exerience and description of the psychosis or madness experienced when the sense of all meanings of life, God and Spirituality collapses. Includes reference to psychotherapy practice
Psychosis -- Forsaken by God
It is written that Transpersonal Psychology, spirituality and other therapies can take one to the doorway .. so the question I would ask here is quite simply
if you, yourself, have not been to or through this mysterious doorway, how do you know what is on the other side and, how can you guide another to (or through) the doorway.
the collapse of the spiritual
The deepest psychosis arises when The Spirit or, Life IT-self (Kundalini)starts to move through the body and the Sovereign Personality of the Linear Thinking Mind starts to lose control. In ego-death, there are no words.
the confrontation with the conflicting dichotomy of a belief structure (ego) that has been conditioned from childhood - this External God Being and defined Spirituality which provides their "guiding Light" and the answer to all of their prayers - and what seems the direct opposite, a place of unfeeling, unseeing emptiness and blackness deep within their own being - something they could quite easily have been brought up to believe is the embodiment of Evil.
Psychosis
For those who have experienced this ego death and been through this doorway, there is the complete and spontaneous collapse, a dissolution of ALL belief structure and, the collapse of all sense of external value - including spirituality as it is defined.
The difficulty faced by conventional learned Transpersonal psychologist or therapist in dealing with this psychosis is that, like all fields of Psychology, Transpersonal is ultimately founded on the words of Descartes (considered by many to be a father of Western Psychology) - most commonly remembered from the words "I Think, therefore I Am".
The Shaman
For those members of the Psychological and Religious Community who have not themselves been through this experience, a lack of understanding except through the text books defines the client's psychosis as either a madness, or evil .. and drugs form a viable alternative for the therapist who has no other answer for one who proclaims loudly "I AM God".
And yet, the absolute knowing of the client is that it is both the Psychological and Religious community that is mad or manipulative.
From this "other side" in full conscious awareness through all of the senses of the Transpersonal Self, one is faced with ONE choice - either the acceptance that this psychosis is true Sanity and the alternative is Death.
This is the realm of The Shaman - and the Essence of all Spirituality beyond words. It has no-thing to do with any religious doctrine of "God".
Forsaken by God
All belief structures are personal and form the basis for a personality.
Descartes "Philosophy of Life" could have been a direct translation of Roman Catholic Doctrine - which is not surprising as he was educated through the Jesuit Training System.
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THE POINT that I am making here is quite simply that if our Psychology, the understanding and practice of our Psychotherapy and, our definition of Psychosis is based on a Core Religious Doctrine, (sometimes called Transpersonal Spirituality) how can it prepare one for the ultimate Transpersonal, Transcendent or Spiritual experience.
When this happens, one experiences the collapse of both learned Spiritual Values and, the meaning and application of this doctrine in the language it is taught .. a Transcendent Experience epitomized by the words of Jesus when, on the Cross, he cried out "My God, why hast thou forsaken me"
Psychosis arises at this point, because in the absence of understanding, all forms of paranoia and selfdefence conditionings start to crowd in - including the fear for one's own survival - or, at the very least the trepidation that one is committing a Blasphemy.
Drugs, Self Defence and Suicide
Religion, Psychotherapy and Spirituality are personality addictions.
For many who have experienced the psychosis of the collapse of personality (otherwise known as the direct experience of Transpersonal Consciousness), conventional or mind based intellectual therapy (including linear Transpersonal Therapy) holds no answers, survival has no value and drugs can become the vehicle of self acceptance and rationality in the absence of other methods of understanding.
For others who have had this experience, the therapeutic application of Religion, Psychotherapy and Spirituality results in death - a suicide to get away from what are known untruths including the belief that one can only have this sort of Realization After Death.
Rationality
As I look back over my personal experiences and the therapy I was told that I needed .. the sorts of things I see so often echoed on web sites and discussion lists .. the therapy and spirituality available to most replaces one psychosis with another as an addictive ego repair.
Perhaps, I was one of the lucky ones .. the story of the man who allowed me to come to grips with the transition and made "walking between the worlds of reality and illusion" a safe place to be is presented in various notebooks through this site ..
My own rationality came through understanding that myth and legend - the stories of Religion and Spirituality were nothing more than metaphors to illusions, not a truth or doctrine to be accepted as a code for living.
The world's great Spiritual Texts are the attempts of other authors to describe their own Transpersonal Experiences in the words and language of the time and society .. but unfortunately they have become doctrine.
Here is where some of the recent advances in Neuroscience and some of the research in Parapsychology has come up with some words and measurements that can be used to describe the experience - to satisfy the Cartesian Mind's need for some legitimacy until it finds its own sense of peace beyond all understanding..
Then, at least, mind is no longer afraid of the noise of the silence.
self acceptance
I wonder how many would seek the Ultimate Spiritual (or Enlightenment) Experience in the full knowledge that it is defined Religiously as Evil and Psychologically as Psychosis. The literal translation of the word 'shaman' is "the mad one"
If one accepts and understands the Consciousness of the Transpersonal Self (either in self or other) as a legitimate Evolution in Consciousness, then the work of the Therapeutos or Priest-Healer is one of Repair of the damage done by past Religious Experience and the Psychology profession so that the Transpersonal Self can find rational expression in its Be-ingness within and, in spite of all diagnosis .. and in words that do not carry the definitions or imprints of Religious Doctrine.
It is from this Conscious Sentience (or Enlightened State) that the wounded healer is no longer wounded.
If you call yourself a therapist, what would your reaction be if you were faced with a client to whom your every deep and inner-most secret glowed like a neon advertising billboard .. for this is just one attribute of the Psychosis of the Realization of the Transpersonal Self that exists beyond and, as the synthesis of all personalities - is defined and yet indefinable .. at the same time, both the question and the answer known but unspeakable .. the Union of the Seeker, the Sought-For and the Act of seeking.
I would ask those who have a reaction to what I have written here, what is it within you that you are in need of defending .. for this need to defend that which is undefendable is the root of dis-ease .. and psychosis.
Beyond - is the real-isation that I Am, thereby thoughts move through my awareness -- there is none higher
-- and this is the transliteration of the First Commandment