Spirituality vs Insanity

a reply to: Kashai

I see intuition as an area of intelligence. Or maybe it is intelligence. We don't give the human mind nearly enough credit for its capabilities. I think that is because we don't use them as deeply as we could. We're content with our lot in life. Kind of like zombies. I blame it on the school system though. I was considered gifted so I got to get out of the regular class a few days a week and experience more interesting education.I went to enrichment classes and learned that my mind could do some pretty incredible things if I used it as the tool it was meant to be. I was taught how to put myself in an altered state, how to imagine a ball of light to massage my muscles. I could scare myself and calm myself. I would imagine intuition training would run somewhere along the same lines. I would have to look into it. Her article says she was trained but not what the training entailed.

I believe the big difference is mostly because of the people around such individuals. You channel and no one complains then there's nothing wrong, but if family/close ones around a channeler would contact health officials saying the person is not well then the system becomes active and such an individual might be asked to report to health care officials, invited for a talk or health care workers might go to their homes depending on the urgency.

So it boils down to family and friends and how they perceive your spirituality and you. If they become concerned and voice that to health officials then those might act, otherwise it is just another potential customer.

Also psychiatry is only a few centuries old and is still increasing in power and influence. I believe it's only a few decades since they made it into court rooms declaring people insane or not who might have committed terrible things. This means the judge doesn't listen to their own "inner-judge" and his or her education as a ruler of justice but rather listens to the opinion of trained mental health care professionals knowing he is not one and then might rule according to the opinion of a psychiatrist.

Religion is much older and has more power and influence. Not even convinced atheist psychiatrists would think of rounding up loonies pro-actively in society because they have a page on channeling Jesus or have other wild beliefs which might get them or others into trouble. But the trend is there, psychiatry/science is increasing in power and influence while religion is losing. Right now they don't initiate as much but have to wait for someone to complain or tell about worrysome behaviour of close ones. I bet some psychiatrists out there would love to abolish religion and spirituality altogether and if the trend continues, who knows in a century or so it might actually happen.

a reply to: johnnyjoe1979

It's funny you reminded me of a statement I read saying religious fanaticism is played out in the same areas of the brain as schizophrenia.
On the other hand, and I believe it's true, most people studying psychology are doing so in order to fix themselves.
A conspiracy!
But honestly the biggest problem is to "judge", just because I don't understand someone doesn't necessarily make them crazy. It's mostly a question of how am I thinking and how are my thoughts perceived?
You can't expect someone thinking in tiny boxes to understand someone thinking in colourful swirls...

a reply to: meomy

First off from where I am sitting you sound a completely normal human being. All your concerns show the logic and care you have towards others and figuring things out.

You are a more sensitive person than most and have deeper convictions about helping people. I have read your posts here and I can see you are having certain troubles in your home that are not flights of fancy or delusional. I sense you are experiencing doubt about it and wondering if you are sane and if there is real help offered for this kind of thing that you are going through.

There are layers to the problem. The first is your own sensitivity (a good thing). You use it all the time and may be gifted as far as helping others. I noticed you mention people divulge their problems to you. You also feel more comfortable in your being when helping others like the disabled.

Do you realize how rare that is? How commendable of you. You are also sensitive to spirit activity (the tingling feeling) and the spirit activity associated with your illness. You want to get to the bottom of it, if you are having trouble with spirits or self doubt.

Your and others experience in the house with doors, speakers "flying off the shelf", etc. convince me that there is activity in your home. Your bacterial infection, nightmares and your daughters psychosis lead me to wonder if you are experiencing a little more serious problem than a simple haunting.

I can tell you are looking for some kind of guidance to help you with your predicament which I assume is ongoing if you still live there. I am not the best for helping you to find solutions, I too have doubts about celebrity mediums, pastors at churches and your average mediums, etc. Lots of them are in it for the money and or fame. You could just move if that is an option.

The real people to enlist to get aid for what you are experiencing are more associated with cleansings and are more quiet about their abilities. You may have some of these abilities yourself you know. You may be under more pressure from dark forces because of this.

I would advise others who have simple hauntings to do battle with it, own their space, scold it kind of thing. Not in your case. I would also be careful who's help you elicit in regards to this problem. I am linking a site that has a ton of information on phenomenon, not to scare or mislead you because I don't think you are delusional or psychotic in the least and you can tell the difference between the two when you trust your inner voice of reason.

They have a posters forum and stories by others that may help you to figure out what you are dealing with and how to resolve it. Doing nothing as you have surmised is not the answer.

