dog-on

How about hearing, knowing and seeing God through the scriptures, which is what "Paul" says he did?

gurugeorge

As I said, I think you have to counterbalance that quote against the much larger bunch of stuff where he talks about revelation and direct experience.

Obviously, if he'd had revelations, he would see the same revelations in the sacred texts.

Of course it's conceivable that it was the other way round, but it seems less likely given the weight on the other side of the balance. The visionary stuff could have been put in by later people (Marcion, Gnostics), but one imagines the orthodox would have wiped it out if they could, so the fact that it's there (and the stuff from the Kerygmata Petrou making the quite plain and straightforward admission of "Simon Magus" aka Paul's visionary experience being the root of his gospel) means it must have been well-known, widely-known, to be the origin of Paul's message - i.e. the orthodox couldn't expunge that aspect of Paul, because it was just so well known by Christians everywhere. All they could do was tone it down a bit and hope for the best

i.e. hope that the rest of the weight of their tradition, their bishops' authority gained through the spurious concept of apostolic succession, etc., would be enough to keep people on the straight and narrow. (A few weirdos might take that aspect of Paul seriously, but the rest would just sort of fudge it in their minds as being an example of Paul's weirdness, just because the truth of Jesus' advent on Earth must have been ... er, well, oh-so-wonderful, er, somehow - and it must have all been very different and strange in those days anyway, so "what do we know"?)

gstafleu

As Joseph Campbell put it, "Dreams are private myths, myths are public dreams." In the following I'll go a bit neo-Jungian, those who a priori think this is nonsense can either learn something or ignore the whole thing altogether . For a reference, see Private Myths: Dreams and Dreaming, by Anthony Stevens.

It has been observed for quite a while that (a) content of myths from all over the world share remarkably similar themes, and (b) that these themes recur in dreams. This let Jung to postulate that all human brains share certain cognitive structures he called "archetypes," a concept that was recently picked up by evolutionary psychology, which sees these structures as derived via evolution from the common human origins. In myths, dreams and art these structures manifest themselves as symbols with a cultural overlay.

How easily people have access to these symbols varies from person to person. Some people have dreams in which these archetypes are readily recognizable, for other people they are more hidden. As a waking comparison, some people can interpret art (paintings, poetry) more readily than others.

While the archetypes/symbols are usually accessed in the dream state, they can be called to the front while waking as well, e.g. when experiencing some form of art. Again, how easy this is to do varies from person to person. Problems arise of course if the symbols are so easily accessed that they pop up unexpectedly while awake. If this happens in a visual or auditory manner, these experiences can be described as delusions.

It is also possible to induce the recall of archetypes with various trance-inducing techniques. The Corruption of Reality, by John F. Schumaker describes this in detail.

So, GG, I think you've got it right with your two scales, although to some extent they collapse into one: no doubt the easier it is for someone to recall archetypes, the easier it will be to induce them.

Jiri, if we go by this interpretation then indeed there is no black/white separation between having or not having a certain disorder. I can see, though, how the involuntary popping up of archetypes in the middle of the day could be rather confusing! BTW, that same Anthony Stevens has a book Ariadne's Clue: A Guide to the Symbols of Humankind, which you might find interesting .

Gerard Stafleu

Solo

I agree that the experience on which religions have been founded seems very intense and protracted affair. The interesting thing that does not get noticed very often is how similar in structure the "founder's" inaugurations are. Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Mohammed, all seem to have reached some personal epiphany in mid-life after some very deep dissatisfaction with their lives (though this is symbolical as bondage of Israel's children with Moses). Having reached the pinnacles of ecstasy, they are immediately beset by some evil entity and struggle for the bare object of existence. Moses is attacked by Yahweh, even as he travels to pharaoh. Buddha wrestles with the evil Mara, Jesus and Paul with Satan. Mohammed returns from empowerment on Mount Hira to Khadijah a raving lunatic demanding she hide him from the pursuing devil.
All of these speak of max emotional polarities behind the experience. The lingering depression suddenly, unexpectedly, reverses itself into an euphoric, paradisiac consciousness which culminates in an intense, miraculous bodily transformation, and a sense of ultimate knowledge and unity with God (or universe). A persecutory psychosis inevitably follows, and the guru is chased from his paradise by an angry God, or a malicious god-like entity. A classical inaugural manic cycle for late onset of acute bipolarity.


I believe the evidence strongly suggests that the founders/leaders are "natural" bi-polars (of the shamanic character profile). Buddha receives illumination, just as he renouces ascetic regimen. Thomasian Christians believed that Jesus himself chose those unto whom he would reveal his mysteries. Mohammed held, in a classic Judaic tradition of nabi'im, that his prophetic vocation was God's will, and could not be taught. But most of the religions sooner or later seek to duplicate and control the "religious peak" experience. In Buddhist traditions Gautama taught his disciples the path to Nirvana. Matthean Sermon promises the peak experience ("body full of light") as a reward for faith. Both, Buddhism and Christianity developped strong monastic movements early on. In Islam, the ecstatics arrived later -as sufism - and considerably modified the nature of the religion.

But the religious mainstream seems to follow the same path once the creed is established. The mysteries are locked away. The clergy controls (physically and intellectually) the access to them, exchanging the experience for dogma, rituals and relics. Happens always, because as A.Maslow says the "peakers"(convulsives) and "non-peakers" (obsessionals) among the religious types do not get along. In the battle for supremacy, the "sons of light" always lose. Read Dostoyevski's "Grand Inquisitor" ?

