Instinct vs Intuition

Humans have instincts. These instincts can be discerned in various ways:

1. Infants use instinctive behavior -- in their sucking, crying, smiling, and other activities.
2. We have drives -- biological and psychological -- which are identical to the instincts of animals. The most easily observable are our "survival instinct," our "sex drive," and our "territorial instinct."
3. Biologists are replacing the term "instinct" with the term "genetic endowment" -- suggesting that the instincts are biologically based within the genes themselves. (The archetypes, too, might be stationed in the genes.)
4. The universality of instincts suggests that they are founded on archetypes. (Indeed, Jung said that instincts are a "subspecies" of archetypes; I would say that instincts are constellations within the fields of archetypes.) Humans and animals base their behaviors upon the same archetypes; for example, there is not an animal "survival instinct" and a separate human "survival instinct." The "behaviors" of inanimateobjects, too, are based upon archetypes (although we do not use the word "instinct" with regard to inanimate objects, nor do we explain the objects' behavior in terms of psychological dynamics); for example, if a piece of metal is able to bend without breaking, it is displaying what we might call the "Survival" constellation.  
5. We display the type of "automatic" behavior which is characteristic of instincts; this automatism can be seen in our habits (particularly the ones which perform without thinking about them).

Intuition is receiving input and ideas without knowing exactly how and where you got them from. You simply know it is not from yourself. Like creativity, intuitive inspiration often happens when someone virtually «fuses» in an activity, when one is highly focused on the respective activity in a state of joy and fulfilment. Intuition can be trained and in its highest level leads into a conscious contact with non-incarnated beings, a process usually called channelling.

Most of us are used to making intuitive decisions in our daily life: As soon as subjective judgement is involved, rational reasoning is very difficult to apply. Typical examples where intuition can play an important role in making decisions are: Choosing your life partner, selecting the right car to buy, evaluation of a job, decision about an education, selecting a meal when eating out, selecting the next book to read, decide how to dress for today, and so on.

Intuitive decision making is far more than using common sense because it involves additional sensors to perceive and get aware of the information from outside. Sometimes it is referred to as gut feeling, sixth sense, inner sense, instinct, inner voice, spiritual guide, etc.  People who can't accept the existence of such sensors may instead call it tapping into „collective intelligence" or „collective unconscious".