THE PRESENCE OF SPIRITS IN MADNESS
PROLOGUE
ROY VINCENT
WRITES: I
have a number of friends who are Buddhist.
The main centre of their activity is in a former priory not far from
where I live. At one time, I was a
frequent visitor to the centre and became acquainted with several others of the
permanent residents. It was one of the
latter who, quite unexpectedly, rang one day and asked if I would help out at
the forthcoming summer fête – possibly in the café. Surprised at having been asked, I nevertheless
agreed, and turned up on the appointed day.
There was a wide range of stalls, all
piled high and waiting for the influx of visitors. I am always drawn to books and made a beeline
for the bookstall. It was loaded – the
reason being that the resident Lama had emptied the library, having decreed
that only his own writing would be studied in future. Among this bonanza, a small book caught my
eye – the title was intriguing, and it was cheap! Called The
Presence of Other Worlds, it joined the homemade bread and other
goodies in my car while I immersed my hands in the washing-up in the café.
It was not until I was home and in bed
that night that I took a good look at the book, and was immediately grabbed by
the title of one of the chapters - the
one just below. I read and read, and it
was only the fact that it was now past midnight that I prevented myself from
ringing a number of friends to tell them – what? To tell them that what I was reading mirrored
my own experiences of voice hearing and spiritual intrusion so accurately that
I just wanted to shout out loud!
The author writes as a Clinical Psychologist,
and thus with the viewpoint of a mental health professional, and so, naturally,
he refers to his voice-hearers as ‘patients’, and uses such terms as
‘psychotic’, ‘schizophrenic’, ‘delusions’, ‘hallucinations’, and it was in this
respect that I had my very minor intellectual dispute with him.
As
you will read yourself, he became completely convinced that the origin of the
voices and other manifestations experienced by the individuals was intrusion by
spiritual entities. If this is so – and
I agree completely with him – surely then the ‘entities’ are real, and,
logically, not ‘delusions’ nor ‘hallucinations’, and the individuals are not ‘psychotic’,
but ‘disturbed’.
I know that this might appear to be
semantic nit picking, but it reveals our different emphasis. Wilson
Van Dusen had the aim of demonstrating that the experiences of the
individuals paralleled those of his ‘hero’ Emmanuel Swedenborg, and he did not,
in his book, apply his findings to their subsequent treatment. My whole purpose in writing my own book and
these other articles that I publish on my Blog and elsewhere, is to plead for
the knowledge of spiritual intrusion to be accepted, and with the acceptance to
create an entirely different strategy of support for voice hearers.
The Presence of Spirits in Madness
by
Wilson Van Dusen
(Extract
from his book The Presence of Other Worlds)
By
an extraordinary series of circumstances I seem to have found a confirmation of
one of Emanuel Swedenborg's more unusual findings: that man's life involves an
interaction with a hierarchy of spirits. This interaction is normally not conscious,
but perhaps in some cases of mental illness it has become conscious.
For sixteen years I worked as a clinical
psychologist in one of the country's better mental hospitals (Mendocino State
Hospital , Ukiah , California
Mentally ill persons are out
of sorts with their environment
and need supervision, care, or restraint for their protection or the welfare of others. If they are very disturbed or apparently
responding to invisible others, the staff may decide they are
hallucinating. Most hallucinating people
conceal this experience because they
know it is unusual and may indicate
madness. At best our patients would tell
us of a few striking
hallucinations from the past. An
unusually cooperative patient led me to ask if I
could talk directly with her hallucinations. I did, and she gave me their immediate response. I had stumbled upon a way to get a much
richer picture of the inner world of
hallucinations.
I began to look for
patients who could distinguish between their own thoughts and the things heard and seen. Some of the more deteriorated psychotics
couldn't distinguish between
themselves and hallucinations any longer.
The ego had been overrun
with alien forces so that there were no clear distinctions. My patients were in relatively good condition. The
patients were told that I simply wanted to get as accurate a description of their experiences as possible.
I held out no hope for recovery or special reward. It soon became apparent that many were embarrassed by what they saw and heard.
Also, they knew their experiences were not shared by others, and some were even concerned that their
reputations would suffer if they
revealed the obscene nature of their voices. It took some care to make the patients
comfortable enough to reveal their
experience honestly.
