Intuition

Intuition is a topic within magic that has seen its fair share of controversy. Some people will say only a certain percentage of the population is born with it, while others will say everyone has some amount of intuition, whether they choose to use it or ignore it.

I personally subscribe to latter idea. Not because I want to be an inclusive person – although I am inclusive by nature – but because intuition is built into us as human beings. Animals have intuition – zebras can sense danger when a lion is approaching them causing them to run before the lion has a chance to strike. The lion has intuition, too. Knowing that while getting a meal would be somewhat easier if he were to just lay-in-wait for one of the weaker zebras to break from the pack herd while they were all resting, the easiest way to weed out a meal is to wait for them to run. It is the same in human beings since the beginning.

When we were still hunter-gatherers our intuition was strong; we knew not to touch the purple berries that grew right next to the red berries because an inner voice or feeling told us so; because that voice was sensing the energy of the world around us. As we left our nomadic lifestyle behind in favor of a comfortable existence as farmers we began to push that intuition to the side, not only because we no longer needed to use it as frequently, but because the “new” religions that were spreading wanted to eradicate anything that was remotely like the “old ways”. Priests and others told people that the inner voice was of the Devil and that it should be ignored. This is why human beings have developed to be the only animals on the planet that ignore their fight-or-flight response -in which intuition plays a key role – to avoid embarrassing themselves.

Ignoring a built-in biological alarm can be dangerous, you could get into an accident, you could be attacked, any number of things could happen! If you wouldn’t disregard a fire alarm, why would you tune out your internal alarm system?

It is not your fault, however, it is the fault society. When we are children we can talk about ghosts and faeries and intuition and no one bats an eyelash. It is a completely normal thing for children to have “overactive” imaginations. But once you hit a certain age, for most it’s about seven or eight, the talk of faeries and monsters under the bed are no longer welcomed and we are forced to “grow up”. Some are lucky enough to be born into understanding families who would never dare to tell them they are wrong for believing in ghosts and sprites. Some even more fortunate to be born into families who practice magic in some way.

Those who are raised in a magickal atmosphere tend to have a stronger intuitive ability since they were taught how to use and control it. Intuitives who were born and raised to hone their skills tend to be good at grounding, have a strong shielding ability and so on. If you were not raised in a magickal family and are just now learning how to use your intuition, don’t compare yourself to those who have more experience than you do. That is like trying to compare the math skills of an eighth grader to that of a senior year math major at MIT. Intuition is a skill that – while innate – still needs to be used with regularity in order to keep it strong and accurate.

There are plenty of ways to train your intuition. Meditation to help you get grounded and connected with yourself is the best way to start any “training” you are going to do.

Being grounded is a key component in any area of magic. You need to ground before you can do a card reading for yourself or others. You need to ground before you channel or go on a shamanic journey. You should even ground before you go to work in the mundane world so that you can handle your workload, coworkers, and even customers if you work with the public.

If you already know how to ground, awesome, but if you don’t there is no need to worry. There are countless ways to ground yourself. Meditation, visualisation, breathing exercises, a combination of some kind. Just remember everyone is different and not everything is going to jive with your energy the same way it does with others. If you are good at grounded by repeating a mantra, that is great; if your friend needs to sit in lotus position for an hour, that is also great. The only thing you need to know is that you need to find whatever method speaks to you the most and practice it.

Once you have found the grounding method that works for you, it is time to start developing your intuition. Oracle cards a wonderful way to start learning what your intuitive voice is versus your mundane mind. I have always been intuitive to some degree, but when I moved schools in fifth grade to a Catholic school, being openly intuitive was not a good idea, so I tried to turn it off.

I felt awkward without my intuition at full power, like i was walking around blindfolded. It was difficult to make friends, and some of the friends that I did make were not the kind of people I would have hung out with if I had known who they truly were. It wasn’t until eighth or ninth grade that I got my first oracle deck. It was Doreen Virtue’s Goddess Guidance Oracle and I still read with it to this day. I am so grateful that I got that deck because it not only helped me feel more like myself, but it also allowed me re-train my intuition so that I could use it whenever I wanted without worrying about it not coming through due to years of underuse.

I prefer oracle decks to tarot decks for those who are just starting out with their intuition because oracle cards are all about your interpretation of the imagery and the words on the card; tarot is a more specified system if you want to read the cards traditionally – though I do have tarot decks that I use like oracle cards – each card has a specific meaning depending on its position in the reading and whether or not it is reversed.

Crystals like amethyst, iolite, and charoite are great stones for intuitive work. The colour purple is strongly associated with the third-eye and crown chakras which are all about intuition and connection with the higher planes of existence. Wearing or carrying one of these stones with you when you are trying to develop your intuitive and psychic abilities is a great way to raise your vibration which makes it easier to tap into the higher realms.

What is your favorite grounding exercise? What deck is your favorite to read with? I would love to hear from you in the comment section. Do you have any additional questions? Go to our Contact page and send us an email!

Blessings from the Pleiades ~ A