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We all have an intuitive mind. Intuition is as much a part of human nature as observation and calculation. In spite of this, present day education ignores intuition in favour of logic. So we are taught to think logically at school, while intuition is regarded as something we are born with but can do nothing about.
And yet can improve our intuitive ability just as we can improve an ability for mathematics or music – by taking a direct interest in it and by regarding it as a skill.
We use intuition to make some of our most important decisions and judgements in life. Do we trust someone or not? What career do we want from life? What do we ultimately believe in? And perhaps most importantly, how do we deal with life itself?
The more familiar we are with our intuition, the more clearly we will hear its voice and the more confident we will be about trusting it when the important decisions come along. And the bigger decisions in life are always intuitive.
The Intuition Test takes a direct approach to the study of intuition rather than one based on theory. The book provides over thirty problems for which there is no right or wrong answer, and so they force you to make an intuitive judgement to solve them.
We can use logic to scrutinise a contract, spot the mistakes in an argument and write coherent sentences. But we have to use intuition to understand people, pick up on moods, know when to speak or remain silent, and – most importantly – to decide what we are going to do with our life. If these things are important to you, The Intuition Test can help you to understand your intuitive mind.
Western culture has been dominated by logic since the time of ancient Greece. The history we know is the history of logic. The influence of intuitive thinking is largely ignored, and yet it has informed Western culture just as much as the formal culture of logic.
The influence of logic continued into the Christian era through its adoption by the Church, which employed logic as the means to find fault with the heresies. From the point of view of logic, there can be only one truth, and all other truths must be condemned as fallacies.
The Humanism of the Renaissance and the Rationalism of the Enlightenment did nothing to change this. The truth of religion was replaced by the truth of Secularism, and logic remained dominant.
Where intuitive thinking found expression, it did so often by stealth. The heresies, the rediscovered Pythagoreanism, and the symbolic arcane knowledge of the Renaissance are all examples of intuitive thinking.
Intuition in the West traces the influence of the intuitive mind on Western culture. There are chapters on Paganism, the Heresies, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Nineteenth Century and the Modern Era. While some of the chapters cover religious themes, this because much of Western history has been under the influence of religion. The modern secular outlook only emerged from the time of the Enlightenment onwards, and from that point intuitive thinking became secular.
The study of intuitive culture will allow the reader to see how the intuitive mind has found expression in different times and conditions, and at times in hostile environments. It will reveal much that is obscure about Western culture and much that is misunderstood about intuitive thinking itself.
In addition to intuitive culture, there are chapters on logic and intuition, in order to demonstrate the differences between them. There is also a chapter on Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism, because logic has not been as dominant in the East, and so its intuitive culture has been expressed more openly and directly.
The present era provides the opportunity to discuss ideas which at one time would have been deemed heretical and even dangerous. The present book takes the opportunity provided by this liberalism to outline many subjects which might otherwise seem obscure and perplexing from a conventional point of view. Individual judgement is intuitive. If you are a person who questions, wonders and thinks, Intuition in the West is the book for you.
Danny Butler’s natural ability for mathematics led to a scholarship at Oxford University. Student life led to a shared flat, student debts, and then a job doing IT at Oxfordshire County Council to pay it off.
Ellie Hamilton, having studied mediaeval French at Balliol, was looking for something more in her life than just holding down a day job at Waterstones. For Ellie, a degree was as much about education as an excuse to get far away from her mother in Wytham Woods.
The Oxford Skeptics Group was a ragtag mixture of the bright, the lonely, the misfit, and the ‘not sure what else to do’ ex-uni students in the city. Fortnightly meetings and regular attendees included Danny and Ellie, as well as Tosh, Maddy, Tina, Alex, Dawson, and – for a while at least – Frank. Danny was drawn to the group by his natural scepticism and by an enquiring mind, and he was drawn to Ellie because she was quietly beautiful and thoughtful.
Both have a history they would prefer not to discuss with others in the group. Danny’s mother is an embarrassment to him, and Ellie’s mother is unmentionable. They are, of course, made for each other. They are also about to discover their coming together was no accident, and what they thought was the freedom to pursue post-student life in Oxford proves to be not quite as it seems.