Journal: Foresight 2009 Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Page: 61 - 80Abstract. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce Futures researchers to simple and practical ways they can employ intuitive intelligence to enhance their research. I will outline five specific intuitive tools which I have developed and used regularly. The incorporation of these tools into the research process potentially makes research more efficient, meaningful and exciting. This paper contains a strong anecdotal component, to exemplify the processes.

There is also a theoretical aspect. I expand the mundane definition of intuition, and use it in the classical sense, where it incorporates the idea of the extended mind. I refer to this as “integrated intelligence”. While this definition places it beyond generally accepted definitions of intuition found in modern psychology, it has a long tradition in the history of art, literature and science right through to the modern era. It is also consistent with recent experimental scientific evidence. Further, it fits well into recent developments in Critical and Post-conventional Futures Studies, where “other ways of knowing” are being increasingly legitimatised.

Marcus Anthony

Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that nobody can see where you are.John Naisbitt (2007), Mind Set

Only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding can lead to these laws. The daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart. Albert Einstein (quoted in Hart 2000 p 20).

IntroductionOne day several decades ago, a young man walked into a public library. He wanted to find answers to some deep questions he had been asking himself about the nature of mind, cosmos and their relationship to modern physics. In those days there were no computers, and he did not have much of a liking for the card catalogue, so he did what he often did when he wanted to home in on some hard information. He began walking along the many shelves of books. He did not bother to look at the call numbers librarians had spent thousands of hours inscribing on the binding of the books. Instead, he just kept walking. Suddenly, he got the strong feeling he had been waiting for, stopped, reached out and grabbed a book from the shelf. The book was exactly what he needed, addressing the effect of human observation on experiments in quantum physics. It was that moment which launched Michael Talbot on a lifelong interest in the confluence between mysticism and what he called “the new physics” (Talbot 1992 p 137).

What interests me about Talbot’s tale, is not so much his beliefs about links between mysticism and physics, but the “way of knowing” he used to locate his data. Why did he not just use the card catalogue like everybody else? Was he just being lazy? The answer, according to Talbot, is that he often relied on his intuition, and a sense of feeling to find books in libraries. He felt that this was often a more reliable process than using conventional methods. He believed that he would be led to find the answer to the question she was posing.

What would you do? Chances are you would head for the card catalogue, or the modern equivalent, the computer database. And that tells us something about the way our minds have been trained to think, and the ways of knowing that we have come to call “normal” in the modern world.

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Some will dismiss Talbot as a “New Ager”, “hippie”, or as simply deluded. Yet these terms relegate Talbot to the realm of the other, and effectively prevent us from asking “why” - and more importantly “how” - he used intuition to locate information in public libraries. In this way we as researchers remain confined within our comfort zones, and the boundaries to our knowledge are unconsciously maintained.

In this paper I am going to push the boundaries, and bring us to the frontiers of mind – at least as defined in the modern western world. Below, I will outline five intuitive research tools which can be used by futurists (and others who may wish to use them). In Part 1 I will provide a theoretical background for my argument, and in Part 2 I will outline the tools, their potential applications, and relate them to cognitive modalities within the theory of integrated intelligence (Anthony 2008a). Part 3 briefly addresses three issues you may face as you apply these kinds of tools to your research.

The approach I recommend may be an affront to seasoned researchers. However, in the spirit of Postconventional Futures Studies, I will challenge the parameters of dominant discourse, and offer this paper as an act of “dissent” (Slaughter 2006) – a deep challenge to prevailing methods and paradigms.

Part 1: The theoretical perspectiveElsewhere I have argued for the legitimisation of intuitive ways of knowing in modern education (Anthony 2005, 2008a, 2008b). I have developed a theory of intelligence called integrated intelligence. i

Integrated intelligence is the ability to successfully solve problems using a full repertoire of cognitive abilities, including intuition in its classical sense. Such intuition incorporates transpersonal cognitive potentials, and includes the capacity to work with the extended mind (Sheldrake 2003), or consciousness that extends beyond the brain. So far, my work has been primarily theoretical and conceptual. What I did not outline so clearly is that there is a very practical side to integrated intelligence, and you do not need to be an Indian mystic or Uri Geller to use it.

I have employed the tools extensively in my own research, including during the writing of my doctoral thesis. In this paper I am going to relate some of my experience in writing my doctoral thesis using these methods. This will include some excerpts from my study diary, which I kept at the time.

The “mystical” components of integrated intelligence may lie beyond the comfort zones of some researchers. I simply suggest a suspension of disbelief as you try the methods yourself. I can report that the benefits are many, including making research more exciting, fluid, efficient, and of course, intuitive.

Dean Radin (2008) states that only about 0.3% of university staff will publically admit to an interest in psi research. This is due to what he calls the “psi taboo.” Integrated intelligence has obvious links with psi research, as the concept of extended mind is related to such psi phenomena as extra-sensory perception, clairvoyance, precognition, and so on. While there are transpersonal researchers who do employ related tools formally in their research (Hart, Nelson & Puhakka 2000), in the process I am suggesting here, the five tools are not formally incorporated into research methodology, but are background tools which enhance the research process.

You do not have to have any specific belief in a classical interpretation of intuition to use these tools. It would help, however, to temporarily suspend doubt. After all, the suspension of doubt is the stance of the true skeptic, not a dogmatic insistence on a particular perspective, as Rupert Sheldrake has so often stated (Sheldrake 2003).

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I see integrated intelligence as a means of facilitating and enhancing other ways of knowing. It is not a means to do away with critical rationality or traditional research methods. May I suggest you begin with whichever of the tools you feel most comfortable. You can modify them according to your particular needs and preferences. I developed these tools through experimentation, and through adapting and modifying other people’s ideas.ii I continue to work and experiment with them. I invite you do the same.

Here I will categorise the tools according the core operations of the theory of integrated intelligence, as outlined previously (Anthony 2006, 2008a, 2008b): integrated perception, location, diagnosis, evaluation, fore-sense, and creativity and innovation.

The evolution of Futures Studies and intuitive ways of knowingWhere can we situate these ideas, considering they are rather radical? Australian futurist Richard Slaughter sees Futures Studies as having evolved through four distinct phases. The first was the empirical tradition, which was most prominent in the United States. The second was a “culturally based” approach - predominantly European - which eventually led to Critical Futures studies. Then in the third phase an international and multicultural thrust emerged, which Slaughter finds is still developing. Slaughter’s fourth phase has been the emergence of Post-conventional Futures and Integral Futures studies.

Integral Futures studies has developed from the work of Ken Wilber (2000) (amongst others) and the integral tradition which he developed (Slaughter 2003). In simplified form, Wilber’s analytical approach looks at four distinct domains: the physical world, culture, society, and consciousness. In short, it examines both exteriors and human interiors.

The essence of Wilber’s model is summarised by Slaughter in the following way.

