In the opening chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink”, he tells the story of how the Getty museum ended up buying a fake $10 million Greek statue. They did their due diligence and had many experts examine the statue over 14 months before they bought it. Later after the purchase, another expert was looking at the statue, and within two seconds determined it was a fake. When asked what it was, he could not articulate an exact issue with the statue, he said he just had an “intuitive repulsion” and it didn’t look right. After further study, it was determined the statue was a forgery.
Another example from the book was an old tennis coach and sports commentator who found out he could “intuitively” guess whether a serve would be good or a fault before the player even hit the ball, he just had a “feeling” watching them toss the ball up in the air for the serve. He was right a high percentage of the time. He had no idea how he did it, but over his life he had probably seen tens of thousands of serves. He then worked with other tennis experts, and after watching thousands serves on video, they figured out what his subconscious was seeing in the ball toss that was affecting the serve.
From a summation of the book:
Gladwell provides a few more smaller examples of how exactly the part of the brain, called the adaptive unconscious, that leaps to snap conclusions works. A newer, non-Freudian understanding of the unconscious maintains that it is like a kind of giant computer that quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data needed for everyday functioning. Humans have survived as long as they have because there has been some mechanism that has allowed them to make quick judgments based on scarce information. Gladwell argues that humans are innately suspicious of this kind of rapid cognition, in which in a matter of a few moments humans make large, important decisions without the consultation of more information – that the world assumes the quality of a decision is directly correlated to the time and effort that went into making it. Gladwell’s purpose is to convince the reader that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as sound as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.
I have had this happen to me. Once while watching Jeopardy there was a clue about something to do with ancient Greece. I don’t remember the clue, but I remember my brain coming up with “Who is Homer”, who wrote The Odyssey. I have never read The Odyssey, and to this day can’t tell you what it is about, or why it is so famous. But somewhere deep in my brain, it knew!
I also had similar experiences while I was Bishop. Once while sitting in the Celestial room of the Washington DC temple (Which is not in DC, but Chevy Chase MD), it all of a sudden came to me who should be the wards next YW President. I had not been pondering it, but thinking of something else entirely, when it came to me that I needed a new YW Pres, and who it should be.
Other times we’d be in a Bishopric meeting, and one of my counselors would bring up a vacancy that was needed in the organization they were over. A name would jump into my mind almost immediately without contemplation. In many of these instances, the person worked out to be excellent for the calling.
In a religious text, this intuition can be attributed to “the spirit”, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, discernment, inspiration, etc. It is interesting that when inspiration works, we remember it as proof that the “Church is True”. When it does not work, we either forget about it as it does not reinforce our current world view, or we chalk it up as “we didn’t pray hard enough” or God knows better, what they now call “the faith to not be healed”.
What has been your experience with inspiration? As a nuanced or former member, how do you explain away inspiration from your past that hit the mark? Was it a supernatural force, or was it intuition from your mind?
Wheat & Tares 
Hmm, I am not entirely sure these are all the same phenomenon. In the examine of the tennis coach, for example, I would think the point is that decades of practice and experience builds in someone that sort of pattern recognition. This seems wholly distinct from being able to know the answer to a jeopardy question with no practice or experience.
I think it’s possible that there are other methods of practice and experience that entrain us to certain kinds of pattern recognition that we wouldn’t recognize while we’re learning. (E.g., you may not need to read the Odyssey to osmose from broader culture that Homer is a big figure in ancient Greek literature, a big name for quiz bowl type games, etc.}
There is sort of a “heads I win, tails you lose” thing going on for how Mormons deal with “the Spirit.” A hunch that turns out well is from the Holy Ghost. A hunch that turns out wrong was wishful thinking or Satan whispering in our ear. It’s all so clear in theory but so ad hoc in practice.
