Ever since I was recently diagnosed as being schizophrenic and had that label attached (which also has a hard time sticking) it has led me to question social biases as a whole..
Is it that the prevailing medical and psychiatric thought gives absolutely no credence to Spiritual experiences whatsoever?
I read a very interesting article on "hearing voices" and according to that study, what the voices say, is wholly dependent upon the culture one is raised into. Some hear voices telling them to kill themselves...I hear voices telling me how to harness quantum fluctuations to build free energy devices..
https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16...hrmann-071614/
Many of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia could equally apply to those who consider themselves to be "spiritual"...do you receive messages from beyond your own mind? Do you find significance in routine occurrences? Do you believe you create your own reality? Do you think there is an intelligencia behind the government plotting to control the world? Do you believe that your are Divine? Do you have "magical thinking? answer "yes" to any one of those and you are "schizophrenic".
I mean, there are almost 1.5 billion people in India who believe in stuff that those in Western society would classify as being "delusional" ..is the entire population of India schizophrenic?
At least one thing...now I have the label, I need to go and see another doctor to get a prescription for antipsychotics and to undergo treatment to try and stop all my spirituality...and I am willing to give it a go for one reason only..because if all of this still persists even when I am taking the drugs, I will know that it is not caused by "schizophrenia" and if somehow, my love for the Divine goes away, I will also understand that it was never there to begin with.
I do believe that in everybody's life and on their chosen path of Spiritual growth, there comes a time not to let anybody
else's biases affect you...and if you are labeled as "delusional" or even "insane" for doing so, then guess what? That is STILL another bias...it is a bias against not being biased!...until you realise, in the end, that you just can't win.
It is also a message for me to go more deeply and regularly into meditation, because there also comes a time when the external world has nothing left to offer anymore (as if it EVER did).
The whole issue is that my mind CAN understand various cultures going back for the past 10,000 years or so and the only "bias" I hold towards recent events, is that I am able to make various comparisons when they are in no way even comparable...it is why people have "recency bias" because anything that is prior to living memory, is so foreign and alien to them so as to have never existed...call it a form of "selective attention" or "selective memory" and this is more at the level of the subconscious or unconscious mind, so that people have absolutely no conscious control over what they can recall...but there are a very small minority of us who can.
The Khmer culture was totally wiped out in one generation! The fastest way to change a culture, is to change the spoken and written language, so nobody can read any of the ancient books and inscriptions anymore. Anybody who spoke the old language or kept up with the traditional ways was immediately put to death and now, nobody knows what the temple inscriptions say, except for some linguistics professors at the University...nobody knows the ancient arts and crafts..the Khmer Rouge wiped out about 70% of the population...mostly, those over 20... those who would be able to remember stuff from the past.
In the modern era, dictators are not quite as ruthless as Phol Pot was...but the brainwashing is more subtle, insidious and systemic.
Also, in this "post truth era", a lot of skepticism is about on the actual validity of historical texts and documents..nobody trusts anybody or anything anymore, so "live for today" is the motto...and that also fits in very well with the "Spiritual crowd" and their whole "Power of Now" philosophy..is this very moment "recent" enough for you?
It is why nobody gives a damn about the past and the future anymore.