A further complication was that the voices were sometimes frightened of me, and themselves needed reassurance. They felt that a psychologist might want to kill them, which was, in a
sense, true! I struck up a relationship with both the patient and the persons he saw and heard.
I would question these other persons directly, and instructed the patient to give a word-for-word
account of what the voices answered or what was seen. In this way I could hold
long dialogues with a patient's hallucinations
and record both my questions and their answers. My method was that of
phenomenology. My only purpose was to
describe the patient's experiences as accurately as possible. The reader may notice
I treat the hallucinations as
realities — that is what they are to the patient. My acting
this way was part of my attempt to get as close as possible to the experience as these people felt
it. I would work with a patient for as little as one hour or as long
as several months of inquiry, where
the hallucinated world was complex
enough.
Why should one believe what
these patients report? The patients cooperated with me only because I was honestly trying
to understand their experiences. Most of
my subjects seemed fairly sensible except
for their hallucinations, which invaded and interfered with their
lives. On several occasions, I talked with hallucinations that the patient
himself did not really
understand. This was especially true
when I dealt with what will be
described as the higher-order hallucinations, which can be symbolically rich
beyond the patient's own understanding.
There was great consistency in what was reported independently by
different patients. I have no reason to
doubt they were reporting real experiences.
They seemed to be honest people as
puzzled as I was to explain what was
happening to them. The differences in
the experiences of schizophrenics, alcoholics, the brain-damaged, and senile were not as striking as the similarities.
One consistent finding was
that patients felt they had contact with another world or
order of beings. Most thought these
other persons were living. All objected to the term "hallucination." Each coined
his own term, such as the Other
Order, the Eavesdroppers, air phone, etc. For most
individuals the hallucinations came on suddenly. One
woman was working in the garden when an unseen man addressed her.
Another man described sudden loud noises and voices he heard while riding in a bus. Most were frightened, and adjusted with difficulty to this new
experience. All the patients described voices as having the
quality of a real voice, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, than normal
voices.
The experience they described was quite unlike thoughts or fantasies: when things are seen they appear
fully real. For instance, a patient
described being awakened one night
by air force officers calling him to the service of his country. He got up and was dressing when he noticed
their insignia wasn't quite right, then
their faces altered. With this, he
knew they were of the Other Order and struck one hard in the face. He hit the wall and
injured his hand. He could not
distinguish them from reality until he noticed the insignia. One woman saw Egypt
In my dialogues with patients,
I learned of two orders of experience,
borrowing from the voices themselves, called the higher and the lower order. Lower-order voices are similar to
drunken bums at a bar who like to tease and torment just for the fun of it.
They suggest lewd acts and then scold the patient for considering them.
They find a weak point of conscience
and work on it interminably. For instance,
one man heard voices teasing him for
three years over a ten-cent debt he
had already paid. They call the patient
every conceivable name, suggest every lewd act, steal memories or ideas right out of consciousness, threaten death, and
work on the patient's credibility in
every way. For instance, they brag that they will produce some disaster on the
morrow and then claim honour for one in the daily paper. They suggest
foolish acts, such as to raise your right hand in the air and stay that way, and tease if he does it and threaten him if he
doesn't. The lower order can work for a
long time to possess some part of the patient's body. Several worked on one patient's ear and he seemed to grow deafer. One voice worked two years to capture a patient's eye, which went
visibly out of alignment.
Many patients have heard loud and clear
voices plotting their death for weeks on end,
an apparently nerve-wracking experience.
One patient saw a noose around his neck
that was tied to "I don't know what," while voices plotted his
death by hanging. They threaten pain and
can cause felt pain as a way of enforcing
their power. The most devastating experience of all is to be shouted at
constantly by dozens of voices. When this occurred, the patient became grossly disturbed and had to be sedated. The vocabulary and range of ideas of
the lower order is limited, but they have a persistent
will to destroy. They invade every nook
and cranny of privacy, work on every
weakness and belief, claim awesome
powers, lie, make promises, and then undermine the patient's will. They never have a personal identity, though they accept most names or identities given
them. They either conceal or have no awareness of personal memories.
Though they claim to be separate identities, they will reveal no
detail that might help to trace them as separate individuals. Their voice quality can change or shift, leaving
the patient quite confused as to who might
be speaking.
