Intuition is the apparent ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify. For this reason, it has been the subject of study in psychology, as well as a topic of interest in the supernatural. It is the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process. Intuition is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain.

Intuitive abilities were quantitatively tested at Yale University in the 1970′s. While studying nonverbal communication, researchers noted that some subjects were able to read nonverbal facial cues before reinforcement occurred. In employing a similar design, they noted that highly intuitive subjects made decisions quickly but could not identify their rationale. Their level of accuracy, however, did not differ from that of nonintuitive subjects.

Intuition is one of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s four psychological types or ego functions. In this early model of the psyche, intuition was opposed by sensation on one axis, while feeling was opposed by thinking on another axis. Jung argued that one of these four functions was the most prominent or developed in the consciousness. The opposing function would typically be underdeveloped in that individual. 

It can encompass the ability to know valid solutions to problems and decision making. Gary Klein outlined the “recognition primed decision model” to explain how people can make relatively fast decisions without having to compare options. Klein found that under time pressure, high stakes and changing parameters, experts used their base of experience to identify similar situations and intuitively choose feasible solutions. Thus, the model is a blend of intuition and analysis. The intuition is the pattern matching process that quickly suggests feasible courses of action. The analysis is the mental simulation, a conscious and deliberate review of the courses of action.

The reliability of one’s intuition depends greatly on past knowledge and occurrences in a specific area. Someone who has more experiences with children will tend to have a better instinct or intuition about what they should do in certain situations. This is not to say that one with a great amount of experience is always going to have an accurate intuition, however, the chances of it being more reliable are definitely amplified.

Law enforcement officers often claim to observe suspects and immediately know that they possess a weapon or illicit narcotic substances. On such occasions, these officers are unable to articulate their accurate reactions that may represent building blocks to reasonable suspicion or probable cause indicators. Often unable to articulate why they reacted or what prompted them at the time of the event, they sometimes retrospectively can plot their actions based upon what had been clear and present danger signals.

According to intuitive Abella Arthur, “Intuition is a combination of empirical data, deep and heightened observation, and an ability to cut through the thickness of surface reality. Intuition is like a slow motion machine that captures data instantaneously and hits you like a ton of bricks. Intuition is a knowing, a sensing that is beyond the conscious understanding, a gut feeling. Intuition is not pseudo-science.”

According to Sigmund Freud, projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one inflicts one’s own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else. It is a common process that every person uses to some degree.

To understand the process, consider a person in a couple who has thoughts of infidelity. Instead of dealing with these undesirable thoughts consciously, he or she subconsciously projects these feelings onto the other person, and begins to think that the other has thoughts of infidelity and may be having an affair. In this sense, projection is related to denial, arguably the only defense mechanism that is more primitive than projection. Projection, like all defense mechanisms provide a function whereby truth about a part of themselves that may otherwise be unacceptable is shielded.

Compartmentalization, splitting and projection are ways that the ego continues to pretend that it is completely in control at all times, when in reality human experience is one of shifting beingness, instinctual or territorial reactiveness and emotional motives, for which the “I” is not always complicit. Further, common in deep trauma, individuals will be unable to access truthful memories, intentions and experiences, even about their own nature, wherein projection is just one tool.

It has been described as the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable, too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous by attributing them to another.

The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach based his theory of religion in large part upon the idea of projection such that the idea that an anthropomorphic deity is the outward projection of man’s anxieties and desires.

Psychological projection is the subject of Robert Bly’s book A Little Book on the Human Shadow. The shadow, a term used in Jungian psychology to describe a variety of psychological projection, refers to the projected material. Marie-Louise Von Franz extended the view of projection to cover phenomena in Patterns of Creativity Mirrored in Creation Myths and notes that wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown, there we project an archetypal image.

When addressing psychological trauma the defense mechanism is sometimes counter projection, including an obsession to continue and remain in a recurring trauma causing situation, and the compulsive obsession with the perceived perpetrator of the trauma or its projection.

Carl Jung mentioned that all projections provoke counter projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject.

Projection is the opposite defense mechanism to identification. We project our own unpleasant feelings onto someone else and blame them for having thoughts that we really have.

