Direct Cognition

“Direct cognition is an inner sense.  In physical terms, you might call it remote sensing. Your physical body, and your physical existence, are based upon certain kinds of direct cognition, and it is responsible for the very functioning of the reasoning mind itself.  Scientists like to say that animals operate through simple instinctive behavior, without will or volition: It is no accomplishment for a spider to make its web, a beaver its dam, a bird its nest, because according to such reasoning, such creature cannot perform otherwise.  The spider must spin his web.  If he chooses not to, he will not survive.  But by the same reasoning – to which, of course, I do not subscribe – you should also add that man can take no credit either for his intellect, since man must think, and cannot help doing so. …

“Man’s reasoning mind, however, with its fascinating capacity for logic and deduction, and for observation, rests upon a direct cognition – a direct cognition that powers his thoughts, that makes thinking itself possible.  He thinks because he knows how to think by thinking, even though the true processes of thought are enigmas to the reasoning mind.”

(Dreams, “Evolution” and Value Fulfillment, Session 908)