William James, father of modern transpersonal psychology and psychiatry:
Our normal waking consciousness,
rational consciousness as we call it,
is but one special type of consciousness,
whilst all about it,
parted from it by the filmiest of screens,
there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
We may go through life without suspecting their existence;
but apply the requisite stimulus,
and at a touch they are there in all their completeness….
No account of the universe in its totality can be final
which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.
One entryway into other ways of knowing, to accessing a “requisite stimulus,” is learning to work with our own minds. Simple body awareness can provide freedom from domination of analytic mind and create openness for other possibilities, intuition, for example, but also ways of knowing we don’t necessarily understand.
Have you ever come to know something, make some decision, without having all the information needed in place; and yet come to clarity about what action is best? Have you ever been frustrated because you know what to do, but can’t respond to someone else’s challenge to prove your point? If so, you may be tapping into some other ways of knowing. They are not as unusual or far away as you might think. And we can actually learn to make them more accessible.