A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a Tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Thoughtform may be understood as a psychospiritual complex of mind, energy or consciousness manifested either consciously or unconsciously, by a sentient being or in concert. 

Thoughtforms may be benevolent, malevolent or of complex alignment and may be understood as a spontaneous or intentional manifestation or emergence. Professor H. H. Price, an Oxford philosopher and parapsychologist, held that once an idea has been formed, it is no longer wholly under the control of the consciousness which gave it birth, but may operate independently on the minds of other people or on physical objects.

Areas of intense thoughtform phenomena are called window areas. Many of them were places of former religious importance that have now waned or fallen from use. The use of an area over hundreds of years creates a type of artificial life form or something that fed on the worship. When the worship is taken away it still needs to feed. 

In Tibetan mysticism, a Tulpa is a being or object which is created through willpower, visualisation, attention and focus, concerted intentionality and ritual. In other words, it is a materialized thought that has taken physical form. In the Dzogchen view, accomplished thoughtforms are sentient beings as they have a consciousness field or mindstream confluence in a dynamic organization of emergent factors from the mindstream intentionality of progenitors. 

In Tibet, where such things are practiced, a ghost of this kind is called a Tulpa. A Tulpa is usually produced by a skilled magician or yogi, although in some cases it is said to arise from the collective imagination of superstitious villagers, say, or of travelers passing through some sinister tract of country.

Mantras, the Sanskrit syllables inscribed on yantras, are essentially thought forms representing divinities or cosmic powers, which exert their influence by means of sound vibrations. 

There are apparitions that make public appearances. Some of these are said to be the perceptible double, the etheric counterpart, of a living person who is undergoing an out of body experience. Even more mysterious are the externalized perceptible manifestations of something whose existence originated in the mind of its creator by virtue of that person’s incredible powers of concentration, visualization, and other efforts of the mind. 

Another idea is that Tulpas are a massive, collective, subconscious, thoughtform. The thoughtform is said to be a three dimensional image created by the power of the mind. Buddhist llamas in Tibet are said to be able to summon up Tulpas during intense meditation. Western explorer Dame Alexandra was said to have created a Tulpa of a monk whilst studying in Tibet. Polish medium Franek Klusk was said to have summoned up cats, birds, and apes during seances. Perhaps, considering the types of beast he called up, he was creating Tulpas. If individuals can create Tulpas imagine what the collective, gestalt mind of humanity as a species could do. Perhaps dragons are a giant worldwide thought form emanating from our innermost fears.

Thoughtforms, in the sense of being systems of awareness with the attribute of self will and self determination, figure in various cognitive and psychological theories. Marvin Minsky, cofounder of the artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT, proposes that there are agencies of the mind, by which he means any and all psychological processes. Although he grants that a view of the mind as made up of many selves may be valid, he suggests that this may be a myth that we construct.

Carl Jung’s technique of active imagination involves interacting with thoughtforms of the subconscious mind. Jung identified certain universal thoughtform archetypes such as anima and animus which are characteristic of all humans. Psychological archetypes are thoughtforms. The chief difference between these scientific formulations and spiritual definitions of thoughtforms is that the former are created unconsciously whereas the latter are created deliberately.

A complex is a group of mental factors that are unconsciously associated by the individual with a particular subject or connected by a recognizable theme which influences the individual’s attitude and behavior. Their existence is widely agreed upon in the area of depth psychology at least, being instrumental in the systems of both Freud and Jung. They are generally a way of mapping the psyche, and are crucial theoretical items of common reference to be found in therapy.

The term complex was adopted by Carl Jung when he was still a close associate of Sigmund Freud. Jung described a complex as a node in the unconscious. It may be imagined as a knot of unconscious feelings and beliefs, detectable indirectly, through behavior that is puzzling or hard to account for.

Jung found evidence for complexes very early in his career, in the word association tests conducted at the psychiatric clinic of Zurich University, where Jung worked from 1900-1908. In the word association tests, a researcher read a list of words to each subject, who was asked to say, as quickly as possible, the first thing that came to mind in response to each word. Researchers timed subjects’ responses, and noted any unusual reactions such as hesitations, slips of the tongue, signs of emotion. Jung was interested in patterns he detected in subjects’ responses, hinting at unconscious feelings and beliefs.