There is a mod here, FlyersFan and I will direct her to your thread, maybe she can give you some insight as well.

Remember, you aren't crazy and you are on the right path. Be patient, help is on the way.

regards,

intrptr

Link to shadow archives

originally posted by: meomy
Why is one person considered a spiritual leader or having a spiritual experience while another considered to be going through psychosis?

A channeler (this is the people you describe as "spiritual leaders" right?) is willingly putting himself in trance-like state and write down/speaks the information received during this altered state of consciousness.

A psychotic person is suffering an altered consciousness against his will.

That pretty much sums up the biggest difference between both.


That being said, there is a lot more to say about what you posted;

First the literature does seem to indicate that there are indeed neurological and psychological similarities between mystical states and psychotic breaks. And yet we can see a psychotic person is different from a mystic. Why is that so? Because the mystic has his # together. He's controlling the experience to some extent.



Secondly there is a big difference between "spiritual leaders" and "channelers". Spiritual leaders do not necessarily channel or enter trance-like states. They share insights about life, cultivate and cherish wisdom and above all aim for the love of all things, love being seen as a divine characteristic.

Channelers are more of a new-age fad, and are people who dabble in the esoteric but without the mastering of true mystics living ascetic lives and studying for years. The channeler can impress the layman, by parroting self-help advises he gathered during his life, but usually lack the humility necessary to make sure his own ego isn't tainting the message. For the truly spiritual searcher, the messages from channelers usually feel like a mix of half-truths and fantasies, desires and fears from the channeler, depending on his own level of spiritual development. Channelers are usually people who don't really practice what they preach, and their messages can be greatly misleading (stories about alien entities/the end of the world/separation of people between good and bad/...) because they are influenced by their previous readings.

The messages from channelers are not consistent and vary greatly in quality, yet they can be quite popular in this age where people are not satisfied with religions and look for other paths that resonate with their belief. The person who believes in aliens will read channelings comforting his views, the new-agers believing in 2012 will do the same, etc...

Almost all messages from channelers are a reflection of their own psyche, not an insight from the universal consciousness that is called the divine.




To finish this, it is totally possible to be a spiritual person without having experienced a mystical state/spiritual crisis/psychotic break. For some people the path to higher consciousness is done by following the advises of the masters of the past and everything goes smoothly because the ego has been tamed during years of hard work.

For some others, this path is faster, but also more violent and dangerous, and the spiritual growth is obtained during a dramatic experience that can take many forms (NDE, spiritual crisis, psychotic break) but with a similar result in the end IF the experiencer manages to make sense of it and integrate the experience. If he cannot, he can become overwhelmed by the experience, the ego being unable to manage it, and can develop messiah complex/megalomania/schizophrenia/... this is common among people in the occult/cult leaders/people who approach the subject too lightly.



Basically the common point of most spiritual tradition is the taming of the ego, the re-connection with the inner source of consciousness that is (supposedly) shared by all, and the return to the physical world to share with all the benefits of this newfound connection to the universe.

Depending on the way it is approached, on the mental stability of the searcher, on the previous beliefs held and many more parameters, some will become mystics, other will become egomaniac cult leaders and some will simply become psychotic/schizophrenic. But the vast majority will simply continue their path with a new outlook on life, more peace of mind, more love for others, and a troubling inherent wisdom that makes it look like that person has lived much more than his real age.



P.S.: religion/religious people are a whole different topic though because it's the external institutionalized/ritualized evolution of what was once a personal and internal journey. To get a good understanding of "true" Christian faith, "true" Islam, "true" Judaism, you must look into Christian mysticism, Sufism and Jewish mysticism.

Anyone can tell a religious extremist is barely/not at all a spiritual person and doing the opposite of what their religion teach.

The discussion around religions becomes then extremely complicated because some will say religions cause extremism, while reality shows religion can result in both positive and negative influence, again, depending on the stability of the searcher, his willingness to grow and his ability to live according to the principle of his religion.

So, IMHO, the only way to talk serenely about spirituality in religion is by looking at where it is to be found; mystic traditions from said religions.

originally posted by: FlyersFan
- Why aren't celebrity psychics locked up because they are delusional? They are entertainers who take advantage of people who want to connect with family and friends who have died. They may or may not believe what they are hawking, but in the end they are only entertainers. What they do is closer to criminal than delusional - IMHO.

- Also note to the above ... spirits lie. Just because someone says they got information from a spirit doesn't mean that it's a good spirit or that it's a spirit telling the truth. I have put people selling channeling books into three categories - fake selling a book - delusional selling a book - really getting something from a spirit so it's interesting but the spirit can't really be trusted.

