Hunches, Why Some are Better than Others

This posting is written on a hunch. It concerns a book about hunches: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. For reviews of the book, go here and here . Based on the reviews (I haven’t read the book), Gladwell provides some fascinating accounts of snap judgments. Some of these were much better than expert opinion supported by extended analysis. Others were very wrong. He provides little explanation of why, or of what people might do to make better snap judgments

As a certified enneagram trainer, I have an opinion as to why this is so.

In the Greek myth of Phaeton asks his father, Helios for permission to drive a chariot towing the sun across the sky. The horses, sensing that Phaeton is a young driver, bolt out of control drawing the sun too close to the earth and scorching it. My enneagram teacher, Jerome Wagner, compared this image to the three centers of intelligence
• The driver represents the head, or mental intelligence
• The horses represent the heart, or emotional intelligence
• The chariot represents the body, or bodily/kinesthetic intelligence.

If the chariot towing the sun is to follow a safe path across the sky, all three must work together. The driver must follow a good map; the horses (emotions) must be strong but disciplined; and the body must connect the two. A fully integrated person will intuitively sense trouble even when the head tells him that the path is clear. I once read that George Soros will often walk away from an investment even though it appears to be analytically sound – if his back hurts. His body (the chariot) was telling him that his head (the driver) was misreading the map.

To me, this is just another way of stating the injunction given to us in the Shema "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Dt. 6:4-5 . We will be successful in our quest when heart, soul (mind) and strength (body) work together.

In short form

Clear mind, skillful driver.
Sound spirit, strong horse.
Strong body, sound carriage.
Mind, body, spirit work as one…
Path to victory is clear.

To improve our ability to form sounder hunches, we need to seek spiritual progress - not perfection. For some clues about how to work towards this, click here .