"One of the puzzling phenomena of psychosis is that of the mystical state preceding or marking the onset of many cases of acute schizophrenia. . . . the specific configurations of these states vary from case to case but they share basic features: marked heightening of sense perception; a feeling of communion with people, the world, God; intense affective response; and blurring of perceptual and conceptual boundaries. First person accounts of this type of psychotic experience are strikingly similar to reports of sensate mystical experience and suggest a similar process. In terms of the bimodal model, the experience is one of a sudden, sharp, and extreme shift to the receptive mode: decreased self-object differentiation, heightened sensory intake, and nonverbal, nonlogical thought process."Both mystical and psychotic states appear to have arisen out of a situation in which the individual has struggled with a desperate problem, 'has come to a complete impasse, and given up hope, abandoned the struggle in despair'."
[Arlen Wolpert, who has experienced purgation or dark night of the soul culminating in mystical union, has added single quotation marks to Deikman's preceding phrase and then makes the following comment about it: "My experience does not verify this particular phrase." Then, going further, Arlen (myself) says that the desperate problem he was dealing with was fear and anxiety during the release of his cramped heart muscles, caused by his childhood trauma. Then, going further, Arlen (myself) states that if he had panicked during the fear and anxiety, he would have had a nervous breakdown and probably would have had some sort of mental illness.]
"For the mystic, what emerges from the 'cloud of unknowing' or the 'dark night of the soul' is an ecstatic union with God or Reality. For the psychotic person, the world rushes in but does not become integrated in the harmony of mystico unio or satori . Instead, he creates a delusion to achieve a partial ordering and control."
A. J. Deikman, Bimodal Consciousness, Archives of General Psychiatry, 25 (Dec 1971), 481-489.
The Primary Purpose of Religion (PPR), which is featured as Key #1 in the Introduction to my General Theory of Religion, explains Deikman's 'puzzling phenomena'.
Indeed, PPR goes to the very core of religion: The Primary Purpose of Religion is to enable a person to successfully deal with the release of a trauma. Here are some of the things that enable a person to be religiously prepared for the release of a trauma: His Mother had taught him to pray early in his childhood; he had been exposed to Sunday school teachings, religious stories, sacred religious texts, etc. These and other very important experiences prepared the young boy or girl for the possibility that one day he or she will experience the release of a trauma. Keep in mind that the religiously prepared person responds to the trauma crisis instinctively, not with his analytical brain or short term memory or will. That is why the religiously prepared person must be taught when he or she is very young. If the religiously prepared experiencer is able to use his or her religious preparedness during the release of trauma, he or she will escape the panic, nervous breakdown, and the psychosis that usually occur during the release or abreaction of a trauma.
Yea,
Though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me;from Psalm 23 of the Bible or the Old Testament
Arlen Wolpert
http://theworld.com/~awolpert/gtr34.html
Draft of November 6,2008
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