Intuition is the ability to perceive truth that is not normally picked up through the five senses. Intuition is a type of perception. In our culture we often hear the terms "a mother's intuition" or a "hunch" or "I felt it in my gut". These are common terms or phrases that all refer to our uncanny sense of knowing, without knowing how we know!

Sanaya Roman, author of "Personal Power Through Awareness: A Guidebook for Sensitive People (Earth)", "Spiritual Growth: Being Your Higher Self (Earth Life Book III)", and "Living With Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation (Earth Life Series, Book I)", says that your "imagination is the organ of intuition".

She counsels that when we first begin to open to receive information we feel like we are just making it up. We feel like it is all in our heads and that this cannot truly be spiritual information coming through. However, we often find that the simplest messages are the most profound for a given situation, and what came through is timely and apropos.

As Doreen Virtue points out in her book, "Divine Guidance : How to Have a Dialogue with God and Your Guardian Angels" talks about the four ways in which we receive intuitive messages. They are:

1. Clairaudience- hearing a voice in our minds. We hear ourselves talk all the time. It is very common to hear other voices also. Many people believe that hearing voices is a sign of insanity but if you read spiritual literature, it is the most common way people interact with spirit.
2. Clairvoyance- seeing things in your minds eye or with the naked eye. People who see symbols, events, scenes in their heads while interacting with another are clairvoyant. Also, people who see auras and energy with their naked eyes are also clairvoyant.
3. Clairsentience- is the ability to feel physical sensations in the body that related to information received outside of the normal pathways. People who have "a sinking feeling in their gut" when danger is near or who get achy knees before a storm arrives and the like are all clairsentient.
4. Claircognizance- is the ability to just know things without having any previous exposure to the information whatsoever. A common experience is knowing someone is going to be calling just before the phone rings. This is claircognizance.

There are other means for gathering information outside of the norm but for the most part, these four pathways are the most common. Anyone can experience one or all of them at any given time. There are no rules and no particular sequence of events in which these methods arise.

Typically, whatever sense you are most comfortable using will be the first avenue through which you will receive spiritual information.

Personally, I started hearing voices first, then receiving images, followed by physical sensations. Previous to all of these occurrences, it was common for me to know things without having any prior exposure to the information. Intuitive abilities run in my family line.