In modern Psychiatry, there is a concept called a Religious delusion or Religious Ideation.
This is when someone reports hearing voices or being called by God and is seen as a part of the presentation of mental illness.
However, it can be seen as any religious experience that impacts normal functioning.
Now I have worked in a Psychiatric Hospital before and have always had trouble with this concept. Often it is easy to see someone is insane, other times it is far harder.
We once saw two brothers who came in with a shared delusion: One said he was Jesus and the other agreed that his brother was. They were floridly Psychotic and clearly not functional.
Another time we had a Bipolar gentleman who claimed he felt God had called upon him to heal the sick and spread Love. He had proceeded to leave his job, explain the situation to his wife and left to do ministry to the downtrodden. Sufficed to say, he did appear a bit manic (very elated) and was brought in by his wife. My superiors then drugged him up and involuntarily admitted him. The thing is, this man was reasonable and I could feel he really loved his fellow man. I would think that if someone was recently called by God, they would very much have presented in this elevated mood that he showed.
The only reason he became a mental patient is because what he did was out of the ordinary, but Jesus told the wealthy man to sell all he had and Follow Him or Peter to leave his nets.
I really felt sorry for the man and it made me much more wary of Psychiatry in general (part of the reason I no longer work in it).
The medicalisation of religious experience is a very dangerous path to trod and I fear that in future any expression of religion may be tarred by the brush of mental illness.
For the problem is that Jesus or many of the great saints, can easily be written off as madmen when they are in fact the opposite, far more sane than the rest of us.
Perhaps the insane are having real religious experiences, they are just unable to process them and the accounts we receive are merely garbled in the process. I can easily see God reaching out more directly to them, as He comes for the sick and the sinner.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
This is when someone reports hearing voices or being called by God and is seen as a part of the presentation of mental illness.
However, it can be seen as any religious experience that impacts normal functioning.
Now I have worked in a Psychiatric Hospital before and have always had trouble with this concept. Often it is easy to see someone is insane, other times it is far harder.
We once saw two brothers who came in with a shared delusion: One said he was Jesus and the other agreed that his brother was. They were floridly Psychotic and clearly not functional.
Another time we had a Bipolar gentleman who claimed he felt God had called upon him to heal the sick and spread Love. He had proceeded to leave his job, explain the situation to his wife and left to do ministry to the downtrodden. Sufficed to say, he did appear a bit manic (very elated) and was brought in by his wife. My superiors then drugged him up and involuntarily admitted him. The thing is, this man was reasonable and I could feel he really loved his fellow man. I would think that if someone was recently called by God, they would very much have presented in this elevated mood that he showed.
The only reason he became a mental patient is because what he did was out of the ordinary, but Jesus told the wealthy man to sell all he had and Follow Him or Peter to leave his nets.
I really felt sorry for the man and it made me much more wary of Psychiatry in general (part of the reason I no longer work in it).
The medicalisation of religious experience is a very dangerous path to trod and I fear that in future any expression of religion may be tarred by the brush of mental illness.
For the problem is that Jesus or many of the great saints, can easily be written off as madmen when they are in fact the opposite, far more sane than the rest of us.
Perhaps the insane are having real religious experiences, they are just unable to process them and the accounts we receive are merely garbled in the process. I can easily see God reaching out more directly to them, as He comes for the sick and the sinner.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?