Spirituality and Insanity?

[Shivani Devi]

It is always, always in the eyes of the 'other'.

People love to be the judge, jury and executioner of their fellow man.

Who is to say a spiritual experience is the product of either an enlightened or a deluded mind? nobody can!

How can this be proven? I mean, when we talk to God it is called 'prayer' but when God talks back, it's called 'schizophrenia'...so, we can only ever have a one-way convo with God then...what's the point of that?

If something is 'unlabeled' people are uncomfy with it because it doesn't have one...so they must attach one straight away to make them feel better about themselves - it helps them sleep better at night believing it - whatever it is...It's all still 'second hand experience' nonetheless.

Spirituality/Insanity is like beauty - it is in the eye of the beholder, which may need strong prescription spectacles to see clearly.

You see my friends, for every person who calls me 'crazy' there will be another person who will say I am 'enlightened' and there are 7.5 Billion opinions I could get on this subject if I had many lives to live, so what does that tell you all? It says that individual human opinions about subjective personal experiences means squat.

I even went to my psychiatrist with "I am hearing things" and the shrink said "as long as they aren't telling you to harm yourself or another person, don't worry about it" so what does that tell you? it told me absolutely nothing.

They say that you are really crazy when you think you are not, but everybody else is...I think this on a regular basis, so that means I must be crazy...however, the adage also goes 'if you think you're crazy, you're not' so I am safe again...yay!

What happens to the 'spiritually insane' then? where do we fit in the picture of crazy vs enlightened? perplexing.

[Within Silence]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

It is always, always in the eyes of the 'other'.

People love to be the judge, jury and executioner of their fellow man.

Who is to say a spiritual experience is the product of either an enlightened or a deluded mind? nobody can!

How can this be proven? I mean, when we talk to God it is called 'prayer' but when God talks back, it's called 'schizophrenia'...so, we can only ever have a one-way convo with God then...what's the point of that?

If something is 'unlabeled' people are uncomfy with it because it doesn't have one...so they must attach one straight away to make them feel better about themselves - it helps them sleep better at night believing it - whatever it is...It's all still 'second hand experience' nonetheless.

Spirituality/Insanity is like beauty - it is in the eye of the beholder, which may need strong prescription spectacles to see clearly.

You see my friends, for every person who calls me 'crazy' there will be another person who will say I am 'enlightened' and there are 7.5 Billion opinions I could get on this subject if I had many lives to live, so what does that tell you all? It says that individual human opinions about subjective personal experiences means squat.

I even went to my psychiatrist with "I am hearing things" and the shrink said "as long as they aren't telling you to harm yourself or another person, don't worry about it" so what does that tell you? it told me absolutely nothing.

They say that you are really crazy when you think you are not, but everybody else is...I think this on a regular basis, so that means I must be crazy...however, the adage also goes 'if you think you're crazy, you're not' so I am safe again...yay!

What happens to the 'spiritually insane' then? where do we fit in the picture of crazy vs enlightened? perplexing.

Exactly! Here is an article on an experiment done by David Rosenhan where he sent 12 "normal/sane" pseudo patience to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states to see if the "expert" doctors could diagnose them correctly and see that they were pseudo patience.......conclusion....all were misdiagnosed and admitted!

All were given a label "schizophrenia" and eventually had to admit that the doctors were right, admit they had a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release! WOW. The average amount of time they stayed in the hospital was 19 days.

Wait it gets better.

Upon Rosenhan releasing the result of this experiment which destroyed the doctors credibility, an offended hospital administration challenged Rosenhan to send more pseudopatients to its facility, whom its staff would then detect, and pick out revealing that they can in fact diagnose correctly. Rosenhan agreed to send them and in the following weeks out of 193 new patients the staff identified 41 as potential pseudopatients, with 19 of them receiving suspicion from at least one psychiatrist and one other staff members. Rosenhan never sent one pseudo patient to the hospital, hence they misdiagnosed all of the "real" patients this time! Wake UP! Admit you don't know for once!

It makes you wonder how many people are wrongly diagnosed in the world today??
I wanted to add, that this is in no way an attempt to demean anyone, or any health issues or any of that, but rather, a wake up call that perhaps our labels and methods of diagnosing these things is flawed, that perhaps we need to take a different look at mental health and begin to ask some different questions before we cast labels and prescribe drugs.


https://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/i...e_Places-1.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

[SerpentSun]

Them darn numbers again....The 9th day of this month, 16th year of this century, 41 replies to this thread before me, Within Silence has 404 posts, and the most recent is about 41 "pseudo-patients", 19 under suspicion, 19 days in the insane asylum....1, 4, 6, 9 all the bloody time....!

