From the author: Perhaps not a very traditional view of intuition... INTUITION (Article from the book “Big Encyclopedia of Parapsychology”) “I have a sense of danger. I remember near Stalingrad a fascist attacked our mortar battery. We repelled the first attack, and we were lying with our partner at the machine gun. And now, believe it or not, I sense something wrong in my gut. I grab my comrade by the sleeve: they say, let’s change our position - it will be more convenient under that stump. He grumbles: he's going to dig into the ground again, lie down, they say, what's going on... I barely persuaded him. Before we had time to open the cell in the new place, we see a mine in the old one - balls! And smoke like a rocker! Here you go...” (in the article “Intuition” - “Big Encyclopedia of Parapsychology”) What is this - parapsychological foresight or intuition? - Yes, this is not parapsychology, the author, but the most ordinary intuition told him, so he changed his trench. — It may very well be, my dear opponent, that intuition and parapsychology are different things. This seems to be evidenced by the fact that psychologists of academic psychology, while denying the existence of “any kind of parapsychology,” do not at all deny the existence of this phenomenon - intuition. In almost any psychology dictionary you can find the article “Intuition”. True, textbooks on academic psychology are worse in this regard. In front of me is one of the latest textbooks by one of the modern (and official) leaders of psychology. According to the table of contents, it contains 150 sections, but there is no section devoted to intuition. Here is another textbook (and also one of the leaders of psychological science, and among the 34 sections of the table of contents there is also no section on intuition; however, in the attached dictionary there is such a small article. What kind of phenomenon is this, if even a literal translation from Latin of the word intuitio - close scrutiny - gives little, explains little? There are many interpretations of this term: this is “knowledge”, and “ability”, and “mental mechanism” and many synonyms - insight, instinct, intuition, scent, insight, insight; , instinct, sixth sense... Let's start from life and consider, first, the three most typical examples of using the term “intuition”: 1) ““Eureka, I decided!” - the scientist exclaimed when suddenly an insight came to him regarding this formula...; and although he does not know at all how it suddenly dawned on him, it is quite possible that he will say later: “intuition told me.” 2) “I intuitively feel that he is a bad person!” - “Why did you decide that?” - “I don’t know, but my intuition tells me that he is not a good person.” 3) “Intuitively felt the danger” - this is from our example with the trench: the person intuitively foresaw further unfavorable developments of events. What do all these three examples of intuition have in common? In all these examples, there is the fact of receiving information (one received information about some scientific formula, another about the character of a person, the third, let’s say, about an upcoming event, about an upcoming danger). If they received information, it means that this information (which we will call “intuitive”) penetrated into their consciousness or arose in their consciousness (since it was realized by them, since they learned about it). Then the question is: how did this “intuitive” arise in their consciousness? "information, what was its source, where did it get there from? It is known (see the article “Consciousness” in the book “Big Encyclopedia of Parapsychology”) that there are only three possible sources of information for consciousness (i.e., this means that what we are conscious of information can have one of the following three sources: the external environment (our physical world), the internal environment of the body (for example, the stomach, the circulatory system...) and our subconscious. The theory says: - if the source of conscious information is the external environment (as these lines in the book are now for you), then a person knows about this, knows that the source of information is such and such objects of the external world; - if the source of conscious information is the internal environment of the body person(the heart tingles, the stomach ache...), then the person, as a rule, also knows that the source of information is his own body; but if the source of conscious information is the subconscious of this person, then in this case the person does not know the source of information, for a person, as a rule, does not know what is in his subconscious. So says the theory. And then the question is: in the case of awareness of “intuitive” information, does a person know about the source of this information? Let's see. “Why did you think he was a bad person?” - “To be honest, I don’t know; It’s just that my intuition tells me that he’s not a good person.” “Why did you suddenly want to change your position in the trench?” - “You know, I don’t know myself, by God; suddenly I wanted everything; as if intuition suggested that it would be dangerous to stay here any longer.” “And how did you suddenly come to the conclusion that this formula should consist of...?” - “To be honest, I don’t know myself... Even the day before, I was racking my brains and racking my brain, but then it seemed to suddenly dawn on me: how simple everything is, just plug in these two coefficients... Probably because I’ve been thinking for a long time above this, that’s why intuition suggested...” So, in situations where “intuition suggested”, people - to be honest - must say that they do not know the true source of the information they realized. And this gives us every reason to say: a) This “intuitive” information did not enter their consciousness directly from the outside world or directly from their body, otherwise they would have known about the source of this information; b) the direct source of “intuitive” information for their consciousness was their subconscious. Intermediate summary: the direct source of “intuitive” information for consciousness is the subconscious of this person. And then the next, even more important question: what about all these three types of “intuitive” information (described in those three examples: about the trench, the scientist...) ended up in their subconscious, what was their source for this very subconscious? It is known (see the article “Subconscious” in the book “Big