Divine insanity

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I'm writing this after reading the Alien Science thread, which is some pretty quality entertainment.

The concept of divine insanity is one that's much more alive in India than in the West. Many of the sadhus (wandering holy men) in India would probably be institutionalized if they were westerners. But maybe this is a good paradigm for understanding people like Master Li.

I've worked in nursing homes for the past few years. For some reason, I never thought of the residents with senile dementia as sad. They always intrigued me. They were obviously mistaken, if not outright delusional, in a lot of what they witnessed and talked about. Yet sometimes what they said DID make sense in an odd sort of way, if you put yourself in their position. In this way, dealing with them was an exercise in putting yourself in another's shoes, and a reminder that there are as many ways of interpreting reality as there are people to interpret it.

Master Li says there are aliens that we can't see, taking over our minds and making us invent scientific inventions. Now obviously this isn't literally true, and anyone who'd believe him at face value is pretty gullible. But what struck me is the similarity of his 'aliens' to some people's concept of memes -- ideas that grab hold of our minds and take control of them, sometimes causing them to do things that are detrimental to everyone's well being, like buying an SUV.

Sometimes I think delusional people can be a refreshing source of VERY unrefined wisdom, able to drive home certain points simply because of how differently they see reality. Has anyone else had an experience where they've talked to someone who's obviously a bit batty, but has given them real food for thought nonetheless?

 

[Jamshyd]

If this interests you, you ought to look into early Sufi mystics. In the formative period, Sufi traditions were being divided into two schools: the "intoxicated" tradition and the "sober" tradition, usually attributed to the relationship of Al-Hallaj to his master, Junayd. Junayd was a mystic, but he was also a very orthodox and low-key muslim. His desciple, Hallaj (c. 10th cerntury A.D.), became a martyr of the intoxicated school: one day he went to Junayd and proclaimed, "I am the Truth!" (ie. I am God). Junayd was shocked by this blasphemy and kicked him out, and ever since then Hallaj has been saying similar things. He did not believe he was God in the egoistic sense, but more of an expression of an entheogenic experience. He was publicly excecuted in a spectacle, making him one of the only two or three public excecutions in the islamic empire.

Anyway, since then, a lot of people followed hallaj's example. Others remained true to Junayd's orthodoxy.

A notable Medieval sufi movement was the Qalandars. These mystics travelled in groups, practiced public homosexuality and hashish-eating, and spoke the most outrageous things.

All these people were frequently referred to as "God-Intoxicated."

I can go on but you get the idea .

 

[Dopeamine]

I think there is a lot to learn about different mental states and spirituality/concsiousness. There is a lot on the web about famous/successful people who suffer from bi-polar and I believe that it is when they are experiencing the highs, that is when they excel at their chosen art.

Maybe the same can be said for spiritual teachers? I am sure I have seen a thread somewhere about the possibility of Jesus being bi-polar, taking inferences from the bible stories.

Cheers.

 

[Dopeamine]

A notable Medieval sufi movement was the Qalandars. These mystics travelled in groups, practiced public homosexuality and hashish-eating, and spoke the most outrageous things.

I will research, but what outrageous things have you found them to profess?

 

[Dopeamine]

Found this pic of some travelling Qalandars. Interesting that they appear to be all different races of men, different colour skins / types.

All their weapons are facing towards the ground but most of them appear to be looking to the sky at something or for something.

http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/gallery_travellers.html

 

[zorn]

MDAO,

I've had similar feelings from talking with, reading about, and reading stuff by (!) schizophrenics. Most mental illnesses seem very easy to understand. They are simply a sort of 'imbalance'; some aspect of personality or emotion taken to an extreme. Depressed people, for example, are just really unhappy. Those with social anxiety disorder just have the normal worry about what other people think of you, but extremely strongly and in an unusually broad range of situations. And so on. Sometimes it can be hard to truly put yourself in such people's shoes because of the sheer strength of the emotions/traits involved, but there's no conceptual difficulty in understanding the disorder.

