the key to theosophy…

“Mr. Old:  What is your distinction, Kingsland, between unconscious cerebration and intuition?

 
Mr. Kingsland:  Unconscious cerebration is a thing belonging purely to the physical plane, and the other thing is different.

 
Mr. Old:  So is unconscious thought, then?

 
Mr. Kingsland:  Take the extreme case of the lad who could solve the most difficult mathematical problems that were given him immediately without any reference to figures at all. That you will say was a purely intellectual process. He must have had it in previous times; he had assimilated that knowledge at some time or other, and it was owing to certain combinations of astral influences that he was able to make use of that information, for the time being, in that rapid manner. His physical senses overclouded this, in time.

 
Mr. Sargeant:  That is the product of unconscious thought.

 
Mme. Blavatsky:  Unconscious cerebration is something that was suggested to the brain unconsciously to yourselves, though perhaps you heard it or saw it and had no remembrance of it; and there it comes out. But, intuition is a different thing.

 
Mr. B. Keightley:  I don’t think such a term as “unconscious thought” can mean anything.

 
Mr. Sargeant:  Then “unconscious cerebration”?

 
Mr. B. Keightley:  “Unconscious thought” – what meaning can you attach to the phrase?

 
Mr. Old:  Call it ideation, if you like.

 
Mr. B. Keightley:  It is conscious enough on the right plane.

 
Mr. Old:  There is nothing unconscious, as a matter of fact. Because, if you only identify your consciousness for the time being with that plane, you would be perfectly conscious you were so engaged; therefore, I think the term is a bad one, and I only wish to use it relatively, in contradistinction to relative thought.”

 
H. P. Blavatsky