In light of the material in Emotions and Ethics, category seven The Intellect takes on deeper meaning and significance. Emotions and Ethics tells us that our passions, emotions, and feelings must come to be guided by reason, and that reason itself must be guided by intuition. The Intellect helps us to understand what reason and intuition are, and how they contribute to the individual intelligence that is born out of their creative union.
This section quickly establishes three major points. First, intelligence is to be honored and developed as one of the divine qualities potential in human character. Second, speculative intellection, unguided by wisdom, is of little or no use in spiritual matters; this is as true of what this kind of blind intellection asserts about the Divine as of what it critically denies. Third, the matured and properly trained intelligence not only makes it easier for us to know when to think and when to suspend thinking; it also becomes a powerful tool for precise communication of higher intuitions and mystical perceptions. In its most developed form, this intelligence can formulate what P.B calls a "metaphysics of truth": an inspired, fluid structure of revelatory reasoning whereby the Proficient can express, in intellectual terms, much of what has been learned through intellect-transcending inner vision and direct experience.
Editorial policy with regard to selection and placement of the material in this section is the same as that mentioned in the introductions to Perspectives and The Quest. Likewise, (P) at the end of a para indicates that the para also appears in Perspectives, the survey volume to this series.