From Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” (Harper-Collins, 25th Anniversary Edition, 1994), pp. 75-6: While on a caravan through the Sahara Desert, the boy noticed: “But, in the desert, there was only the sound of the eternal wind, and of the hoofbeats of the animals….’I’ve crossed these sands many times,’ said one of the camel drivers one night. ‘But the desert is so huge, and the horizons so distant, that they make a person feel small, and as if he should remain silent.’

“The boy understood intuitively what he meant, even without ever having set foot in the desert before. Whenever he saw the sea, or a fire, he fell silent, impressed by their elemental force….

“...The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there.” That’s a wonderful explanation of intuition. I experienced those kinds of instances getting sober in AA. Intuition is a knowledge that does not come from my intellect – it comes from a visceral awareness that I experience rather than rationally acknowledge.

Experiential – not rational or cerebral or deductive. I just know and immediately know I know. Experiential – “a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.” True for me.

Blessings, Don My book, How the Bible Became the Bible is available for sale.