When identified as some
friend known to the patient, they can assume this voice quality perfectly. For convenience many patients call them by nicknames, such as
"Fred," "The Doctor," or "The
Old-timer." I've heard it said by
the higher-order voices that the purpose of the lower order is to illuminate all of the person's weaknesses. They do that admirably and with infinite
patience. To make matters worse they
hold out promises to patients and even give helpful-sounding advice,
only to catch the patient in some weakness.
Even with the patient's help, I found
the lower order difficult to relate
to because of their disdain for me as well as the patient. The
limited vocabulary and range of ideas of the lower order is striking.
A few ideas can be repeated endlessly.
One voice just said
"hey" for months while the patient tried to figure out whether "hey" or
"hay" was meant. Even when I was supposedly speaking to an engineer that a
woman heard, the engineer was unable
to do any more arithmetic than
simple sums and multiplication the woman had memorized. The lower-order voices seem incapable of
sequential reasoning. Though they often
claim to be in some distant city, they cannot report more than the patient
sees, hears, or remembers. They seem imprisoned in the lowest level of
the patient's mind, giving no real
evidence of a personal world or of any higher-order thinking or experiencing.
All of the lower order are
irreligious or anti-religious. Some actively interfered with the patients' religious
practices. Most patients considered them as ordinary living people, though
to one patient they appeared as
conventional devils and referred
to themselves as demons. In a few
instances, they referred to
themselves as from hell. Occasionally
they would speak through the patient so that
the patient's voice and speech would be
directly those of the voices. Sometimes
they acted through the patient. One of my female patients was found going out
the hospital gate arguing loudly with her male voice that she didn't want to leave, but he was insisting. Like many
others, this particular hallucination claimed to be Jesus Christ, but his bragging and
argumentativeness rather gave him away
as of the lower order. Sometimes the
lower order is embedded in physical concerns, as in the case of a lady
who was tormented by experimenters painfully treating her joints to prevent
arthritis. She held out hope that they were helping her; though it was apparent to any
onlooker, they had all but destroyed
her life as a free and intelligent person.
In direct contrast stand the
rarer higher-order hallucinations. In quantity, they make up perhaps a fifth or
less of the patients' experiences. This
contrast may be illustrated by the experience
of one man. He had heard the lower order arguing for a long while about
how they would murder him. He also had a light come to him at night, like the
sun. He knew it was a different order because the light respected
his freedom and would withdraw if it
frightened him. In contrast, the lower order worked against his will and would
attack if it could sense fear in
him. This rarer higher order seldom
speaks, whereas the lower order can talk endlessly. The higher order is much more likely
to be symbolic, religious, supportive,
genuinely instructive; it can communicate directly with the inner feelings of the patient. It is similar to Jung's archetypes, whereas the lower order is
like Freud's id.
I've
learned to help the patient approach the higher order because of its great power to broaden the individual's values. When the man was encouraged to approach
his friendly sun, he entered a world of powerful numinous experiences, in some ways more frightening than the murderers who
plotted his death. In one scene, he found himself at the bottom
of a long corridor with doors at the
end behind which raged the powers of
hell. He was about to let out these
powers when a very powerful and impressive
Christ like figure appeared and by direct mind-to-mind communication counselled
him to leave the doors closed and follow him into other experiences that were therapeutic for him.
In another instance, the higher
order appeared to a man as a lovely woman who entertained
him while showing him thousands of symbols.
Though the patient was a high
school-educated gas pipe fitter, his
female vision showed a knowledge of religion and myth far beyond the patient's comprehension. At the end of a very rich dialogue with her (the patient reporting her symbols and responses), the patient asked for just a
clue as to what she and I were talking about.
Another example is that of a black man who gave up being useful
and lived as a drunken thief. In his weeks of hallucinations, the higher
order carefully instructed him on the
trials of all minority groups and left him with the feeling he would
like to do something for minorities.
Some patients experience
both the higher and lower orders at various
times and feel caught between a private heaven and hell. Many only know the
attacks of the lower order. The higher order claims power over the lower order
and, indeed, shows it at times, but not
enough to give peace of mind to most patients. The higher order itself has indicated that
the usefulness of the lower order is to illustrate
and make conscious the patients' weaknesses and faults.