EDIT: And then I ended up posting this at 10:19am Chicago time.

Haha maybe I'm crazy.

Probably.

But what does that even mean? My whole family is "bipolar", half diagnosed and half might as well be. Some deny they have issues and live in ignorant misery; some acknowledge their flaws and mistakes, the first step of self-healing. I'm one of the latter. Sure I still go berzerk sometimes, but I try to live life with grace and joy. It's a work in progress.

And you know what doesn't help? Labelling myself with a mental disorder. When I'm "bipolar", I feel defective, like the cookie dropped on the floor. Impossible to be cleaned up or pieced back together again. I'll have no motivation to better myself, because I'll never be "normal" without the toxic drugs that doctors feed people for vacation money. There is no point in existing if I was born broken.

But now I believe the only true "mental problem" is when you make yourself or others miserable. It doesn't matter if you see things or hear voices, as long as those experiences guide you to happiness and kindness. I'm not bipolar. "Imaginary" beings and anger issues aside, I'm not insane. But I am hurt, scared, bitter, lost, confused, and alone. All just challenges I must face to come out a stronger and smarter person.

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Within Silence

Exactly! Here is an article on an experiment done by David Rosenhan where he sent 12 "normal/sane" pseudo patience to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states to see if the "expert" doctors could diagnose them correctly and see that they were pseudo patience.......conclusion....all were misdiagnosed and admitted!

All were given a label "schizophrenia" and eventually had to admit that the doctors were right, admit they had a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release! WOW. The average amount of time they stayed in the hospital was 19 days.

Wait it gets better.

Upon Rosenhan releasing the result of this experiment which destroyed the doctors credibility, an offended hospital administration challenged Rosenhan to send more pseudopatients to its facility, whom its staff would then detect, and pick out revealing that they can in fact diagnose correctly. Rosenhan agreed to send them and in the following weeks out of 193 new patients the staff identified 41 as potential pseudopatients, with 19 of them receiving suspicion from at least one psychiatrist and one other staff members. Rosenhan never sent one pseudo patient to the hospital, hence they misdiagnosed all of the "real" patients this time! Wake UP! Admit you don't know for once!

It makes you wonder how many people are wrongly diagnosed in the world today??
I wanted to add, that this is in no way an attempt to demean anyone, or any health issues or any of that, but rather, a wake up call that perhaps our labels and methods of diagnosing these things is flawed, that perhaps we need to take a different look at mental health and begin to ask some different questions before we cast labels and prescribe drugs.


https://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/i...e_Places-1.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

Thank you. I know what I know about myself, and am comfortable in my own skin, but, sometimes it is helpful to hear that there is even more bunk in the system then I already knew

[Starman]

When writing the original post I was thinking of probably millions, or billions, who were persecuted, called "insane" or
even committed to a mental institution, because they openly shared their own spiritual experience with others; or
even about those who in modern times did not conform to the masses.

The word "normal" does not mean healthy or enlightened; rather it just means what the majority is doing, or how the
majority functions, etc. But there are always exceptions to the rule and those exceptions are often labeled in some
unflattering way by those who believe in conformity to the masses.

There is an undeniable state which could rightfully be called "insanity" and that state may create a danger for that person
or those around that person. Most of the time it is undeniable when a person is a clear and present danger to themselves
or others, and at other times time may allow for philosophical debate.

What is considered "insane" in one society may not be considered insane in another society. They are but labels to help
compensate for what we truly do not understand. Saneness means many different things to different peoples; we all
have our level of mental/emotional comfort or comfort zone; which contracts and expands as we grow.

[Shivani Devi]

It is also due to the huge population explosion.

Back in the 'old days' there were less people and more beds in 'insane asylums' so more people got diagnosed and admitted.

Now, there's only like one bed for every 1000 people who get diagnosed with a serious mental illness...

two was leading to the same destination or stop, one lane is that of spirituality, the lane next to it of insanity so it can happen that one switches lanes and ends up on the other side of the fence, no big deal, so long as one catches it in time, else those two lanes split on the highway and do end up in the psychiatric institute.
getting ahead of people in traffic doesnt mean ur first in life, so watch rather that u stay on the proper lane so that your heart can benefit of it,.. else u go for a jojo in and out of lanes which can trouble even more if you miss the turn to the left or right...

not much said, just keep the speed limit, no shortcuts, and ull get there in time