Encyclopedia of Parapsychology”) that sources of information for There can be several subconscious minds. Without listing all of them here, we will only note the following: a) for the first example, the source of information for the scientist’s subconscious was... his own consciousness: he thought a lot about it, reflected on it, quite consciously solved this problem, i.e. operated on it scientific information in his consciousness, and then it passed into his subconscious (“repressed”, as psychologists say), and here is the result: let’s say that in a dream (when only the subconscious functions) the idea of ​​the Periodic Table of Chemicals arose (in D.I. Mendeleev) elements; or - for another person - not in a dream, but in a drowsy state; or not in a drowsy state, but in a state of relaxation... b) for the second example, the source of information for the subconscious was the external environment, i.e., his interlocutor, about whom he had an unfavorable opinion. Before it was realized, this opinion arose in the subconscious (otherwise the person would not have said: “To be honest, I don’t know why I have this opinion about him”). How did this opinion form in his subconscious? And everything is very simple: while talking with this person, he saw such features of his face that he often saw in “bad” people, he saw, but did not realize (his consciousness was busy with the conversation); in addition, he saw certain gestures from this person, which he also assessed negatively, he saw, but - again - did not realize; in addition, he heard from this person such phrases that he also assessed negatively, he heard, but there was no time to think about it then, and then this information was “forgotten”, repressed into the subconscious. And all this information is already in the subconscious of a person, which means that the person does not know about it (because at each moment of time we only know what is in our consciousness, and what is in the subconscious we do not know). This means that in the second example, the source of “intuitive” information for the subconscious was the external environment (unlike the first example, where the source for the subconsciouswas the consciousness of the same person); c) as for the third example (about the trench), then the answer to the question: what was the source of information for the subconscious is clearly problematic. The thought that arose (in consciousness) - “we need to move to another place, it will be dangerous to stay here” - clearly appeared from the subconscious of this person (and not from the outside, because according to the testimony of his comrade, there were no real threats from the outside). But how did it get there - this information about a future event, about a future danger? How could he foresee all this? After all, what is foresight? And this is the process of obtaining information about the future (from the future) not in the usual way, but through extrasensory perception, that is, bypassing the known senses (hearing, vision...). But how this happens, how people receive extrasensory information about what will happen—there are only assumptions here. And here is one of the hypotheses (though it has a basis for existence): the source of precognitive information is the extra-worldly information field. And now - another summary. A person intuitively learned something, “intuitive” information entered his consciousness. The direct source of “intuitive” information for the consciousness of this person is his subconscious. The direct sources of “intuitive” information for the subconscious can be in some cases the consciousness of this person himself, in others our physical world, in others the extra-worldly information field. In this case, information could enter the subconscious either through ordinary sense organs (i.e., by sensory means, as in the first two examples), or bypassing the ordinary sense organs (i.e., by extrasensory means, as in the third example). And now, after we have revealed the mechanism of the appearance of “intuitive " information, we can try to begin to define the very concept of "intuition". In the expressions "intuition suggested (... did not let us down, ... did not deceive)" this concept acts as a certain object from which certain information comes from ("intuition suggested “—that means it, intuition, was the source of information). And then, taking into account everything stated above, there is a basis for these expressions, in this context, to put a sign of identity between the concepts of “intuition” and “subconscious” (let me explain for those interested: a person has only two spheres of the psyche, which could be called a repository of information - this is his consciousness, more precisely, the information field of consciousness, and his subconscious, more precisely, the subconscious information field; if “intuition” is an object from which information comes into a person’s consciousness, then such an object can logically only be the subconscious). And then it would be more correct. Instead of saying “intuition prompted”, say “subconscious prompted.” But! For many decades in our country, the words “subconscious” and “unconscious” were simply prohibited (in extreme cases, they were ostracized: “Are you spreading bourgeois teachings here!”). But the phenomenon exists, which means it needs to be designated somehow! And then the saving “intuition” appears - and it is not connected with the hated Freudianism, and means the same thing. That is why, instead of the unusual “subconscious prompted”, we say “intuition prompted”, putting the same meaning into it! So, one of the definitions of the concept “intuition” is the subconscious, or rather, the subconscious information field where the unknown is stored and processed (for now) this person himself has information that, under certain conditions, can be conscious, that is, can move from the subconscious to consciousness. But if intuition is the same thing as the subconscious, then what does the expression “he has well-developed intuition” mean? "? Is your subconscious well developed? What, then, is a bad subconscious? No, it doesn’t work that way. So, we need to return to the original expression and ask the question: when do they say “he has good intuition”? And this is what they say when a person quite often “intuitively” feels something (like the one in the trench). And “intuitively felt” is nothing more than the awareness of information that was previously stored in the subconscious, and.