is primary.

Because it is only by intuition that we know the validity of reason, and the evidential nature of evidence.

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Evidence cannot support evidence, without obvious circularity (e.g. we cannot coherently use the Bible to prove the evidential validity of the Bible). Intuition must underpin evidence - intuition must underpin whatever it is that we regard as evidence - or else we are simply not making that decision for Christ which we know to be essential to Christianity.

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The validity of intuition - or rather its necessity - implies divine revelation: implies indeed personal divine revelation as the bedrock of Christian faith. Otherwise there is no reason to assume that intuition is at all valid, given that we all know so many instances when intuition is not valid, when it is changeable and has been mistaken: we all know that intuition is fallible.

But validity is not infallibility. Nothing is infallible - but some things are valid.

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Mormonism recognises that there is doctrine given by revelation to prophets, recorded in scripture, and transmitted by the church; but that this ought to be validated (in all significant respects) by personal revelation: for instance personal revelation of the validity of the prophets, scriptures and church authorities.

This recognises that intuition (in the form of personal revelation) is potentially and ideally the strongest, most enduring, most considered and tested basis of Christian faith.

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Christianity should not be afraid of intuition - should not pretend that it can do without intuition; should not be paralysed by the fact that intuition is often - perhaps usually - wrong.

Because there is no alternative to intuition: Intuiting is unavoidably the basis of all Christianity, which is unavoidably a religion of the heart.

As Christians, we just are agents, we just do have choice, and Christ can only be accepted by autonomous intuition.

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It is simply not Christian to accept Christ on the basis of reason, authority, tradition, expediency - or, for that matter, coercion; it is not Christian to accept Christ on the basis of any external factor.

External factors are relevant and very important - but they are secondary.

The bottom line, which is necessary and sufficient, is for each individual to choose Christ in his heart, from within his own resources, because he feels intuitively that Christ is real, true, good and loving.

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Note: The choice of Christ need not be conscious, or at an identifiable moment; often a person may only know that they have-chosen Christ. He or she may not know how, when or why this happened, only that the choice was made. That is enough: it is not necessary to know more.
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Creativity and intuition

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In academic psychology, there are two concepts of creativity:

1. an older one which sees creativity in terms of dreamlike cognition, psychoticism, 'primary process' thinking, and thoughts linked-by emotional-associations; and

2. a newer one which sees creativity in terms of 'openness to experience' - that is neophilia, novelty-generation, random permutations and combination of memorized information.

I believe that the earlier concept is much closer to the truth, or to validity - and that indeed the idea of creativity as Openness is a modern, bureaucratic and politically-correct corruption and hijacking of creativity: creativity redefined such that the shallow childishness of modernist art and the committee-defined-consensus of Big Science counts asif creative in the same way as the great art and natural philosophy of the past.

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But there is, I suspect, something intrinsically corrupt in the concept of creativity; which emerged into public discourse at about the time of the Romantic movement in the late 17th and early 18th centuries; as a contrast with scholastic logic, and an explanation for the difference between philosophy/ science and the arts.

Properly speaking, rather than the twin poles of creativity and logic as the basis of human knowledge, I think the proper (or closer) conceptualization is intuition and reason.

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Intuition is inborn, spontaneous, it comes first, and everything is based upon it and it varies between people.

Intuition is related to 'common sense' and also to understanding other people and to instant apprehension of situations. It is related to the emotions; and seems to proceed by emotional association.

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Reason is also mostly innate, although partial forms can be learned (e.g. mathematics, geometry, formal logic), and it also varies between individuals.

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However there is not a close correlation between intuitive ability and reason; and people can be unusually high in one and unusually low in the other.

Indeed, there is probably an inverse correlation between intuitive ability and reason among healthy people; although the correlation is not very close and there are exceptions (which get rarer as they get more extreme).

These exceptions are the very rare 'creative geniuses' who are both intelligent and intuitive...

...and the more numerous and more obviously dysfunctional people who lack both intuition and intelligence - the number of these vary between societies, because intelligence and intuition can both simultaneously be damaged by brain pathology (due to degenerative disease, trauma, infection, malnutrition etc.) and the causes of brain pathology vary widely in frequency between societies.

Intelligent people who are lacking in intuition are much commoner. These are the 'clever sillies', more-or-less - the i.e. bulk of the modern ruling elite.

And also common are highly intuitive people of moderate or lower-than-average intelligence. This group includes, but is not confined-to, people with irrational ideas and illogical thought processes who may be psychotic - or regarded as mentally ill by the high intelligence-low intuition types.

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My point is that while these processes of knowing I have called intuition and reason can be statistically separated and contrasted, ultimately they are meant to work together.

It is only reliable for knowledge to proceed such that both intuition and intelligence are satisfied by each step and conclusion.

Otherwise we get the strange distortions which are usually conceptualized as of logic unsupported by emotion; or emotionality unchecked by logic - more correctly this is reasoning in contradiction to intuition and intuition apart from the context of reason.

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I am sure that humans cannot function unless intuition and reason go together; otherwise we mistrust ourselves and become detached (alienated), proud, despondent, exploitative - oscillating between domination by logic and then by emotions in unrelated sequence.

In other words we get the normal mainstream fragmentary, sound-bite-sized, conduct of modern public discourse.

We get the counter-cultural advocates of impulse and instinct alternating with the absurdly restricted and legalistic procedures of bureaucracy.

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At root, I think we need to recognize that neither creativity nor intelligence are good in themselves: which recognition is easy to say, but hard to do. 

We must recognize that creativity can be, has been, highly destructive, proud and evil. Many of the worst tyrants and sinners of history have been highly intuitive creative individuals: Napoleon, Hitler, Mao.

And that reason/ intelligence is also, more often than not, highly destructive - as evidenced by communism and its descendant political correctness.

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When it comes to Christianity we cannot allow either reason or intuition to go ahead alone; the one must always be able to catch up with the other, in each of us.

This sets a limit to how far we can go in understanding.

Rational understanding (following a line of logic) cannot go further than intuition allows; and intuition cannot go further than is check-able by reason.

So we should not follow systematic theology further than our intuition can follow; and we should not follow what seem to be personal insights and revelations further than we can personally support with reason.

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In this refusal we must each of us be stubborn - especially in a secular and corrupt world where valid spiritual advice may be impossible to find.

Better not to know than to know wrongly.

To do otherwise - and to allow logic or emotion to run-away independently - is to pull-apart human understanding and to split our souls when they should be unified.

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The strategic aim of 'meditation'; compared with intuition's tactical role in the rest of life

Meditation is a black box term - and can mean almost opposites to different people; here, I use meditation to refer to a period of (subjective, relative) quietness and stillness in which the attempt is made to allow intuition the upper hand over consciousness. 

So, in 'normal' life, I think we lead with our consciousness - our awareness, will, 'logic' etc; and the spiritual aim (my spiritual aim) is to infuse normal consciousness with intuition. 

