Intuitive Consensus
The Center for Applied Intuition was founded by William Kautz,
who has also been a senior research scientist in the area of mathematics and computer science at SRI International. He developed
a method called intuitive consensus:
William Kautz
(courtesy Thinking Allowed Productions)
Essentially, the method of intuitive consensus consists
of a careful preparation of the questions to be answered to eliminate ambiguity and vagueness; posing the questions independently
to a team of four or more 'intuitives,' followed in each case by a dialogue until clear and detailed answers are obtained;
then analysis and comparison with one another and existing knowledge to form a consensus of intuitively derived information.
The team approach permits the occasional errors and discrepancies in the information provided by individual team members to
be almost completely eliminated. The questioning cycle may be repeated one or more times in order to resolve ambiguities or
contradictions, usually traceable to erroneous preconceptions or unintended vagueness in the questions and to otherwise reduce
the noise level in the intuitive communication channel. The final consensus takes the form of specific hypotheses amenable
to test by ordinary scientific means. In some cases it provides new perspectives and new ideas about the problem under study.
Actually, the method employed by Kautz is very similar to the "Delphi
method" which is used in future forecasting. In this method, various experts are questioned about potential future phenomena
which fall under their expertise. The primary difference is that Kautz does not employ intellectual or academic experts; he
employs people whose knowledge is derived from intuitive sources, which may be taken, in this case, as a possible euphemism
for psi sources.
Kautz has been applying this method, under contract, for va"Ious
business and professional organizations. He recently completed a study for a Japanese research institute on the "Future of
Japan." He has also employed the method to develop scientific hypotheses related to such unsolved problems as the cause of
earthquakes, and the cause of crib death in infants, as well as technical problems in genetic engineering.
While the results he has obtained in these studies are not inconsistent
with the possibility of successful ESP functioning, I am personally not aware of any individual instances of Kautz' work which
could be put forward as examples of success in this area that could be attributed to psychic functioning. Kautz' approach
has been detailed in two books, co-authored with Melanie Brannon, Channeling and Intuiting the Future.
Some Concluding Thoughts About Folklore
There is an ironic boundary separating the worlds of science
and folklore. While folklore, as such, carries little or no scientific weight; science, without folklore, has little or no
real meaning. This is most evident in looking at the writings of certain critics of psi research. Such critics will, from
time to time, grudgingly acknowledge that some studies contain statistically anomalous effects. However, they point out these
effects are simply meaningless statistical correlations pointing to no recognizable phenomena or principles.
They may be correct, but only in a rigidly limited sense. I
believe they are wrong to eliminate all history and folklore from scientific consideration. For within the real-life, human
context which history and folklore provide, the seemingly meaningless statistical correlations of psi research take on a kind
of life and color.
In Section II, I have reported some personal experiences which
seemed extraordinary to me: an apparent clairvoyant dream experience which led to my career in the media, observations of
Ted Owens who attempted to demonstrate that he was half-alien, work with the New Frontiers Institute in ostensible telepathic
communication between humans and dolphins, observations of Kathlyn Rhea who located a missing body for the Calavaras County
Sheriff. I have been personally struck by these experiences. Whether I interpret them in a skeptical manner or as examples
of psychic functioning, is a personal matter. It is not possible to make a rigorous scientific case either way, because there
were too many uncontrolled variables in every case.
In Section III, after looking at how little psychology has to
say directly about consciousness and how much it has to say about human error and folly, we will examine the evidence from
psi research. The strongest evidence (which some knowledable scientists still reject) comes from experiments which bear the
least relation to the world of everyday activity. If you choose to accept the data from these studies, they may make more
sense to you in the light of material presented in Sections I and II -- and vice-versa.
