S
smcder
Guest
This period combined left-wing political radicalism (one is compelled to use modern terms in order to make comparisons) with messianic expectations. It was a unique phase in American history yet it has been mysteriously occluded from the American imagination. Perhaps because the reversal of evangelical Christianity after the Civil War makes it difficult to conceive that Evangelical Christianity was at one time the opposite of what it is today. What took place during the Second Great Awakening was a popular theological revolution. Christianity was democratized, Christians en masse rejected their Calvinist past: the burden of original sin, the bondage of the will. Instead it affirmed the perfectibility of every person and the freedom to prepare the condition for the realization of the messianic ideal. This was a mass based theological revolution—a paradigm shift (Farber,Ch.15). But the Christian revolution had no impact upon Christians in the South—they were too corrupted by slave-owning, even though most could not afford slaves.
Metaphorically speaking, after the Civil War Satan took over evangelical Christianity, and wiped out the memory of its progressive past. In the Gospels. Jesus had made his followers pledge to practice forgiveness, non-violence, and universal love. Post-war evangelical “Christianity” preached religious exclusivism, national chauvinism, guns and vengeance; it cultivated a perverse romance with the military, and the American killing machine. Tragically as a result of the reversal of Christianity after the Civil War, progressive political activism was sundered from the kind of messianic vision that had such a galvanizing effect on political and social activism in the first half of the 19th century.
This is precisely why I argue that the messianic sensibility of the mad has such a potentially transformative power—it could reintroduce the messianic dimension into political activism.
Messianic themes emerged spontaneously in the counter-culture of the 1960s—in the music, in the political manifestos– but they were isolated images: The metanarratives that dominated were primarily secular, unlike the 2nd Great Awakening when Christianity was still a revolutionary force. We need to revive a messianic-redemptive metanarrative.
...
Was this woman mad or is this a messianic call? Both. What if Mad Pride became a force for encouraging people like Serine to become prophets? I wrote her immediately in 2007.
I told her I was a renegade psychologist and that I believed she was right– God had chosen her for a mission. I don’t think she believed I was a psychologist. She asked me if I was also a bipolar psychotic. I said I had never been locked up or labeled psychotic. She wrote “The reason I asked if you had a mental illness is because of your ideas. I will continue thinking you do [have a mental illness] and if what you teach is correct it should be considered a good thing.” (I think she meant my teaching would be a good thing despite my mental illness.) I was amused that she thought I was “psychotic.” I tried to disabuse her of the idea of being cured of her “mental illness,” but the pressure from her parents and her psychiatrist was too great.
... and this is what I ran into again and again in working as a mental health advocate ... on the one hand you react that it's extremely irresponsible for a professional to discourage someone from being "cured" on the other hand, when you look at the cures available ... as a friend of mine put it, Depakote (mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder, also an anti-spasmodic used to treat epilepsy - why does it work for bipolar? something about "kindling" in the brain ... mutter, mutter, growing indistinct ... but it comes down to is advanced sedation ... but my friend says it makes you "fat, lazy and stupid" - when the symptoms get bad enough she seeks treatment and then when the side effects get bad enough she gets off the meds ... therefore, the meds do not work ... what I mean is, when you hear someone say that the mentally ill have a problem with "compliance" - challenge the person making the statement as to whether they would take medication that causes enormous weight gain, metabolic disorder, tremors and extremely unpleasant subjective states? ... meds are generally engineered to make those who take them more compliant with treatment, i.e. more likely to show up each week to the doctor's office (ok, that's a joke, nobody in Arkansas gets to see a psychiatrist once a week) ... part of what makes a medication effective is that the patient will actually take it ... but pharmacology doesn't focus on this ... what other product gets to say "it would work if only people would use it" and not have that effect sales?
"There are thousands of people like Serine — they become incorporated into the psychiatric metanarrative and they learn to view their messianic calling as a symptom of mental illness. When I said to her “Serine, you are called by God” that was evidence to her that I too was mentally ill. I became incorporated also into the psychiatric metanarrative she had internalized. It was a vicious cycle. I might have been more successful had she lived near me and I met her in person. Or if we had a Mad Pride organization based on a messianic narrative."
... scary?
"Serine also had the two other traits of the messianic sensibility. She was aware of the evil in the world—and the fact that it manifests itself socially, not just in the individual psyche. She wrote me “Do you know only 15% of humanity have a roof over their head, food, clothing, and a violence free life?"