The central feature of the integral approach is to honor all truths and acknowledge the value of many different ways of knowing across all significant fields (Slaughter 2003).

For the sake of simplicity, I am going to include Integral Futures Studies and the Post-conventional Futures Studies under the one banner, and simply call them Post-conventional Futures Studies. There are enough commonalities to put them together. It can be seen that the kinds of intuitive tools I am referring to this paper are consistent with the “other ways of knowing” which are theoretically included in Post-conventional Futures Studies.

Of course, the five tools can be explicitly part of Futures Methods. For example, Sohail Inayatullah (2004), who incorporates many of the themes of Post-conventional Futurists in his work, leaves an opening for such tools as part of his Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). CLA is a layered analytical method, and can be used to analyse thinkers, texts, issues, problems, discourses, approaches, worldviews etc. The first level of CLA is the empirical and observable; the second the systems and social aspects; the third is worldview; and the fourth the myth/metaphor level. It is this final level which theoretically allows space for other ways of knowing, and the kinds of tools I mention in this paper (Inayatullah 2004).

Generally speaking, if we follow Slaughter’s interpretation, it can be said that each development in Futures Studies and the branch that has grown out of it has included and transcended the ideas, approaches and methods of the previous development. iii So Critical Futurists include the empirical approaches and the multiple perspectives approaches – and then add their own particular tools and methods. In turn the Post-conventionalists incorporate all the tools and methods of the Critical

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Futurists, and then add spiritual and Post-conventional tools and ways of knowing. Each development, therefore, has expanded the depth of Futures discourse.

We can depict the development of Futures Studies as in Figure 1, below.

Image 1.1: The evolution of Futures Studies according to Slaughter

The development of Futures Studies reflects trends in western thought before and during the twentieth century. Empirical Futures is the hard-fact approach, typical of the western empirical tradition and experimentalism which quickened after 1850 (Pickstone 2000). Multi-perspectives is consistent with an addition of broader thinking in line with multi-culturalism. Critical Futures Studies has been influenced by the mid-twentieth century postmodernists and poststructuralists, especially Michel Foucault. Finally, the post-conventionalists have been influenced by thought emerging in the alternative movement of the 1960s and 70s, Eastern philosophy and some of the advances in physics, systems thinking and consciousness studies of recent decades.iv

Postcritical thought encourages multiple perspectives. It invites analyses and introspection on paradigmatic delimitation and bias (Inayatullah 2002). In my research I have emphasised that both the critical/rational and mystical/spiritual worldviews have played significant roles in the development of western civilisation since the time of the ancient Greeks (Anthony 2006, 2008a). Each worldview has its preferred ways of knowing. The Critical/Rational worldview is dominated by experimental, analytical, classificatory, mathematical/logical and verbal/linguistic ways of knowing. The mystical/spiritual worldview is dominated by intuitive and introspective ways of knowing (Anthony 2006). Because mystical/spiritual ways of knowing tend to be underplayed, ignored or derided in the critical/rational worldview, modern western culture has lost the awareness of the kind of knowledge these ways of

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knowing can facilitate. The ideas of the extended mind and integrated intelligence are obviously more consistent with the mystical spiritual worldview and its ways of knowing. While is largely absent from modern science, it remains a cornerstone for many non-western and indigenous cultures right up to the modern day (Sheldrake 2008).

Part 2: The five toolsWhile there are numerous ways of utilising intuitive thinking and integrated intelligence in the research process, in this introductory paper I am going to focus upon just the five tools. They are the Intuitive Diary, Free-form Writing, Meditative States, The Feeling Sense. Below, I will briefly outline how you can use them in general. Then, under the specific core operations headings, you will find some other specific applications.

Using an Intuitive DiaryThis is a diary where you record your intuitive feelings, images, prompts and so on. I consider it to be the most important of all the tools for those just beginning to use intuitive ways of knowing. It is the one that will most easily establish a close link between left and right-brain thinking, and get you in touch with the subtleties of the intuitive mind.

You will need a large hard-cover diary. It is worth buying a good one, because you want it to last. All the things you record in it may not make sense at the time of writing, but when you look back later, maybe even years later, you may find your recordings invaluable. Alternatively you can put your Intuitive Diary on your computer, but as with all important writings, make sure you have at least one backup file saved elsewhere!

I recommend that you use your Intuitive Diary to record your dreams, intuitions, the synchronicities you experience from day to day, impressions of meditations, and any auditory, visual or feeling impressions that come to you at any time during the research process. I like to record not only the dreams, images and feelings about things, but my interpretations of them also.

When I started keeping an Intuitive Diary many years ago I wrote in it almost every day. It is up to you how much time you want to invest in it. But do it as often as possible.

Free-Form WritingFree-form writing is stream-of-consciousness prose, written fluidly, quickly and without immediate editing or too much conscious analytical thinking. It is essentially “effortless” writing.

I used Free-Form Writing extensively throughout the writing of my thesis, but particularly in the first two years. A book which inspired me greatly in developing this process was Joan Bolker’s (1998) Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. Bolker’s book is about writing a thesis through approximately four stages: the zero draft, first draft, second draft, and beyond.

In something of a synchronicity, I first came across the book while scrolling through Amazon.com. Even before I had formally enrolled in my doctoral programme in Australia, a friend told me about Phillips and Pugh’s How to Get a PhD, and so I went to Amazon to check it out. I did in fact buy Phillips and Pugh’s book, but just happened to see Bolker’s book there too. The title looked a bit gimmicky, but I felt a strong urge to buy it (a case of The Feeling Sense, as below). So I did.

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It was Bolker’s concept of “the zero draft” which “grabbed” me. Bolker recommends writing from day one of the doctoral enrolment. Bolker suggests writing at least fifteen minutes a day, no matter what. The principle here is basically that you condition yourself to write habitually, so that on days that you do not write you actually feel bad! The “zero draft” involves writing whatever comes to you, and without editing, proof reading or censoring yourself. There is no going back, not even for typos! Whatever idea comes into your mind about the thesis topic – connections, distinctions, hypotheses, questions, guesses, confusions, whatever - you write it down during your daily writing time. Bolker’s argument is that inevitably, amongst all the ramblings of the mind, some useful ideas will come out. Even if this is a mere ten per cent of what you write, you will still have a lot of potentially usable writing after six months. In Bolker’s system, it is only later that you get down to putting together a first draft. It is after that point that the process begins to look more like a traditional approach to writing a thesis, with a succession of drafts. I highly recommend Bolker’s book for anybody in the early stages of writing a thesis. In fact, I highly recommend it to any researcher in any discipline.

Bolker does not link her idea of a “zero draft” to mysticism. However I adapted Bolker’s method to my understandings of integrated intelligence. Previously I had used Free-Form Writing when writing poetry and stories. I just wrote whatever came to me, and went back later to see if it was any good. Bolker made me realise I could use a similar process in the early stages of thesis writing - or any academic writing for that matter. Thus when I actually began typing, I simply allowed myself to enter a fluid stream of consciousness, and let the words pour out. I typically found that there was just so much wanting to be released from my mind, that fifteen minutes was just not enough. I adapted the system so that I set myself a goal of writing five hundred words a day, every day, first thing in the morning.

