The power of intuition

What if the phrase, "Money makes the world go round," was "Spiritual intuition makes the world go round"? Without intuition – ideas that inspire and lead to right decisions – the good we see and experience wouldn't be possible. Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy, wrote: "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies.... What a glorious inheritance is given to us through the understanding of omnipresent Love! More we cannot ask: more we do not want: more we cannot have" ("Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896," p. 307).

Each of us has access to this understanding by divine inheritance. And since good originates in God, what we see and experience must come from our deep connection to our Creator and our obedience to the ideas He gives. The Bible is full of examples of the value placed on wisdom and intuition. When asked what he wanted most, Solomon replied, "Give [me] an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad" (I Kings 3:9). He didn't request wealth, fame, long life, or power, but the ability to know what is good and act on it.

Our greatest asset is the spiritual sense to see beyond a present human predicament toward a solution. Companies and celebrities have paid up to $10,000 a month for the counsel of Laura Day, an "intuitionist." Though she knows "next to nothing about business," her consultations have led to a booming career, built entirely through referrals. Still, according to CNN.com, "she refuses to think of herself as special. 'We all have the power of intuition,' " she says ("Celebrities, companies bank on her intuition," July 9). This example points to the fact that business savvy and intellectual prowess don't always carry the day; there's a clear recognition that something more is often needed.

This something more can be found by looking to the divine Mind – rather than human minds – for intelligence and ideas. Which is why there's no relationship between clairvoyance and intuition. Mrs. Eddy described the latter not as a sixth sense, but as "Soul-sense" or spiritual sense. She wrote about the intuitions that "reveal whatever constitutes and perpetuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not evil" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 85). And she emphasized that the purpose of any ability to glimpse God's view is always for healing and can never harm. This same Soul-sense, she observed, enabled Jesus to heal. He was so in tune with the divine will, he perceived thought with an accuracy that caused people to recognize his divine sonship. A Samaritan woman he met proclaimed, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" (John 4:29).

Jesus pointed out our inseparability from God, and thus our 24/7 access to His ideas. The today-present Christ – "the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness" (Science and Health, p. 332) – never separates thought from its source, acknowledging the divine Mind as all that can truly inform, direct, and create. As we each cultivate this spiritual understanding, our thoughts and decisions will be more than hunches or feelings. They will be strong convictions coming straight from our Counselor.

Practitioners of Christian Science heal when they, too, seek God's counsel, exercising their spiritual faculties to see beyond the human scene, and then keeping their thought – and that of the patients they pray for – focused on truth. Through prayerful intuition and obedience to divine Mind's bidding, they witness healing.

Referring to his healing ministry, Jesus said that those who followed his teachings and trusted in God's healing power would do greater works than he did. Why would he have said that? Not because he had great faith in human ability, but because he had infinite faith in divine Mind's capacity to communicate its ideas, and infinite trust in the innate ability of men and women to receive and respond to spiritual intuitions. This most precious communication is ours to trust today.

Adapted from the Christian Science Sentinel, Sept. 8.