By intuition I mean the thinking of our real self (our divine self) - which is Not primarily conscious. We can only become conscious of intuition/ the real self after it has happened - consciousness is secondary. Yet to become conscious of our intuition, and to choose to be guided by it, is (I believe) a primary task of Modern Man.

I therefore accept that the business of everyday living must (broadly ) be led by the normal kind of thinking familiar to most people - but believe that this normal thinking ought to be (as much as possible) monitored, and commented-upon, by our intuition. 

So that intuition may (for example) endorse or veto our everyday thinking (and actions). 

Therefore, this aimed-at everyday role of intuition could be termed tactical: a moment-by-moment intervention with the detailed minutiae of everyday thinking.  

Whereas by contrast meditation (when intuition leads, instead of following) could be regarded as strategic, long-term - and about pointing our everyday behaviour in the best direction (and extricating us from wrong directions, getting us off wrong paths, reversing a wrong course etc).

Thus, meditation is something done relatively infrequently (once or twice a day - once or twice a week, or month? - as required) by which we remove the constraint of consciousness and the normal mind; allow and enable our intuition a free-hand; and encourage our intuition to take-the-lead - while remaining conscious of the process, so that we may best learn and remember. 

For example, in our everyday work, at our job for instance; everyday consciousness takes the lead - but our intuition ought to be telling us whether what we have 'just done' was right or wrong. The aim to to be aware of this tactical intuitive evaluation; so that we learn the most from our work, get the most spiritual value from working. 

And strategic meditation may - if that is what is of most concern to it - tell us that we ought Not to be doing that job at all; and additionally may notice that we are drawn toward some other specific work-practice or job, or some other kind of job - and that that should be our aim. 

Mediation is therefore a - from-time-to-time - pause, a short-period of mental quietness to allow/ encourage intuition to consider what our life is, and where it is going. 

 

(Perhaps it is inevitable that intuition provides stronger guidance about what we should Not do, than about what we Ought to do; nonetheless, there may well be inklings of the best direction and/or path for us to proceed.)

 

What is Intuition? Excerpt from The Genius Famine (my forthcoming book)

From Edward Dutton & Bruce G Charlton. The Genius Famine - why we need geniuses, why they're dying out, and why we must rescue them. University of Buckingham Press - in the press.

From the Chapter - The Creative Triad

What is intuition?

We could approach intuition by stating that intuition is the mode of thought of the private soul/ the real self/ inner consciousness - that is to say the most profound, the most secret, fundamental mode of thought. Intuition can be contrasted with two (lower, subordinated) modes of thinking: passions versus reason; the body v the brain; gut-feelings v head-knowledge; instinct v logic. These two modes are not absolutely distinct, but we think they can usefully be distinguished.

So, what is the thought mode of intuition? It is not by instinct nor by logic - but by something of both, and more. Therefore, intuition is a mode of thinking which simultaneously uses emotion and logic but operating in a context of (for example) motivation, purpose, meaning and relationships. In a nutshell, intuition uses all possible modes of thinking; and this is why it intuition leads to a greater feeling of sureness, of certainty, than other and more partial forms of thought.

The result of intuition is therefore an evaluation which is uniquely convincing because it is validated by the full range of positive responses. It is an insight that satisfies both logic and reason, and also ‘feels’ right. By contrast, if we use only (for example) logic, or only emotions, to evaluate something; then the evaluation will be incomplete, and evaluation in one sub-mode may be contradicted by evaluation in another sub-mode - as when logic and emotions reach different conclusions, point in different directions, contradict one-another – and we feel confused or torn because our head and our heart are in conflict.

Only the evaluations of intuition are fully satisfying, fully convincing, and harmonious. Only the evaluations of intuition mobilize the whole range of thought modes. Thus intuition is the most powerful mode of thought, and the only mode of thought capable of mobilizing the fullest degree of motivation. Intuition is what makes us care most about ideas: it is what engages us with creativity. This is why intuition is necessary to the highest levels of creativity, to the greatest attainments of genius.

Why we must do it for our-selves: Clairvoyance versus Intuition (i.e. Primary Thinking)

'Clairvoyance' implies clear-seeing - and usually means perceiving that which is normally unseen; and it can include being a 'seer' - who can more clearly perceive the future. (I am using the term clairvoyance to include all kinds of perceived experiences - seeing visions, hearing voices, performing divination etc.).

'Seeing' more generally implies perception, and this reflects that clairvoyant-type experiences are necessarily at several removes from reality, indirect. 

In this respect 'clairvoyance' - perhaps surprisingly - can be seen as typical of all the normal, everyday, indirect - including 'official' - forms of knowing. 

Intuition, by contrast, is direct-knowing of the primary level of reality.

Therefore, intuition (in its pure form) must not include anything that renders experience indirect or mediated; e.g. no language or symbolism, nor translation, nor interpretation. 

In this respect intuition (in its essential, original, private form*) can be regarded as categorically different from any other kind of knowing. 

I believe that intuition can best be understood as Primary Thinking; when Thinking is itself the 'primary' (ultimate) reality: such that God and creation are to be understood as (primarily) Thinking. 

This means that when we engage in Primary Thinking, we are directly participating-in ultimate reality. 

There is no 'mediation' - such that in Primary Thinking (and only in PT) we are part-of the ultimate reality of things. 

This means that clairvoyance - because it includes perceptions - is at several removes from reality. 

For instance:

1. If Primary Thinking is ultimate reality... 

2. Reality needs to be translated into symbolism, such as language... 

3. This symbolism needs to be communicated, transmitted...

4. The received communication needs to be interpreted and understood. 

This same, multi-layered indirectness (selectivity, summary, hence distortion) implies to all external sources that are received by the senses - even when it is assumed that the external source is working honestly on the basis of valid knowledge of reality. 

This constraint applies to external personal and institutional authority, to all written (and spoken, and visual) inputs, to all socialization, training, education...

In sum - the above explains why we must ultimately, at the deepest and foundational level of knowledge of reality level know for ourselves.  

No form of external and indirect knowledge can substitute: 

We must do Primary Thinking for ourselves - or it will not be done; and we cannot be grounded in knowledge of reality. 

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We must do Primary Thinking for ourselves if we want a direct relationship with the world; yet there is no 'method' for doing it; and many or most people probably assume that they cannot do it - and have no idea how to start...

There is no 'method' for Primary Thinking - but there is a 'framework' of sorts; various 'assumptions' which enable Primary Thinking to happen.

For example: to know that Primary Thinking is both real and possible, both necessary and a Good Thing. To knowing that this is a creation we inhabit; that God is the creator; and that God loves us each as his child and desires our salvation - and will therefore ensure that anything we need in this mortal life will be possible. 

And then by wanting to do it: by wanting to know the truth of things, wanting to experience reality - and wanting to participate in reality by Primary Thinking.  

If, then, we experience what seems (on reflection and examination) be be Primary Thinking, then we would be wise to regard it as true (unless or until further intuition modifies it) - because there is no comparably valid source. 