To me, schizophrenia seems truly different. It's a strange, alien disordering of the mind. Trying to understand what schizophrenics feel like, what they think, gave me a new perspective on -- and a new respect for -- how our reality is constructed by our minds, and the 'social construction' that allows humans to deal with one another in a 'sane' way. Somehow the very way of thinking -- something so basic to our humanity that we normally don't even perceive it -- is changed, disordered in schizophrenics. Our web of concepts, and the inherent judgments we make as to which connections are reasonable, which are not, and which should be supported by any given thing... these are just changed somehow in schizophrenics.

I would say that trying to understand how, trying to understand what it's like to be insane, gave me a little insight into how it is we think. And, just as importantly, what it is about our thinking that allows us to socially construct this intricate imaginary world -- the world of concepts like "beauty," "friendship," "relationship," "rivalry," "status" -- in which we live most of our lives.

 

[socko]

Zorn describes some of the issues that thinking about schizophrenia brings up for me. I've had a couple of friends who suffered from schiz. I'm fascinated with the way they think. What's going on inside their heads to make them come up with some of their strange ideas and behaviours? What would have to go wrong in a normal person's brain to make their thinking like that of a schizophrenic?
When they try to explain their ideas, the contrast makes you ask yourself why you think the way you do and percieve things the way you do. Kind of like being able to catch their line of thought or point of view for an instant and think like an Outsider. If they're too far gone that day, it's useless to try to get them to make sense, but sometimes still interesting.

 

[elemenohpee]

That's an interesting point MDAO. The reason I got into drugs was that I felt like I was gaining insight into myself, I'm sure many of you have had these experiences. Is it possible that things like weed and lsd may put you into a state that is conceptually similar to the experience of a schizophrenic? Not that those drugs will put you into a schizophrenic state, the point being that they are both different from normal consciousness. The contrast created between these two ways of thinking gives you the chance to really think about how you want to act. Does this make sense to anyone?

 

[socko]

The closest I've felt to what I think of as a schizophrenic state is coming down in the morning after a night of injecting cocaine.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Abuse of amphetamines is supposed eventually to a induce a state clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia. I've worked with elderly schizophrenic residents. Their personalities were very different from those with Alzheimer's. The biggest difference I would notice is that their stream of consciousness was unbroken. They would remember things and people from moment to moment. Not correctly, but consistently. People with alzheimer's tend to talk to themselves, but know they're talking to themselves. My schizophrenic residents would talk to people who just plain were not there.

I get the sense that the delusions of Schizophrenia, which is caused by an excess of dopamine, are for the most part mental rather than sensory. The sensory hallucinations outsiders perceive are the result of grossly mistaken expectations on the part of the patient about what they expect to see. During a period when I was using Adderall immoderately and sleeping little, I got the tiniest taste of what this mental condition might feel like.

zorn, I know exactly what you're talking about when it comes to constructing reality. The Chinese word for schizophrenia means literally 'the cut-off soul disease'. I think this is very fitting, because what a schizophrenic expects to find in front of him is completely cut off from cues he should be getting about this from the real world. It really makes you think about how much of what any of us see is what we expect to see. Back when my Japanese was fairly fluent, I had the experience of walking up to people in Japan and addressing them in their native language, only to get a reply in broken English, and the person later thinking I first spoke to them in English. They heard what they expected to hear from a Western face.

 

[TheDEA.org]

concept of memes -- ideas that grab hold of our minds and take control of them, sometimes causing them to do things that are detrimental to everyone's well being, like buying an SUV.

*laugh* I'm reminded of an interview with the author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenominon. He made the comment that the true test of whether a meme survived in society was NOT whether or not it was beneficial. Rather, memes spread based on nothing but their ability to stick in people's heads and spread to other people. As such, memes could be viewed as potential parasites, harming human society in the process of self-replication.

It was a strikingly novel idea to me, yet it was also so self-evidently true that I wondered why I'd never thought of it like that before.

Has anyone else had an experience where they've talked to someone who's obviously a bit batty, but has given them real food for thought nonetheless?

