What is Intuition?

[Joan Marie]

The opening of this Intuitive Reading forum has really got me to thinking about what it means and what Tarot Reading even is.

Is Intuition something you can control? Can it be developed? Is it a gift, a talent or skill? Are other things, like projection or fantasy, often mistaken for intuition?

One thing that comes to mind id the idea of "Flow" which I will save for another time, but I do think it it has some bearing on Intuition.

But I will start with something I got right off of Wikipedia:

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired. Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning. There are philosophers who contend that the word "intuition" is often misunderstood or misused to mean instinct, truth, belief, meaning but rather realms of greater knowledge and other subjects, whereas others contend that faculties such as instinct, belief and intuition are factually related.

This idea about "unconscious pattern recognition" could easily be applied to Tarot couldn't it? Like an experienced musician who can play without thinking about each note or chord structure or mechanics of the instrument.

I want to throw out another idea. This one is from Jung and I read it just this morning. He's talking about imagination but immediately I saw the parallel (because it's on my mind so much) to intuition. It's from his book, Psychology and Alchemy.

"The imaginatio is to be understood here as the real and literal power to create images (Einbildungskraft) - the classical use of the word in contrast to phantasia, which means a mere "conceit" in the sense of insubstantial thought. In the Satyricon this connotation is more pointed still: phantasia means something ridiculous. Imaginatio is the active evocation of (inner) images secundum naturam, an authentic feat of thought or ideation which does not spin aimless and groundless fantasies "into the blue" - does not, that is to say, just play with its objects, but tries to grasp the inner facts and portray them as images true to their nature. This activity is an opus, a work."

I think what he is describing here is the difference between a true talent, gift, skill and dilettantism. And I think this goes to when Nemia wrote, "I confess I'm a bit suspcious when people use intuition to defend their unwillingness to learn; I have met such people in the art world and I think different mental abilities don't neutralize or cancel each other out but empower each other".

The question is, where does this "real and literal power" come from and how do you use it?

[Pen]

There are philosophers who contend that the word "intuition" is often misunderstood or misused to mean instinct, truth, belief, meaning but rather realms of greater knowledge and other subjects, whereas others contend that faculties such as instinct, belief and intuition are factually related.

This idea about "unconscious pattern recognition" could easily be applied to Tarot couldn't it? Like an experienced musician who can play without thinking about each note or chord structure or mechanics of the instrument.

From the moment we come into the world we're gathering knowledge and gaining experience without even being conscious of so doing, and this continues throughout our lives. And yet we're born with instinctive and/or genetic knowledge too - babies suck as a sort of reflex when they feel a soft, appropriately shaped object in their mouths and tend to cry so they're not neglected. Newborn creatures with an ancestral history of danger from predators instinctively stand shortly after birth.

The musician comparison is a good one and could apply to so many skills, acquired either consciously or simply unnoticed by long experience, like the policeman or detective with a 'hunch', or the way a life of loving and looking at art prompts identification of the artist of a newly discovered or never before encountered painting. I think this happens because the 'clues' are so small and so many that each goes unnoticed yet together they can pass for what we call intuition.

And yet... We seem to know if someone behind us is staring at us. Then there's that feeling in the air that something's going to happen, although this could possibly be put down to unnoticed indications - for example, the birds have stopped singing. Possibly built in instincts of danger from our distant past.

[Nemia]

Very interesting, and I totally agree. Often intuition is the dog that runs faster than my ratio can, and from a mixture of inborn instinct and gathered experience, it tells me what I need to know. Intuition pulls the leash, so to say, and I run to catch up with it.

I just re-read a book I like after having written about it yesterday, and the topic of intuition is very important in Deborah Lipp's "Tarot Interactions". She compares the special "psychic" intuition needed for divination work with a socially unacceptable talent. According to her, as children, we're attuned to the inner lives of others. This knowledge makes us burst out with things "one doesn't say" - things we recognized but were not supposed to say. The social sanctions for having this kind of access to the hidden worlds of secrets, memories and unconscious material are high enough to make us forget we ever had it.

I don't know whether that's true but when I look back at the child I was, and in my shadow work project I do that quite a lot, then I remember that I had invisible friends, saw god and lived in a world that was inhabited by Spirit. Can I regain this feeling? It sometimes returns. (Maud Lucy Montgomery writes about such flashes of insight she had as a girl when the secrets and the beauty of the universe are blindingly clear for one moment. For me, these moments were much gentler, just like a heartbeat or a breeze. But you sure all know these moments when you feel that there is more to the world than what we see. And when the feeling passes, it leaves us with unspeakable longing.)

Lipp says we can train our intuition. She recommends meditation, self-knowledge (which can be a bit circular - you use tarot for self knowledge but need self knowledge to use the tarot intuitively...) and, imo most important, TRUST. Trust in the inner voice, trust in the dog that pulls us to the direction we didn't want to go, trust in the child that knows why the aunt is sad and where the father disappears to on Saturdays.

She calls this inner voice the Psychic Child and encourages us to encourage her/him.