Though I could say much more
on what the patients reported, and
quote extensively from dialogues with hallucinations, this is the substance of my findings. I was very early impressed by the overall similarities of what patients reported, even though they had no contact with each
other. After twenty patients there wasn't much more to be
learned. I was also impressed by the similarity to the relatively
little shown in the biblical accounts of ‘possession’. These patients might
well be going through experiences quite similar to what others felt centuries ago.
Several things stood out as
curious and puzzling. The lower order seemed strangely prevalent and limited. In the face of their
claim of separate identity, their concealing or not knowing any fact
(birthplace, schooling, name, personal history)
that would set them apart was unusual.
Their malevolence and
persistence in undermining the patient was striking. And why would they consistently be
non-religious and anti-religious? Just
the mention of religion provoked anger
or derision from them. In contrast, the
higher order appeared strangely
gifted, sensitive, wise, and religious.
They did not conceal identity
but rather would have an identity above
the human. For instance, a lady of the
higher order was described as
"an emanation of the feminine aspect of the Divine.” When I implied she was Divine,
she took offence. She herself was
not Divine but she was an emanation of the Divine. I couldn't help but begin to feel I was
dealing with some kind of contrasting polarity of good and evil.
The
patients' accounts of voices trying to
seize for their own, some part of the body, such as eye, ear, or tongue,
had a strangely ancient ring to it. Some people might suspect that my manner of
questioning fed back to the patients what I wanted to hear, but I had occasion to address an audience of
patients and staff in the hospital on
hallucinations. Afterward many patients I had not met, came up and pressed my
hand and said I had described their experiences too. As incredible as it may seem, I'm inclined to believe the above is a roughly accurate account of many patients' hallucinatory
experiences.
##
Though I had read
Swedenborg, the similarity between his account of heaven and hell and patients' experiences was not immediately apparent to me. His doctrine regarding spirits I could neither affirm nor deny. It was the clear and persistent reports from patients of attempts at possession that first
reminded me of biblical accounts
and later of Swedenborg. Not
much was known of madness two centuries ago. Swedenborg did speculate on the matter. He sometimes described it as being too involved in one's own
fantasies (SD 1752), and sometimes
ascribed it to pride in one's own powers i.e., spiritual madness (AC
102271). He gave much description of possession by spirits and what they did.
Hallucinations look most like what Swedenborg described under the general
headings of obsessions (to be caught in false ideas) and possession (to have
alien spirits acting into one's own thought, feelings, or even into one's
bodily acts (HH 257). He indicated that normally there is a barrier between
these spiritual entities and man's own consciousness. He was describing a hallucination,
and the dangers involved:
The speech of an angel or spirit with man
is heard as sonorously as the speech of man with man, yet not by others who
stand near, but by himself alone. The reason is that the speech of an angel or
spirit flows first into man's thought and by an internal way into his organ of
hearing thus affecting it from within. To speak with spirits at this day is
rarely granted, because it is dangerous; for then the spirits know that they
are with man, otherwise they do not know it, and evil spirits are such that
they regard man with deadly hatred, and desire nothing more than to destroy him,
both soul and body. This in fact is done with those who have indulged much in
phantasies, so as to remove themselves from the delights proper to the natural
man. Some also who lead a solitary life occasionally hear spirits speaking with
them. (HH 248-249).
If evil spirits knew they were with man
they would do all sorts of things to torment him and destroy his life. What he
described looks remarkably like my own findings on the lower-order
hallucinations. Let us consider lower-order hallucinations and possession by
evil spirits together. You will recall that I said lower-order hallucinations
act against the patient's will, and are extremely verbal, persistent,
attacking, and malevolent. They use trickery to deceive the patient as to their
powers, and threaten, cajole, entreat, and undermine in every conceivable way.
These are all characteristics of possession by evil spirits, which takes place
when the spirits are no longer unconscious, but have some awareness of
themselves as separate entities and act into consciousness.
It is not clear how the awareness barrier
between spirits and man is broken. In Swedenborg's case he apparently did it
deliberately with his practice of inward concentration and trances. Swedenborg
described his experience as a special gift from the Lord, in which he could be
tormented like others and yet be protected from harm (SD 3963). In the context
of his whole system of thought, one would surmise this inner barrier of
awareness is penetrated when the person habitually withdraws from social
usefulness into inner fantasy and pride. This would conform to contemporary
social withdrawal, which is the earliest aspect of schizophrenia. I am
relatively certain that religious faith alone doesn't prevent hallucinations
because many patients try to save themselves by religious practices. Observation
would suggest useful social acts, charity, would come closer to preventing
schizophrenia.
