Audio: Readings by the author
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Insanity or Enlightenment:
R.D. Laing, an unorthodox psychiatrist, emphasised the link between the mystic and the schizophrenic; he stated:
‘The mystic and the schizophrenic find themselves in the same ocean, but whereas the mystic swims, the schizophrenic drowns.’
I concur wholeheartedly, but point out that the so called schizophrenic can learn to swim … given the opportunity. Often however, the schizophrenic is dragged under by the very people sent in to help.
Unlike the monks and nuns who prepare rigorously and systematically to attain and receive enlightenment, those who experience schizophrenia [the psyche-sensitives], I believe, have enlightenment thrust upon them, but in the absence of a disciplined spiritual foundation this imposed enlightenment is enormously difficult to cope with.
R.D. Laing also observed that insanity is:
‘A perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world’.
The oceans of Planet Earth are filled with a zillion saltwater tears … the sea of humanity. The trauma we experience as psyche-sensitives is often simply a painfully acute empathic response to the ills of the world. There is a fine line between fear for the world and fear of the world, and when this line is erased, paranoia naturally ensues.
I am certain that schizophrenia is an expansion of our psychic capacity. I go further, I regard schizophrenia as not only a catalyst for personal transformation, but also for the transformation of our species; the evolutionary metamorphosis of humankind’s collective consciousness. That may sound prophetic, but as a kindred spirit once remarked to me:
‘Where would the Old Testament prophets be today if they lived in our times and in our culture?’
The answer, which should not need to be spelt out, is in our psychiatric institutions. In other cultures, many who would undoubtedly be labelled schizophrenic had they lived in the West, are embraced by their communities as valued individuals who cast light on the dynamics of the Universe and our place within it; they are seen as chosen ones. The tide is however turning in the northern hemisphere and there is a Spiritual Emergence Movement in ascendance re-addressing such matters.
One of the many visionaries regarded by their contemporaries as ‘outsiders’ was the author Edgar Alan Poe, who would almost certainly have been diagnosed schizophrenic had such a label been available in the eighteen hundreds. The following vindication of Poe’s genius was cited in Schizophrenia, Creativity and Spirituality - an obscure essay of the 1980s by Guy Stephens.
Edgar Alan Poe experienced an epiphany that unlocked deep cosmological insight, and in an inspirational outpouring he produced a work entitled Eureka which was published mid-way through the nineteenth century; coincidentally, the term psychosis was also coined then. At this time atoms were believed to be indivisible, irreducible balls of matter, the solid building blocks of the physical Universe. In Eureka it is revealed that matter is reducible to attraction and repulsion; some fifty years later physicists were to make the ‘discovery’ that confirms Poe’s proclamation. He identified the Milky Way as an Island Galaxy before this had been established by astronomy. He stated that the Universe began as a single ball of matter that exploded, preceding the Big Bang Theory by seventy years, and also envisaged time and space to be one and the same, half a century before Einstein had even been conceived.
Edgar Alan Poe, his visions and his book, were dismissed as irrational, incomprehensible and nonsensical. One hundred and fifty years on, they are the unacknowledged cornerstones of contemporary scientific knowledge. An overt reminder of the falsely perceived superiority of scientific analytic experimentation over the validity of an individual’s intuitive revelation.
I am not from a religious background, nor do I adhere to any one system of belief. I recognise all religions as possessing aspects of truth. Any religious body or individual that declares their way the only way, I regard as false prophets, or more accurately false profits.
I was an ardent atheist at nineteen, until via my illumination, saw and felt the expression of divinity in everything and everyone. I touched the Universal Mind and know that God is not a reality … God is reality, or to express this another way, Everything is, because God is Everything. I do not believe in God; I perceive God. In other words, I am aware of the consciousness of the Cosmos. The eyes of truth are watching. The archives of psychiatric institutions are well stocked with such testimonies, and why are these records retained? As evidence of insanity!