Yet (again I emphasize) we cannot communicate the results of intuition to others, nor should we expect others to be bound by our own Primary Thinking; and in general this 'trying to convince others' ought not to be attempted because public discourse can only use public language/ symbolism/ imagery etc.

On the other hand, intuitive knowing can and should affect public discourse indirectly; as the most important influence for an individual on evaluating public knowledge claims, and discerning between rival claims. 

And - insofar as a intuitions is a valid participation in reality; then another-person's intuition of the same part-of-reality (if indeed, it is the identical part-of-reality that is being considered) will be the same insight - albeit within constraints of ability, time, effort etc. 

But this is only true when mortal Men are living as-if already in Heaven. 

*Note: The commonest criticisms of intuition come from those who focus on secondary and indirect communications of the (alleged) experience of intuition - in other words, the criticisms are directed against those who are regarded as arguing that 'other people' should accept as valid, linguistic interpretations and summaries of experiences that were originally wordless and private. 

Errors in metaphysical thinking - doing more than one thing at a time

Yesterday´s post was about how the starting point for metaphysics - once the subject has been raised - must be intuition. This is the only path to subjective certainty.

But people typically become distracted by trying to answer other questions at the same time. For example, they want to be not just intuitively certain, but for there to be no possibility of any error - they want to eliminate the possibility of being wrong. It is a case of 100 percent accuracy and completeness of undistorted knowledge forever... or nothing. Not surprisingly, adding this requirement destroys any possibility of anything, indeed adding such conditions eliminates every form of knowledge ever known (at least in this mortal life).

Another error is to notice that my intuition differs from the intuitions of others. But this is, of course, a feature not a bug, otherwise there would be no need for intuition and each person could be fed the same knowledge - or, more likely, have it built-in. It is precisely because each person needs to know for himself, from the depths of his primary thinking; that intuition is required. ´Other people´s knowledge´ is not enough, and in a sense not relevant (or, not necessarily relevant, anyway).

The point is that intuition is the starting point - a necessary start but only the start - of a virtuous cycle of knowledge. Once we have intuited the validity of some source, then we can begin to learn - but at each important step we need to test knowledge by intuition, again and again - and this potentially modifies pre-existing knowledge in many ways.

It seems clear this is how Christianity is supposed to work, and that the imposition of official knowledge by coercion is an historical error and corruption. Christians are meant to be learning and evaluating - not just blotting-up stuff because other people say so. For example, the validity of authority needs to be known intuitively.

(Of course the institutions of Christianity are legitimately allowed to insist on knowledge and behaviours for membership, but the individual ought also to be evaluating them by intuition - e.g. by personal revelation - because otherwise the individual does not really know.)

The same process must be applied to our own motivations, these require intuitive evaluation - and very often this will reveal that the true self is not at work, but instead some other partial and externally-manufactured self.

Intuition is therefore part of various cycles of trial and error, and evolutionary progress or corruption, in practice.

But this ought not to distract from the fact that a starting point is necessary, and the primary thinking of the true self - which I am terming intuition - is the proper starting point.

How the Leftist agenda systematically crushes intuitive thinking

Intuition is spontaneous - in the sense that it emerges from our true self. And - if you word search this blog for such terms as Intuition, Primary Thinking or Final Participation - you will see that I regard nothing as more important (here and now) than the development (and thus takeover from childhood instinct and adolescent intellect) of spiritually grown-up, intuitive thinking.

Why doesn't intuition just happen - when we want it; why is it so difficult?

One difficulty is that intuitive thinking must be consciously chosen - it doesn't just happen. But given it is possible, why is it is so very difficult - when my assumption is that this evolutionary development of consciousness is our divine destiny?

Leftism is a big reason; because Leftism blocks our spiritual development (as well as blocking real Christian faith). And Leftism blocks our spiritual development by crushing intuitive thinking.


Consider what Leftism does? It takes a spontaneous, unconscious, and correct intuition - then labels it as evil. Differences in ability and personality between social classes; differences between men and women and the identity of man or woman; recognition and classification of racial distinctions; the ethic of favouring family over non-relatives - or favouring natives and neighbours over foreigners and strangers... all these are examples of intuitions which Leftism simultaneously denies and demonises.

Leftism is indeed a systematic denial of our intuitions, in one area of life after another: first by subversion (inducing uncertainty), then denial (i.e. destruction), ultimately by inversion (so that we are induced to believe and act-upon the opposite of whatever intuition tells us).


(Once Leftism has stabbed us with deep lies, it delights in twisting the knife by mandatory stark contradictions - asserting that there are no differences between the sexes or races; yet simultaneously different... for instance women and non-whites are are superior in desirable attributes. Yet when such superiorities are accepted, then denial of any differences -and the evilness or noticing them - is recommenced. And so on...)


This crushing of individual intuition is how Leftism enforces the Ahrimanic evil of bureaucracy - and (by intent) transhumanism.

How may it be overcome, and intuition validated? The answer is: by bringing all the processes to awareness.

Intuitions begin as spontaneous and unconscious. These are then 'unmasked' by Leftism, mocked and vilified.

The proper response is to thank Leftism for having helped make conscious, and therefore free, that which was previously unconscious and therefore unfree.


Once we are aware of the reality and nature of our intuitions - something assisted by Leftism's organised, sustained and focused attempts to crush them - then we are able to choose to adopt intuitive thinking from the full agency of our true selves.

Probably, this is the divinely-intended role of Leftist thinking - as a temporary clarification and conscious-making our previously unexamined (because unconscious) assumptions. Our culture has become stuck in what was intended to be a brief temporary phase.

For us to mature spiritually towards divinity, and to move towards Final Participation characteristic of Heavenly life, this development of intuitive consciousness is necessary. Yet so long as a person (or group) makes Leftism the primary ideology; such a vital development will be blocked.

The West is a case of arrested spiritual development - bereft of the deepest source of wisdom and courage; with potentially lethal consequences including nihilism, demotivation and suicidal despair.

Hence - in a world already and increasingly dominated by Leftism in all aspects of public/ institutional discourse and life - we have become individually and collectively crazy and evil. For us the realistic choice is intuition or hell.  

Those who warn you against intuition are on The Other Side

Frank Berger has done an excellent post today, in which he discusses that 'most vital of subjects' for our times: I mean intuition (which I have also discussed under the names of Direct Knowing, and Final Participation - do the appropriate word searches if need to to know more).

To generalise, I would say that it is an important rule of thumb (here-and-now, but not necessarily at all times and places) to be alert against those who warn you against intuitive knowing. Why? Because intuition is - ultimately - your only bastion of independent and autonomous - hence free - thought.

What are the alternatives? Well, one anti-intuitive point of vew being pushed is by the anti-conspiracy theory movement. Frank links to an excellent, and concise, example of this new kind of propaganda. It can readily be seen that anti-conspiracy theory is a new pseudo-academic discourse which has been much funded and pushed over the past few years; with the usual apparatus of grants, conferences, papers and books (look at the reference list for example, which show how very recent this all is). 