All of Swedenborg's observations on the
effect of evil spirits entering man's consciousness conform to my findings. The
most fundamental one is that they attempt to destroy him (AC 6192, 4227). They
can cause anxiety or pain (AC 6202). They speak in man's native tongue (ML 326,
DP 135). (The only instances I could find where hallucinations seemed to know a
language other than the patient's were in the higher order.) They seek to
destroy conscience (AC 1983) and seem to be against every higher value. For instance,
they interfere with reading or religious practices. They suggest acts against
the patient's conscience and, if refused, threaten, make them seem plausible,
or do anything to overcome the patient's resistance. Swedenborg said these
spirits can impersonate and deceive (SD 2687). This accounts for one puzzling
aspect. Patients say voices can shift voice quality and identity as they speak,
making it impossible to identify them. Or, if a patient treats them as some
known individual, they will act like him. They lie (SD 1622). Most patients who
have experienced voices for any length of time come to recognize this. They
tell a patient he will die tomorrow and yet he lives. They claim to be anyone,
including the Holy Spirit (HH 249). It took some while for a woman patient to
come to realize the male voice in her probably was not Jesus Christ, as it
claimed. She considered him sick and proceeded to counsel this voice, which improved
and left her! He claimed he could read my mind, but I showed her by a simple
experiment that he couldn't.
When spirits begin to speak with man, he
must beware lest he believe them in anything; for they say almost anything;
things are fabricated by them, and they lie; for if they were permitted to
relate what heaven is, and how things are in the heavens, they would tell so
many lies, and indeed with a solemn affirmation, that man would be astonished.
They are extremely fond of fabricating: and whenever any subject of discourse
is proposed, they think that they know it, and give their opinions one after
another, one in one way, and another in another, altogether as if they knew;
and if a man listens and believes, they press on, and deceive, and seduce in
divers ways. SD 16221. Though most patients tend to recognize this, many still
put faith in their voices and remain caught by them. For instance, one lady
felt a group of scientists, including a physician and engineer, was doing important
but painful experiments on the ends of her bones. Even though I couldn't find a
trace of medical knowledge in the physician or any mathematical ability above
simple sums in the engineer, she continued to believe in them.
Many voices have indicated they will take
over the world, or have already done so, which bit of bragging Swedenborg
noticed too (SD 4476). I asked one lower-order voice what his real aims were.
He candidly said, "Fight, screw, win the world." They can suggest and
try to enforce strange acts in the patient and then condemn him for compliance.
Man does not produce anything false and evil
from himself, but it is the evil spirits with him who produce it, and at the
same time make the man believe that he does it of himself. Such is their
malignity. And what is more, at the moment when they are infusing and
compelling this belief, they accuse and condemn him, as I can confirm from many
experiences. (AC 761)
They draw attention to things sexual or
simply filthy (SD2852), and then proceed to condemn the person for noticing
them. They often refer to the person as just an automaton or machine. Thus men
walk about as machines; they are nothing in the eyes of spirits; and if they
know one to be a man, and also a spirit, they would look upon him as an
inanimate machine, while the man all the time supposes himself to be living and
thinking, and the spirit to be nothing. SD 3633. That a person is an automaton
is a common psychotic delusion, arising out of hallucinated experience. In the
normal condition these spirits cannot see and hear the world of man (AC 1880),
but in mental illness they can (SD 3963). For instance I was able to give the
Rorschach inkblot test to a patient's voices separately from the patient's own
responses. Incidentally, the lower-order hallucinations appeared to be much
sicker than the patient. Since I could talk with them through the patient's
hearing, they could hear what the patient heard. Though they seem to have the
same sensory experience as the patient, I could find no evidence they could see
or hear things remote from the patient's senses, as they often claimed.
There are a number of peculiar traits of
the lower-order hallucinations on which Swedenborg threw light. If voices are
merely the patient's unconscious coming forth, I would have no reason to expect
them to be particularly for or against religion. Yet the lower order can be
counted on to give its most scurrilous comments to any suggestion of religion.