Just as Bolker argues, I found that the writing process really clarified my thinking. As I wrote ideas came together, links between people, ideas, and historical and philosophical concepts suddenly began to make sense. I did not stop to check if the ideas were valid. I just kept writing. This is thinking as you write, not thinking before you write.

Where I differ from Bolker is that I adapted the process to my mystical/spiritual worldview. Before I began my daily writing session I began with a prayer or affirmation to Spirit. I do not have any particular religious affiliation, and the word “Spirit” for me has an impersonal connotation. As is obvious from this paper’s subject matter, my worldview is rather mystical. I believe that there is a greater intelligence which contributes to the evolution of humanity, and indeed the entire cosmos. So, at the beginning of a writing session I would say aloud something like this.

Spirit, lead me through this writing process, so that this work that I am writing may be in alignment with Spirit.

There were often questions I would ask, and sometimes write down, to guide the whole process. Then I would begin to write. I suggest you use an affirmation or prayer that you feel comfortable with, that reflects your particular worldview and belief system. You can also begin with asking questions, preferably out loud - if you are not in the library or within the vicinity of the local psychiatric ward!

Due to some administrative issues, my enrolment at the university was delayed several months. By the time I came to my official enrolment date, I already had about forty thousand words on my computer, all related to my thesis topic. Later I began to put the ideas into longer arguments about certain aspects of

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the thesis as I saw it developing. Almost all of it came together easily, if not effortlessly. I emphasise that at least initially, I wrote about things that I was drawn to, to that which moved me. In those early days I rarely even thought about what I was going to write before I sat down to write. Sometimes I would wake up and an idea would come into my head, and I would go with that. Other times I would begin with nothing. There was not a single time when I had writer’s block.

Just as Bolker suggests, I went through drafting phases. Without doubt I enjoyed the earlier part of the writing process more than the later stages. I am naturally creative, but not much of a natural stickler for detail! When it came to the endless editing of chapters, it became a real test of self-discipline for me. I also found that my sense of connection to integrated intelligence dropped off as the process became more and more left-brained. This was probably an inevitable part of the thesis writing process. Inspiration is not really needed when you are crossing endless “T”s and dotting endless “I”s.

My policy of writing consistently paid off. I completed my thesis in less than four years while working as a teacher very full-time. When I enrolled in August 2002, I had not a single academic publication. By the time I was granted my PhD I had a total of 18 publication credits (either published or about to be published), including several book chapters and had completed the writing for my book (Anthony 2008a).

Meditative StatesMeditative States can be of great benefit for researchers. You can cultivate meditation and non-ordinary states of consciousness as a deliberate means of accessing the intuitive mind, insight and inspiration about your research topic. Put simply, the process for Meditative States as a tool for researchers is to quiet the mind, put out questions, and wait for the answers to come in any sensory modality – images, auditory prompts, subtle feelings etc.

It is well appreciated by mystics and many parapsychologists that cultivating non-ordinary states of consciousness is invaluable in accessing intuitive and spiritual knowledge – what is sometimes called the non-local mind (Grof 2000, Sheldrake 2003, Radin 2006, 2008). Throughout my life after my mid twenties I used these states very deliberately to glean data from what I believe are transpersonal sources, and my subconscious. Meditative states are an intimate part of the development of integrated intelligence. You can familiarise yourself with this tool through deliberate meditation, or by taking advantage of the drowsy state between sleeping and waking – the hypnogogic state . This state occurs naturally when you are falling asleep and waking up. But you can enter it deliberately through meditation also.

To bring about the sleepy state, sit quietly in a chair (or wherever you feel comfortable), and relax. Focus on your breath, and breathe deeply in and out. As thoughts move into your mind, just allow them to pass. If you like, you can imagine them being placed inside balloons and floating away. A good time to do this is when you are actually feeling tired, such as in the middle of the afternoon or just before bed. This way you will naturally tend to drift towards sleep when you sit and relax deeply. After some practice, you will be able to do it more readily even when you are feeling alert.

This process is a little different from some other forms of meditation, in that you are deliberately trying to begin to fall to sleep. In most forms of meditation it is important to remain alert as you enter deep states of consciousness, and the images that come before the mind may be seen as a distraction. But not with the Meditative States that I am referring to here. As you relax, you may find yourself becoming

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too drowsy or nodding off. If so, simply persist in bringing yourself awake – but not fully awake. If you practice this meditative process regularly, you will become adept at moving towards sleep, but not quite succumbing to it. When you find yourself just shy of sleep, put questions out to Spirit/the subconscious mind (as you prefer). Then observe what comes before your awareness in the form of feelings, images, sounds and words.

Be patient with this process. If you get no definite answers, simply repeat the questioning process every minute or so. Even if you get no answer during the entire meditation, one may spring into your mind at a later date, or during a dream. A synchronicity in your everyday life may answer the question for you. Regardless, your subconscious will go to work on the problem, and begin to pull information and data together, both from mundane and (I believe) spiritual sources.v Just trust that the answer is on its way.

Some questions and problems have complex answers. A full understanding of them may take some time, maybe even years with some big issues (but hopefully not that long!). Many will require further physical investigation. Some questions have no definitive answer, and merely present an opportunity for a deepening appreciation of the problem. Other answers may come in an instant. As you develop wisdom and come to understand how this integrated intelligence works more fully, you will be able to discern more easily how such “answers” develop, often as a process.

I recommend you employ Meditative States in short bursts. These could be as short as a minute or two for “lighter” questions, or could be ten to fifteen minutes for more in depth issues. When you finish the meditation, record what you have experienced in your Intuitive Diary. If you want, you can later analyse the meaning of what you have “seen” or experienced. You will not be able to do this during the meditation, because the analytical mind cannot operate effectively while in deep states of relaxation, and vice versa.

There is one thing you will notice as you use Meditative States. After some time you will be able to slow the mind and access these deeper states of consciousness in very little time, perhaps even instantly. You will also become more aware of the way the subconscious mind is constantly operating, even during “normal” states of waking consciousness: bits and pieces will sneak through from the deeper levels of mind even as you are going about your everyday life.

Developing The Feeling SenseJust as with using intuition in general life, you can also allow your feelings to guide you as you research. The more you become comfortable with inner worlds, the easier it will become to distinguish amongst the many subtle feelings from within. You have to learn the difference between a “true” intuitive pull and other competing voices from within – the ego, desire, wishful thinking, fear of the unknown and so on. This is not really something that can be taught. It is something you learn by trial and error.

