A Brief Interview with Penney Peirce about Intuition Development

When did you first recognize your intuition? Was your young life guided by intuition?
I can't say I was intuitive in any special way as a child growing up in the Midwest. But I do feel I've been a spiritual detective all my life—looking below the surface for the hidden dynamics of life. When I was young, I didn't believe that germs made people sick, or that surgery was the only solution for disease. There must be deeper causes. . . For years I wouldn't say the word "God" because I didn't know what it meant—I couldn't believe God was an old man on a throne in the sky. I mused about why wars were fought over religion, and decided I would find the core truths in every religion—and THAT would be what I would believe!

It helped that I grew up with a strong connection to nature and communicated with my many pets telepathically. I also spent hours alone looking out from bluffs, hilltops, and tree branches, or next to streams in the woods. At the same time I was enthralled with art, drew endlessly, had inexplicable urges to write poems, and kept a journal since age seven. I also began remembering my dreams quite early. So something was at work! It would have been nearly impossible back then to decide, "I'm going to be a professional intuitive when I grow up," so somehow, by zigzagging away from things that bored me, and toward things that lit me up, I have arrived at a goal I didn't know I had!

For instance, I studied interior design in college, but got sidetracked by a small course on the "Psychology of Spaces," something like what feng shui is today. This rang my inner bells, and I decided to pursue "environmental design"—the closest thing I could come to what I thought I wanted. This led me to California Institute of the Arts, and an experimental program in "Social Design," which was taught by a team of psychologists, sociologists, urban planners, and various kinds of designers. We did projects like: redesign the elevator so people will talk to each other inside, or redesign the funeral, and we looked at questions like "What affect does advertising have on mass consciousness?" This taught me about working with patterns and "design thinking." All this was great preparation for becoming an intuitive.

What lead you to become a teacher and author of intuition?
Life practically swept me into Marin County in the mid-1970's, when the consciousness movement was blossoming. I studied clairvoyance development in earnest, and worked as a corporate art director until my department was closed. At that point a freelance design business ensued, which let me get my feet wet as an intuitive reader and teacher. I joined The Center for Applied Intuition, started by Dr. William Kautz, a scientist at SRI International. The Center then sent me to Japan to teach and counsel. I have worked there annually now, since 1984. After many years of training people in intuition development, I decided it was time to write, and wrote three books in three years.

What or how do you see when you give a reading to a client?
I used to be more visual. Over the years I've shifted to auditory, then tactile modes, and now I receive impressions of abstract patterns of knowledge all at once over my entire body. I feel the other person's life as though it were my own—even physical symptoms or sensory emphases like acute hearing or smell. The I have to describe this vision and process as articulately as I can. So I have become very empathic; I call it "conscious communion." When I finish the session I come back to my own body and persona, and forget what I've just been merged with—I just leave it out there.

How can people begin to open to their intuitive senses?
The most important thing is to pay close attention to the body, and the subtle expansions and contractions connected with various choices, opportunities, or people. It also helps to develop all the senses, work with symbol interpretation, and dreams. When you see similarities, intuition opens. When you stay real, in the moment, and in the truth, your intuition remains open as well. We're all intuitive, but we tend to gloss over the guidance we receive that way because it's so subtle.