Saints, Sages, Seers, Shamans, and Shivaists, through the ages, have been alive to the most extraordinary psychic experiences and often received transmissions in the form of voices. Perhaps psychiatrists regard them too as deluded; the limitations of accepted psychiatric norms make arriving at such a conclusion unavoidable. The other side of the coin however, is that by making such judgements and assumptions about others, psychiatry and its plaudits delude themselves. It is very convenient for society to classify a section of the community as ‘the mad’ for it produces the somewhat absurd notion that the rest of the population are normal.
The Oxford Companion to the Mind defines psychosis as:
‘The misapprehension and misinterpretation of the nature of reality.’
Forgive my naiveté, but I was unaware that there was a correct way to apprehend and interpret reality; more to the point, I was unaware that there was consensus, let alone certainty, regarding the nature of reality at all. So what is the nature of psychiatry's reality?
Written in the stars of the psychiatric Universe is the word, Logic. The law that governs their Universe was laid down in 300 BC by the Father of Logic, Aristotle:
‘A must either be or not be A.’
To paraphrase, the world is flat. But as cosmologists and physicists look more deeply into the macro and the micro it is becoming very apparent that the Universe is a multiverse and the truth is reality is not logical and cannot be apprehended or interpreted logically, e.g. light is both a particle and a wave.
A can B, CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ [and not A].
The vision that is materialising before the very eyes of scientists is one that has long been seen by mystics. It is dawning that the mysterious Universe is also a miraculous Universe and the paranormal is the quantum, or multi-dimensional Universe in action.
It is not difficult to fathom why psychiatry has created the classification of psychosis, for if psychiatrists were to accept the validity of the testimonies of those who directly experience the multi-dimensional nature of reality, they would have to rescind the law that governs their Universe, which would in turn, invalidate their reality and by their own rules and definitions psychiatry itself would be certified psychotic! The stars would tumble and fall down from their sky and their ludicrous Flat Earth would be turned upside-down. So, psychiatry padlocks the doors of perception and pockets the keys and more false profits are made.
R.D. Laing, an unorthodox psychiatrist, emphasised the link between the mystic and the schizophrenic; he stated:
‘The mystic and the schizophrenic find themselves in the same ocean, but whereas the mystic swims, the schizophrenic drowns.’
I concur wholeheartedly, but point out that the so called schizophrenic can learn to swim … given the opportunity. Often however, the schizophrenic is dragged under by the very people sent in to help.
Unlike the monks and nuns who prepare rigorously and systematically to attain and receive enlightenment, those who experience schizophrenia [the psyche-sensitives], I believe, have enlightenment thrust upon them, but in the absence of a disciplined spiritual foundation this imposed enlightenment is enormously difficult to cope with.
R.D. Laing also observed that insanity is:
‘A perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world’.
The oceans of Planet Earth are filled with a zillion saltwater tears … the sea of humanity. The trauma we experience as psyche-sensitives is often simply a painfully acute empathic response to the ills of the world. There is a fine line between fear for the world and fear of the world, and when this line is erased, paranoia naturally ensues.
I am certain that schizophrenia is an expansion of our psychic capacity. I go further, I regard schizophrenia as not only a catalyst for personal transformation, but also for the transformation of our species; the evolutionary metamorphosis of humankind’s collective consciousness. That may sound prophetic, but as a kindred spirit once remarked to me:
‘Where would the Old Testament prophets be today if they lived in our times and in our culture?’
The answer, which should not need to be spelt out, is in our psychiatric institutions. In other cultures, many who would undoubtedly be labelled schizophrenic had they lived in the West, are embraced by their communities as valued individuals who cast light on the dynamics of the Universe and our place within it; they are seen as chosen ones. The tide is however turning in the northern hemisphere and there is a Spiritual Emergence Movement in ascendance re-addressing such matters.