One morning while working on my thesis I began reading a book by Howard Gardner and two of his academic colleagues (Gardner et al 1996). However I found my mind wondering. It just did not feel right. So I put it down. I walked over to my bookshelf. I immediately felt drawn to another text, The book was totally unrelated to the first. However, as I skimmed through the text, some key insights came to me. The study session went smoothly after that. There was a sense of flow, as if the entire process of writing a doctoral dissertation was continuing smoothly. The key point is, why struggle with something that does not move you? You may simply become stuck, disinterested, and the whole flow of the research may be impeded. Unless you have been assigned the reading by a teacher, or it is an absolute “must

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read”, put it aside. You may well find that at a later point it does feel right to read. This is about doing the right thing at the right time.

Another possibility is that when looking through the bibliography of a text, allow any subtle feelings about the listed books and articles to “grab” you. Likewise, like Michael Talbot in the opening anecdote of this paper, you can walk through libraries and book shops and wait for books to “choose” you. I have done this more times than I care to remember.

A good way to begin honouring The Feeling Sense is to do the following exercise.vi Prepare a selection of, say, five books or papers you might like to read for your research project. Sit with the books/papers in front of you, breathe deeply and relax. Ask yourself any research questions that you are trying to answer. Then allow yourself to get a feeling about each book/paper. You might even like to pick up the books/papers and sense how they feel to read. Here is where I tend to follow a subtle sense of excitement. If it feels exciting, it is a good bet that the reading is the right one. This process is a little like the Romantics’ merging of subject and object. You can imagine yourself connecting with the book/article, and sensing the feeling of it.

The more you honour your intuitive feelings, the more they will speak to you. This really is too valuable an advantage for a researcher to pass up. In my opinion, you would be mad to ignore this simple tool. It can cut a lot of hassle out of the research process, save much time and energy, and lead to an invigorating experience in research and writing.

Harnessing synchronicitySynchronicities are meaningful coincidences. Carl Jung (1973, 1989) is perhaps the best known theorist of synchronicity. For Jung, the cosmos was not the great machine of the modernists. His principle of synchronicity transcended the linear mechanics of the Newtonian framework. Jung was keenly interested in the developments of modern physics, as well as the paradoxical. There is not room here to explore the theory or the phenomenon itself at depth. It is sufficient to say that the idea is fully compatible with the mystical/spiritual worldview, where matter and consciousness are in interplay in an “intelligent” cosmos.

It is my experience that a serendipitous and adventurous approach to research facilitates synchronicities. A key point is bringing the mind fully into the present moment. Mystic Leonard Jacobson describes this beautifully in the video Bridging Heaven and Earth (Bridging Heaven 2008). In the exalted state of complete presence, it is as if the cosmos comes alive. The deeper meaning and purpose of things becomes known even as they unfold, as and as if the psyche and cosmos are in open dialogue. This is somewhat akin to the state of “flow”, usually reported in mainstream psychology in mundane and reductionist terms (Czikszentmihalyi 1994).

The experience of synchronicity is, in its most exalted form, almost a kind of spiritual rapture. It is a direct affront to the critical/rational worldview. If the researcher can suspend disbelief, synchronicity contains serendipities which can be an invaluable aid to research.

Using the Core Operations of II in ResearchNow I turn my focus to some more specific applications of the five tools. I will outline ways in which you can apply the core operations of integrated intelligence at will. Again, I emphasise that this is not an

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exhaustive list of potential applications. My intention here is just to touch upon some possible uses. You can experiment with these, and pick and choose the ones you like, or for that matter, add to them.

Core Operation 1: Integrated Perception

General applications: 1. Integrated perception of the underlying order & meaning of bodies of knowledge, disciplines, schools of thought, individual thinkers; and systems, including the ”intelligence” within those systems.vii

Integrated intelligence can help in coming to an understanding of the connections within fields of knowledge. It is important in the writing of an article, book or thesis to appreciate the way that things fit together, and to grasp the relationships between various facets of the research problem. Such understandings often come in leaps of intuition, or “Aha!” moments. It is my experience that integrated intelligence can help facilitate this process. It does not necessarily require integrated intelligence to map out the big picture. But it can be employed to do so.

A perfect example comes from medical intuitive Carolyn Myss. She recounts that before the writing of her book Anatomy of the Spirit, she was struggling to come to terms with certain aspects of the proposed text. Sometime after experiencing a confusing dream, she recalls how the key insight came to her.

Shortly after that dream, I was still frustrated that I had not yet found the core message of Anatomy, but as I was lecturing to a group of twenty-eight students, I turned to write something on a white flip chart and instantly “downloaded” an image that merged three great mystical traditions and their biological implications: the seven chakras of the East, the seven Christian sacraments, and the ten sefirot of the Tree of Life from the Jewish Kabbalah. In less than a second, I received, I understood, I accepted, and I started the book over again (Myss 2001 p 35).

Note that Myss was able to integrate the connections amongst three mystical traditions and sense their biological implications. Her anecdote not only demonstrates the immediacy of integrated intelligence, but shows the importance of several other relevant aspects of this intelligence. She “received” the information, indicating that the source was not her conscious mind. Secondly she “understood it”. I suspect that her long working experience with intuitive ways of knowing allowed her to grasp the overall meaning immediately. Without this step, the following steps could not have been taken. Thirdly, Myss “accepted” the experience. Without the acceptance of the mystical experience and its knowledge, no learning could have taken place.

Myss has a strong connection with her intuition. This kind of connection naturally improves as an individual begins to use the kinds of tools I am outlining here. The more you tap into the right brain, into the subtle intuitions and feelings within, the more the “language” of that part of your mind will become recognisable to you.

Integrated intelligence can also help gain insight into the overall meaning of a body of research or problem area. Within my own thesis I developed a model which situated integratedintelligence within a greater civilisational perspective. Like Myss’ story, this is something that came to me, more than my consciously analysing the entire process.

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Watch out for diagrams and images that come to you in dreams and meditations. Remember, Kekule “saw” the molecular configuration of the benzene ring in a dream (Kafatos & Kafatou 1991 p 166).viii

Note synchronous or “Aha!’ moments when an image in a book, on an advertising billboard or TV programme suddenly “jumps out” at you. Use your research diary to record feelings, intuitions, images etc. that come to you at any time. Although they might not mean much at the time of writing, they may later have some relevance.

Another simple process is to “ask” for the meaning. Here you put out the problem or the question in a meditation or reflective moment, and then start writing, drawing, singing, moving (whatever you prefer). You can use Meditative States, The Feeling Sense or Free-form Writing to seek the answer. Again, it may not come straight away. Keep putting the question out, and trust that the answer is coming - sooner or later.

Core Operations 2 & 3: Evaluation & Location

EvaluationGeneral applications: The capacity for evaluating the wisdom of choices, and the value of competing concepts or possibilities.

LocationGeneral applications: Locating and evaluating alternative designs, methods, sources of data, research foci and strategies.

Here I have combined two core operations of my theory of integrated intelligence into one subject heading. This is because of the obvious overlap: location can be seen as a subset of the idea of making choices in your research.