Stock trading almost seems to have an intuitive element to it. You look at charts and monitor price movement for hundreds and hundreds, even thousands, of hours to try to recognize patterns. You can put names to the patterns, but when they repeat themselves they don’t always look exactly the same. At some point, you just get a feel for when to enter and when to exit. A feel that is based upon intense, painstaking, and longstanding observation and scrutiny, though. For when opportunity arises you have to act fast. You’re never right all time, only a certain percentage of the time. The trick is to be right enough of time. You could even be right a small percentage of the time, but when you’re right, the trade is extremely profitable.
Some activities such as sports require a sort of gut feeling to be successful at. They require anticipation of movement and extremely rapid response to that movement, which can only be developed in the moment with hundreds of hours of practice. These are skills that can’t be described per se, only developed with experience. With a lot of thought, drafting, and discussion, we can begin to put words to describe the fine details of developing these skills, but sometimes we lack the articulation skills to sufficiently describe other skills.
I understand the source of skill development. The human brain can develop fine motor skills to be able to master sports and playing instruments and doing a variety of other things. There are some people who almost seem to have natural gifts to develop some skills over others. Some people simply have more of a knack at music, sports, or language learning. This is apparent very early on. Each human brain is different some with predilections for some skills and some for others. My brain has a special predilection for language learning. I’ve mastered some degree of fluency in four of them and studied about a dozen total. Natives tell me that I sound like a Brazilian when I speak Portuguese and like a Turk when I speak Turkish. Others struggle to produce different sounds with their mouths or to warp their heads around different grammatical constructions. Some of my gift is a result of my fixation on foreign languages and hours upon hours of intense study, and some of it just comes naturally.
The problem with inspiration is that it really seems to be quite different. Its supposed source is external: the Holy Ghost/Spirit/God/Jesus/some divine externality. Intuition’s source is the individual brain/genetics/intense practice experimentation/experience. Making good choices for church positions may be a result of your own human brain’s development through good genetics and experience. Not necessarily a keen sensitivity to an ill-defined external force such as the Spirit/Holy Ghost. I believe in skill development and special natural ability. I see it on display everyday through the sports I watch and music I listen to. Inspiration on the other hand seems to nebulous and ill-defined. Those claiming inspiration seem to say all sorts of different and conflicting things, so different that it is difficult to construe it as coming from the same external source.
A bit off-topic, but a situation on 16 August in Atlanta ‘sorta’ goes along with this: A Delta airliner had some unfamiliar elevator responses to pilot input on the flight into Atlanta, so the pilots asked Maintenance to check it out. For the next flight, the mechanics said they had checked it thoroughly, but could see no problem, so they cleared it for the upcoming leg (cross-country, Atlanta to Las Vegas). However, both pilots decided to refuse the flight until another airplane was provided (which took an hour to accomplish). They had NO procedural basis for their refusal, but both agreed, based on their ‘feeling’, that they would not do it. Is that intuition – or foreboding – or a healthy respect for all the possible gremlins in a complex mechanical system ? I don’t know, but I do know that the company honored their position and there were no recriminations.
The tennis example would also fall under another Gladwell book, “The Tipping Point”. It’s been a while since I read it, but relating to things like sports, after a very high repetition rate (like 1,000 or 10,000 times) your mind and body have an automatic reflex and your level of skill is consistently higher. That would transfer to seeing others play and knowing immediately what will generally be successful.
As far as “inspiration”, I find that more complicated. Can God “inspire” you? I lean toward “yes”, though it seems kind of hit or miss when that happens, which is problematic. Trivial example, but why would two equally faithful individuals pray to ask where their lost keys are, but only one receive an answer? I do know that there are many people who have had sudden and strong thoughts pop into their mind, which required immediate action and were not the result of mulling over a situation. How and when this happens seems kind of random and I suspect most of us have never experienced this. I do believe there are spirits among us and I’m open to the possibility of them communicating with us (which I would call inspiration or supernatural force).
There are also too many individuals who claim inspiration, when it clearly is not. For many, it’s this unimpeachable declaration to do whatever they want. They may think it’s inspiration, but in reality it’s just what they want. If I don’t agree, is that because it’s wrong or just not what I want?
