The Intelligent, Intuitive ‘Unconscious’

Ian Wilson says that it is a well-attested fact that a remarkable number of

the world’s distinguished scientists and mathematicians have made their

inventive discoveries or solved some scientific problems in mental states

that do not seem to have been normal, verbalizing consciousness (nor-

mally associated with the dominant left brain). Dr Jonas Salk, the virolo-

gist who discovered the first vaccine against poliomyelitis says, ‘It is always

with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intui-

tion will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on

it. It’s my partner.’

In fact, Webster’s dictionary defines intuition as ‘quick and ready in-

sight; immediate apprehension or cognition or the power or faculty of at-

taining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and

inference.’ [Emphasis added.]