These two core operations constitute perhaps the most obvious ways that integrated intelligence can be of assistance to the modern researcher. With the information explosion there is just too much knowledge out there to be properly processed in a purely rational way. As intuition experts such as Malcolm Gladwell (2005), Gary Klein (2003) R. Rowan (1991) and (Gigerenzer 2008) ixsuggest, the world today is just too complex to comprehend using only the analytical mind, based upon the data wehave at hand. That is because that data will inevitably be partial, to a greater or lesser degree.

Rowan (1991) refers to “analysis paralysis”, where we become so obsessed with analysing data that we lose valuable opportunities to act within the present moment. The conclusion of all these thinkers is that we can – and should - employ our intuition more often. My point is that researchers can also use intuition in a number of very beneficial ways in evaluating the direction of their research, and with more specific smaller choices they may make along the way.

You can use intuitive insights when you have a number of research options to choose from. The following entry, taken from my Intuition Diary is a good example. This describes a time during my doctoral candidature when I was working at my computer, and had previously downloaded more than a dozen academic articles on “mind” in ancient Greece, and hundreds more on subjects relevant to my thesis.

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11.01.04. I opened up the folder under Greek thought, and saw that there were about 15 files there. So I asked which one to read (I had two hours tonight to do some research). I heard “Number one”. It was a very faint voice, and I wasn’t sure where it came from, but I decided to follow it. So I went into the first file (the files are not named clearly, so I wasn’t sure what was in it). Anyway, it was perfect: about the ancient Greeks’ influence on Freud. I read that Freud selectively chose aspects from Greek thought which fitted his mechanistic prejudices (and ignored the rest.). I wrote about 900 words on the subject, and it flowed really easily.

I am downloading a lot of files from the databases onto my computer at the moment. There are thousands to choose from. After I do the search, I am intuiting which ones I should save onto the computer. I am also just focusing for a moment, and going into my feelings. If I don’t get a clear sense, I usually don’t save it, although I admit sometimes things seem a bit hazy, so I just save it or not according to logic…

Once again, it can be seen that I used a combination of more mundane and “rational” research processes with some more intuitive processes. What I did was to go into databases and download onto my computer hundreds of articles on subjects related to my thesis. With the modern computer you can just search for a word or phrase and the documents will come up. If there are a lot of documents which come up from a conventional search, you can use intuition again to select which one you want to dip into. Of course you can also just read the name of the article – the old fashioned way! However sometimes the name might not be clear, or the precise content of the article somewhat vague. This is when intuition becomes invaluable. You could spend a long time wading through a dozen or more articles trying to find the right one.

I used the feeling sense and a “measurement” technique (which I will not detail here) to decide which articles to save. If I did not get any strong feeling, I did not save it. Later, when I returned to actually read articles, I used the same two intuitive methods to select which ones to dip into to read.

Notice also that the process was not perfect. The feelings and “measurements” were not always clear. When this was the case, I sometimes reverted to more “mundane” methods in deciding which files to save, or to read.

Of course there is no guarantee that intuition will bring forward the right information. Sometimes you will be wrong. However it is my experience that intuition can be developed to such a degree as to make it an invaluable way to enhance the process of locating data.

Here are some other intuitive methods you might like to experiment with when browsing databases or multiple files/articles. These are related to the core operations of evaluation and location.

Decide your research focus area and state your question(s) (preferably out loud). Then bring up the files on your computer screen. Ask a question related to your question(s), and then run your finger over the screen. When you feel your finger being “attracted” to a file stop, and open it. When I do this sometimes I feel a tingling in my finger, other times it feels like there is a “wall” which stops my finger moving past a particular file. This is a bit like some divination methods, such as pendulum swinging. The key is to “let go”, trust the process, and not try too hard to determine the outcome.

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Write the file names (or numbers) on pieces of paper or cards, then turn then face down. Shuffle them so you do not know what card is where. Use the same process as above, making sure your question is clearly stated. Then allow yourself to be “drawn” to one of the pieces of paper, and turn it over to see which file to read.

Stand back a little from the computer screen, relax and take a deep breath. When you feel very relaxed, ask the question you wish to focus upon, and wait for the “answer”. Take note of what you see, feel or hear. A document icon may “flash” at you, “come alive”, or seem to become “attractive”. Go into that file and open it, keeping the question in mind.

i The term “integrated intelligence” refers to the integration of individualised brain-based intelligence with brain-transcendent intelligence. This definition moves beyond transpersonal theory by integrating transpersonal and mystical insight with the idea of intelligence. There is an important distinction here. Throughout this paper the conception of the mind as transcendent of the brain will be referred to as “the extended mind”, following Sheldrake’s (2003) term. The conception that the extended mind incorporates a potential to be “intelligent” will be referred to as “integrated intelligence”. While the latter definition incorporates the former, the former does not necessarily entail the latter. I emphasise that this is a tentative theory, and requires much further development to establish itself in academic terms. Ideally, this would include testing of some sort. The theory is based on research and personal experiences (see note below).ii Some of these influences were researchers, and some were not. The researchers include Hart et al (2000), Michael Talbot (1992) Dean Radin (2006), Rupert Sheldrake (2003), William Braud (2003), Gillian Ross (1993), Carl Jung (1973, 1989), Paul Scheele (1993) and others. Hart et al (2000) target intuitive methods specifically for research, while the others research related subject matters. Both groups have inspired me to employ integrated intelligence in my research. Other inspirations have been “mystics” who write about intuitive experiences, such as the late Maurice Bucke (1991), John Mack (1999), Brian Weiss (1985), Stuart Wilde (2001), and Elizabeth Kubler Ross (1997). Yet perhaps most influential have been the mystics I have met in my personal life. I have worked with groups of mystics (I am not quite sure what else to call them) at various times and in different countries, and have been able to witness first-hand the reality of integrated intelligence. These mystics taught me how to utilise the dormant right-brained intuitive abilities that I believe we all have. It was my seeing others develop such skills relatively easily that convinced me that these are not simply special abilities only seen in yogis who have lived in caves and meditated for thirty years. They are natural, commonly occurring capacities extant, though usually dormant within the minds the mass of humanity. Rupert Sheldrake’s (2008) recently conducted telephone telepathy experiments, which have been successfully repeated by others, provide evidential support for my claim that integrated intelligence is widespread.iii This is reminiscent of Wilber’s (2000) thinking, where he sees developments in human thought systems (holons) including and transcending those lower on the Great Chain of Being.iv For physics and systems thinking see Ervin Laszlo (2004) and Sheldrake, McKenna, & Abraham (2001). For developments in consciousness studies see Grof (2000), Radin (2006(, Sheldrake (2003).v Again, the term “spiritual” does not have specific religious connotations here. It means from a source beyond the individual’s brain – the extended mind.vi This technique has been inspired, in part, by Paul Scheele’s (1993) “photoreading whole mind system”. Scheele’s approach to study has many similarities to my own, although he tends to avoid references to mystical concepts. vii These applications, and the supporting evidence for them, have been outlined in my book Integrated Intelligence (Anthony 2008). They will also be explained in greater detail in my upcoming book Beyond the Frontiers of Human Intelligence, which will be available from my web site www.mindfutures.com.viii As far as I am aware, Kekule did not see this as anything mystical, but as a mundane processing of the subconscious mind.ix Gladwell (2005)and Gigerenzer (2008) construct intuition in modernist, reductionist terms and do not entertain the possibility of the extended mind or integrated intelligence. Klein (2003) is similar, with the exception of a brief

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You can use the same processes when deciding upon which books, chapters, articles web pages or even paragraphs to read. Again, use these methods in conjunction with standard research methods.

