Intellectual Epiphany...what is it?

Epiphany is defined as a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

So, an intellectual epiphany is a sudden intuition of the intellect triggered about by some simple, homely or commonplace occurence or experience. It happens so happenly, that it is a burst of insight into the deeper meaning of things. A discussion below would try to explain further on intellectual epiphany as experienced by Thomas Merton:

“Shining like the Sun:

Merton’s Reflections on Fourth & Walnut in Louisville”

Thomas Merton had an emotional and intellectual epiphany that transformed him to appreciate more deeply his monastic vocation as a life with and for others. He was visiting his doctor on March 18, 1958 in Louisville, Kentucky, the major city not far from Merton's monastery. Coming out of the doctor's office, Merton found himself on one of Louisville's busiest intersections where all buses and trolley cars connected to this main part of downtown. Merton was literally and figuratively in Louisville's "center". He wrote of this experience in his private journal the following day, March 19, significantly an anniversary of his having taken his Solemn Vows as a monk, and also significantly in the tool shed that he was using as a hermitage out in Gethsemani's fields that he had christened "St. Anne's".

The original journal entry for Merton's Fourth & Walnut experience is followed by Merton's re-working of the same journal entry for inclusion in his volume Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander. The revision is interesting for what Merton leaves out--his reflections on women and his message to "Proverb"--as well as what he adds to his original text in his private journal. Further reflections on the significance of Merton's "Fourth & Walnut epiphany" can be found on the "Merton Visuals" page of Monksworks.com.

Good luck to you.

I stayed up for three days. I had a sort of epiphany. I convinced myself that nothing existed and that i could not prove that anything outside of my own mind existed. I see it as a realization that fundamentally impacts your view on the world, philosophy, and any other aspect of your life.

yeah, that messed me up.

Sleep deprivation helps

It's happened to me with Calculus many times. I did not understand a concept, or how to approach it, and then sometimes I would suddenly just understand, find the approach I needed, and solved a problem, and henceforth understanding the concept. It might take Math and Science for this to occur. It's logic and concept more than memorization.

"Sudden leap of understanding" is not usually "What I did on my vacation."

"Intellectual" simply means "sudden leap or increase of understanding in some mentative way."

So, in plain terms, whatever you've thought about most and best is your "ie."

If you're into cooking, a masterful understanding of some recipe...

if you're into basketball, a masterful understanding of some pass pattern,

if you're into knitting, a masterful understanding of some knitting pattern.

"Creation: Artistic and Spiritual," O. M. Aivanhov,

"Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei," Weinberger and Paz,

http://www.heartmath.org/

http://www.noetic.org/

sounds like a Wake Forest college application essay question to me...I have no idea; I suggest using a different topic.

It's that moment or moments when the lightbulb that goes on when you have an idea suddenly becomes a floodlight, displaying vistas you never imagined existed.

This is most definitely a Wake Forest essay. I'm working on the same thing, bringing me to this site. But you guys actually helped. Thanks!