Intuition may be defined as the faculty of instantly knowing something without using reason or logical thinking. Intuition is always spontaneous, unpredictable and correct.

Can intuition be developed? Can a person who is not intuitive, who is very rational and analytical, be trained to think intuitively? Or, is this a question of “You either have it, or you don’t?”

Some say that one is either born an intuitive person or not, and there’s nothing one can do about that. This is the same as asking whether creativity or creative thinking can be developed or not.

I am of the opinion that intuitive thinking and creativity can be developed.

There are two hemispheres of the human brain—the left neocortex and the right. The left hemisphere is responsible for verbal, analytical, logical and quantitative thinking. The right hemisphere is for nonverbal, intuitive, creative and nonrational (not irrational) thinking.

There have been documented cases of spontaneous intuitive thinking that avoided fatal consequences.

An American couple was in bed and about to sleep one evening when, all of sudden, the wife stood up, rushed to the other room, grabbed her child from the crib and brought her to their room.

All of a sudden there was a strong thunderstorm and the chandelier hanging from the ceiling fell on the baby’s crib.

Had the wife not removed her baby, the baby would have been crushed to death. When the husband asked how she knew the chandelier would fall on the crib, the wife replied, “I don’t know. I just felt a strong urge to get the baby.”

The story was told that during World War II, Winston Churchill was saved from being killed by a bomb planted on his car’s right side, where he usually sat. An attendant opened the right side of the car as Churchill approached it, but instead of entering, he went around to the left side and sat there.

Moments later, the bomb exploded, tearing the right part of the car apart.

Right-brain function

Why or how intuition happens cannot be explained rationally. All that neuroscience knows is that intuition is primarily a right-brain function, as neurobiologist and Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry discovered in the 1970s during his experiments with epileptic patients and accident victims.

By making an incision on that part of the brain called the corpus callosum, the part that connects the left and right neocortexes, Sperry made the startling discovery that we use different hemispheres of our brain when we think either verbally or nonverbally.

This was later known as the Split-Brain Theory, which earned him a Nobel Prize in Medicine.

After long years of teaching whole brain thinking, I have discovered that intuition can be developed even in people who do not consider themselves particularly intuitive. The trick is to convince them to trust their spontaneous, nonrational thinking more, and to suspend rational thinking even just momentarily.

One psychic exercise that I have found most useful in developing intuition (and also creativity) is remote viewing or traveling clairvoyance, which was developed by physicists Dr. Russell Targ and Dr. Harold Puthoff, with the help of psychic Ingo Swann, at the Stanford Research Institute (now called SRI International) in Menlo Park, California, in the ’70s to the ’90s.

I have developed a simpler version of remote viewing, which has been very successful in helping individuals to think more intuitively. I discussed this modified version of remote viewing with Targ when I met him in Menlo Park in the ’90s. I was introduced to him by Dr. William Kirk, who founded the Center for Applied Intuition in San Francisco.

Intrigued by my simpler version of remote viewing, Targ asked me what my success rate was with my system. I said about 90-95 percent. And then he asked, “How long do you train them?” I said about one hour.

Targ smiled and said, “You know, Jimmy, we know two secrets. First, most people think that it takes long to train people in remote viewing; and second, that only few can do this successfully. We both know that’s not true.”

By the way, a British scientist and a Canadian psychologist now use the modified version of remote viewing which I had developed.

Basic ESP & Intuition Development Seminar on March 18-19, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Call 8107245 or 09989886292. E-mail [email protected].

Visit innermindlearning.com for the online seminar.