Be clear on what you are looking forWhen it comes to the core operations of evaluation and location it is vital that you be clear about what you are looking for with your research. A clear set of questions to guide your research is crucial. During the research undertaken for my doctorate I had a clear policy that I never read anything without first writing down or repeating to myself the questions I wanted to answer. I suggest you do the same.

This is even true of the very beginning of your research project. Here the questions might be quite general.

· What really interests me about this topic?· What areas of this topic really require further research?

· What am I really drawn to as a possible focus of my research?

As you clarify your research topic, the research questions should become clearer, and more specific. Eventually they should all tie together.

In the writing of my thesis I allowed my intuitive feelings to guide much of the direction of the research. My preference for the intuitive was nowhere more apparent than when I chose my thesis topic. Here I followed my intuition fully. I was simply not prepared to focus on an area that was not of importance to me, or that I was not passionate about. I believe that intuitive intelligence works best - including the five key tools mentioned in this paper - when we are “on purpose” with our research, and indeed with our lives.

I have to admit I just do not understand the mentality of many postgraduate students who choose the “name” of the institution before their topic. I read recently of a mature Asian man who related that he had not enrolled in a PhD programme because he had not yet found a university with “a prestigious name.” To my mind, this is pure ego in action: the substance of knowledge and passion for subject matter plays second fiddle to the surface packaging of institution and credential and pure human vanity. x

In the end the choice for me was really no choice at all. I went with what I had spent so much of my adult life focused upon: integrated intelligence. Of course, at first I did not have the name “integrated intelligence.” Nor did I know exactly how it would pan out. I did not know the chapter headings, and I did not know the methodology I would employ. I did not even know the specific questions I would ask. That all came later.

As it turned out, the university rejected my initial proposal, and the lack of a clear methodology was significant here. But that was OK – I simply went and located a method as required. My supervisor Sohail

foray into the “paranormal”. Rowan (1999), however, is quite comfortable with exploring intuition in the classical sense.x This is not to say that market forces should not be considered when enrolling in advanced degrees, as degrees from prestigious universities will have more “clout” when you finish.

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Inayatullah told me to use his Causal Layered Analysis in my refurbished proposal. I did this, and the proposal was accepted.

This also exemplifies another important factor. In life we have to deal with the power structures of society, culture and institutions. We also have to deal with prevailing paradigms, traditions and protocols. Compromises are necessary. Whenever I came up against an obstacle because what I had written was considered inadequate due to methodological weaknesses or the system requirements of academia, I simply made the necessary corrections. It is no use kicking and screaming in such cases. You have to earn your stripes before you can start to command respect, or influence the systems and institutions you are working within. A dose of humility is required.

Using intuition to focus your writingOn a daily basis you can use intuitive feelings to guide your sense of where to focus your writing. This relates most closely to the core operation of evaluation, but also to location and also diagnosis (see below). The following entry from my thesis research diary exemplifies this.

09.12.03This morning I began to write up some stuff from Shapiro’s Reading the Postmodern Polity. But there was a nagging feeling within me that this wasn’t right. So I switched to writing about Grof’s arguments from Beyond the Brain. That felt a lot better. I felt like I was pushing it with Shapiro, as if I was not being guided, and had become detached from my intuition.

I then wrote about the significance of the event for me.

The lesson from this is to “listen” for that sense of flowing, which means that I am in alignment with intuitive intelligence. The sense of being detached means that one has detached from Spirit. When this detachment occurs, one can stop, step back from the work, go within, while breathing deeply and relaxing. Then ask: “What is right for me to do now?”

Your Intuition Diary can therefore also contain some reflections you have about the intuitive process you are employing, and any other aspect of your research that you wish to comment on. For this to work, you do not have to frame the experience into something “spiritual”, as I like to do. However, I find this entire process tends to become something bigger than me as an individual researcher, so I know of no better term than “Spirit” to describe the intelligence that permeates it.

The feeling sense can also be used to good effect in determining where (location) to direct your attention, as the following diary entry indicates.

20.12.03. I was sitting here this morning when I had the great urge to pick up the book The Search for the Pearl by Gillian Ross. It was sitting on top of a pile of books on the coffee table. There was a very strong sense that this was right, as if I was being compelled to go and pick it up (which I did). Anyway, the book has a section which turns out to be just perfect for chapter two of the thesis, with a great summary of the historiography of “scientific” atheism since the beginnings of civilisation. Once again I feel a strong sense of guidance and confidence that I can get this chapter done in good time.

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Here I chose to respond to a feeling, and in this case it proved to be very fruitful. You will note I had no conscious awareness of what I might find, or what the outcome would be. In other words I had no idea of why the action was required or why it might prove helpful. This is something that researchers who are used to following a linear chain of logic may find difficult to get used to. I certainly recommend having a research plan, and keeping up a careful consideration of where you are going. But using integrated intelligence means that you have to be open to being taken where you might not expect, or even want to go. The key is to listen to feelings, especially strong feelings, about what to read, how much time to put into a text or paper, and which parts of the text to focus attention upon. This requires a certain “letting go”.

Of course not all writing will flow like water down the mountain. Research takes time and effort. Sometimes it is quite tedious, and in the end details have to be spot on. This may not be much like fun at all! It would be a mistake to ditch a line of research completely just because you felt tired or resistant on any given day. Major decisions about research directions should be made with a combination of intuitive sense and an analytical appraisal of all the factors involved.

Finally, I suggest you take full note of synchronicities, because they can guide your research. Sometimes a particular book might be sticking out of a shelf, or just lying there on the study desk where someone has left it, and it just happens to be one that resonates with your research topic. In The Road Less Traveled M. Scott Peck (1984) relates a synchronistic experience where he was studying in a friend’s library, and at a sticking point in his writing. Even as he sat there one of the women in the house came to him and handed him a book, saying she thought he might like to read it. Peck states that the book was perfect for what he needed for his research at that time, and he resumed his writing immediately.

When such synchronicity occurs, I suggest you take advantage of it.

Core Operation 4: DiagnosisGeneral applications: Diagnosis of research problems, including methodological problems; ethical considerations; and introspection to reflect upon personal attitudes and bias in research.