Just as with all other mainstream discourse in the 'social sciences' - Marxian class analysis, feminism, antiracism and colonial studies, peace studies, gender studies, climate science - this is dishonest, manipulative rhetorical discourse masquerading as objective and impartial; and intrinsically supportive of the Global Elite agenda.

And likewise it is fake-radical; while actually being a mouthpiece of the exact and evolving narrative pushed by the ultra-rich, super-powerful plans of the Supra-national, Great Reset, New World Order Establishment (as catered for by Davos, Bilderberg, the UN/ WHO/ EU etc - with The Economist, WSJ and Financial Times as its House Journals.  

So, we need to ask ourselves that vital question:

If Not; Then What?


If Not intuition - Then What exactly should be our ultimate source of authority? Because anyone dissing intuition is simultaneously pushing something else...

The United Nations? Or a Western government bureaucracy? A university? The 'legacy' mass media (NYT? BBC?). Professional research as published in journals like Nature, Science, NEJM or The Lancet? Or some NGO, perhaps? Senior Judges? Multinational corps? Or the leadership/ public relations and media outlets of one of more of the major Christian churches? 

Because in the end (and not very deep down) all these authorities are actually The Same Thing - that is The System.


The System's unifying linkages are there, obvious and complex - if one takes the trouble to dig a litle (and only a very little digging is needed - I mean ten minutes excavation on the internet).

But very few people can or will do any digging at all; and for them it is only necessary to know that every assertion needs to be checked by intuition; and any that input has Not been checked should be rejected as Almost Certainly an evil lie.

That is; not merely dishonest and incompetent, but also designed specifically to mislead and harm your ultimate spiritual well-being.


In short: anyone or any-institution advising you to ignore your intuition, or to over-ride it with some external source of mainstream authority, should be assumed to be on the side of Satan and his demonic minions; unless the source can specifically (that is by direct personal knowledge backed by intuition) be shown to be motivated on-the-side-of God, Good and divine creation.

This is one of the ways in which living in these End Times makes life very simple! Simple to discern, if not simple to live.

Almost everything that reaches us without our-selves having made a conscious effort - everything that relies on our passive or unconscious absorption, is going to be ('net', overall, in aim) Lying Evil - so we can safely use that as a baseline assumption.


Beyond such an assumption; it is a matter of inferring which side of the spiritual war the source is working-for- asking what are the actual, underlying motivations of the persons or institutions from-which the information is emanating; and that, too, is usually very easy to know.

If the side is not obviously, explicity, consciously with God; then it is evil. 

(See what I mean by 'easy'?)

What is intuition? Wildblood explicates...

I have tried to explain intuition myself, many times, over the years; but William Wildblood's analysis may make matters clearer than I could. 

Here are some edited excerpts, but: Read the whole thing: 

Spiritual knowledge comes from spiritual perception. It is not acquired through reason or deduction or calculation or even thought as ordinarily understood. It is intuitive. 

It is knowing by seeing. Seeing with the mind but from the heart. 

It is the very opposite to what drives much thinking in the world today which is ideological, meaning the mind attaches itself to an idea and frames its thought around that. Ideology is a kind of dark distortion or inversion of intuition, a false perception heavily contaminated by opinion, desire, resentment, envy and a host of other fixations and disturbances of the lower mind, the lower mind being the mind that can only operate in the material world because it is closed to the transcendent. 

Intuition is not a quality only accessible to a privileged few. It is open to all but it must be developed. It starts off in a small way but eventually becomes the dominant mode of cognition as one opens oneself up to the reality it reveals. 

The development of intuition is the most important task for any spiritual aspirant. However religious you are in terms of faith, however many good works you do, however much you may pray or meditate or whatever practise you engage in to become more aware of higher reality, whatever metaphysical knowledge you may possess, if you have not properly developed intuition you are on the outside looking in and therefore cannot truly be called a person of spiritual understanding. 

Of course, none of us can be called that really but there are degrees of understanding in the context of this world and so, within that context, this proviso can apply. 

Every state of being can be described in terms of its means of apprehension of reality. The animal state is instinctive, the human state is mental (intellectual/rational). The spiritual state is intuitive. 

Develop intuition and you see the world for what it is. Fail to do so and you remain in ignorance, however clever you might be.

 

How can modern people becomes sure enough about their beliefs, for this to be strongly motivating? Example from my earlier life as a scientist

We need to be sufficiently sure of our bottom-line convictions that they will serve strongly to fuel our personal motivation - so that we have the clarity and courage to aim at good; and to discern and navigate through life. 

But we modern people, in this modern world, find it very hard to believe in - anything!

At least, we moderns don't believe in stuff strongly enough that we can be truly free, and choose God and divine creation, and have the courage to stick with this --- in the face of a world that continually subverts, ridicules, suppresses, persecutes... and even inverts such intentions. 

We need true beliefs - i.e. beliefs that reflect reality (divine reality); and we also need to be subjectively sure about these beliefs in order that they can be positively motivating.

So how can we discover, and become sufficiently-convinced, by such things?  

The short answer is "intuition" - but I need to explain what I mean by intuition. 

For this I will here use the example of my earlier life as a scientist. 

When I began learning science, in the "early" phase;  it was learning "about" science; and I learned it in just the same way that we learn most other things about this world: we are told it we absorb it in terms of the assumptions that lie behind the functioning of our world. 

And we generally believe what we are told, especially when it comes from socially-defined authority figures.

But such "early" learning is superficial and passive - and such beliefs are not strongly held, not least because they have never really been understood, and we have never invested anything very personal into them. 

Consequently, these early beliefs concerning science were easily revised, modified, even reversed - when some "higher" authority said so. 

So: this early kind of passive and external belief about science was only very weakly inwardly motivating, and was unstable.

The same applies to all such beliefs - and this accounts for almost all proclaimed political, social and religious beliefs. They are shallow, impersonal - and very easily redirected or reversed by a change in what "authorities" are currently-saying. 

When I became a professional scientist, and began to do research; I entered an intermediate phase. I soon became much more discerning about what I believed, and more active in choosing who I would personally regard as authorities.  

My own understanding became deeper; albeit in externally derived terms. 

The doing of science became much more selective - but what I selected-from, and the criteria for regarding something as true; was something I assembled from that selective sample of what "authorities" stated.

I was not doing original or creative work in science; rather I was trying to be more professional, more discerning, and to do my work at a higher level than others. 

At this intermediate level; the work I was doing was not really anything to do with "reality" - rather it was dictated by the scientific literature - and was a matter of filling in gaps, extrapolating from what had already been done - and refuting pieces of established science that were (I believed) refuted by better authorities. 

It could be said I had "faith" in science as a process, as a social activity. This is analogous to most Christians "faith" in their church. 

I changed my mind less often than in the early phase, because I was more motivated - but this motivation was very much bound-up with and shaped-by the professional scientific environment - which was regarded as the ultimate arbiter. 