The strangest person I've ever met was a communist Christian Republican living in the middle of nowhere. We talked at great length about government, the economy, etc. and I was often startled by how bizarre, yet integrated and internally self-consistant his ideas where. He was quite pleasant and very obviously intelligent, yet he sincerely believed that capitalism must be eliminated for the good of society AND that the Jews were plotting to destroy America.

While I wouldn't say his ideas themselves gave me food for thought, it was strangely invigorating to talk with somebody who's own perspective on the world (at virtually every level) was so completely different from my own.

Back when my Japanese was fairly fluent, I had the experience of walking up to people in Japan and addressing them in their native language, only to get a reply in broken English, and the person later thinking I first spoke to them in English.

Ahaha. Classic. Have you seen this guy's site? (The true adventures of a big black American guy teaching English to Japanese school kids.)

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

*laugh* I'm reminded of an interview with the author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenominon. He made the comment that the true test of whether a meme survived in society was NOT whether or not it was beneficial. Rather, memes spread based on nothing but their ability to stick in people's heads and spread to other people. As such, memes could be viewed as potential parasites, harming human society in the process of self-replication.

It was a strikingly novel idea to me, yet it was also so self-evidently true that I wondered why I'd never thought of it like that before.

That's definitely one theory of the structure of Al Qaeda that I've read -- that it's not so much an organization lead and directed by some powerful and charismatic men, so much as a very catchy idea, whose results (i.e. attacks) are a very effective form of advertising. Therefore, for the US government to fight Al Qaeda as if it were an actual network of people will always be in vain. The only way to really weaken it is to reduce the number of minds fertile to that meme. I've got some ideas for this, but that belongs in another forum.

Dennett definitely backs up what I said in the other thread about not all religions or religious communities being equally as good, if they spread based on catchiness rather than wholesomeness. Makes me wonder: what is it about middle Americans (but not other Western people), that makes their minds such fertile ground for such a harsh, authoritarian, and intolerant way of interpreting the divine?

My hunch is that it has to do with the emptiness and monotony of life in many parts of the big flat middle states, combined with the loneliness caused by the breakdown of community, related I'd bet to the shifting of the agrarian sector from a a community enterprise to a corporate one. But again, this belongs in another forum.

 

[Jamshyd]

Abuse of amphetamines is supposed eventually to a induce a state clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia.

I can attest to that. To connect it to the topic at hand, during an episode of amphetamine psychosis I started writing a parody of Gnostic gospels. By the time I had finished writing it (about 6 pages), it came out as a large piece of mostly automatic writing that is 100% metaphorical, and taken that way it still is jammed with meaning and makes perfect sense to me, even though I haden't taken any amphetamine (or stims, or psychedelics) for a month now.

Regarding the Qalandars: It is a bit difficult to study this movement out of context. If you (dopeamine) or anyone is interested in the subject, it would help to have some background on the sufi movement.

Most scholars would agree that the definitive text on the Qalandars is God's Unruly Friends by A. Karamustafa. It is difficult to find, but you might just find it in your public library.

For a very comprehensive introduction to Sufi mysticism in general, one of the best scholarly works is The Mystical Dimentions of Islam by A. Schimmel.

 

[Medatripper Tates]

That's an interesting point MDAO. The reason I got into drugs was that I felt like I was gaining insight into myself, I'm sure many of you have had these experiences. Is it possible that things like weed and lsd may put you into a state that is conceptually similar to the experience of a schizophrenic?

i believe so, but i don't think it should be labelled schizophrenic when it has been purely drug induced, because of the difference.

because, schizophrenia is a permanent disorder (if it is a disorder). there are those schizo's who have come to understand their difference and have no fear, and have blissful positive experiences, and can connect with people just fine. now they may seem different, but in a positive way.

i believe schizophrenia is caused in the mothers womb, the baby undergoes maybe too much pressure, which causes trauma. and separation from the physical. so this trauma and separation from what we perceive to be normal reality, is carried with the person as they age, and it can be guided by fear or love. it depends on the surroundings. so it can lead to a disorder or enlightening states.