In Jung’s theory, complexes may be conscious, partly conscious, or unconscious. They may be related to traumatic experiences, or not. There are many kinds of complex, but at the core of any complex is a universal pattern of experience, or archetype. Some of the key complexes Jung wrote about were the anima (a node of unconscious beliefs and feelings in a man’s psyche relating to the opposite gender), the animus (the corresponding complex in a woman’s psyche), and the shadow (Jung’s term embracing any aspect of psyche which has been excluded from conscious awareness).

Many Jungian complexes appear in complementary pairs. The puer, or eternal youth, often appears in relationship to the senex, or archetypal old man. A puer complex might manifest as an individual’s unconscious dread of growing up or of losing one’s romantic ideals or freedom. A senex complex, by contrast, might be seen in a person who, without seeming to understand why, is driven to act out an old man role in creative or destructive ways. Only when a complex results in destructive behavior would it be seen as pathological. Otherwise, a Jungian view of psyche accepts the presence of diverse complexes in ordinary health.

One of the key differences between Jungian and Freudian theory is that Jung’s thought posits several different kinds of complex, and emphasizes duality or plurality rather than unity as a basic condition of the human psyche. Freud held that the Oedipus complex was universal, reflecting developmental challenges that face every child, and was the central complex in most or all psychopathology.

Once Jung broke from Freud and the two men went their own ways, forming their own disciplines behind them, there was a brief movement in some of Freud’s circle to remove all of Jung’s work and terminology from their school of psychoanalysis. Freud himself however refused, and so the name complex stayed.

The tarot is a set of seventy eight cards, comprising twenty one trump cards, one fool, and four suits of fourteen cards each, ten pip and four face cards. Originally developed as playing cards in 14th century Europe, the tarot evolved into a deck of cards specifically utilized for games similar to bridge.

In English speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes, with the trump cards plus the Fool card comprising the twenty two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty six minor arcana.

Tarot reading revolves around the belief that the cards can be used to gain insight into the current and possible future situations of the subject. Some believe they are guided by a spiritual force while others believe the cards help them tap into a collective unconscious or their own creative, brainstorming subconscious.

Each card has a variety of symbolic meanings that have evolved over the years. Custom or themed tarot decks exist which have even more specific symbolism, although these are more prevalent in the English speaking world. The minor arcana cards have astrological attributions that can be used as general indicators of timing in the year, based on the Octavian calendar, and the court cards may signify different people in a tarot reading, with each suit’s nature providing hints about that person’s physical and emotional characteristics.

In the past, many occult oriented authors claimed that the symbolism’s origins are lost in time and postulated or claimed as fact non historical theories. Some authors such as Rachel Pollack have written that tarot origin myths have their own significance and value and that the reader can find a study of such myths enriching while at the same time being aware that they aren’t factually true.

Interpretations have evolved together with the cards over the centuries. Recent decks have clarified the pictures in accordance with meanings assigned to the cards by their creators. Images and interpretations have been continually reshaped, in part to help the Tarot live up to its mythic role as a powerful occult instrument and to respond to modern needs.

To perform a Tarot reading, the Tarot deck is typically shuffled by either the subject or a third party reader, and is laid out in one of a variety of patterns, often called spreads. They are then interpreted by the reader or a third party performing the reading for the subject. These might include the subject’s thoughts and desires or past, present, and future events.

Generally, each position in the spread is assigned a number, and the cards are turned over in that sequence, with each card being contemplated and interpreted before moving to the next. Each position is also associated with an interpretation, which indicates what aspect of the question the card in that position is referring to. Sometimes, rather than being dealt randomly, the initial card in a spread is intentionally chosen to represent the querent or the question being asked. This card is called the significator.

Some methods of interpreting the tarot consider cards to have different meanings depending on whether they appear upright or reversed. A reversed card is often interpreted to mean the opposite of its upright meaning. For instance, the Sun card upright may be associated with satisfaction, gratitude, health, happiness, strength, inspiration, and liberation, while in reverse it may be interpreted to mean a lack of confidence and mild unhappiness. Some card readers will interpret a reversed card as either a more intense variation of the upright card, an undeveloped trait or an issue that requires greater attention.