So, at this intermediate level; science was what the best scientists were saying (or had said) - and the intent was to become one of these "best" - and this was determined by the higher professional structures. 

Such a vision of science is this-worldly, and its standards and motivations are of this-world - even if rather idealized within this-world.

The motivations are stronger, because of the personal investment in the process; but the motivation is still ultimately external - and when the external consensus of those I regarded as "best" scientists changed, then so would my own purposes and motivations. 

I could (I hoped!) stand in a select company which I had partially chosen to ally-with; but I could not stand alone.  

The highest level of science was concerned by transcendental ideals that looked beyond the scientific milieu; ideals to do with reality (not just the relevant scientific literature) and truth (not just professional standards. 

At this highest level I was compelled to take personal responsibility for my beliefs; and might therefore need to "stand alone" when I thought that "the external world of science" (even of the best scientists, and by my evaluation) was wrong and misguided. 

For these evaluations to become beliefs that were strong enough to motivate; I needed to have criteria for conviction that went beyond my interpretations of the external world of the professional scientific literature. 

At this point, as may be clear, I had actually moved outside of the professional system of science. 

I had come to recognize that science had its assumptions that were not really true; that it was a matter of models not reality; and that for science to be true and real, required that science be understood in terms of ultimate reality...

Which included God and divine creation, and myself as having some personal significance in this.  

This was the point at which I developed sufficiently strong a personal motivation that I could, where I regarded it as necessary, maintain my convictions and direction without support from other scientists. 

I was, in other words, innerly-motivated, and also (consequently) more strongly motivated. 

This stronger inner motivation came from a different quality of conviction concerning what was true. 

At the early and intermediate levels of science; I was dependent on external authority as expressed in external communications and externally-validated interpretations of these communications - i.e. my belief (hence motivation) was rooted the observations and theories to be found in some selective sample of the scientific literature...

To reiterate - this understands science as communications that are externally derived and externally validated. 

At both early and intermediate levels; my convictions could be no different-from, deeper-than, or more-solid-than these external factors.  

And when these external factors vacillated, or even apparently reversed - then there was no alternative but for me to revise my convictions. 

This situation is demotivating! - especially when, by criteria external to science (and to do with truth and reality) science is being corrupted, as was very obviously the case.

(Science began explicitly to serve the needs of bureaucracy, careerism, politics etc. I could not fool myself other than that this really was corruption!)   

For me to have a personal conviction and motivation in science; I needed to have an inner sense of truth and reality; what is more this inner sense needed to be direct, not a communication; needed to be self-interpreting - not dependent on observations and theories. 

In other words "intuition". 

Actually, I have put matters the word way around; because it was only after I had recognized that intuition was and ought to be the root of science, that I moved to the higher level. 

What happened was that I would be thinking about something, working on something; when I realized that "this was it". 

From the stream of superficial thinking and doing, there sometimes emerged, there was discovered, a solid sense of conviction and surety; a "this is it".  

  

After a while, the intuition of "this is it" became the final validator of my work - unless I got it, and unless the sense of this-is-it was solid enough to survive repeated consultations; then I was not convinced. 

Lacking such an intuition; I remained unsure. 

I knew that "more work was needed". 

But with this intuition, and so long as it lasted and was operative - I was highly motivated, and could withstand any amount of external contradiction. 

To generalize from this specific experience; when we regard the external world as corrupt, and increasingly taking the side of evil; then unless we are to be drawn-into that; we need to move "above" considerations of the external, the communicated. 

We need, I think, to operate from the kind of deep intuition I eventually found in doing science...

Because only this intuition can be the basis for us to be free and positively-motivated by something outwith "society" that is both solid and potentially real.  

Life is neither cumulative nor futile - but some "events" are (potentially) eternally significant

It seems to me that we have to make a decision about the significance of life: more exactly we need to discover what it is that we personally really feel about the significance of the "events" of this our mortal life. 

There are various "philosophies" of this life that are knocking-around; but none of the standard ones that we are likely to encounter seem to be validated by my own deepest and most lasting intuitions, insofar as I am conscious of them. 

For instance; some people sometimes talk as if life is a cumulative process, a matter of building towards - so someone might look back on their life as if it was all working towards who (and what) he is now. 

This is often a way used for structuring obituaries and biographies (whether informal and verbal, or written) - the idea of encapsulating what somebody's life was "about"... but it is hard to say how seriously it is taken by most people. 

It often seems like an as-if and ironic kind of activity; just "something to say", as in a funeral eulogy. 

On, the other hand; it does seem like some people actually live in order to make what they regard as an impressive obituary - the idea that their lived-life is validated by their post-mortal official reputation. 

(I should note, here, that (even just five years into retirement) the various academic/ scientific/ educational achievements of my own working-life, seem hollower, and are experienced as far less satisfying, than I had ever imagined at the times they happened!) 

At the opposite extreme is the idea that each person's life is ultimately futile; amounting to nothing and ended by annihilation of the self. 

This may be softened by stuff about "living-on" in the memories or hearts of others... But even to the extent this is true, it merely "kicks the can" a generation or two downstream; since we cannot thus survive beyond the lifespan of those who really-knew the real-us.  

The annihilation story is the underlying official and global metaphysical assumption; the one that lies behind all modern social institutions. It goes with the idea that individual people exists to serve the social systems. 

But the idea that an individual life is futile is also the implication of oneness spirituality in its various manifestations; including such ideas that this mortal life is an illusion, a deception, a simulation. That we are not really individuals at all, we only think we are. I mean the idea that we never really had or have an independent reality as "agents" as beings with the capacity for freedom...

People quite often talk in this way; although, again, it is hard to say how deeply they really believe what they are saying - often it just seems like a social status game.

My own deepest intuition is that this life is not futile; or rather that life is not necessarily futile - although we can choose to make it so. 

But that is merely a double-negative: I would go further and say that life is purposive and meaningful - but not in the way of an obituary. 

Rather; some events in life strike me as innately "of eternal significance". 

That feeling or belief is a kind of psychological fact-of-life for me - some things that happen in my life, combined with the way I responded to these happenings, are experienced as having a quality that seems to stretch-out into the eternal future; as if (from my point of view) everything has been changed by them.

I said a "psychological" fact, but part of this psychological fact is that this significance of some "events" goes beyond my own psychology, that the significance is objective - it is part of reality. 

Now this is a strange intuition! at least when compared with the kind of interpretative explanations that are knocking around the world nowadays. 

It is a strange thing to suppose that an-event-as-I-personally-experienced-it might form one of the building blocks of eternal reality; yet that is indeed how it seems. 

It is a secondary matter, coming after this intuition, to devise some model of the world in which this is possible; a moving-picture of the world in which it makes sense that an-event-as-I-personally-experienced-it could have a real, eternal significance.

Furthermore, this intuition includes that the significance is both objective and personal - that is, both important to me personally (so that, somehow, "I" am still going to be around to appreciate this importance) - as well as of continued, everlasting significance to "reality in general".* 

And that is one of the motivators behind my philosophical, metaphysical, activity - and also a reason why the theology to which I adhere - Romantic Christianity, as I call it - has ended-up being different from all the mainstream options. 