I think our subconscious is working in the background all the time, and I believe that is generally where the bulk of our inspiration comes from – working it out in our minds. Members and non-members alike receive “inspiration”, but I don’t think supernatural communication is as common as I was taught to believe. I also believe that our subconscious observes a lot that we don’t realize and we use that hidden intel to function and make decisions. While I have spent my entire life with myself, there is a lot in my head that I’m unaware of.
Ahhh reminds me of J Golden – three great “tions “ that people get called by. Revelation, perspiration, and relation.
Kidding aside …
For me it’s been hard to figure out the differences between intuition, anxiety, non-sub conscious reasoning and , yes, revelation. So many strange or inexplicable Things seem to happen because someone had this feeling, like going home to check the stove, or much worse (meddling in others lives).
As a bishopric counselor, our bishop was on a 2-3 week trip once and he was very clear that he’d support me whatsoever so do what I felt. So I issued a calling to someone who had usually been used in primary and nursery to teach RS. He called her back to one of those orgs after 9 months or so. :(. I prayed for a long time over that one and in hindsight I think it was really me battling my anxiety and my own reasoning.
But I have also had experiences where I’ve felt massive shifts inside of my body as a result of prayer or ordinances. Like undeniable changes and feelings. I believe they are real. It wasn’t intuition that told me to turn down that one street on my mission and tract into someone that got baptized, I had only been in the town for 2 hours. So I haven’t figured it out yet. My experience is really messy and it seems like the 15 also are really messy because their personal anxiety and beliefs are taken as truth before they ever pray or debate in their meetings. (Ie women and the Priesthood or LGBTQIA people being able to practice in full fellowship while still following their hopes and dreams).
One of our daughters was new to a BYU student ward. She was a blue-eyed long-haired blonde with curves that stopped men in their tracks. She had been asked to fill out a questionnaire and had listed herself as a M.E.T. major and her part-time job was with KBYU. She had not listed any musical instruments or singing ability. That area was left blank.
The bishop met with her and felt inspired to call her as the ward pianist. Being the devoutly religious person that she was, she told him that she was willing but would have to figure out how to teach herself how to play the piano first.
The bishop assumed a woman who looked like she did and who was raised in the LDS culture would have musical ability. He thought M.E.T stood for “Music. Something-maybe-education.Theater”.
He was floored to find out MET was in the engineering department.
We all have life experiences that lead us to conclusions. Most LDS coeds, who look like our daughter and work for KBYU, probably do have some music abilities. If our daughter had left that section of the questionnaire blank to hide her talents, that bishop would have concluded he truly was inspired to call our daughter.
He was not inspired and she did not become the ward pianist.
I have had a few, as in count them on one hand, where subconscious, intuition, lucky guesses, all get ruled out and I am left with “the words came into my brain from some intelligent outside source.” Things no human could even guess. I don’t like to share these experiences publicly because that opens me up to long explanations and things I would rather not share. Two forecasted an event that happened within the next 24 hours, things that yes, I had been praying about. They were very different experiences from ideas popping into your head about somebody to fill a calling. They were not a vague feeling, but strong sentences clobbering me. The sentences spoke to me, as “you,” so it really did not sound like my own thinking as I do not normally think of myself in second person.
These kind of experiences are not what 99.9% of Mormons talk about as “inspiration.” They fall kind of into a class by themselves. And sure, I know others with the same kind of powerful experience, but they are like near death experiences and they change you and people do not usually share such things unless they know you well. I can’t even say it is God speaking to me, just some intelligent being who can communicate with us. It sure wasn’t “Mormon God”.