Carl Jung was the first psychologist to attach importance to tarot symbolism. He may have regarded the tarot cards as representing archetypes or fundamental types of persons or situations embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The theory of archetypes gives rise to several psychological uses. Since the cards represent these different archetypes within each individual, ideas of the subject’s self perception can be gained by asking them to select a card that they identify with. Equally, the subject can try to clarify the situation by imagining it in terms of the archetypal ideas associated with each card.

More recently Timothy Leary suggested that the Tarot Trump cards are a pictorial representation of human development from a baby to a fully grown adult, The Fool symbolising the new born infant, The Magician symbolising the stage at which an infant starts to play with artifacts, etc. In addition to this, the Tarot Trumps were surmised to be a blue print for of the human race in the future.

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner.

If for example an American and a British musician having never had anything to do with one another arrived at the same musical concept, chord sequence, feel or lyrics at the same time in different places, this is an example of synchronicity. During the production of The Wizard of Oz a coat bought from a second hand store for the costume of Professor Marvel was later found to have belonged to L. Frank Baum, author of the children’s book upon which the film is based.

The French writer Emile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that in 1805 he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fortgibu. Many years later in 1832, Deschamps was at a diner, and was once again offered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fortgibu was missing to make the setting complete and in the same instant, the now senile de Fontgibu entered the room.

Writer and iconoclast Charles Hoy Fort wrote several books on synchronicity including the Book of the Damned, Lo!, New Lands and Wild Talents. New Lands tells the famous story of the woman who lost her ring in a nearby lake only to recover it years later inside a fish she bought at a local market. He also wrote about the Butterfly Effect years before Lorenz, the famous mathematician coined the term.

The Dirk Gently series of books by Douglas Adams often plays on the synchronicity concept. The main character carries a pocket I Ching that also functions as a calculator, up to a point. In Philip K. Dick’s The Game Players of Titan, several characters possessing precognitive abilities cite the acausal principle of synchronicity as an element which hampers their ability to accurately predict certain possible futures.

John Constantine, the main character in the Vertigo Comics series Hellblazer, is sometimes seen riding the synchronicity highway, to meet certain goals or even just to one up those around him. In the D20 Modern roleplaying game Urban Arcana, Synchronicity is a magic spell that subtly rearranges reality, allowing the subject to avoid the minor inconveniences and hassles of everyday life.

Terence McKenna used the term ‘cosmic giggle’ to mean “a randomly roving zone of synchronicity and statistical anomaly. Should you be caught up in it, it will turn reality on its head. It is objective and subjective, simultaneously ‘really there’ and yet somehow is sustained by imagination and expectation.” The phenomenon is also explored, though not named, in The Red Notebook by Paul Auster, and is considered a major theme of his entire bibliography, appearing in some form in almost every work.

The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships which are not causal in nature. Instead, causal relationships are understood as simultaneous such that the cause and effect occur at the same time.

Synchronous events reveal an underlying pattern or conceptual framework which encompasses, but is larger than, any of the systems which display the synchronicity. The suggestion of a larger framework is essential in order to satisfy the definition of synchronicity as originally developed by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.

Jung coined the word to describe what he called temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events. Jung variously described synchronicity as an connecting principle, meaningful coincidence and acausal parallelism. Jung introduced the concept as early as the 1920s then in 1952 published a paper in a volume with a related study by the physicist Wolfgang Pauli.

It was a principle that Jung felt gave conclusive evidence for his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious. Synchronicity is descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Events that happen which appear at first to be coincidence, but are later found to be causally related are termed as incoincident.

Jung believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to chance in terms of causality, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.

In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. Many critics believe that any evidence for synchronicity is due to confirmation bias, and nothing else.

Wolfgang Pauli, a scientist who in his professional life was severely critical of confirmation bias, lent his scientific credibility to support the theory, coauthoring a paper with Jung on the subject. Some of the evidence that Pauli cited was that ideas which occurred in his dreams would have synchronous analogs in later correspondence with distant collaborators.