That is, in sum: None of the mainstream explanatory options make coherent sense of my intuition that an-event-as-I-personally-experienced-it could be a thing of eternal, and indeed personal, significance. One of my (self-motivated) tasks is therefore to devise a scheme by which the validity this intuition is explained. 

*I should emphasize that I do not have this intuition of eternal significance for every-thing that happens, but only for some things that happen. 

'Constraints' on intuitive knowing (or Primary Thinking)

(Note: These are not really 'constraints', because they are not externally imposed. Nor is 'limitations' the right word. I am simply talking of the nature of intuitive knowing)

I am trying to think with the heart; that is, trying to think primarily - such that my thoughts will be realities (not merely 'about' realities...). I am trying to know intuitively, by an act of direct apprehension (and not indirectly, by making and testing hypothetical models).

And I find that this is not possible for much of the stuff in my thinking. As expected; because primary thinking is self-validating, and much of what I think is not valid.

Even more: much of what I think cannot be validated because it is Abstract - hence systematically-distorted in un-knowable ways.


Much/ Most (perhaps all) of what I am fed (to 'think about') by the mass media, government officialdom, propaganda at educational institutions and workplaces... the general world of public discourse... is Abstract. It is disconnected from the reality I experience and know. It is made up of definitions, models, hypotheses, 'concepts', 'ideals' (aims and objectives, mission statements, slogans) and the like - many of these are incoherent or nonsensical.

There is no connection between my living and this content from the very beginning.


So much modern 'thinking' takes place in this realm of Abstraction! Discussions of economics, ethics, fashion... everything, pretty much. The assumption behind it all is that My Life is a subset of these Abstractions - and the Abstractions are real, and if I cannot related my life to the Abstractions, then it is my fault.

The Abstractions (Democracy, Social Justice, The Environment, The Economy, Peace, Climate...) are the real reality - it's my job to conform to this reality...

The Abstractions are real because that is what Everybody is talking about, all the time - especially powerful people. They are real because they are on the agenda, they are voted-about, they lead-to public policy, to law - to all manner of decisions...

It is the Abstractions that tell us about the future, what to love and what to fear; tell us what to think and believe and approve about the future; and then we organise our entire world because of these Abstractions.


The world is organised to encourage or discourage 'trade', nations aim at 'growth'... then Trade and Growth are destroyed to control the Climate... The the destruction of Trade and Growth are inverted by reference to Sustainability. There are phenomena like Immigration, Diversity, Human Rights... and we are told why-they-are-Good; or we try (by thinking-about 'evidence', and by reasoning) to understand whether they really are good...

But these are Abstractions. Such knowledge is based upon simplified models, and 'tested' using perceptions which we know are not true (seeing is not believing, neither is hearing - especially not when it comes to generalities) - so we can never know about such things. The questions are ill-formed, the evaluations are of unknown meaning...


In sum, intuition does not work on Abstractions - how could it? We can know intuitively (only) about that which can be grasped intuitively.

We might know the validity of some Abstraction like an aspect of mathematics, or about the coherence of a theory - but that tells us nothing about actual, real world 'applications' of such generalities...

Thus, we can intuit about Abstractions, but we cannot intuit the extent to which Abstractions apply to specifics - which is what we are very often trying to do.


In fact, I think that the low reputation of intuition partly derives from the fact that it can-not (therefore should-not) be used to evaluate the kinds of things that feature as Most Important in modern public discourse.

We cannot intuitively answer such questions as whether women are equal with men in modern society - or whether they should be - or what it would mean if they were. We cannot intuitively know what people mean by racial prejudice, what race 'is' (or is not), whether racial prejudice is responsible for racial differences - and what any such differences mean.

Almost the entirety of the content and theme of major discourse is beyond intuition, because unreal. And this has a profound effect on us. We live inside a System that is not just evil or trivial, but which is untrue, hence incoherent, hence permanently and incurably disorientating. 


We can (and should) be 'using' intuitive knowing to understand well-formed questions about 'concrete' (especially personal) realities such as the goodness or evil of individuals in public life, or the effect of new changes, the quality of actual buildings or landscapes, the beauty of some piece of music - and of course in dealing with the human beings (and animals, and plants) of our lives; the Creator, Jesus, spiritual beings etc...

Such questions cannot be answered by hypothesis and evidence; can only be known by direct intuition - and we need to learn to rely upon that which (potentially) works, not that which which we know for sure cannot work.

The ability to use intuition forms a kind of litmus test of reality. The great mass of modern phenomena are beyond the scope of intuition because they are not really-real - and this is why there is unbounded and intractable capacity for error in modern life.  

The conclusion is that our public world is based upon unwarranted - indeed unwarran-table - assumptions; and is unverifiable by direct intuition. We are prevented from primary thinking so long as we are engaged in this bureaucratic-media system...

But then, we knew that in our hearts already, surely?

Second thoughts on 'thinking', and it's the will that's bad - not the self-ego

Two related second thoughts - the first on thinking. I've written much about primary thinking and heart thinking. On reflection it strikes me that 'thinking' is not the right word, because what 'it' is, is not much like thinking, and the word may mislead. 

The problem with conscious thinking is 'the will' in the sense of explicit plans, schemes and strategies that gets explicitly articulated; and which we then try to follow and impose on reality. This is a big problem indeed. It affects religious people, it affects Christians, just as badly - and fatally. It is this idea of making a (necessarily simplified) abstract model of reality, then trying to impose that model which lies behind much of the presently world-dominant 'Ahrimanic' and bureaucratic evil. 

It's hard to conceive of a thinking that is not 'will-full' in this bad sense. The man from whom I took much of this, Rudolf Steiner, fell into exactly this snare, I believe; that is, he gave primacy to a will-full and consciously-controlled 'method' of thinking, which he then forcefully applied to whatever subject matter was before him. This led him into a great mass of what I regard as systematized error. 

I have used primary thinking and heart thinking as synonyms for what might otherwise (and better) be termed intuition; but for many people intuition is mixed up with instinct. Yet I regard intuition as being divine (God in us) - hence always right; whereas instinct is animal, hence often wrong (and even more-often inapplicable). 

My idea of Final Participation (which ought to be my aim) is that it is primary and unanalysable - and identical with intuition; but that to be 'final' it needs to be conscious. The will ('thinking' should be subordinated to intuition. My goal is that I am trying to be aware of my intuition. And, if so, I do not need to 'think' it, or to 'think about' it. 

It strikes me that Jesus (in the Gospels) doesn't 'think'. He knows what to say or do, and does it. 

And that this surely ought to be my ideal too? (As best as possible in mortal life, and as an aim; and fully in Heaven.) So maybe all this stuff I've written about the importance of thinking is mistaken?   