And the reason people usually do not trust “intuition” kind of decisions is that they have a high failure rate. When we don’t understand what we are basing our decision on, it is more likely to be based purely on emotion. An example of this is voting for a candidate who is very appealing, but when you actually look at the voting record, he votes against things you are in favor of. Or buying a car that you like, that when you dig into consumer reports it has a very high repair record and low average “years on the road”. People make emotional decisions all the time that are often very wrong. So we are wise to second guess snap decisions and look into things a little deeper. “Intuition” is just as likely to be wrong as it is to be right. Sure there are lots of cases where we “know” something and are not quite sure why. But further investigation doesn’t hurt if we are correct and can often uncover an emotional basis or incorrect assumption. So, being the supper logical left brained mind that I have, if I have an intuitive feeling about something, I look closer and most often I can figure out what the “intuition” is based on, just like with the tennis guy. Further investigation found the small things he was seeing that most people miss and he didn’t even know he was seeing those things because they happen so fast. Once I figure out what my snap decision or “intuition” or “feeling” is based on, I am a lot more confident in making a decision.
I had bishop once that often said that good information is 50% of good inspiration. I often think we don’t lean into our agency nearly enough. In fact, we do just the opposite, we wait for inspiration/revelation/whatever to tell us what to do so we don’t have to do the hard work of thinking or so that we can be saved from potentially screwing something up. I think a lot of church leadership has fallen into this category. No risk, no major change unless directed to do so–as we slowly creep ever further into obsolescence. I find it so interesting that we tout how great a gift agency is from God–and then in the next breath we give it away to authority figures. It’s the ultimate regift.
Inspiration is hard for me. I find them unreliable if I’m trying to orient myself towards the idea they come from God. And ultimately that means for me that God is sort of unreliable. I can count on one, maybe two hands, in all my 40 years where I felt inspiration from God, where there was no other explanation. The one example I always tend to go back to with the most confidence is when my wife and I were trying to start having kids. We experienced infertility issues. We’d been trying for years and finally engaged with a reproductive endo doctor. We’d been seeing him for almost a year and still no dice. This was all back when I was a TBM. One night, doing my regular bedtime routine of prayer, this voice comes into my head, uninvited and says, “pray for the child your wife is carrying.” It was such a shock to me it shook me out of my routine prayer. Two days later, we find out we’re pregnant. When I told my wife about my experience, she was mad that I got know first before she did. Ha. Nothing like that had ever happened before or since. It’s weird because I didn’t really need that (maybe, not that I’m ungrateful for it), but I guess what I’m saying is that there were way more consequential things that I was in the middle of figuring out that God could have enlightened me on. There have been other things I’ve prayed way harder and more desperately about that I’ve never received an “answer” or any direction on. I’m fine figuring stuff out for the most part. It just makes the leaders look like they have no idea what they are talking about when my experiences don’t line up with theirs after doing what they told me to do for so long. Do I believe there is some higher power out there? Sure, my experience tells me yes. Do I believe it is relentlessly pursuing me or loves me or is always watching out for me or is reliable or something worth putting faith in? No, not any more. My experience has not shown me that is the case–and not for lack of trying on my part. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped believing these infrequent occurrences of direction happen. My in-laws were going to travel to Washington to see one of their kids. My FIL reported he got the strongest impression he’d every received in his life to no go (said he’s never experienced something like that before). And it turned out it was a good thing they didn’t. My MIL’s cornea detached and she needed eye treatment immediately. That was awesome, but my in-laws in other areas, especially my MIL, believed God directed in everything and she would share a lot of that to which I would raise an eyebrow and be very skeptical. And often it would just not be true. I watched a lot of people get spiritual confirmation the COVID vaccine was evil….and a lot of those people got seriously hurt (or died) by not getting it. I’ve personally come to not trust the anxious thoughts (or most random thoughts) that go through my head. Even when I try to quiet the mind to invite divine interaction…nothing happens.