They either totally deny any afterlife, or oppose God and all religious
practices (AC 6197). Once I asked if they were spirits, and they answered,
"The only spirits around here are in bottles" (followed by raucous
laughter). To Swedenborg it is their opposition to God, religion, and all that
this implies that makes them what they are.
Another peculiar finding is that the
lower-order hallucinations were somehow bound to and limited within the
patient's own experiences (AC 7960). The lower order could not reason
sequentially or think abstractly as could the higher order. Also, it seemed
limited within the patient's own memory. For instance, one group of voices
could attack the patient only for things he had recalled since they invaded
him; and they were most anxious to get any dirt to use against him. Swedenborg
throws light on this when he indicates that one class of evil spirits is limited
to man's memory (HH 292,298). This accounts for its memory limitation, its lack
of sequential and abstract reasoning, and its extreme repetitiveness. As I indicated
earlier, it is not uncommon for voices to attack a person for years over a single
past guilt. It also accounts for the very verbal quality of the lower order as
against the higher order's frequent inability to speak at all (ML 326).
Swedenborg indicated the possibility of
spirits acting through the subject (AC 5990), which was to possess him. This I
have occasionally seen. For instance the man who thought he was Christ within a
woman sometimes spoke through her, at which times her voice was unnaturally
rough and deep. She also had trouble with him dressing at the same time she
was, because she would be caught in the incongruities of doing two different
acts at once.
Another peculiar finding that Swedenborg
unintentionally explained is my consistent experience that lower-order
hallucinations act as though they are separate individuals and yet can in no
way reveal even a trace of personal identity. Nor can they produce anything
more than was in the patient's memory. This strange but consistent finding is
clarified by Swedenborg's account. These lower-order spirits enter a man's
memory and lose all personal memory. Their personal memory was taken off at
their death, leaving their more interior aspects. That they discover they are
other than the man allows obsession and possession to take place and accounts
for their claiming separate identity and convincing the patient of this. But
their actual lack of personal memory comes from their taking on the patient's
own.
It may be that in the deeper degree of
schizophrenia the spirits have taken on more of their own memory. Swedenborg
said that this would lead man to believe he had done what he had not done (AC
2478, HH 256). For instance, delusional ideas are a belief in what has not occurred.
Some patients spoke of themselves as dead and buried and their present identity
as of another person. "For were spirits to retain their corporeal memory,
they would so far obsess man, that he would have no more self-control or be in
the enjoyment of his life, than one actually obsessed" (SD 3783). I am
just guessing at this point that the most serious mental disorders where a
person is totally out of contact and jabbers to himself and gesticulates
strangely-are instances where these spirits have more memory and act more
thoroughly through the person. It is then symbolically accurate that the
patient is dead and someone else lives.
I deliberately looked for some
discrepancy between my patients' experiences and Swedenborg's descriptions. I
appeared to have found it in the number of spirits who were with one patient.
Patients may have three or four most frequent voices, but they can experience a
number of different people. Swedenborg said there are usually only two good and
two evil spirits with a person (AC 904, 5470, 5848, 6189). He also gave
instances where spirit's come in clouds of people at a time (SD 4546). I later
learned that where there is a split between the internal and external
experience of a person, as in schizophrenia, there can be many spirits with a
person (SD 160). Also, as patients' voices themselves have described the
situation, one spirit can be the subject or voice of many (HH 601). This was
the case with the lady who had the researchers working on her bones. They
themselves were in a kind of hierarchy and represented many. Only the lowest
few members of the hierarchy became known to the patient and myself. Swedenborg
referred to such spirits as the subjects of many.
Both Swedenborg and medieval literature
spoke of the aim of spirits to possess and control some part of a patient's
body (SD 1751, 2656, 4910, 5569). Parts involved in my observations have been
the ear, eye, tongue, and genitals. Medieval literature speaks of intercourse
between a person and his or her possessing spirit, giving these spirits the
names "incubi" and "succubi," depending on their sex. One
female patient described her sexual relations with her male spirit as both more
pleasurable and more inward than normal intercourse. Swedenborg made it clear
that those who enter the affections or emotions enter thereby into all things
of the body. These more subtle possessions are more powerful than simply having
voices talking to one, and can easily account for affective psychoses where
there is a serious mood change (SD 5981). One older German woman was depressed
by tiny devils who tormented her in her genital region and made her feel the
horror of hell.