In respect to intuitive knowing, diagnosis is an immediate realisation of the precise nature or cause of a problem. In current dominant science and academic disciplines, diagnosis comes after careful analysis and physical investigation. It is a carefully controlled process. With integrated intelligence you allow the knowing to come to you. In this sense it is precisely the reverse relationship with the subject matter at hand. The subject/object dichotomy which is at the heart of western science and epistemology collapses, and the knower and the known become one.xi Needless to say, this is a radically different relationship with knowledge than that which currently dominates in western culture.

However, the situation is not a simply passive one. You can bring about the appropriate mental state to improve chances that the awareness you seek will present itself. This means using Meditative States, or just listening to your intuition in quiet times, such as when walking in nature or when going to sleep and waking.

xi The unknowability of the object is also central to poststructuralist thought that has usurped modernist thinking in many academic disciplines in recent decades, especially the social sciences. My experience is that this sense of alienation from the cosmos is a function of a dissociated state of consciousness, and not a reflection of the nature of the mind or the cosmos itself. Ken Wilber (2000) and Richard Tarnas (2000) hold similar views.

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Thus you can deliberately employ Meditative States to get insights into problems. During my doctoral candidature I wrote:

31.12.03While meditating on today’s study session the word “Skinner” came into my head. It feels right to go with it, so I’m going to write up some stuff on (B.F) Skinner. It doesn’t feel right to get into the next chapter at this stage, as the info seems too specific. I need to see the big picture, not get lost in the details.

In this kind of meditation session I had a general focus only. I had no specific problem. Before the study session began, I sat down and tried to get a sense of where I could focus my attention on this day. This was a common process I employed at various stages of the thesis. The process is receptive, but not passive. I used my Intuition Diary to reflect upon the meditation and choose the best way forward.

You might notice that I rejected the possibility of doing some further research/writing in regard to another chapter of the thesis, based on The Feeling Sense, which told me that it was not the right time to do so. Yet there was also a conscious awareness of why it was not right, so once again there was a synthesis of diagnostic intuitive feelings and rationalisation.

You can also be far more specific in your focus as you use Meditative States. You can focus upon one particular question, problem or issue. In this kind of meditation you put yourself into a deep state of relaxation, and repeat either verbally or silently the question or problem in your mind. The key is to keep the mind focused on the issue, while still allowing moments of inner silence to allow any ideas/images/words to flow freely through the mind. You should keep your focus, and not allow the mind to drift too far off track.

Core Operation 5: Creativity and Innovation

General applications: Drawing upon intuitive, subconscious and transpersonal cognitive processes to facilitate increased inspiration & creativity in work, business, research, competition or leisure.

It has long been believed that spiritual sources inspire creativity, and especially writing. The idea of the muse or writer’s guide goes back thousands of years to ancient Greek civilisation. In particular, the Romantics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were great believers in spiritual inspiration. William Blake, for example, felt he was guided by Angels to write.

Personally I have found that once I have allowed a creative process to flow through me, writing becomes effortless. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. There are ways that you too can tap into this creative process, but it requires a different way of knowing, the use of a different cognitive process than researchers might commonly employ. If you prefer to use a more conventional explanation for what I am referring to here, you can call it “flow” (Czikszentmihalyi 1994).

The core operation of creativity and innovation implies that a barely-conscious stream of thoughts, ideas and inspirations is lurking in the back of your mind as you do your research. I therefore suggest that you take note of recurring thoughts and images that come into your mind as you go. Use your Intuition Diary

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for this. An entry in my research journal indicates how one such recurring idea became quite important to the argument of my thesis.

27.12.03The word “love” keeps coming verbally into my mind. I recall Ken Wilber writing that Eros has been extracted from the world of modern science. Maybe this has led to certain distortions in the modern worldview, and its depiction of intelligence.

The idea that modern science has extracted “feeling” from the world also keeps popping up. Of course feelings are seminal in intuitions. The eradication of feelings leads to the eradication of intuitions, and a distorted and limited depiction of consciousness, and esp. rationality.

This was quite an influential piece of intuition, followed by analysis. The idea of feelings being central to the process of intuition, and in turn, its devaluation in the modern West, became quite important to my argument. The last sentence in that entry sums up the angle that I eventually took. Once again you can see that intuition and logic worked together here. I made these extrapolations based upon the initial intuition. This led to my writing quite extensively on this very subject matter.

As I have written above, it is during the initial stages of a research project that Free-form Writing is most useful. This is where creativity and inspiration can be given a largely free hand. But for academics, later drafts have to follow more conventional academic protocols. When I began my doctoral programme, I was excited to find that I was able to write so freely, and produce so many words with seemingly no effort. Not long after I submitted an article to an academic journal, one which I had written using Free-form Writing. As is standard process, it was reviewed by two academic “peers”. One of them was quite critical of it. The reviewer wrote that it read more like a magazine article than a piece of scholarly work. So I had to go back and almost completely re-write the article. This was a good lesson for me. The initial free-spirited part of the writing process is only the beginning. One then has to go through the text with far more respect for detail and ensure that it is consistent with the protocols of academia and/or publishing. This will not be a “natural” process. It will require more discipline and some left brained, detailed writing and editing. Personally, this is not my favourite part of the writing process, but it is nonetheless necessary.

Core Operation 6: Fore-sensexii

General application: Foresight into research requirements, issues and problems, institutional and logistical conditions, funding and career opportunities. Determining the consequences of research choices.

Fore-sense is an invaluable “skill” for any researcher. There is increasing evidence for the existence the human capacity for precognition (Braud 2003, Radin 2006, Sheldrake 2003), and it consistent with theoretical developments in quantum physics and systems theory – namely the concept of non-locality (Sheldrake et al 2001). But rather than waiting around for the evidence to become definitive, researchers can take the leap of faith and test things for themselves.

xii I use the term “fore-sense”, as the term “foresight” is already widely used in Futures Studies, and does not have the same connotation.

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You can use Meditative States to sense the feeling of the outcome of certain decisions, as outlined above. For example, when you are relaxed, either during the hypnogogic state (early morning, late evening) or during meditation, imagine yourself in the time and place where the decision you want to make is already completed. The idea is to feel yourself in that place after having made the decision. The information may come in the form of feelings, images, sounds and so on. This is a kind of fore-sense. You can sense the “energy” on a particular process or decision. Pay attention to synchronicities too. They sometimes have a precognitive aspect to them.

Dreams can also be particularly useful form of fore-sense. I suggest recording any dreams related to your research in your Intuition Diary. Even if they do not seem to mean much in the present, you may see something in them at a later date.

Again, I take an example relating to my doctorate. The middle period of thesis or book writing can be very difficult. It is much like running a marathon. The initial passion and enthusiasm tends to wear off. Each step seems to take you no closer to the goal, and you may feel like you cannot go any further. It is also quite difficult to know how far to go with the research for particular arguments, and particular chapters. Often the researcher can only touch upon a small percentage of the possible number of texts related to that part of the thesis. This is because there are often simply too many papers and books written on it for one person to ever read.

