Intuition

from Orage's "Psychological Exercises and Essays," pp. 102-104

For adults the possible means of developing intuition must of necessity be different [from that for children]. They cannot revive the early tendencies of childhood; they cannot become little children again, and grow up where they left off. At least, the means are not the same. By what means, if any, can adults try to repair the defect of their youthful education, and train a gift which has been neglected if not entirely killed out?

It cannot, as we have seen, be thinking in the ordinary sense of the word; nor can it be feeling. Is there then any possible process which is neither one nor the other, and, at the same time, is not childish guessing, but which is, at least, akin to intuition and capable of yielding increasingly satisfactory results? We believe there is; and we shall give to this process the name of 'psychological work' to distinguish it from ordinary thinking, feeling and guessing.

You have a friend with whom you have fallen out recently on some more or less trifling matter. There is a misunderstanding between you which neither party appears able to dissipate. You try and he tries; but your efforts only make matters worse. What can be done? Try the following: Compose a letter, written as from your friend to yourself, which would completely satisfy you if you received it. Put into exact words what you would like your friend to write or say to you. This effort of mind, it will be found, is not just thinking; nor is it feeling or guessing; since you have the means of checking its correctness. It is, in short, deliberate intuition or, as we have called it, psychological work.

Or you are in doubt what certain people really think of you. To know their opinion of you would be of great value. Perhaps your future depends upon their judgement; yet you are not sure what it is. Here again, is an opportunity for deliberate psychological work. Imagine yourself in their situation and called upon to express their candid opinion of you. Write down in actual words what you imagine they would say if so called upon. You will be astonished to discover, in the first place, how different is the result from what you now expect; and, in the second place, how closely it will prove to approximate to the truth. Something in us is never self-deceived; and such an effort as we have just described is a means of arriving at our own conscious self-realization of the truth that is in us.

One of the commonest experiences in life is to receive and give offence where none is intended. People, otherwise worthy, fail to do something the effect of which is to disincline you to future relations. Without exactly knowing why, you drift apart. On the other hand, people who once cultivated you cease to take any interest in you. You do not know the cause of their coolness or indifference; and you attribute it to their caprice. In both cases a little psychological effort would possibly yield illuminating results.

In respect to the first, try deliberately to discover what it was that 'put you off' you acquaintance, and then just as deliberately, imagine what he or she should have done, or should now do, to win your regard back again. It is not enough to know that you wish to be treated differently. You must try to think just how you wished or now wish to be treated. Nor is it of any importance that your friend should act on your discovery; you need not tell him what he should have done or should now do. Your own understanding thus arrived at, will be of sufficient value in itself.

In your own case, when misunderstood, deliberately go over the incidents of the last meeting with these two questions in mind: What did my friend expect of me at that moment, and what did I give him? The effort to answer these questions candidly is not only an exercise in intuition, but incidentally it would do much to clear up old misunderstandings and to prevent new ones. Many such exercises will occur to the sincere student; all having an immediate practical value, which takes them out of the category of games, and, at the same time, a development value that transcends even their immediate value. In sum, they are of the nature of the Christian doctrine as commonly taught but seldom practised: 'Do unto others as you would be done by.' By reason and feeling alone we can never be practical Christians. Only by trained intuition can we certainly arrive at the truth concerning both how we ourselves would be done by, and, consequently, what we should do for our neighbour.