In the age of fake news and marketing that exploits what you reveal about your interests and preferences by your online activity it is a question that haunts most of us: how do I get information I can trust? We live in "the information age." The internet has given us finger-tip access to information, so much of it that it becomes like choosing between the many brands of shampoo, or cars. So much information, so readily available, is a blessing and a curse. When it comes to finding directions to an office or business it is a blessing. When it comes to keying a wildflower or bird seen on a walk it is a blessing. But when it comes to discerning the truth about political events it is a curse because it magnetizes our focus on what is external to us.
There have always been those who practised the art of inner vision, who knew how to access information from within that had both individual and collective significance. Prior to organized religion these people were important members of the community. Then times changed and we were asked to trust information from a central source that carried the authority of an intermediary, a priest. There was to be no direct contact with Source. And then, Science usurped much of the authority of the Church. Both the Church and Science asked people to trust them, and only them, as reliable sources of truth. We lost our connection with shamans, medicine women, and other wise people. We forgot how to look inside. Well, not completely. There continue to be inner vision adepts. They are the psychics, the intuitives, the tarot card readers, the dowsers, the shamans. They are considered "alternative." And yet they are re-gaining influence in a time where people are losing confidence in accepted mainstream ways of getting answers to questions.
In two of the modalities that I practice: Hakomi, and Shamanic Energy Healing, we call the art of accessing information intuitively "tracking." Tracking is the art of subtle focus and observation while centered in stillness and loving presence. In shamanic work information is also intuitively accessed while journeying. Always, the logical mind is asked to step aside so that one may be available to information, impressions, often symbolic, that arises.
How do we know that intuitively derived information is trustworthy? Many people would say it is not, end of discussion. Others of us have learned to trust information from an intuitive source when it connects with our experience, when it moves us, when it creates much needed meaning for us about ourselves and our situations that allows us to heal and move forward.
It is a wonderful thing that increasing numbers of people are practising meditation, and mindfullness, and stillness. All of these practices involve stilling and re-directing mental activity in such a way that we can become available to present moment experience and to deeper levels of experiencing. One of the prime characteristics of the quality of knowing that comes from a place of deep stillness is its trustworthiness. And so we say: "I just know." We can be deceived and manipulated by what we read, by what others tell us. And if we do not have the means to check the veracity of what we hear and read, what are we to do? Time may come when our well-being and even our freedom will depend on our skills of deep inner knowing.