Intuition is harder for me. My wife likes to lean into that a lot. I don’t trust it unless I have another way of also verifying it. But, I think when we talk about intuition, I think people might use it differently. One way I hear from my wife and others is this connection to the wisdom of our spirit. So, kind of like inspiration, but rather sourced from within rather than from God. We live across the street from a former drug cop and with all his training, he also valued this inner voice as it had saved his life a few times. However, I don’t think he would make any distinction between inspiration and intuition, to him it was all from God I think, maybe–I don’t know. I think the other way intuition is used is what has already been brought up–some kind of inner knowing forged in experience. I think the other word that might be used to describe that is wisdom. This I can understand better, especially in my job. In my former job (I just switched), I was often approached for advice on problems as I could usually give some pretty good insight. That came through experience–trial and error. I developed an intuition, a wisdom, for what would work and what wouldn’t.
In the end, both of these methods can end up being more erroneous than correct depending on the application. Every so often, as has been highlighted, something surprising sneaks in and has an impact for good. I’m grateful for those things when they happen, but I just don’t think they are reliable in any way to be dependable.
This is a question I found myself thinking about during our testimony meeting today. We had at least one member of the congregation talk about inspiration, wanting to receive an answer, and waiting and waiting, and hoping to get the answer in the temple, and nothing. And then on the drive home, it came to them like a voice in their head from someone else. I will admit to that happening to me from time to time. Thinking and thinking about something, turning it over, praying about it, and then hearing the “answer” in a voice that does not sound like my own in my mind.
I wonder how common that is and how others interpret it. Sometimes I’ll hear my mom’s voice in my head, sometimes my dad’s. Occasionally my grandma’s (long gone). Often it’s my husband’s voice I hear. My children’s. But a handful of times in my life the voice in my head was nobody I could recognize and incredibly authoritative. This voice _knew_ what it was talking about.
I assume all of these voices are me, but I also think that maybe we understand so little about consciousness, that maybe it’s more porous than we realize. There are any number of times my husband and I just know what the other is thinking. And yeah, we’re smart people and good friends who’ve spent a lot of time together and can make inferences based on shared experience and knowledge of the other, but also it seems to go beyond that sometimes.
Intuition, inspiration, consciousness–I think what we actually know about any of those things isn’t very much and a lot of the rhetoric around spirituality (in many traditions) tries to address this.
Anna: *yawn*
Ever the authoritative take, has it all figured out.
“InterestingOP,”
I hardly have it all figured out.
Or should I just say,
“InterestingOP”: yawn
Can’t add anything worthwhile to the discussion, just bitch about others.
Now, that’s really boring. Immature too. How about sharing your own experience if you don’t like mine.
I am pretty agnostic about this stuff. I have come to have a pretty skeptical disposition toward the supernatural in general. My belief in God is sometimes more about what God symbolizes than a belief that he/she is real. So I tend to lean toward explanations for things that rely on intuition and the subconscious brain. And yet, there are still things I don’t have answers for. I specifically recall a moment as a missionary when I was ready to leave a place and felt I should stay there a bit longer, and 10 minutes later met a guy who was very keen to hear what we had to say. Intuition? Inspiration? A lucky guess? I really have no idea. I remain open to all of those possibilities.
Anna: but you aren’t just talking about your own experience. You’re asserting what “99.9% of Mormons” do or don’t do. That’s the yawn part. That’s the part that can admittedly irritate me about the ‘commentnacle’. Another disaffected LDS person pigeonholing everyone else. I have a child doing this right now, in the midst of a faith crisis/transition, and it’s this kind of thing that I find intellectually lazy.
I might have 99 concerns about the church but decide to stay; you might have 99 concerns about the church and decide to go. All good. No judgment. I’ll say explicitly: those who leave the faith are following their path, and I get it. I may be (currently) choosing differently, and hanging onto the edge of the inside, but there’s no sense in which i think others need to adopt my view.
It’s just the air of: everyone who doesn’t have your (or anyone else’s) particular ‘take’ on things must be dummies. That’s the part that grates. And bores.
But I didn’t mean to come across flippant or as dismissive as it sounds. It’s just that your take on what 99% of Mormons do may or may not reflect reality.