One of the many visionaries regarded by their contemporaries as ‘outsiders’ was the author Edgar Alan Poe, who would almost certainly have been diagnosed schizophrenic had such a label been available in the eighteen hundreds. The following vindication of Poe’s genius was cited in Schizophrenia, Creativity and Spirituality - an obscure essay of the 1980s by Guy Stephens.
Edgar Alan Poe experienced an epiphany that unlocked deep cosmological insight, and in an inspirational outpouring he produced a work entitled Eureka which was published mid-way through the nineteenth century; coincidentally, the term psychosis was also coined then. At this time atoms were believed to be indivisible, irreducible balls of matter, the solid building blocks of the physical Universe. In Eureka it is revealed that matter is reducible to attraction and repulsion; some fifty years later physicists were to make the ‘discovery’ that confirms Poe’s proclamation. He identified the Milky Way as an Island Galaxy before this had been established by astronomy. He stated that the Universe began as a single ball of matter that exploded, preceding the Big Bang Theory by seventy years, and also envisaged time and space to be one and the same, half a century before Einstein had even been conceived.
Edgar Alan Poe, his visions and his book, were dismissed as irrational, incomprehensible and nonsensical. One hundred and fifty years on, they are the unacknowledged cornerstones of contemporary scientific knowledge. An overt reminder of the falsely perceived superiority of scientific analytic experimentation over the validity of an individual’s intuitive revelation.
I am not from a religious background, nor do I adhere to any one system of belief. I recognise all religions as possessing aspects of truth. Any religious body or individual that declares their way the only way, I regard as false prophets, or more accurately false profits.
I was an ardent atheist at nineteen, until via my illumination, saw and felt the expression of divinity in everything and everyone. I touched the Universal Mind and know that God is not a reality … God is reality, or to express this another way, Everything is, because God is Everything. I do not believe in God; I perceive God. In other words, I am aware of the consciousness of the Cosmos. The eyes of truth are watching. The archives of psychiatric institutions are well stocked with such testimonies, and why are these records retained? As evidence of insanity!
Saints, Sages, Seers, Shamans, and Shivaists, through the ages, have been alive to the most extraordinary psychic experiences and often received transmissions in the form of voices. Perhaps psychiatrists regard them too as deluded; the limitations of accepted psychiatric norms make arriving at such a conclusion unavoidable. The other side of the coin however, is that by making such judgements and assumptions about others, psychiatry and its plaudits delude themselves. It is very convenient for society to classify a section of the community as ‘the mad’ for it produces the somewhat absurd notion that the rest of the population are normal.
The Oxford Companion to the Mind defines psychosis as:
‘The misapprehension and misinterpretation of the nature of reality.’
Forgive my naiveté, but I was unaware that there was a correct way to apprehend and interpret reality; more to the point, I was unaware that there was consensus, let alone certainty, regarding the nature of reality at all. So what is the nature of psychiatry's reality?
Written in the stars of the psychiatric Universe is the word, Logic. The law that governs their Universe was laid down in 300 BC by the Father of Logic, Aristotle:
‘A must either be or not be A.’
To paraphrase, the world is flat. But as cosmologists and physicists look more deeply into the macro and the micro it is becoming very apparent that the Universe is a multiverse and the truth is reality is not logical and cannot be apprehended or interpreted logically, e.g. light is both a particle and a wave.
A can B, CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ [and not A].
The vision that is materialising before the very eyes of scientists is one that has long been seen by mystics. It is dawning that the mysterious Universe is also a miraculous Universe and the paranormal is the quantum, or multi-dimensional Universe in action.
It is not difficult to fathom why psychiatry has created the classification of psychosis, for if psychiatrists were to accept the validity of the testimonies of those who directly experience the multi-dimensional nature of reality, they would have to rescind the law that governs their Universe, which would in turn, invalidate their reality and by their own rules and definitions psychiatry itself would be certified psychotic! The stars would tumble and fall down from their sky and their ludicrous Flat Earth would be turned upside-down. So, psychiatry padlocks the doors of perception and pockets the keys and more false profits are made.