http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/human-conditions.php
"What we should be doing is to free our people from the tragedies of the world. Jesus’ victory was partial. He did not defeat Satan on earth.” She’s right, I thought! Her perspective was what Christian theologians call an “inaugurated eschatology.” From this perspective Jesus did defeat evil but his victory was partial. It was up to the Church to carry on his mission since his victory has not been consummated. But in my experience the Church—any of the major Churches– has no interest in doing this. It had accommodated itself to the world. We can’t depend upon the Church. “We are and always have been the very Messiah we have been waiting for.” (Levy, pp138-9)"
"Serine beautifully described the final goal. “When the time comes, our eyes and hearts will be opened, and we will see what is Love, our hearts will be filled with fire, to light that darkness, and the 2 commandments (love God above all things) how could we not with a direction relationship with Him!! And love your neighbors as ourselves (we will have no more war) I was being told to gather earth children, and all that, there was many people around who were in on the conversation, we were speaking telepathically, as they were in different countries, and spread all over North America. Jesus is coming to establish his kingdom, and I think there will be a huge awakening. I think that we will no longer feel pain, and no longer feel any evil thought, or disappointment, we will be able to speak to all things. We will do different things on earth, different desires will come into play, God’s desire. The time will come, I tell you, we will be aware of the most prominent parts of ourselves, our spirit, and we will know God, the spirit that flows through all things.”
(Although Serine’s panentheistic (yes the word is spelled correctly) theology was similar to many Christian mystics I had read I knew in her case it was derived exclusively from her own experiences."
I'm not sure where the author thinks the Christian mystics got their theology?
"Serine was clearly mad:
She was in an altered -and inspired– state of consciousness.
And yet had she said something like this during the 2nd Great Awakening, she would have seemed perfectly “normal” because many people during that period were “manic” or mad. Here we have a perfect illustration that “mania” can become a statistically normal characteristic, and that further it can be socially adaptive.
But to talk about being chosen to inaugurate the Kingdom of God to a psychiatrist in America in 2006 was not socially adaptive. She was alone in a small town—although the Internet mitigated her isolation. Her experiences of the divine constellated complementary experiences of the demonic—these terrified her. The demonic is a reality, otherwise the desire for money would not prevent our leaders from immediately restricting the burning of fossil fuels which threatens to destroy humanity. Although there were a few others on TIP forum who told Serine they had similar experiences, I was the only person trying to present her with a messianic-redemptive metanarrative that valorized her experiences. (I was the only person who wrote her privately.) But I was on the other side of the continent. I was not able by myself to empower Serine. The mental health system was the only organization offering to help her allay her anxieties. After holding out, she succumbed: She took psychiatric drugs and suppressed her spiritual visions."
... so the better angels of our nature are often expressed in madness, in these "altered" states ... ?
and nowadays you'd have to be "crazy" to challenge the dominant mood of cynicism or to take on aggressive capitalism, this is why language around mental illness is so critical, we haven't yet taken the idea of psychiatrically imprisoning radical voices to the extent that many countries have ... but don't think people aren't tying - this is why commitment laws, coercive treatment, these issues are important to all of us - to the day when we might want to speak against a powerful majority
... when I talked to parents who asked me why it was so hard to commit their obviously ill child, I told them that this was a safe-guard for all of our civil rights ... something to keep in mind in light of the discussion of the role of mental illness in mass shooting events ... I don't think we should assume that people have to be mad to do some of these things, not at all ... see Grossman's On Killing for another narrative ...
Metaphorically speaking, after the Civil War Satan took over evangelical Christianity, and wiped out the memory of its progressive past. In the Gospels. Jesus had made his followers pledge to practice forgiveness, non-violence, and universal love. Post-war evangelical “Christianity” preached religious exclusivism, national chauvinism, guns and vengeance; it cultivated a perverse romance with the military, and the American killing machine. Tragically as a result of the reversal of Christianity after the Civil War, progressive political activism was sundered from the kind of messianic vision that had such a galvanizing effect on political and social activism in the first half of the 19th century.
This is precisely why I argue that the messianic sensibility of the mad has such a potentially transformative power—it could reintroduce the messianic dimension into political activism.
Messianic themes emerged spontaneously in the counter-culture of the 1960s—in the music, in the political manifestos– but they were isolated images: The metanarratives that dominated were primarily secular, unlike the 2nd Great Awakening when Christianity was still a revolutionary force. We need to revive a messianic-redemptive metanarrative.
...
Was this woman mad or is this a messianic call? Both. What if Mad Pride became a force for encouraging people like Serine to become prophets? I wrote her immediately in 2007.
I told her I was a renegade psychologist and that I believed she was right– God had chosen her for a mission. I don’t think she believed I was a psychologist. She asked me if I was also a bipolar psychotic. I said I had never been locked up or labeled psychotic. She wrote “The reason I asked if you had a mental illness is because of your ideas. I will continue thinking you do [have a mental illness] and if what you teach is correct it should be considered a good thing.” (I think she meant my teaching would be a good thing despite my mental illness.) I was amused that she thought I was “psychotic.” I tried to disabuse her of the idea of being cured of her “mental illness,” but the pressure from her parents and her psychiatrist was too great.
