Madness: How Do You React?

My world-view is very spiritual. I am a very spiritual person in my thinking, and I feel close to God. I have a firm belief in the persistence of Life after physical expiration (I believe there is a Heaven). I have had numerous experiences of Divinity and perceptions of Divine power, so my belief in God is also strong. I have certain experiences I label as paranormal, within a spiritual framework. But what if you call all this madness? What if, for you, there is no 'sixth sense'?


Being on the receiving end of such pronouncements, I can tell you that the response to my beliefs that discredits them as madness and irrational creates division, and seems to be a breeding ground for disrespect. My question here is this: is there a way of disagreeing with someone, of being skeptical of what they say, that does not create a division or disrespect that person? With madness, there is an accentuating of the personal difference that exists between us all; the mad person is not just unique, but different in mentality, and in a way that requires more effort than usual to be harmonious with them.


In the UK, a long time ago, it used to be that people deemed insane were not allowed to vote - they were a kind of lesser person. It was the same for women and criminals too! That's just a point about how we see the insane, and where we have come from.

It used to be that what I believed made no sense, and now, even though I can display a clear system of belief, and quote authorities, I feel some near to me are more than skeptical of what I say. There's a distance there, presumably in the fear of madness (which itself can be seen to be rooted in the fear of the incomprehensible violence that psychotically deluded people sometimes commit).


There's something strange in being told that what you are thinking is wrong. It can be a confrontational moment, and a moment of discomfort or exclusion.

It must be that nurses in psychiatric wards are adept in responding to delusional beliefs, responding not just with compassion, but with humour, and with care. I think this is ideal. If you think I'm mad, please hold the thought gently - because I'd rather not be distanced by that.


There must be a better way of disagreeing with someone and telling them that they are seeing things fundamentally wrongly, than by making them feel stupid or strange - without degrading them.

Everyone has different ways of responding to difference, whether rigid or flexible. Are you a tolerant person? How do you respond to human diversity? Are you open-minded? Can you engage with me emotionally and be gentle when you state that I am misled in my thinking? Or do you have no time for people who are ill, do you effectively disrespect the insane as 'lesser people'?

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My world-view, concerning my health, begins with an invitation to believe in the spiritual, and continues into a description of the paranormal; the consideration of the reality of an extra-sensory, spiritual dimension to Life is important in meeting me intellectually. Spirituality, it seems to me, is very much a cultural issue, - it is not a dimension of experience readily believed in my part of the world culture... Where are the spiritual psychiatrists I can discuss my condition with? The condition goes like this:

1. Life on Earth
2. God
3. soul
4. Afterlife
5. Heaven
6. 'Unascended' people in spirit
7. Harmful mental interactions with unascended people in spirit

There is only one way to know about an extra-sensory, spiritual dimension to Life... and that is through extra-sensory perception. More correctly, we can also know the spiritual  through books, which report others' extra-sensory experiences. I look forward to developments within psychiatry that have respect for people with spiritual beliefs, not treating them as 'lesser people'...

In the mean time, I repeat, if you think my perceptions are false, and my beliefs are erroneous, please hold that thought gently, because I am, after all, still your dignified human brother.

Imagination And Schizophrenia: Ideas and Reflections

Hallucinations are like the dreaming self impressing itself on the waking self. Or like the unconscious self trying to be born through the waking self all at once, becoming a tragic failed birth.

Delusions are like the logical mind being unravelled by the unconscious' power of imagination. Again, interference from the unconscious places the waking self in a world of magic, though one for which it is 'ill-fitted', unsuitable. 'Creative thinking' and 'creative thinking gone wrong' are here associated like genius and madness. (Creative thinking - thinking that is different, imaginative, daring, accepting of errors, and yet ordered; creative thinking gone wrong is similar but misses errors on a grand scale, for all its pretensions of genius and confidence.)

Strange behaviours in public occur through a displacement, the waking mind being forced out and breaking its boundaries, so that it shows itself naked, and frightening in its strangeness - the irrationality and lost consciousness of propriety are apparent. The subject's mind has 'gone to seed', run wild, lost all sense of reality as governed by responsibility and social learning: the subject is a free agent and the boundaries are broken so that behaviour is governed mostly by will alone. A kind of expression of withdrawal, these behaviours represent overt individuality and individuation; if there was more 'space' for the person's mind, the behaviours would never come to light, would pass by as unnoticed dreams; a manifestation of stress, therefore?, of the brain part of the organism not having enough 'space' to rest and relax and reorganise?
[My strange behaviours were done without awareness that they were strange, and they were based on delusion. I know what it's like to act strangely; I think that it is especially frightening to other people; it is madness very much on display, a seeming powerful, unpredictable and unlimited force.]

