Aug 19, 2016 05:07 AM
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-divine-fire-of...us-visions
EXCERPT: Although the earliest psychoanalysts saw religion as neurotic, the modern mental health field has stopped pathologising religious beliefs. Contemporary systems of psychiatric diagnosis have no problem with a belief in God, Zoroaster, Demeter, or the Moon Goddess. At least in theory, we are free to hold whatever religious beliefs we wish without fear of being labelled mentally ill.
However, the field has made less progress when it comes to actual religious experiences. Patients meet with less tolerance when they reveal that Jesus is speaking to them, right now, in the consulting room, or that the Moon Goddess flew in through their bedroom window last night and initiated a lunar romance. When spirituality makes the leap from an abstract belief to a real, live experience, therapists get nervous.
The science-fiction writer Philip K Dick puzzled over the distinction between mental illness and religious experience after he had one himself. He claimed that, while he was recovering from dental surgery in February 1974, his consciousness was awakened by a mysterious flash of pink light. After the pink flash, he had visions of abstract paintings and unfamiliar engineering blueprints. Streams of fiery energy – of ‘liquid fire’, he said – seemed to weave through his environment and inhabit his body. He saw scenes of ancient Rome superimposed over his neighbourhood: ‘I looked around and saw Rome! Rome everywhere! Power and force, stone walls, iron bars.’
A local daycare centre appeared to be a Roman prison. To Dick, its children were Christian martyrs to be fed to lions. Pedestrians on the sidewalk seemed to be wearing Roman uniforms. The totalitarian Roman Empire had returned, and Dick felt he was secretly a spiritual warrior doing battle with it. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: ‘At last Rome began by stealthy degrees to surface once more, to manifest itself. Therefore it is not surprising that the same Holy Spirit which rose against it then… has returned to arouse us as before.’
Although the visions eventually vanished, Dick remained fascinated by them. So captivated was he that he wrote an 8,000-page commentary he called his Exegesis...
EXCERPT: Although the earliest psychoanalysts saw religion as neurotic, the modern mental health field has stopped pathologising religious beliefs. Contemporary systems of psychiatric diagnosis have no problem with a belief in God, Zoroaster, Demeter, or the Moon Goddess. At least in theory, we are free to hold whatever religious beliefs we wish without fear of being labelled mentally ill.
However, the field has made less progress when it comes to actual religious experiences. Patients meet with less tolerance when they reveal that Jesus is speaking to them, right now, in the consulting room, or that the Moon Goddess flew in through their bedroom window last night and initiated a lunar romance. When spirituality makes the leap from an abstract belief to a real, live experience, therapists get nervous.
The science-fiction writer Philip K Dick puzzled over the distinction between mental illness and religious experience after he had one himself. He claimed that, while he was recovering from dental surgery in February 1974, his consciousness was awakened by a mysterious flash of pink light. After the pink flash, he had visions of abstract paintings and unfamiliar engineering blueprints. Streams of fiery energy – of ‘liquid fire’, he said – seemed to weave through his environment and inhabit his body. He saw scenes of ancient Rome superimposed over his neighbourhood: ‘I looked around and saw Rome! Rome everywhere! Power and force, stone walls, iron bars.’
A local daycare centre appeared to be a Roman prison. To Dick, its children were Christian martyrs to be fed to lions. Pedestrians on the sidewalk seemed to be wearing Roman uniforms. The totalitarian Roman Empire had returned, and Dick felt he was secretly a spiritual warrior doing battle with it. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: ‘At last Rome began by stealthy degrees to surface once more, to manifest itself. Therefore it is not surprising that the same Holy Spirit which rose against it then… has returned to arouse us as before.’
Although the visions eventually vanished, Dick remained fascinated by them. So captivated was he that he wrote an 8,000-page commentary he called his Exegesis...
