Pravda takes us to another amazing jorney....
those who have read Philip.K. Dick's 'Martial Time Split' propaply knows whats the meaning here...
Schizophrenia helps learn the unknown
Sigmund Freud, an incorrigible materialist, could not but admit the existence of enigmatic and mystical phenomenon of the human psyche. "I would focus on the study of parapsychology if I did not deal with psychoanalysis, which has gained too much publicity now," wrote he in one of his letters dated 1924. Thus he admitted that phenomena of the conscious and subconscious can not be explained by traditional materialism-based science.
The Varieties of Religious Experience, a book by the great American philosopher and psychologist William James, was published in 1902, two years after the publication of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. The Varieties of Religious Experience found its way into the canon of philosophy and psychology. The book was translated into all principal languages. It triggered a heated debate over the genuine nature of the human psyche.
James referred to numerous examples, either historical or experienced by his contemporaries, showing that religious visions and revelations are not the oddities of the twisted mind. On the contrary, they are the real events of the spiritual world and they should be painstakingly studied.
A true picture of the stages of the psyche can be painted using such events, a "stream of consciousness."
Besides, William James cited the results of experiments with nitrous oxide during which people went through the mystical experience. For the first time in academic books, he raised the question of using certain substances as effective catalysts for inducing alternative mental realities.
The death of James in 1910 gave rise to quite a few rumors and legends. The story about the "red pajamas" is the best-known story of the kind. Shortly before passing away, James advised Professor Hawforth that he would communicate with him from the other side. Six months later Hawforth received a letter from Ireland. A man and his wife wrote to him to inform that "William James" had contacted them during a spiritualistic session. The spirit gave them Hawforth's address and asked them to get in touch with the professor so that they could remind him of the story about the "red pajamas." Hawforth racked his brains trying to figure out what pajamas the spirit had talked about. Finally, he unearthed a recollection of him and James buying fancy red pajamas in Paris many years ago.
Meanwhile, the big changes took place in traditional psychiatry. In 1911, Freud's teacher, the prominent Swiss psychiatrist and neurologist Eugen Bleuler suggested that his colleagues stop using the term "early dementia" for a number of mental disorders which were not associated with organic brain disease. On the basis of accumulated material, Bleuler put forth the term "schizophrenia" or "split mind" in Greek. Bleuner also raised the question: Is schizophrenia a disease or a peculiar variety of mental reality? He actually kicked off a heated debate about what should be called the norm and what should be called a mental disorder.
Carl Gustav Jung, one of the greatest reformers of psychology and psychiatry, lived through a series of remarkable experiences in 1916-1917. The experiences are particularly significant since we are talking about a professional psychiatrist with 9 years of clinical practice.
Jung and members of his family were living in a faraway estate on the shore of Lake Basel in 1916-1917. He frequently found himself in the unusual states of consciousness. Ghosts and other disembodied spirits visited him. An astral being was calling on Jung during the winter of 1916-1917. Jung writes in his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections that the being introduced himself as Vasilyd, a Gnostic from Alexandria of the 2nd century.
According to Jung, it was Vasilyd who had dictated him a mystical text to be published later under the title Seven Sermons to the Dead. The book is a masterpiece that defies any interpretation. One is likely to get a mind-blowing experience by merely leafing through the book.
From the point of view of traditional psychiatry, Jung was going through an acute fit of schizophrenia with hallucinations while working on Seven Sermons to the Dead. Taking into account that Jung was one the most prominent psychologist and psychiatrist of the last century, we can assume that officially certified medicine was incapable of providing an explanation of mystical phenomena of mental reality outside the limits of senseless assertions with regard to pathology and disease.
We can also cite the so-called Miracle at Fatima as irrefutable evidence of a total inability of traditional science to explain a series of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three shepherd children at Fatima, a village in central Portugal, from May to October 1917. Pilgrims and onlookers would arrive to Fatima in large numbers to watch the appearance of Our Lady on days predicted by the three girls - Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco. Only the girls could see the apparitions while the rest watched the inexplicable celestial phenomena.
Finally, on October 13, 1917, a crowd of 70 thousand people witnessed a real miracle in the sky, the so-called the Miracle of the Sun. The shining disk was reportedly "dancing across the sky" for some period of time. The sun changed its color several times before eventually rolling down to the horizon. The fragrance and freshness then filled the air over the Fatima valley. Many people later reported significant changes for the better in their health, both physical and mental.
"The miracle in Fatima" is still a mystery. The attempts of traditional psychology and psychiatry to explain the apparitions as an act of collective psychosis look rather preposterous because so many people of various mental states could not have experienced the same olfactory and visual hallucinations.
