Published: July 23, 2026
By Amy Schneider — Owner & Certified Silva Method Instructor, Silva Method of Atlanta & Western NC
Contributor: Ken Coscia
You're weighing two good options, and no pro-and-con list breaks the tie. You've talked it through with everyone who'll listen, with no answer. This is exactly the moment the Silva Method's Laboratory and Counselors technique was built for — a structured way to consult your own trained intuition when logic alone won't get you there.
If you've already read how to develop intuition, this post goes narrower: one technique I've used since I was nine, and still reach for whenever a decision has real stakes.
What the Technique Actually Is
At your level — the relaxed, focused state you settle into for any Silva technique — you build a mental laboratory: a private room that exists only in your imagination, with your Mental Screen on one wall.
Then you invite in two counselors, one male and one female. You don't design them in advance — you ask, and let whoever appears, appear. It's one of the oldest, most tested tools in the Silva system, tracing back to a specific moment in José Silva's original research.
Where It Came From
José Silva's daughter Isabelle was one of his first research subjects. As a young girl at her level, she was frightened by an image that surfaced unprompted — so her father asked her to imagine he was always there beside her. She said yes, then walked to a blackboard and drew a figure. Not her father. A man she'd never met: Tomas.
A female counselor arrived the same way soon after. With both of them "in the room," Isabelle's accuracy on Silva's intuition exercises climbed noticeably — and the moment became permanent in the method. Amy's mentor, Ken Coscia, still teaches it exactly as Silva did: whoever shows up spontaneously is the one to trust, even if it's not who you expected.
How the Technique Works, Step by Step
- Go to your level. Relax, close your eyes, and settle into the calm, focused state you use for any Silva technique.
- Build your laboratory. Picture a private space that's entirely yours — furnish it however feels right, and place your Mental Screen where you can see it clearly.
- Invite your counselors. Ask for a male and a female advisor to join you. Don't cast them ahead of time — let them appear, and accept who shows up.
- Bring your real question to the screen. A decision you're weighing, a project you're stuck on, a relationship you're trying to understand. Ask your counselors for their perspective.
- Listen, don't force it. Let an image, a word, or a felt sense surface. That's the material to work with — not a certainty, but a starting point worth taking seriously.
Not the Same as Guessing
The Laboratory and Counselors is a repeatable protocol, not a mood — you're deliberately going to the same mental space and asking the same two counselors every time. Random daydreaming has no fixed starting point, so what surfaces is hit or miss; the laboratory gives your mind a consistent place to look, and it gets more reliable with practice.
Which Decisions This Fits
This isn't for every choice today — it's for when you've already done the homework, run the numbers, and you're still stuck between options that all look reasonable. Think a hire you can't quite call, a pivot you've debated for weeks, a relationship where something feels off. The laboratory works best layered on top of real research, not instead of it.
Why Decision-Makers Reach for This
Long before Silva, business leaders used a version of this — Ken points to Andrew Carnegie, who consulted an imagined roundtable of advisors before a hard call. When you've run out of data and still have to decide, asking "what would my counselor say" forces you to weigh an angle you hadn't considered — and with practice, that becomes intuition you can use on purpose.
Trained Intuition, Not ESP
I want to be direct: the counselors aren't spirits, and this isn't fortune-telling. It's a structured way of accessing trained intuition — the part of your mind that's already noticed patterns your conscious reasoning hasn't caught up to. Whatever you believe is happening underneath it, the result is the same: a quieter, more deliberate way to think through a hard problem.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Most people trip up not from doing something complicated, but from expecting it to work like a different kind of meditation.
Expecting a Literal Verbal Answer
Your counselors rarely hand you a sentence — more often it's an image, a feeling, or a shift in how the decision sits with you. Treat that as material, not a failure.
Skipping the Relaxation Step
The laboratory only works as well as the state you build it in. Skip relaxing first and you're daydreaming with extra steps, not practicing the technique.
Overriding a Surprising Counselor
What if you expected one counselor and someone else shows up? Trust it — Silva's own instruction is not to override a spontaneous counselor just because it's unexpected. If one truly doesn't sit right, let them go, but a surprising counselor usually has something worth hearing.
Frequently Asked Questions
You don't design your counselors ahead of time — you let whoever appears, appear, the way Isabelle drew Tomas, a man she'd never met. If nobody shows up right away, keep practicing rather than forcing an image. If one doesn't feel right, you're free to let them go — but sit with a surprising counselor a while first; in my experience, they often have the most to say.
You'll get the most from it once you've learned to reach your level — which we teach from the ground up in class. New to Silva? Start with the Silva Life & Intuition Immersion, offered near Atlanta and in Asheville, so this technique has a solid foundation underneath it.
This is one of several tools we teach as part of Silva Method intuition training — alongside quicker exercises like the Glass of Water technique, better for a single, fast question. Both share the same foundation; the laboratory is what I reach for when a decision has more moving parts.
Either one. I reach for it on high-stakes calls, but it works the same way for a stuck project or a smaller decision you want a clearer read on. The more you practice, the more that flexibility shows up even outside formal practice.
It's still my favorite technique all these years later — a place that's entirely mine, with two advisors who show up when I need them. If you'd like to practice this live, with feedback in the room, that's what we build toward in the Silva Life & Intuition Immersion, taught near Atlanta and in Asheville. You can also read more about me and how I came to this work. I'm glad you're here.
Better and Better, Amy
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