: ... How does a person ?know? anything when you
: come right down to it? Once again, we?re back to the
: ?everyone has a piece of the truth? platitude, which is the
: expression of our frustration at not having the whole truth
: and nothing but.

Yes.

I think Truth itself is a spirit, as Love and Life could also be said to be. I think most often when we say things like "My truth is as good as yours" or "This must be a piece of the truth", we're speaking of opinions-about or speaking of "verifiable facts". That's different from Truth. A short remembered poem:

We all dance round in a ring
and suppose;
But the Secret sits in the middle,

and knows.

We accept consistent assertions and verifiable facts as _approximaters_ of Truth, because we realize, whatever Truth is, it would necessarily be totally and utterly consistent with itself. :) Thus, consistency of assertions can reasonably be expected to be one distinguishing feature of the presence of Truth, the "nimbus" that we know could be evidence of the presence of fire or flame.

I've read various interpretations of the meaning of the Biblical word, Shekinah. The one that seems most likely correct to me is, "the evidence of the presence of the one who dwells", as in "and the glory of the Lord shone round about", that shining giving evidence of his presence.

We (rightly, I think) apply this principle when we go seeking the Truth. To the degree that we have spiritual perception (Truth being a spirit) we're able to tell if we're presently "cold", "cool", "luke-warm", "warm" or "hot" in terms of the direction we're moving and our proximity to the 'goal' in question.

However, "a capacity of spiritual perception" is one of those things they forgot to teach us about when we were in school. :) Some have allowed theirs to become pretty keen; others are just vaguely aware that they have such a capacity at all and may not as yet, rightly, trust it very much.

It's as your saying here about your "gut":

: I have been down many labyrinths looking for truth, and I
: generally come up short. It?s my gut that tells me ?There?s
: not much here,? then it?s on to the next morsel.
: My point, if there is one, is to follow your intuition, our
: inherent truth sense. It?s like a muscle that needs
: exercise to grow stronger. Intuition helps us sift through
: and make sense of the huge quantities of ?data? presented
: on the Internet.
: As I sift through the data, I look for patterns. Does the
: information lend itself to other information? Sometimes
: there is a ?click? as when a puzzle piece snaps into
: position with others, but more often than not, such is not
: the case.
: I think this is a noble mission, this sifting we do. We are
: rediscovering our past, but it does not come easy.
: Disinformation seems to loom around every corner, waiting
: to send us on anther wild goose chase.
: My truth sense tells me there is something to the secret
: ingredient. The pattern fits with the secretive nature of
: the masonic brotherhood.

I don't "know" enough about the masonic brotherhood for it to be included in my personal collection of "consistent assertions that may be the nimbus surrounding Truth" - but I understand what you're describing and find your approach is similar to my own.

Thanks for joining in, here.

: Once again, the words of Jana Janus hve inspired me to look at
: something in a new way, something she has done so many
: times before.

: Mark Hanson on the rocky road