William James in his study The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
set himself the task of approaching the matter of religion not from the point of
view of its external forms; its dogmas and institutions, but from those "unique"
mental states that gave rise to it in the first place;
"There can be
no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does
tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your
ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his
country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan. His religion has been
made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed
forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study
this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for those original
experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling
and imitated conduct. These experiences we can only find in individuals for whom
religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever rather. Invariably
they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility. Often they have led a
discordant inner life, and had melancholy during a part of their career. They
have known no measure, been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently
have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of
peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological. Often, moreover,
these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their
religious authority and influence."
So, before we can even begin
looking at the modern era we may well ask who in earlier times bore the
characteristics of today's "mentally ill"? It is a sobering thought after all to
think that there are millions across the world today who have undoubtedly had
original experiences comparable to the founders of the great religions and who
are yet subjected to that invidious form of social ostracism known as a
psychiatric diagnosis. Viewed in this light there doesn't appear to be any
genuine empathy or real understanding of the lives led by these founders (with
whom the vast majority of us claim to identify), for if there was, surely there
would be a greater attempt to understand the emotional turmoil undergone by so
many found in today's psychiatric wards. James, it may be noted, shared Carl
Jung's incredulity at what was been called the biological reductionist approach,
further reflecting;
"Medical materialism seems indeed a good
appellation for the too simple minded system of thought which we are
considering. Medical materialism finishes up St. Paul by calling his vision on
the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an
epiliptic. It snuffs out St. Teresa as an hysteric, St. Francis of Assisi as an
hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent with the shams of his age, and
his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a symptom of a disordered
colon."
For the evolutionary psychologists Price and Stevens the
original impulse to posit the existence of a God or gods or to improve on
pre-existing notions of the aforesaid usually emerge from characters who, they
are careful to mention, share much of the symptomatology of today's mental
patients and 'neurotics'. In their study Prophets, Cults and Madness the
"schizotypal" personality trait, a DSM classification which broadly coincides
with what Freud defined as the paraphrenias, is implicated as the primary motor
force in the splitting of primitive groups and the consequent development of new
societies with a fresh ideological superstructure.
The schizotypal
personality trait is moreover highly suited to this task because of their
supposed "pathogenic" propensity to obsessively dream of new and improved
systems of social organization. In the modern world the same sets of behaviours
are now treated as a threat to the social order because the base from which the
"experients" would have received support - the network of close affiliations and
alliances characteristic of an integrated village and community life - have, in
modern times, been largely eroded.
What the "madmen" (seers, prophets,
shamans) of earlier times seemed to have had as an advantage, prior to the
Enlightenment, and the near universal acceptance of empirical modes of enquiry
to establish "the truth", was the communal acceptance of the presence of a
spiritual realm; a realm which allowed for the existence of the gods,
witchcraft, the supernatural and, if you like, pillars of tortoises.
In
other words, some, like the shamans, had a privileged position with regard to
the generation of meaning and it seems in fact that there has been a remarkable
reversal of fortunes for the bearers of the condition. The body of the experient
has necessarily remained the same, yet the process of signifying inscription has
over the millenia conspired to invert their relative value to society. This
transition or fall from grace invites all manner of interesting questions not
least from the point of view of what we may call social evolutionary
dynamics.
Can a genotype that was not only accepted but thrived from the
earliest stirrings of human consciousness be so summarily dispensed with? To
what extent has the phenotype expression of the psychotic/experient genotype
altered from hunter-gatherer times to the present and what is the exact nature
of the adjustments which the phenotype has felt incumbent to make? How has the
genotype compensated for the radical shift in signifying inscription? This
altered interface between the body of the experient and the wider social whole
may be dramatised as follows;
Ancient World
Your voices
tell us the thoughts of our ancestors, you shall tell us the meaning of our
dreams, perform our rituals, draft our laws, and speak on our behalf to the
gods. Your gifts are vital to the spiritual life of the tribe.
Modern
World
Your voices tell us that you have a diseased brain. There is no
cure, but this illness can be combated through the use of neuroleptics. If you
had the money you could avail of a psychotherapist who can interpret your dreams
and perform a ritual of cathartic cleansing. If you disagree with this diagnosis
you will most probably relapse. In which case, we will have little sympathy,
declare you to 'lack insight' and expose you to 'our law'; indefinite
confinement. There are no gods. From an economic standpoint you are currently
worthless, which reflects the level of interest I'm showing in you, hardly any,
as you can tell. However, you may once again become a productive member of
society. The choice is yours.
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