Of all the fundamental Jungian psychological functions, “intuition” is the most interesting and challenging for those who seek to understand them in depth. The very individual in whom this perceptual mechanism is accentuated, should he seek to interpret it, will find himself in great difficulty, since to interpret it would be, in short, to rationalize it, and one does not rationalize the irrational. Furthermore, if we compare it with the other irrational function according to Jung’s classification, the “sensation”, this one seems without a doubt more understandable and less abstruse to those who do not have it salient, since it is activated through stimuli that are more easily visible and palpable. Like “sensation”, the “intuition” is spontaneous, but although, as Jung says, it is an exclusively perceptive faculty, working in conjunction with the functions of judgment it induces an appraisal of what it perceives. This appraisal is, therefore, automatic and based on the inexplicable. What impresses most is that it often comes out loaded with certainty, and a certainty that defies logic, since it is based on an irrational perception. And to see that this mechanism proves to be effective over and over again, proves to be reliable to the point of not only rivaling, but invalidating conclusions reached by other faculties—apparently more logical faculties—in those who possess it pronouncedly… Remarkable.
Jung’s “Intuition”