... and this is what I ran into again and again in working as a mental health advocate ... on the one hand you react that it's extremely irresponsible for a professional to discourage someone from being "cured" on the other hand, when you look at the cures available ... as a friend of mine put it, Depakote (mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder, also an anti-spasmodic used to treat epilepsy - why does it work for bipolar? something about "kindling" in the brain ... mutter, mutter, growing indistinct ... but it comes down to is advanced sedation ... but my friend says it makes you "fat, lazy and stupid" - when the symptoms get bad enough she seeks treatment and then when the side effects get bad enough she gets off the meds ... therefore, the meds do not work ... what I mean is, when you hear someone say that the mentally ill have a problem with "compliance" - challenge the person making the statement as to whether they would take medication that causes enormous weight gain, metabolic disorder, tremors and extremely unpleasant subjective states? ... meds are generally engineered to make those who take them more compliant with treatment, i.e. more likely to show up each week to the doctor's office (ok, that's a joke, nobody in Arkansas gets to see a psychiatrist once a week) ... part of what makes a medication effective is that the patient will actually take it ... but pharmacology doesn't focus on this ... what other product gets to say "it would work if only people would use it" and not have that effect sales?
"There are thousands of people like Serine — they become incorporated into the psychiatric metanarrative and they learn to view their messianic calling as a symptom of mental illness. When I said to her “Serine, you are called by God” that was evidence to her that I too was mentally ill. I became incorporated also into the psychiatric metanarrative she had internalized. It was a vicious cycle. I might have been more successful had she lived near me and I met her in person. Or if we had a Mad Pride organization based on a messianic narrative."
... scary?
"Serine also had the two other traits of the messianic sensibility. She was aware of the evil in the world—and the fact that it manifests itself socially, not just in the individual psyche. She wrote me “Do you know only 15% of humanity have a roof over their head, food, clothing, and a violence free life?"
http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/human-conditions.php
"What we should be doing is to free our people from the tragedies of the world. Jesus’ victory was partial. He did not defeat Satan on earth.” She’s right, I thought! Her perspective was what Christian theologians call an “inaugurated eschatology.” From this perspective Jesus did defeat evil but his victory was partial. It was up to the Church to carry on his mission since his victory has not been consummated. But in my experience the Church—any of the major Churches– has no interest in doing this. It had accommodated itself to the world. We can’t depend upon the Church. “We are and always have been the very Messiah we have been waiting for.” (Levy, pp138-9)"
"Serine beautifully described the final goal. “When the time comes, our eyes and hearts will be opened, and we will see what is Love, our hearts will be filled with fire, to light that darkness, and the 2 commandments (love God above all things) how could we not with a direction relationship with Him!! And love your neighbors as ourselves (we will have no more war) I was being told to gather earth children, and all that, there was many people around who were in on the conversation, we were speaking telepathically, as they were in different countries, and spread all over North America. Jesus is coming to establish his kingdom, and I think there will be a huge awakening. I think that we will no longer feel pain, and no longer feel any evil thought, or disappointment, we will be able to speak to all things. We will do different things on earth, different desires will come into play, God’s desire. The time will come, I tell you, we will be aware of the most prominent parts of ourselves, our spirit, and we will know God, the spirit that flows through all things.”
(Although Serine’s panentheistic (yes the word is spelled correctly) theology was similar to many Christian mystics I had read I knew in her case it was derived exclusively from her own experiences."
I'm not sure where the author thinks the Christian mystics got their theology?
"Serine was clearly mad:
She was in an altered -and inspired– state of consciousness.
And yet had she said something like this during the 2nd Great Awakening, she would have seemed perfectly “normal” because many people during that period were “manic” or mad. Here we have a perfect illustration that “mania” can become a statistically normal characteristic, and that further it can be socially adaptive.
But to talk about being chosen to inaugurate the Kingdom of God to a psychiatrist in America in 2006 was not socially adaptive. She was alone in a small town—although the Internet mitigated her isolation. Her experiences of the divine constellated complementary experiences of the demonic—these terrified her. The demonic is a reality, otherwise the desire for money would not prevent our leaders from immediately restricting the burning of fossil fuels which threatens to destroy humanity. Although there were a few others on TIP forum who told Serine they had similar experiences, I was the only person trying to present her with a messianic-redemptive metanarrative that valorized her experiences. (I was the only person who wrote her privately.) But I was on the other side of the continent. I was not able by myself to empower Serine. The mental health system was the only organization offering to help her allay her anxieties. After holding out, she succumbed: She took psychiatric drugs and suppressed her spiritual visions."
... so the better angels of our nature are often expressed in madness, in these "altered" states ... ?
and nowadays you'd have to be "crazy" to challenge the dominant mood of cynicism or to take on aggressive capitalism, this is why language around mental illness is so critical, we haven't yet taken the idea of psychiatrically imprisoning radical voices to the extent that many countries have ... but don't think people aren't tying - this is why commitment laws, coercive treatment, these issues are important to all of us - to the day when we might want to speak against a powerful majority
... when I talked to parents who asked me why it was so hard to commit their obviously ill child, I told them that this was a safe-guard for all of our civil rights ... something to keep in mind in light of the discussion of the role of mental illness in mass shooting events ... I don't think we should assume that people have to be mad to do some of these things, not at all ... see Grossman's On Killing for another narrative ...
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