this is pretty much the same as when the psychosis is caused by drugs, the person is separated from the material/ego. this is such a profound experience, it impacts the person's life very deeply. people will look at him differently, and at first, many will judge. this separation induces an understanding which is totally different from any other understanding within this material reality. anybody who has not experienced this separation can not understand this understanding/reality. they will automatically label as "schizo", "disorder", "brain fried", "psychotic".

because of this separation, the person has access to out of body experiences, clairvoyant vision, astral projection, healing, etc. the energy of us all pretty much becomes visible, and this must be integrated into normal reality. so the person has to shape together an image for himself, and this is done by interacting with people. over time, the social interactions will shape his image. if he carries fear, the image will be distorted and the fear will build on, and his image will become negative, he will have a disorder. if there are loving friends and family to guide this person, who see past the judgement, he may not bring fear with him but love, and his life will be enlightening.

so i don't think drug-induced psychosis should be labelled as schizophrenic, because schizo's were born with it and druggies werent. the people who were born with it have it much deeper. druggies just need to take a break from all the acid and meditation

Not that those drugs will put you into a schizophrenic state, the point being that they are both different from normal consciousness. The contrast created between these two ways of thinking gives you the chance to really think about how you want to act. Does this make sense to anyone?

these drugs have put me into schizophrenic states, and they have impacted me deeply. im learning to create images of myself to suit the level of judgement others possess, and im learning trust is only for those who see past the bullshit. the more time goes on, the more stable these images become, and the more control i have over the way i act. of course im insane, there's no doubt about it, but maybe i wont judge myself when others dont judge me.

 

[zorn]

Is it possible that things like weed and lsd may put you into a state that is conceptually similar to the experience of a schizophrenic? Not that those drugs will put you into a schizophrenic state, the point being that they are both different from normal consciousness.

In a way... I think in the past researchers really did think LSD & cannabis were good models for schizophrenia, but that turned out to be false -- they're very different. OTOH, amphetamine/stimulant psychosis apparently is somewhat similar to paranoid schizophrenia, from everything I've heard.

Makes me wonder: what is it about middle Americans (but not other Western people), that makes their minds such fertile ground for such a harsh, authoritarian, and intolerant way of interpreting the divine?

My hunch is that it has to do with the emptiness and monotony of life in many parts of the big flat middle states, combined with the loneliness caused by the breakdown of community, related I'd bet to the shifting of the agrarian sector from a a community enterprise to a corporate one. But again, this belongs in another forum.

Do you really think "middle America" is an especially fertile ground for authoritarian&intolerant religion? When I look at the world it looks like this is more the norm, and the more relaxed parts of Western Europe are the aberration are the ones in need of explanation. AFAIK, there's a strain of authoritarian, intolerant Catholicism in Spain, Italy, and Ireland, not to mention much of the Latin world, which is quite powerful. And in the Islamic world, authoritarian & intolerant religion is at least as widespread as in the States.

The strangest person I've ever met was a communist Christian Republican living in the middle of nowhere. We talked at great length about government, the economy, etc. and I was often startled by how bizarre, yet integrated and internally self-consistant his ideas where. He was quite pleasant and very obviously intelligent, yet he sincerely believed that capitalism must be eliminated for the good of society AND that the Jews were plotting to destroy America.

I've met a couple people like that, with elaborate, consistent beliefs which were very far from usual. It's shocking because most people, at least most people with interests in politics/economy/society/etc, fall into a relatively small number of 'camps.' Hear them talk about a couple things and you can guess what they'll say about any other subject with depressingly high accuracy.

I think this really reflects just how little 'thinking' and how much 'following' goes into most people's construction of their political views. We flatter ourselves that we're thinking about issues, but in reality we're mostly just learning to ape and fit in with whichever tribe we chose when we were young (and ignorant.) Hence this disturbing regularity, where people either believe in the ca.-2006 liberal "package" of beliefs, the conservative package, the libertarian package, etc. -- when you meet someone isolated, who's formed their beliefs without the pull of a preexisting party/tribal line, it's a bit startling.