I was having some trouble with one particular chapter of the thesis, where I was researching the history of the development of rationality in western culture. There were just so many books, and many of them were quite detailed. When and where should I stop? I seemed to be swimming in a sea of information, and losing sight of the shore. A bit of doubt was beginning to creep in as to whether I would ever be able to get it done.

It was a dream which moved me forward. In the dream I saw one of my thesis supervisors standing behind some kind of machine, which looked a bit like photocopier. She had my thesis in hand and was stamping it. The sense was that it was all ready to be finalised, and there was just the matter of rubber stamping it. When I awoke I was quite surprised by the dream, because I was doing a lot of further reading, and several chapters were nowhere near ready for submission. Yet I felt there was something the dream was trying to communicate. It was as if the future was reaching forward to tell me to get focused and get the thing written. From that moment on I decided to write up all the chapters and submit them for due consideration. I made this decision even though I could not possibly see at that point how I could do it in the near future. It took a few months to get a whole draft copy of the thesis done. There were criticisms and several more re-writes. In a year I had the thing done and submitted for examination. I got great reviews from my examiners, and the thesis was passed with no corrections required, save the odd typo.

What I could not see at the time of the dream was that I already had a “thesis” in my head, and that I did not need extensive further reading and writing. I just needed to get the whole thing put together.

Finally, you do not need to be Nostradamus to use your capacity for fore-sense. You do not need sweeping visions, or to mimic the chattering convulsions of an indigenous shaman to get a feeling for where your decisions might lead you. No, your Feeling Sense in general is your greatest asset. Simply learn to follow your gut feelings when making decisions related to your research. Developing the feeling

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sense will tend to put you on the right path without too much need for conscious awareness of the reasons why. The more you trust it, the more it will become second nature

Part 3: Final considerationsThere are important issues you will face as you begin to develop more proficiency with using intuitive intelligence in your research.

Should you tell others?So you have decided to be a radical and experiment with integrated intelligence in the writing and research process. Maybe you begin to experience an excitement as intuition and synchronicity begin to work together and your research and writing begin to flow. Should you tell your supervisor or others at the university? Or shock-horror, your students? The answer is, in most cases, is “no”. The exception is if you know your supervisor/colleague is open to such ideas, or you are in an “alternative” (or simply progressive) institution that is open to related mystical/spiritual concepts.

Academia can be a very conservative world, as you are probably well aware. It is still dominated by critical rationality and the mechanistic paradigm (Anthony 2006, 2008a). Some disciplines are almost completely dominated by mechanistic thinking - especially in the “hard” sciences, including biology, psychiatry and to a lesser degree psychology. You risk ridicule and perhaps even academic censure by being too open. I would tend to be cautious if I were you. And the last thing you want is to lose rapport with your supervisor, colleagues or students.

However as you may have noted, things are improving. My own thesis dealt with this very esoteric subject matter of integrated intelligence. I deliberately sought out a supervisor who was open to my worldview – Sohail Inayatullah. Yet I did receive some criticism, and even ridicule, from people at my university. Nonetheless, things have improved considerably since the time of thirteenth century mystic Meister Eckhart, who possibly died at the stake. I am happy to report that administrators decided not to tie me to a stake and set me alight, at least not by the time of writing.

The university where I studied is quite a new one. In more traditional and conservative institutions, resistance may be greater. Some academics who have researched controversial topics in recent years have had to endure academic investigation and censure. Brian Weis (1985) of Yale (past lives), John Mack (1999) of Harvard (alien abduction phenomena) and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1997) (near-death experiences) have been heavily censured for their research topics, and especially their conclusions, which tended towards the mystical end of the epistemological spectrum.

John Naisbitt (2007) likes to warn futurists not to get too far ahead of the parade, or they will simply move out of sight. A problem with the idea of integrated intelligence is that it is far removed from the experience of many in western academic circles. This is something I have to deal with on a regular basis, and so will you if you are open about using it.

This advice may seem a little hypocritical of me, as much of my research deals with this topic. But I have made the decision to live the consequences of becoming an “expert” in a rather taboo subject area. And it should also be mentioned that I have been unable to secure any academic post in any university, despite now having some thirty academic publications, including numerous peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, book chapters and an academic book on a wide array of subject matters.

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Resistance from... yourselfAs a researcher, you will have to find the right balance of rational and intuitive ways of knowing, according to your own preferred research style. But do not be afraid to come out of your comfort zone, and experiment with the intuitive. Most researchers are quite left-brained, as result of the education environment they have worked within for many years. Using right-brained and intuitive methods will feel awkward and uncomfortable at first. When I first began to delve into my psyche and explore the intuitive, I experienced a sense of loss of control. There was a subtle fear of being “invaded” by an “alien” force. A recurring dream I had at the time was of being annihilated by laser beans emanating from UFOs, reflecting the depth of that subconscious fear. The ego generally reacts poorly to any reduction of its power over the mind. You may find you also encounter resistance from your psyche. If so, respect the fear, and gently persist in your determination to expand your innate intelligence. It is worth the discomfort.

Wisdom and transformationIn this paper I have written about five intuitive tools that can be used in Futures research, and I have used the core operations of integrated intelligence theory as a means to explicate them. However I do not think that it is possible to employ these kinds of intuitive tools over a long time without being fundamentally changed by them. There are two end states of the theory of integrated intelligence: wisdom and transformation (Anthony 2008a). I have found that working with an expanded idea of intelligence is a quintessentially spiritual experience. There is something about the whole process that is greater than the individual. There are moments of flow when the “I” merges into the “we”, and personal identity is lost. This is consistent with reports of mystical experiences, as well as the psychology of flow (Czikszentmihalyi 1994). The transformation is not just of you, but includes the collective transformation of humanity. A common saying in spiritual traditions is that the one who starts out on the spiritual journey is not the same as the one who completes it.

FinallyOne of the great things about intuitive research tools is that they are new territory. Not many people have written about them. Since it is the future that futurists are passionate about, we should also be leading the way in the frontiers of thinking and research. I have experimented with many intuitive tools, and used them according to my own preferred cognitive and learning style. Here I would like to emphasise that you are not limited by what I have written here. Develop your own approach, your own tools. Adapt mine, take the ones you want, leave the ones you do not like. And then invent your own. I personally have a lot more tools than mentioned here. All this can be a very creative and exciting process. It can be a revolution in thought to suddenly “get it” that you are not a fragmented mind fishing in an ocean of random knowledge. It is my experience that we are part of the ocean, and the ocean is quite capable of carrying us, of responding to us. Research need not be a dry and exclusively “rational” process – that is merely a Western Anglo cultural expression of “research”. It can be intuitive, creative, passionate, transformative, exciting… and even fun.

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