More on "Primacy of Intuition"

Intuition “flows” or “bubbles up,” “flashes,” “dawns,” “strikes like lightning,” and—sometimes “nags” as conscience. All but the last of these words suggest waters or energy. Indeed I think of intuition as an influx of something energetic from the higher level of reality. Now in this modern age our almost reflexive tendency is to formulate experience in naturalistic term. It feels more real to think of intuition as an energy, thus as something impersonal. In other times, and in still active traditions, we see the same experience rendered in quite another form. We speak of “the voice of conscience,” for example. The artist feels “inspiration” coming from the Muse—that lady surely conceived of as a person. We think it sophisticated to label such things as anthropomorphizing.

I come from a demanding religious tradition, Catholicism. It takes reality seriously, insists that action has real consequences, here and beyond. In my early schooling we were invited to see our selfish urges as temptations whispered in one ear by the devil; our conscience had the other ear. The devil was recruiting future inhabitants for hell; the guardian angel strove mightily to save our soul. These images are vivid, sensory, and therefore effective ways to teach. The abstract formulations—and energetic or liquid analogies—are somewhat less compelling but more suited for the adult understanding. I’ve waxed eloquent on the symbol of the spiral just recently. In that imagery intuition might be imagined as an attraction upward, a kind of negative gravity. (It is, by the way, put almost like that by Beatrice in Dante’s Paradise. The soul “falls upward” toward heaven as naturally as water falls into the depths at a waterfall.) Temptation is the “pull” of the depths.

But I am wandering afield. If intuition manifested in sharp, precise words heard in the ear, all would be clear. It manifests as feelings, images, and perceptions of patterns. So does temptation. We supply the “little voice”—and it is an interpretation, an interpretation in both cases, be it of higher inflows or of feelings produced by hormonal reactions to stimuli. The two differ in taste, as it were; tastes are difficult to render in concepts, but attention to our experiences develops the palate, as it were. The intuitive has a certain joyous sharpness—even when it is a “dark” intuition; temptation is always heavy in flavor (as we speak of certain wines, for instance); one feels the pull of the flesh, the greed for dominance.

To state simply what I’m groping to make palpable: Intuition is primary, but it needs interpretation. The images, feelings, and sensed patterns must be properly understood. The intuition will always be right, but we can make a hash of it nevertheless by inattention or excessive attention to it, by twisting its meaning or direction. Art supplies endless examples. The same inspiration produces both kitsch and the sublime.

Scrupulosity—obsessing about one’s own sinfulness—is a good example of the abuse of conscience. Naturally, under the influence of Modernism, it is labeled as a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can also be seen as sloppy interpretation of intuition, of conscience. The consequences of sin on the one hand (damnation, etc.) and of the self’s importance on the other are exaggerated, deformed, and produce a downward spiraling of obsessive self-absorption. Here, as in everything human, a comprehensive approach is vital. Intuition must be consulted about judgment—and judgment applied to intuition. I assign primacy to intuition in this sense: we don’t produce it ourselves. Nor do we produce our own desires. But intuition comes from above; most desires rise from the body. In the use of both we must apply ourselves correctly.

Now the human is the most maddeningly perplexing reality. I use the word “interpretation” above—and now feel the urge to interpret interpretation more comprehensively. We interpret an intuition in two ways: intellectually, thus as something meant or intended; and by action, thus by doing or abstaining to do something, by the exercise of will. A popular phrase comes to mind: “Which part of NO don’t you understand?” When we ignore a nudge of conscience, we interpret it by action.