I get the sense that the delusions of Schizophrenia, which is caused by an excess of dopamine, are for the most part mental rather than sensory.

I agree, but there are significant sensory hallucinations too. I've known some schizophrenics who started hearing voices -- talking to them, mocking them, threatening them -- long before (in one case without) having any of the esrious delusions or general 'craziness.'

 

[go-ee]

Firstly, to the original post, holy men would not institutionalized in western societies if (and this is a big if) they are properly examined and a correct diagnosis is made. The DSM and ICD specifically state that excessive religious beliefs provided other criteria are not met are not mental disorders. However, I do appreciate what you are saying and I must say in some cases, it is an extremely fine line. Some of the most mind blowing conversations I have ever had, have been talking to schizophrenics. I knew a guy that had a remarkable understanding of his disorder, and was quite good at ignoring the various hallucinations he experience. However, he was not so accurate all the time More so, to anyone trained to diagnosis mental illnesses, it was painfully obvious he manifested Schizophrenia. Regardless of his remarkable progress. Many cases are catastrophic and unfortunately schizophrenics have a very high suicide rate (approximately 10% will commit suicide).

Mental illnesses are diagnosed in respect to: behavioural, emotional, or cognitive dysfunctions that are unexpected in their cultural context and associated with personal distress or substantial impairment in functioning. However, quote from the DSM here: "...no definition adequately specifices precise boundaries for the concept mental disorder" and "Neither deviant behaviour, e.g. political, religious or sexual, nor conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are mental disorders..."

Schizophrenia is definitely the most catastrophic of any mental illness and very hard to conceptualize. When defining mental illnesses, the psychology community has made a big push to use causal models, which show how biology (or the brain) leads to specific cognitive deficits and in turn how this affects behaviour. This is particularly useful in developmental disorders such as Autism and Dyslexia. Where there are several routes of cause (of theories of cause) and different underlying cognitive mechanisms which lead to the symptoms of the disorder. The reason for this is to help explain how people with the same diagnosis can have dramatically different symptoms. DSM is simply a checklist of symptoms, where the clinician says "yep you have 6 symptoms, therefore you have x", when in reality many people can have less of the symptoms and still manifest the disorder. This is why there is a push to map out the underlying cognitive deficit. More so, the methods and procedures of cognitive psychology are far more precise and scientifically valid than other areas. Particularly, when for so long we have been trying to make the link straight from biology - behaviour. Here is an example of a causal model of Dyslexia so you know what I am talking about. Remember this can be mapped out for almost any disorder and is very useful.

Back to Schizophrenia, the point of all that was to illustrate (like zorn mentioned) that it is very hard to conceptualize the cognitive deficits going on in Schizophrenics. It seems to be a fundamental deficit underlying several major areas of cognitive processes (at least from what we can see). While drugs, definitely can put you into a psychotic state - a state that may look similar to that of a Schizophrenic. There is more to Schizophrenia than merely the positive symptoms of hallucinations and delusions. Schizophrenics often suffer from many negative symptoms such as avolution (inability to initiate and persist in activities), alogia (absence of speech), anhedonia (lack of pleasure from activities) and affective flattening. More so, many suffer grossly disorganized speech and inappropriate affect and/or disorganized behaviour.

The various subtypes of schizophrenia are paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated and residual. It is interesting to note that over time many Schizophrenics will change between these subtypes. Lending support to the idea that Schizophrenia is one disorder (rather than a category of related disorders). Amphetamine psychosis does have similarities between paranoid schizophrenia (the hallucinations and delusions) but amphetamine psychosis patients are often much more violent and paranoid schizophrenia seems to be a much more complicated problem with the dopaminergic system, than the simple nature of amphetamines. The dopamine hypothesis of Schizophrenia has mixed support and still remains controversial. The evidence for dopamine and schizophrenia usually consists of the following:

1. Antipsychotic drugs that are often effective in treating people with schizophrenia are dopamine antagonists, partially blocking the brain's use of dopamine

2. These drugs can produce negative side effects similar to those in Parkinson's disease, a disorder known to be due to insufficient dopamine.