In the two points above you seem to both claim spirits don't exist (psychic are delusional), and that spirits can be deceiving.

It's funny because I'm a bit like you. The rational part of me thinks spirits don't exist and that even the best psychic merely have a very good intuition.

Then there is another part in me who did witness things like a psychic finding precise and personal information about deceased relatives from 2 dozen different people in just one séance. Could it have been staged or prepared? Possibly, but unlikely. Many of these people burst in tears when told things only them and the deceased know. Note that it is only one psychic among many, quite humble on top of that, and that there a tons of frauds for each seemingly genuine psychic.

So how do I rationalize this? Are there spirits? I don't know. Is there a dimensionless reality beyond death where time and space don't exist, where everything that is/was/will be exists at the same time, and that psychics tap into? That's another possibility. Is our consciousness merely a part of a vast net, and our brain are actually receptors for a universal consciousness rather than the seat of it? It's also plausible.

But you are correct, people who believe they can simply "talk to the other side" without thinking deception lies there too, or that the "conduit" influences the message much more than he can imagine, they make a big mistake.

a reply to: AgentShillington

If anything science and spirituality are one in the same, although the history says different. Both wanna understand invisible forces, like earthquakes for example, religion would claim it was a god, while science says it tectonic plates, but science still doesn't fully understand why the plate move at all.

Religion has had a hold over science which had distracted it from logical assumptions for a long time. Newton was considered the father of physics, but yet resorted to studying the bible claiming he would of found something.

Priests would of claim to have communed with a higher power and were considered the picture perfect view of health, or blessings and would have the charisma to move crowds. Mystics would said they connected with the other world, and would of been considered conjurers of demons and largely ignored, and the really sick ones would have been coined possessed.

You should separate your definition of spirituality from a nut(devil) and bolt(God) religion of nothing to a fluid understanding before it written down on paper and was said to have pleased the gods...again.

Although I dare say science is a tool for the saints.

originally posted by: Specimen
a reply to: AgentShillington

If anything science and spirituality are one in the same, although the history says different. Both wanna understand invisible forces, like earthquakes for example, religion would claim it was a god, while science says it tectonic plates, but science still doesn't fully understand why the plate move at all.

Just stop. Spirituality and Religion is a failed sense making tool. It fails every time. No one is building an iPhone from schematics found in a holy book of from visions given to them by aliens or demons or gods. Science has proven it's worth time and time again.

Spirituality has yet to give -any- measurable benefit to humanity.

Think about that. Nothing tangible and repeatable has ever occurred as the result of spirituality in the history of our species.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

originally posted by: AgentShillington
Spirituality has yet to give -any- measurable benefit to humanity.

Disagree.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

Her beliefs didn't make the world better, her actions did.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

originally posted by: AgentShillington
Her beliefs didn't make the world better, her actions did.

Yes ... and those actions were based on her beliefs.
And her beliefs were shaped by her spirituality.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

However, I can take the same action she took without having any spiritual inclination at all. The actions weren't spiritual they were corporeal. She didn't use magic to get stuff done.

originally posted by: Specimen
a reply to: AgentShillington

Lol. Sorry your feable mind feels that way.

Instead of attacking me, how about trying to educate me.

Where is an instance that spirituality has been able to confound scientific inquiry?

a reply to: AgentShillington

Lol.
Look, I can tell when someone whose views are heavily based of logic just by reading their arguments. I heard stories of men faith turning away from God working at McDonald, and men of Logic turning to God finding their own answer. I'll give science the credit it deserves, but not so much those who preach it like a religion would saying" my book and way is mightier then they."

I've had my share of weirder stuff then ghosts, although if I tried telling you, I'd lose my ground, and wouldn't proving anything at all to you.

So what are kind of spirituality are you looking to disprove, cause there are whole bunch of types it seems. You got crazed fanaticism, mysticism, all the way to well developed cultivated health practices that are usually very vague.

So what form of spirituality is confounding you, or you don't know your question yet?

a reply to: Specimen

My answer was pretty open as to not leave anything out, so I will simply ask it again and be done with it, because I already know the answer, unless something has happened within the last 2 or 3 days that I am not aware of.

Where is an instance that spirituality has been able to confound scientific inquiry?

a reply to: AgentShillington

O fanaticism.

Try Jesus.

originally posted by: Specimen
a reply to: AgentShillington

O fanaticism.

Try Jesus.

I'm not really sure what that means. Could you elaborate?