Both possession and the experimental way
in which Swedenborg entered these experiences are illustrated by the following:
“It is known from The Word that there was
an influx from the world of spirits and from heaven into the prophets, partly
by dreams, partly by visions, and partly by speech; and also with some into the
very speech and into the very gestures, and thus into the things that belong to
the body; and that at the time they did not speak from themselves, nor act from
themselves, but from the spirits who were then in possession of their bodies.
At such times some of them behaved like insane persons, as Saul did when he lay
naked; others when they wounded themselves; others when they put horns on
themselves, and others in similar ways. And as I desired to know in what manner
these men were actuated by spirits, I was shown by means of a living
experience. To this end I was for a whole night possessed by spirits, who took
such possession of my body that I had only a very obscure sensation that it was
my own body. (AC 6212). In Swedenborg's terms the higher-order spirits would be
angels who come to assist the person. As Swedenborg described it, they reside
in the interior mind, which does not think in words but in universals that
comprise many particulars (AC 5614).
The speech of the angels is also full of
wisdom, because it proceeds from their interior thought; and their interior
thought is wisdom, as their interior affection is love, their love and wisdom
uniting in speech. Consequently it is so full of wisdom that they can express
by one word what man cannot express by a thousand words. The ideas of their
thought also comprehend things which man cannot conceive, much less utter. This
is why the things which have been heard and seen in heaven are said to be
ineffable, and such as ear hath not heard nor eye seen. It has been granted me
to know by experience that it is so. I have sometimes been let into the state
in which angels are, and in that state I have spoken with them; and then I
understood all; but when I was brought back to my former state, and thus into
the natural thought proper to man, and wished to recollect what I had heard, I
could not; for there were thousands of things not adapted to the ideas of
natural thought, thus not expressible at all by human words, but only by variegations
of heavenly light. (HH 239). But this is true not only in heaven but in the interior
of mind too.”
That man's interior mind does not think
from the words of any language, nor consequently from natural forms, can be
seen by anyone who reflects on these things, for he can think in a moment what
he can scarcely utter in an hour, and he does so by universals which comprise
many particulars. These ideas are spiritual. (AC5614). The higher order in one
patient showed him visually hundreds of universal symbols in the space of one
hour. Though he found them entertaining he couldn't understand their meaning.
One patient described a higher-order spirit who appeared all in white, radiant,
very powerful in his presence, and who communicated directly with the spirit of
the patient to guide him out of his hell. Swedenborg described how the influx
of angels gently leads to good and leaves the person in freedom (AC 6205). I've
described the incident where the patient recognized good forces first as a sun
that withdrew from him when he was frightened whereas all his experiences of
the lower order had been attacking ones. It was this simple respect for his
freedom that led the patient to believe this was another order.
Swedenborg indicated that good spirits
have some degree of control over the evil ones (AC 5992, 6308; SD 3525).
Higher-order hallucinations have made the same comment - that they can control
lower-order ones - but it is seldom to the degree the patient would desire. In
some respects they overcome the evil insofar as the patient identifies with
them. In one case I encouraged the patient to become acquainted with these
helpful forces that tended to frighten him. When he did so their values merged
into him, and the evil plotters, who had been saying for months they would kill
him, disappeared. I seem to see some kind of control of the higher order over
the lower, though the nature and conditions of this control are not yet clear.
Again, and precisely in agreement with Swedenborg, I found evil spirits cannot
see the good ones, but the good can the evil (HH 583). The lower order may know
of the presence of the higher order but cannot see it.
Why
the higher-order hallucinations were rarer remained a considerable puzzle to me
for over a year, since they were far more interesting to the patient and myself
and potentially more therapeutic. Again, Swedenborg has an explanation that
fits beautifully with my findings. I have noticed the higher order tends to be
nonverbal and highly symbolic. He indicated that angels possess the very interior
of man. Their influx is tacit. It does not stir up material ideas or memories
but is directed to man's ends or inner motives (AC 5854, 6193, 6209). It is for
this reason not so apparent and hence rarer in the patients' reports.
Conclusion
What
are we to make of this similarity? I am personally convinced that Swedenborg
and contemporary hallucinating persons are describing the same general experiences.