I have also written against ideas of one-ness as the idea, of the aimed-at extinction of self or ego (dissolving-into the divine...); and I hold to that rejection - and I also reject the conception of ultimate reality as a static state of time-less-ness, complete joining, and all space as one infinite. Instead what is wanted is the 'dynamic' state of open-ended creation, in-which God and other being may participate. Time is sequential with a before and and after; space is not infinite but instead un-bounded, endlessly expansile. Creation is growing as well as developing.

As young children we were passively immersed-in divine creation; and what we need to aim at as adults (spiritually adults) is to be consciously active in divine creation; but that doesn't need thinking. Our true creativity is natural and spontaneous - and it is Good, as well as true. 

(This has been my experience also in ordinary mortal-life creating; as a scientist, especially.)

So, in successful meditation, we might first become aware of 'Me, Here, Now' - and then of the loving presence of the divine: the Holy Ghost. We don't lose our-selves in this, but ideally enter into a here-and-now loving relationship, aware of our-selves, aware of the Holy Ghost - and aware too of all other men and women who are in this same state of active creating. Love entails beings. Love is impossible with unity/ one-ness. So, since love is primary for Christians; one-ness is ruled-out as a goal.

We are at that time in meditation (usually brief, perhaps just a moment) tuned-into the ongoing work of creation, and we are aware of that creating; and by our relationship with the Holy Ghost we are playing some part in it. We are then participating, actively and consciously; yet (I would now say) without thinking.

It may seem as if consciousness is here acting merely as an observer, but it is something more; it seems that our consciousness is what makes the choice to do this, to enter into this, to contnue to participate in this; consciousness either embodies or brings with it the totality of our being. 

By contrast, as young children, we may be swept-along by divine creation; caught-up in its flux; unconscious of it, and without any need to choose it (and without any way of choosing otherwise). 

In our spiritual adolescence (from which sadly few emerge) we are isolated and cut off from the divine, and from this participation in creation. This is the state of existential alientation. To escape the consequent despair; we need consciously to choose to re-enter participation... To become aware of the workings of God, and the presence (here and now) of the Holy Ghost, and the possibility (the actuality, indeed) of a personal relationship with these: Me, Here, Now.

It seems that my task, in this situation of the world-at-present, is to make these conscious choices, and to have these experiences; so that I can learn from them to make a firm committment to accept Jesus's offer of resurrection into everlasting life; because this is exactly a foretaste of that Heavenly state. 

By knowing it (and with a transcendental and eternal 'knowing' - not by means of mortal memory, doomed to fade and die), I then know that I want it. 

And this seems necessary given all the false reasons and instinctual manipulations of Satan triumphant - that would probably otherwise seduce me into rejecting the call to follow Christ.

Trust in "my" thinking - above all

It is a theme running through Rudolf Steiner's philosophical writings that we need to trust in our own thinking; and that if we do not - then we are lost; because we can trust nothing 

When I read this line of reasoning; I experienced an immediate sense of recognition and affirmation: I felt that I knew exactly what he meant, and why it was so important. 

In a positive sense; it recognizes that all logical, evidential and systematic constructs ought to be built on top of (and consistent with) intuition (or direct knowing) - thinking-intuition conscious and explicit, and explicitly recognized as such. 

In a negative sense; it recognizes that someone who has ceased to trust in his own thinking has become a mere puppet, a hollow simulacrum; mentally paralyzed and a conduit for the ideas of others. 

And I also saw that to induce and make habitual a distrust of one's own thinking is a major strategy of modern ideology and propaganda - over several centuries and escalating. 

The aim of much modern culture and lifestyle is to induce doubt about even one's own strongest, deepest and clearest intuitions; to encourage a lack of trust of personal insight; to feel plagued by the uncertainty of every intuition. 

Now, of course, modern habits of mind immediately seize upon doubt and uncertainty about 'how can we know?' whether this intuition is real - it might be wrong. 

We tend feel certain and sure and confident only about the 'fact' that intuitions are often wrong (that old  paradox of relativism!). 

And what about 'other people' who 'claim' to have solid and lucid intuitions - might they be mistaken, lying, crazy, manipulative?... Maybe we ourselves are those things? How can we know? 

And how can we know for sure that intuition really is the bottom line anyway; how can we be certain that we really ought to trust thinking - what is the proof?

(All of which just goes to show what happens when we do not recognize that we must trust our own best thoughts - and when we do not trust our-selves to know our own best thoughts.) 

What such thinking actually arises from is a mistrust in our motivations; and that may well arise from the evil of our own motivations because we do not know the truth. 

Someone who rejects true knowledge of God the loving creator (and us his children) has refused or violated his own intuitive knowing about that which just-is primary and foundational - and such a one surely cannot trust his thinking on other matters. 

(When we don't get first things right, second things do not follow.) 

Because all unreflective and passive modern Men have accepted false metaphysical assumptions regarding the basic nature of reality by default - and that is where intuition needs to start.

Of course; our ability to know is limited - and may be relatively small; but we (each personally) cannot do any better than what we personally think, and directly-know. 

What to do about The News?

Clearly The News is one of the primary mediators of evil in the world; but what to do about it?

Obviously we should not 'believe' The News; and should try to avoid exposure to it - but we cannot avoid it, it is forced upon on and literally demands a response. If we do not believe it, then what do we believe instead?

Simple negation or reversal would be ludicrous and counter-productive (on the basis that the most dangerous lies are veined with truth - contradiction of The News would be merely to exchange one falsehood for another). Another trap is to 'decode' the news, using a balance of sources, or 'alternative media' sources. This is just another loop back-into News obsession and enslavement - obsessive and addictive News-engagement disguised by 'trying to get to the bottom' of a 'story'...

A first step is to recognise that those who produce The News have 1001 tricks to manipulate us, and so long as we rely upon News we cannot outwit The News. Since we do not know the 'real' answers underneath the manifold deceptions of The News, and cannot find relevant information except via the media itself, even the attempt to find 'the real answer' increases the domination of The News.

Yet, if we don't believe The News, what do we believe? What 'alternative source' can there be which is untainted?

Churches are no use; because they are tainted as well - and as long as they comment on The News in public discourse they also rely on The News; the churches are drawn-into the problem and become part of it - The News gets woven-into the church teachings, into prayer, into priorities...

The News is public communication, and what opposes The News is intuition: private knowing. Direct knowledge of ultimate reality - which is, in principle, universally accessible; but accessible only by intuitive thinking of our Real (which is divine) Self.

But typical modern Man lacks access to intuition - because his mind has been filled with automatic cognitive processes such that his real Self is inactive; and because modern Man denies the reality of the divine, and his fundamental assumptions therefore regard intuition as necessarily a subjective delusion rather than direct knowing.

Consequently, even when modern Man knows in his heart that The News is wrong (a common feeling, perhaps), and even when he knows what is real and true - this state-of-knowing is ignored and indeed suppressed; because of its provenance in (presumed) mere-subjectivity and wishful-thinking. 