Cultural Norms

Maybe there's something wrong in the details of what I'm writing/thinking, but sometimes I feel like I'm not sane, when I wholeheartedly believe that I am. Is this insight creeping in, you may think? No, actually it's My Culture. (!)

I was trying to write in my last post the suggestion that spirits were causing me depression by weighing me down with the force of their dislike for me - I had to stop, because it didn't sound sane. Then I thought, in some societies, firstly this would be an acceptable proposition, and secondly, they would be able to deal with it. There are some highly evolved spiritual traditions in the world that are not very well known, such as the oldest traditions of religion on Earth, of shamanic mediation between the Worlds of spiritual and material Reality.

It's hard for me to comment on this feeling of inadequacy that I had, because it's not so much a part of my experience anymore - things are easier for me now, I've healed. However, I still experience negative spiritual interactions, which may as well be taboo, because the frame of reference has largely fallen out of my culture - I can't discuss what I'm going through with my granny, for example, and very easily retain her respect. Ordinary people outside the spiritual healing profession have little everyday awareness of spirit trouble. You could say there is a lamentably low spiritual awareness in the First World, whether in medical science's consistently denying independent individuals' testimonies of problematic spiritual interaction or in the common awareness of what is or is not spiritually safe. But then as regards safety my condition is surely quite rare, it's within the esoteric realm - I even had trouble convincing some spiritual healers of what I have been going through. There must be a benefit to this lesser cultural awareness, though - less superstition, and also less sensitivity and thus less exposure to danger. Still, most people are not going to need psychic protection, either because they aren't sensitive, they don't put themselves at risk through drugs or unwise practices, or because their natural and ordinary benevolence bounces negativity away. I don't think that under normal circumstances a person will end up getting haunted, usually.

There's still the power in the Church. When I was last really ill, I went to a religious service in hospital; at communion I signified that I wished for a blessing instead of receiving the Host, and the priest made the sign of the cross in front of my head with the wafer - as he did so I felt the energy clear around my head and there was a moment of alleviation of psychic pressure.

I don't wish to turn "Science" into a sceptical Enemy, and bad-mouth every doctor, but I do think that the First World, though triumphing in places due to rational argument, also wears the belt of scepticism too tight. I have an experience that I can't talk about fairly, it seems; there's a blanket ban on my credibility in suggesting an unusual spiritual phenomenon may be happening to me.

I suppose my experience affirms to me two things: 1) that there is an afterlife; 2) that psychicness is real. I would also like to affirm to the reader that the circumstances of spiritual disturbance I am in are rare - I feel a duty of comfort and of balancing of perspective, since I am arguing in a way for the derangement of conventional boundaries, which I think may be frightening for those who are new to these beliefs. Also I affirm that Life has other purposes for me than to suffer, and it is my task to find and fulfil the true purpose of Life for myself.

Not very long ago, when praying for Divine Intervention - actually I was despairing/angry, I didn't understand why God, the Almighty Spirit, did not intervene to stop the frustrating and painful abuse of my mind - ... when praying for Divine intervention, I heard a voice say "You are to seek shamanic help". The voice was a 'higher' voice, trustworthy and female (and it sounded slightly impatient!) I trust that there is someone who can help me balance my relationship to the spiritual and restore my mental health.

I'm grateful for the medical treatment I've received (despite the laissez-faire "Here's some medicine, go away and good luck" kind of approach). Anti-psychotic medication I believe helped my brain heal so that I left behind all manner of delusions. The sense of interaction with an unfriendly mind remained, however, for all the years of treatment, and remains undiminished in its hostility. Since I was stable between the period when I was using cannabis intensively and the time when I was correctly diagnosed, I believe, given that I am used to the negative 'symptoms' I have, that Life without medicine is viable, for the sake of feeling more alive, and I will hopefully try this next year. It was my intention to write a blog charting this process of 'demedication', but I also wished to write about my world-view, and couldn't wait! I would suggest to anyone reading this that you should certainly have your doctor's approval before coming off medication. (My doctor grudgingly approves of my wish to be drug-free!)



Time. Time is a wonderful thing. I read that of all people with schizophrenia, one third have their illness resolved immediately after medication, one third are much improved after ten years, and one third never get better; I must be in that middle third. Time is a wonderful thing. I look forward to getting better. I am really starting to enjoy Life - and this will surely lead me back to full functionality.

As a closing note, I'd like to say, please don't be too afraid of darkness. Everyone has their own guardian angels and spirit guides who protect them. I blew my natural defenses using cannabis, which is unusual. If you're still worried learn about closing down the chakras for added safety(see earlier post and link). The best way to be safe, as many sources say, is to focus on Love; conversely fear (and unlovingness) endanger you. So relax!