She says that when you encourage the Psychic Child, you get more information, doors open, and you set a positive circle in motion.

I try to do that. When I do my readings online, I try to let every idea come in and accept it, embrace it. I'm sure the Psychic Child is not always right or I don't always understand her. But I find the concept helpful.

I have always been less-than-confident in my intuitive powers.

What do you do to strengthen your? Is that possible at all? Is Lipp right?

[Libra]

I feel like "intuitive" has kind of become a catch-all phrase for 2 separate things.

The first is that pattern recognition idea. There's a concept called thin slicing, the basic idea is that in a "thin slice" of a moment, you can get a pretty clear understanding of the vibe of something. It's why first impressions last so long, they are often very true. To me, this definition of intuition is mostly applicable to in-person readings, those flashes of insight about a person right off the bat may end up colouring the reading you give to them.

Intuition is also the word that is kind of used by people who are hedging away from straight up calling themselves a psychic. It's got a bit of mystical to it, but without all those connotations that psychic carries. I'm definitely in the camp that uses it this way, quite honestly! See, it's like ... I'm not psychic in that I'll peep into your brain and know your boyfriend's name or see a flash of your death. At the same time, the cards I pull give me a very corporeal sense of things that aren't really explainable from the traditional meanings of them. Like, someone asked about their relationship, and I pulled The High Priestess and a very specific perfume just hit me like a cloud, followed by The HP exuded vibes of sex, lap dances, prostitution. It was just so clear that her partner was sneaking around some unsavoury clubs, so I mentioned that only to find out that it confirmed suspicions (and later, she came back to tell me he admitted to it). I mean, no one is EVER really going to attribute "stripper" to The High Priestess, but it was there that time.

It's not always that blatant, but usually is just me going along with the flow of the reading and I get a little nudge to specify something - like saying you should apply to that art school, instead of saying "chase your passions" despite being given no information about art school being the thing they were wanting to chase. An intuitive reading for me, is just not squashing that kind of thing down out of fear of being wrong. There's a level of faith involved in intuitive reading, trusting yourself beyond what makes sense. You've gotta be ok with getting it wrong sometimes, to be able to hone in what a true intuitive flash feels like.

I feel like freewriting really did the most good for honing intuition though. To just allow yourself to let everything in your mind out, without filters. Those filters are really just a blockage to intuition. Intuition isn't really forced, if you're actively trying, then you're in your head and intuition bypasses logic.

[Pen]

You've gotta be ok with getting it wrong sometimes, to be able to hone in what a true intuitive flash feels like.

But suppose that getting it wrong has the potential for adverse life-changing consequences for the client? What if you'd been completely off about the HP and there'd been a massive row and... Well, the mind boggles. I don't read tarot for others - intuitive or otherwise - the responsibility is great and too abstract and I like to sleep at night. If someone is paying for a service they're investing the reader with quite a burden of trust and belief which has the potential for creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

[Joan Marie]

If someone is paying for a service they're investing the reader with quite a burden of trust and belief which has the potential for creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Of course there is truth in that. But I also think that the sitter has to take some responsibility. A bit of back and forth with a reader could help suss out a relevant message. And the person has to decide what to do with the information.

And this comes back to the reader's skill, beyond intuition or knowledge of the cards, but in understanding the person in front of them, how strong or vulnerable they are. This should affect how the message is delivered.

[Libra]

You've gotta be ok with getting it wrong sometimes, to be able to hone in what a true intuitive flash feels like.

But suppose that getting it wrong has the potential for adverse life-changing consequences for the client? What if you'd been completely off about the HP and there'd been a massive row and... Well, the mind boggles. I don't read tarot for others - intuitive or otherwise - the responsibility is great and too abstract and I like to sleep at night. If someone is paying for a service they're investing the reader with quite a burden of trust and belief which has the potential for creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Lol I guess I was a little vague there. I do my testing on my own readings first, getting a baseline of what real feels like vs what something wrong feels like in my own readings, and honing it down, followed by working with volunteers who know I'm working on something experimental. It can take me months of this back and forth testing before I've got a solid connection with a deck where I can trust that what comes intuitively is truth, and those months of throwing something out there, seeing if it sticks, analyzing where I got the feeling from and trying again is more what I meant by being ok with being wrong. It's like learning a new language really, and sometimes a word is similar to something horribly, terribly different. I don't work with a deck with clients until I feel fluent enough with that deck that I can be confident I'm not mixing up things up catastrophicly!

And then, it really is all about how you present information to someone. Like I'm not just going "Hey your boyfriend is going to strip clubs. Deal with it." That knowledge that comes isn't really the meat of a reading in the end. It's more that it confirms why the querent came to me in the first place, there was something that felt wrong to her, enough that she was willing to trade hard earned money for insight. But what The High Priestess says (when she's not wiggling provocatively at me to make a point) is more that it is safe for the querent to trust THEIR intuition, and that was what she needed to know, that she wasn't crazy or paranoid. That validation gave her the strength to have a real and solid conversation with him about the tangible evidence that she was presented with on the daily. Even when I get something as blatant and clear as that mental flash, it's not about telling the client "Yes he's a cheating jerk, confront him and dump him!" It's more about validating what they already know so that they can have a frank discussion, not a confrontation.