This seems to veer off topic somewhat: first, I do not think there is a categorical distinction between "mystic" an "visionary". Second, a "loss of self" and "depersonalization" involve two very different sets of issues. One can lose oneself in work, sex or meditation without being dp'ed. Dp involves uncertainty of one's own identity, confusional states, delusions of transformation, often the symptoms are usually extended by those of "derealization", emptying of self, being inhabited by a different person, losing a concept of self. The latter then involves impairment of cognitive faculties and will likely be present in more severe episodes of "uncheduled" altered mental states.

You are right; the experiences are not necessarily debilitating or dysfunctional although people may be seen that way during the acute phases of the process. I also believe that this duality (holy vs mad) informs the underlying attitude of the gospels: Mark basically denies that Jesus was mad, i.e. that that perception of him was valid. Unfortunately, he consigns those who would doubt the "holiness" of the manic Spirit to everlasting torture in hell, thus confirming that the medical view has validity. People whose headspace is in good repair would not make those kinds of edicts.

But apart from that: I don't see a reason why one cannot have basically a healthy-minded religion (or other spiritual sport if one's arthritic knees make it unreasonably hard to kneel in church pews). Life is a mystery. To believe that it has purpose supplied by some divinity is no more ridiculous than to believe a monkey typing randonmly on a keyboard, eventually will reproduce War and Peace.

Yup, I think I agree with that.

Jiri

gurugeorge

Well I guess it would go a bit too far off-topic (I know, I know, too late!!!) to get into the minutiae of this question, but suffice to say I think there's a good reason to distinguish two quite different brain phenomena that often go together but need not (e.g. consider how Tibetan Buddhism is both visionary and concerned with enlightenement, whereas something like Zen is concerned only with enlightenment and has hardly any visionary aspect at all).

I agree that there are all these other symptoms present with DP as it is described in DSM-whichever-is-current, but it may be that that category itself is a bit of a catch-all. Suffice to say there are enough similarities between some of the classic descriptions of enlightenment and some of the classic DP symptoms to make it plausible that the same region of the brain is being tickled (I use the technical term of course ).

For the moment, here's reference to a bit of hard evidence to suggest a distinction may be necessary:-

Lehmann, D., P. L. Faber, P. Achermann, D. Jeanmonod, L. R. Gianotti, and D. Pizzagalli. Brain sources of EEG gamma frequency during volitionally meditation induced, altered states of consciousness, and experience of the self. Psychiatry Research, 30 Nov 2001, 108(2):111-21. Author email: dlehmann {AT} key.unizh.ch. PMID: 11738545.

Abstract: Multichannel EEG of an advanced meditator was recorded during four different, repeated meditations. Locations of intracerebral source gravity centers as well as Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA) functional images of the EEG “gamma” (35-44 Hz) frequency band activity differed significantly between meditations. Thus, during volitionally self- initiated, altered states of consciousness that were associated with different subjective meditation states, different brain neuronal populations were active. The brain areas predominantly involved during the self-induced meditation states aiming at visualization (right posterior) and verbalization (left central) agreed with known brain functional neuroanatomy. The brain areas involved in the selfinduced, meditational dissolution and reconstitution of the experience of the self (right fronto-temporal) are discussed in the context of neural substrates implicated in normal self-representation and reality testing, as well as in depersonalization disorders and detachment from self after brain lesions.

Ah, I've just remembered the guy I was thinking of, Richard J. Castillo - wrote an interesting essay "Depersonalization and Meditation", and several others around the same theme. Here's a quote that should give the flavour:

For example, in a depersonalized condition, if the individual holds catastrophic interpretations of this state, such as, "I am going crazy" (one of the diagnostic criteria of a panic attack), then a panic/anxiety response may result. However, if in the same situation the individual interprets the episode with the thought, "I am having a sacred experience", then an entirely different bodily response may develop, characterised by lack of arousal and parasympathetic dominance.

lpetrich

That's being excessively literal-minded.

(Luke on the Virgin Birth...)
I reread it, and I stand by my claim that it's a virgin-birth prophecy. "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"" (Luke 1:34) when the angel Gabriel told her that she will be having Jesus Christ. This is a clear statement of the Virgin Birth, since Mary wondered how she could get pregnant with JC while a virgin.

The "prophetic call" was to be a great religious leader, meaning that he was a sort-of king.

As I said, one has to avoid being too literal-minded about Lord Raglan's profile. It would be good to study how Lord Raglan himself made his evaluations; check out his book The Hero or excerpts from it in In Quest of the Hero (or via: amazon.co.uk). If one applies such extreme literalism to several of Lord Raglan's other examples, they also would score very low. Like if one wishes to split hairs and say that Jesus Christ was not a Real King, one could also say that about Zeus and Moses and others.

And if one was to score Abraham Lincoln and JFK and Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler, as I have done, would they be disqualified as never having been Real Kings?

squiz

The parallels might not always be close, but they are there. In the same paragraph from Price that you quote, he mentions various reputable scholars who have argued away such parallels as being "false", or "later in origin". Price labels such arguments as "false reassurances" and "apologetical special pleading". I find that it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to disagree with this assessment.

No Robots

Why not read for yourself Sandmel's classic "Parallelomania"?

Zeichman

Perhaps I was being a bit unkind on the Lukan birth narrative, but many scholars dispute whether or not Luke imagine Jesus as virginally conceived.

Nice try, but it's still not working. Prophets and kings are usually set in opposition to one another in Israel and so they aren't exactly conflated into the same role. I really don't see how you can do this when there clearly IS a crowning and a throning in the gospels later in the story.

Whoever would use that argument hasn't read the gospels. I'm only contesting when this happened.

Are you implying that prophets have at least semi-autonomous rule over a body of people located within a specific land or having a certain ethnic background?

I didn't think so.

squiz

I would love to. It looks expensive though.