There are just too many similarities to believe otherwise. Yet it is in itself
remarkable that Swedenborg and persons separated by different cultures,
different assumptions of the world, different experiences, and two centuries of
time could so describe inner experiences alike. One implication is that this
inner world may be very stable and consistent over centuries of time, certainly
more consistent than the outer natural world.
Could
Swedenborg have been mad? There is simply no evidence for this. In contrast to
the limited, impaired, unproductive lives of these patients, his life was one
of the richest and most productive ever lived. He explored voluntarily what patients
are involuntarily thrown into.
None of these psychotics sought these
experiences. They had all tried everything they could think of to stop the
hallucinations-prayer, diet, obeying the voices, disregarding the voices, etc.
Nothing worked. Even when extrasensory perception turned up it simply convinced
them of the power of the "others" and frightened them. For every
pleasant moment in this inner world, there was so much misery that most did not
want to have these experiences. In contrast, Swedenborg sought to penetrate the
inner world. He carefully recorded it and made great use of it.
It appears that psychotics, alienated
from their own feelings and inner processes, find these processes represented
around them in a different form. I'll illustrate by a humorous example. The
same man who had a very gifted female spirit enlivening his life came in one
day and complained of having female breasts. They got in the way of his work.
He wasn't so crazy that he didn't know that others couldn't see the breasts.
Yet he could, and it annoyed him. I asked him to describe the breasts. One side
was well shaped, the other pendulous and not so attractive. I asked if he could
associate with them. Yes. The well-shaped side reminded him of a new girl
friend. The less attractive pendulous side reminded him of an old girl friend
toward whom he still felt obligated. I said he should make up his mind between
them. He did, and the breasts disappeared.
Hallucinations were rarely this easily cured,
but over and over I had the impression that they represented unknown potentials
in the patient. The hell side illustrated personal faults, blindness and
stupidity. The heaven side represented higher, unused gifts. There were no
hallucinations at the patients' average level of functioning. They were either
far more limited or more gifted than the patient. They appear to be unrealized,
unlived-out potentials, spilling out to confuse the environment. A saintly lady
patient had dirty voices. The drunken black burglar was shown a detailed and
sensitive history of minority groups. In this sense, these people seemed to
have too much unused, unrecognized, unconscious, which lived anyway and
confused their environment. So my impressions conform to the general ideas of
the unconscious.
Yet it is much more than that. There are
demons that can plague a person and try to possess him. There are also higher
spirits whose wisdom is very great. In the head of the uneducated gas pipe
fitter was the most gifted woman I've ever known. Quite to his surprise and
faint amusement he found universal symbols all over the room. My guess is that
the spiritual world is much as Swedenborg described it, and is the unconscious.
We are mostly unconscious of the other spiritual worlds. It is meant to be that
way, for it is very dangerous when these worlds are opened up to man, just as
Swedenborg said. He did not advocate that anyone try to follow him.
My guess is that Swedenborg
systematically explored the same worlds that psychotic patients find themselves
thrust into, and these worlds are heaven and hell, the worlds beyond this one,
inside this one. It is not too surprising, when you think of it, that persons
who are disordered inwardly experience some of the raw underpinnings of
experience that are invisible to the smoothly functioning mind.
To help us understand this phenomenon
fully, let me describe what it would be like to be possessed in the normal
sense. Swedenborg said that we all have spirits with us; they are part of the
foundation and energy of mental processes. What would their presence be like in
the normal mind that is not so alienated from its own nature, as in the
patients' cases? Even though outwardly occupied in some normal train of thought
and action, the lower order would appear as an impulse to think of some sexual,
hostile, or other emotional scene. The impulse would feel like one's own, but
arise contrary to what you thought you were choosing. In religious terms this
is called temptation. At the point of choosing one line of experience and stumbling
on another within, you feel that you can choose which one to dwell on. If you
choose to put down the sexual, it could arise again and again, i.e., the
temptation wouldn't disappear easily. And what would the interaction with angels
be like? It could be finding yourself drifting into considering the quality of
your conduct, or to understand your life or life itself in a broader way. This
is the normal aspect of what the patients experienced in a more intense form.
Most mental experience is participated in by spirits who don't know themselves
as anything other than your own feelings. Honed down to this fine level, the
only thing left that is really yours is the struggle to choose. Those who
aren't choosing are going the way the spiritual winds blow. So the pitiful
picture of the hallucinated psychotic is really an exaggerated picture of
everyone's situation.