3. The drug L-dopa, a dopamine antagonist used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, produces schizophrenia-like symptoms in some people.

4. Ampheamines, which also activate dopamine, can make psychotic symptoms worse in some people with schizophrenia.

However, you also have evidence which contradicts this theory, mainly:

1. A significant number of people with schizophrenia are not helped by the use of dopamine antagonists.

2. Although anti psychotics block the reception of dopamine quite quickly, the relevant symptoms subside only after several days or weeks, much more slowly than one would expect.

3. These drugs are not very effective in reducing the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

The conclusion at current seems to be that although dopamine is involved in the symptoms of Schizophrenia, the relationship is much more complex that we once thought. There are at least three specific neurochemical abnormalities simultaneously at play in the schizophrenics.

1. Excessive stimulation of striatal dopamine (DA) D2 receptors

2. Deficiency in the stimulational of prefrontal DA D1 receptors

3. Alterations in prefrontal activity involving glutamate transmission

I could elaborate on these abnormalities and provide the current evidence, but expect a very long and complicated post.

Schizophrenics also show differed brain structure to non-schizophrenics. Specfically, many men seem to have enlarged ventricles. However, not all schizophrenics show this. Schizophrenics also show less blood flow to the frontal lobes of the brain when performing a task that requires the use of the frontal lobes. Typically, a task which requires planning and regulation such as moving blocks to form a pattern in specific number of steps.

Now that I think about it, I probably could draw up a causal model of schizophrenia and it would probably be of great use. However, it would be huge and still be missing a few key areas. Specifically, where we are still unsure of the cognitive mechanism causing the behaviour.

 

[zorm]

[Impersonating fellow bluelighters isn't very nice! - cP]

 

[socko]

lol.. Zorn's suffering from multiple personality disorder?

 

[Dopeamine]

this is pretty much the same as when the psychosis is caused by drugs, the person is separated from the material/ego. this is such a profound experience, it impacts the person's life very deeply. people will look at him differently, and at first, many will judge. this separation induces an understanding which is totally different from any other understanding within this material reality. anybody who has not experienced this separation can not understand this understanding/reality. they will automatically label as "schizo", "disorder", "brain fried", "psychotic".

So should I characterise my experience as drug induced? I had taken nothing for at least three weeks when my altered conciousness/psychosis occured. For obvious reasons I want to hold on to the fact that it was not a drug induced episode, but you seem perfectly happy to accept that and that this does not negatively impact on the spirituality/validity of the experience?

im learning to create images of myself to suit the level of judgement others possess, and im learning trust is only for those who see past the bullshit. the more time goes on, the more stable these images become, and the more control i have over the way i act. of course im insane, there's no doubt about it, but maybe i wont judge myself when others dont judge me.

I suffer from this enormously to the point where I have judged myself so harshly, the resulting depression has ended many good things in my life recently. The point for me is that now the "eye" is open, I am not sure if I am good, evil, neutral. I have done plenty of things to fulfill each category.

Could my issues stem from me having progressed too quickly and not having undertaken the necessary practice?

Cheers.

 

[TheDEA.org]

When addressing unusual experiences, I think it's important to draw a line between validity and utility. If you have a hallucination (whether spontaneous, drug induced, etc.) that God exists and is telling you that your life has purpose and should be used to help others, that experience lacks validity; it is irrational to believe that what you have subjectively experienced is the product of concrete objective truth. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that such experiences are meaningless. They can inspire us to be better people, comfort us in times of hardship, and help us to resolve internal conflicts.

So, while I'm a hard-bitten atheist, rejecting any claims of objective truth that people try to apply to their personal subjective experiences, I don't deny that these experiences can be meaningful, enriching, and valuable to us. One does not have to believe that Juliette was a real person to be moved by Shakespeare, nor does one have to believe that a 'mystical' experience is based on real supernatural forces to be moved by it.