The location of News in public discourse leads to the requirement that we communicate about it; and the discourse is poisoned with lies, evil perspectives and covert materialist assumptions. One who speaks from intuition, and who tries to justify and defend intuition using the resources of public discourse, will find in doing-so he is weaving and strengthening one or other element of corruption.

So - we encounter News, we are compelled to respond in some way, we can neither believe nor automatically-contradict; yet we cannot be selective and interpret without accepting corruption...

The answer is to interpret from our own intuitive and direct knowing, and be honest about the provenance of our direct knowing - to state our conclusions, but not to engage in trying to defend or convince.

Of course this speaking-from-intuition is a conversation-stopper; but when it comes to News, that is necessary. And of course, it seems crazy or simple-minded - but that too is unavoidable: evil is held-in-place by expediency.

We must do the inexpedient for the sake of our salvation and spiritual development. And in doing so there is a chance - but no guarantee - that we may point others at the same intuited truths we have come to know.

Political correctness replaces intuition with imagination

*

Intuition is built-into humans.

We come into the world equipped with intuitions (or 'common sense'): with knowledge and dispositions; and these - combined with reason - are what we use (or are meant to use) to make sense of the world and understand what we should try to do.

On top of this - for some people, in some places, comes divine revelation - but this too is meant to be built upon intuitions.

*

Modernity in its most recent guise of political correctness challenges intuitions and erodes common sense by (in effect) demonstrating that this intuition is not always true, that common sense may sometimes be mistaken; then having dispensed with common sense asking asking each person to imagine what might instead be the case.

Even if it is possible merely to imagine that an intuition might be untrue, sometimes, under some circumstances; then the assumption may follow that it is not true at all.

And if intution is un-true (or could be) then 'therefore' anything might be true.

*

Intuitions are constrained, and are indeed often universal.

Imagination, by contrast, is unconstrained - because imagination can be supported by rhetoric, depictions in art, social pressure - by many things.

So we get a vaunting of imagination and a denigration of intuition.

We are asked to imagine all sorts of things; then, having cognitively-modelled, having played-out these imaginations in our own minds and in public discourse, we may soon come to 'believe in' these imaginations - especially when these imaginings are not contradicted or when apparent contradictions can be re-framed as harmonious by further imagination.

*

The logic is perfectly captured in John Lennon's song where the listener is asked to 'imagine' that: there's no heaven above us (but only sky) and no hell below us; all the people living for today; there are no countries and nothing to kill or die for; no religion; all the people living life in peace; no possessions; no need for greed or hunger; all the people sharing all the world.

The listener is told that the exercise is easy "if you try" (and of course the song helps in this), and is cautioned not to reject the message on the basis that the the singer is a dreamer; but informed (perfectly correctly) that the singer is "not the only one" to imagine these things, and that he hopes someday the listener will join all these dreamers "and the world will live as one."

*

Leaving aside the specific depiction of life as ideally a matter of inert inaction; the logic is that if you can imagine something, and can get other people to imagine along with you, then anything is possible.

And this is, of course, so dominant a feature of mainstream culture as to be an utterly banal platitude.

The credo: If you can imagine something, and if you really want it enough, then it will happen.

The idea is that the limits of possibility are set only by the limits of imagination and belief.

*

While individual imagination and belief and desire are rather feeble and labile in most individual people; they can seem limitless in scope and ambition when supported by the massive strength of the public discourse generated by the modern mass media.

When you are convinced that you are 'not the only one', then everything feels possible.

*

So, on the one hand we have this vast and unbounded sense of possibility and on the other the very specific and probabilistic intuitions of common sense.

So imagination displaces intuition; and a bird in the bush is worth any number of birds in the hand - since birds in the hand are known and circumscribed; while there might be (and you cannot prove that there are not) any number of birds in the bush - and these birds may have attributes as vast as the scope of one's imagination (aided by the promptings of the mass media).

And if you really want these imagined birds enough, then (we are told) you will get them.

*

And so our culture of political correctness leaves the narrowly constrained path of reality for the infinite horizons of delusion.

*

From joy, epiphany, peak-experiences and the romantic imagination - to active intuition

Plenty of people, of many types, have the kind of positive, enjoyable - even joyous or blissful - imaginative experiences that get called things like epiphanies or peak-experiences.

These might typically happen in deep conversation with friends, in beautiful places, or in response to literature or music. These could be called "romantic imaginative" experiences. 

I certainly had many such moments as an adolescent and young adult; and I also regarded them as very important in my life; in the sense that I sought and cherished them, and felt that they had significance. 

But this was not enough! - and such moments did not have a sufficiently powerful effect on my life; I did not learn from such experiences, they did not transform my life, they did not give my life personal purpose or meaning. 

I always felt as if on the cusp of a breakthrough that never came - and meanwhile my life was essentially just like everybody else's; and becoming more so with each year. 

But, I did not have any explanation as to why such things were important: what made them important, whether the importance was just for me - or maybe had general significance. 

Much of this was that my basic assumptions about life and the universe denied any overall purpose and meaning for things-in-general - so it was not really possible for my individual life to have these. 

In other words; lacking a metaphysical explanation (in terms of primary assumptions about the nature of reality) that explained the purpose and meaning in Life-in-general; I lacked an explanation for the value of joy/ epiphanies/ peak-experiences. 

But even for those who do have a metaphysical explanation for the value of Life Itself, will not get real value from specific romantic imaginative experiences, unless they have a metaphysical explanation for the value of joy/ epiphanies/ peak-experiences within that general context.

And this is what many/ most Christians lack. Their Christian understanding is such that they cannot explain to themselves what it is that romantic imagination contributes to their own life; and therefore they typically undervalue it - maybe even denying it has any ultimate significance.

It was the nature of Owen Barfield's contribution to the study of romantic imagination that he provided just such an explanation - although he claimed (wrongly) that his explanation was 'epistemological' rather than 'metaphysical'. 

Barfield explained this in terms that Romantic Imagination was a form of 'knowledge' or knowing. (It is easier, I find, to understand this as know-ing - something dynamic happening here and now; rather than a know-ledge - something statically achieved concerning something fixed and bounded.)

Yet, I think we need to move beyond imagination as the focus, of concern to intuition. Imagination is experienced as coming from outside us, like an inspiration of knowledge; whereas intuition is about what is within us.

While imagination has connotations of passively receiving something from without; intuition recognizes that we do and must actively participate in the creation of knowledge. 

By this account; the experienced romantic imagination of joy, epiphany, peak-experiences; is a step towards our active investigation of reality by means of intuitive discernment, and the active exploration of our fundamental needs for knowledge, guidance, validation. 

What I mean is that romantic imagination is something that happens-to us, and its value is thus limited; but intuition can be understood as an active engagement with divine creation, something that we decide and will from our-selves. 

Therefore, I think it is more important that we have a metaphysical understanding of intuition; than of imagination - and that is what I have tried to attain by my reflections on primary-thinking, heart-thinking, and direct-knowing. 

Which is, I believe, the mode by which Barfield's Final Participation may be attained in this mortal life - albeit intermittently and temporarily.