[SaturnCeleste]

The opening of this Intuitive Reading forum has really got me to thinking about what it means and what Tarot Reading even is.

I have often thought of this topic myself. Thank you for starting it!

Is Intuition something you can control? Can it be developed? Is it a gift, a talent or skill? Are other things, like projection or fantasy, often mistaken for intuition?

No, yes, yes. lol I don't feel you can control intuition. You can develop it, maybe, books say you can but I do feel it is inherent. For me, I feel it is a gift, others might say it's a curse. To me, I equate intuition with psychic.


This idea about "unconscious pattern recognition" could easily be applied to Tarot couldn't it? Like an experienced musician who can play without thinking about each note or chord structure or mechanics of the instrument.

I love the concept of unconscious pattern recognition. But I don't relate to your musician analogy. An experienced musician plays without thinking about each note or chord structure because they have practiced it and know it by heart. On the other hand the pattern recognition could stem back to our per-historic ancestors. For example, birds freak out at anything snake like. As developing hunter gatherers, they were hardwired to seek shelter, know where to migrate to, and how to make tools. These are skills they developed yes but they had to have that spark of intuition to survive.

I want to throw out another idea. This one is from Jung and I read it just this morning. He's talking about imagination but immediately I saw the parallel (because it's on my mind so much) to intuition. It's from his book, Psychology and Alchemy.

This actually fits in with my premise that as intuition guided them, it was imagination that gave them the spark of invention and ingenuity.

I think what he is describing here is the difference between a true talent, gift, skill and dilettantism. And I think this goes to when Nemia wrote, "I confess I'm a bit suspcious when people use intuition to defend their unwillingness to learn; I have met such people in the art world and I think different mental abilities don't neutralize or cancel each other out but empower each other".

I'm old fashioned. I feel it's important to learn the meaning of the cards first. It can't hurt anyone learning the tarot. To me an intuitive reading isn't so much the looking at the intricacies within each card but an overall feeling about the reading. I know the meaning of the cards but when I do a reading, I feel it more than anything else. But if I'm learning a new deck, I am still happy for the companion book.

The question is, where does this "real and literal power" come from and how do you use it?

This power comes from our minds. It also comes from DNA hardwired into your genes. It is when we can reach back to our primitive self and understand our development, do we feel the power can are gifted with. I hate to use the word psychic but I know it exists in people. I prefer to use intuitive.

[Tomatosauce]

Not to belabor the musician analogy, but there are plenty of experienced musicians who improvise; still others don't read music at all because of a learning disability or a physical disability and have to play by ear. Memorization isn't the only path to musical excellence, and I think that's highly relevant to tarot.

I approach intuition as a pattern-recognition thing, but that's mostly because I don't think I'm the slightest bit psychic. But I think that's why the relationships we develop with our decks are so important- every artist has their take on these archetypes, which sends the pattern spinning off in one direction, but then that adds a new set of pictorial symbols to interact with our minds, which sets the pattern spinning off in yet another direction. Sometimes the picture doesn't move me at all and basically serves as a mnemonic to whatever the card is traditionally about, and other times I'm pulling all kinds of information from the objects on a shelf or what's visible out a window.

Because whatever it is that we're trying to communicate with when we read tarot- our inner selves, Spirit, specific spirit guides, ancestors, whatever- communicates imprecisely, and it's going to use whatever it can find on those cards to get our attention. Sometimes that will be a traditional meaning, and sometimes it'll be a symbol that takes on a new meaning in the moment to shake loose from our minds whatever it is that we need to know.

[SaturnCeleste]

Not to belabor the musician analogy, but there are plenty of experienced musicians who improvise; still others don't read music at all because of a learning disability or a physical disability and have to play by ear. Memorization isn't the only path to musical excellence, and I think that's highly relevant to tarot.

Oh yes, very true! I overlooked an entire swath of other types of musicians! Sorry about that!

[Grizabella]

Intuition, in my experience, is a sudden thought that hits you. For instance , as you're headed out the door to go somewhere, you suddenly get the thought "I should take this just in case" but you don't want to go back and get the whatever it is because your logical mind says never mind, I probably don't even need it. But when you get where you're going you DO need it. Maybe that's an oversimplification but I find that if I have a little thought pop into my head, it's a lot easier to heed it in the long run.

In reading the cards, it's that first thought that pops into my head that I used to think "oh that's ridiculous. I don't want to say that and embarrass myself." Over the years, I've learned that if I just go ahead and say it, then even if the sitter says "hogwash--never happen" those are the sitters who show back up even a couple years later and tell me it was right. To read professionally, I had to develop a thick skin as well as learning to heed what that "wee small voice" pops up in my head when I first look at a card or a spread.