by Drs. Hans TenDam
Where battles rage forever, eternal treasures are to be found. Where colleagues are worlds apart, interesting and valuable bridges can be built. Between professionalism and spiritualism is an everlasting tension, as there should be. When such tensions manifest themselves in, so to speak, the same family, we live in what the Chinese call “interesting times.”
To understand the tension between professionalism and spiritualism we need to understand the tension between intellect and intuition. Our intellect is like a plodding housewife, doing things step by step, in an orderly and well-known and above all reliable fashion.
Our intuition is more like a femme fatale, leading us straight to the top experience of being right at the stroke of lightning. Even the follies of intellect are dull, while the follies of the intuition at least make for great living.
In my mind there is no doubt that the development of civilization follows the development of intellect. Greece and Rome are our roots. However, the victorious intellect has pushed away the people with more sensitivity and intuition. When even religion became an institution and so the province of regular thinkers, people who felt and thought differently had to withdraw to the woods and the hills. In the end this led to the painful confusion around witches and witch hunting.