SubscribeA woman in her early thirties sought out therapy to deal with unresolved parental struggles and guilt over a younger brother's psychosis. Approximately two years into her therapy, she underwent a typical mystical experience, including a state of ecstasy, a sense of union with the universe, a heightened awareness transcending space and time, and a greater sense of meaning and purpose to her life. For ten days, she remained in an ecstatic state. She felt that everything in her life had led up to this momentous experience and that all her knowledge had become reorganized during its course. Due to the rapid alteration in her mood and her unusual ideation, her therapist considered diagnoses of mania, schizophrenia, and hysteria. But he rejected these because many aspects of her functioning were either unchanged or improved, and overall her experience seemed to be "more integrating than disintegrating...While a psychiatric diagnosis cannot be dismissed, her experience was certainly akin to those described by great religious mystics who have found a new life through them" (p. 806).
This experience increasingly became the focus of her continued treatment, as she worked to integrate the insights and attitudinal changes that followed. The therapist reported that the most important gain from it was a conviction that she was a worthwhile person with worthwhile ideas, not the intrinsically evil person, 'rotten to the core', that her mother had convinced her she was. Her subsequent treatment focused on expanding the insights she had gained and on helping her to integrate the mystical experience. (adapted from Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, 1976)
At age 19, after returning home from hitchhiking in Mexico, Howard became convinced that he was on a "Mental Odyssey." To his family and friends, he began speaking in a highly metaphorical language. For example, after returning from a simple afternoon hike up a mountain, he announced to his parents that "I have been through the bowels of Hell, climbed up and out, and wandered full circles in the wilderness. I have ascended through the Portals of Heaven where I established my rebirth in the earth itself, and now have taken my rightful place in the Kingdom of Heaven." To one friend, he stated: "I am the albatross; you are the dove." The unusual actions and content of his speech led his family to commit him to a psychiatric ward where he was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia.
Once admitted to the hospital, Howard asked to see a Jungian therapist, but this request was ignored and he was given thorazine. While in the hospital, he continued his self-proclaimed odyssey by drawing elaborate "keys" that were mandalas stocked with many well-known symbols and cultural motifs, including the Islamic crescent and star, the yin yang symbol, the infinity sign, and pierced hands, eyes, and circles. In the hospital, he also conducted elaborate self-designed "power" rituals and rituals to the four directions, despite being on high doses of medication. After two months in the psychiatric hospital, his psychiatrist wanted to transfer him to a long-term facility for further treatment, but he refused to go and was discharged. He left feeling totally exhausted, physically and emotionally, but he continued exploring the mythological, philosophical and artistic parallels to his "Mental Odyssey." He read works by Joseph Campbell and C. G. Jung and joined a "New Age" religious group where he encountered many similar motifs.
In the subsequent 24 years, he has not been hospitalized or on medication, has held positions as an operator of high tech video editing equipment, and completed a college degree. When interviewed 11 years after the episode for a case study, he maintained that, "I have gained much from this experience. I am sorry for the worry and hurt that it may have caused my family and friends. These wounds have been slow to heal. I am deeply grateful for the great victory of my odyssey. From a state of existential nausea, my soul now knows itself as part of the cosmos. Each year brings an ever increasing sense of contentment." (adapted from Lukoff and Everest, 1985, pp. 127-143)
Briefly, you could certainly track down psychiatrists who consider the mystical experience a. a valid apprehension of a higher order of reality, b. a valid human experience but nonetheless a naturalistic and frequently misinterpreted one, and c. a dangerous delusional carryover from some branching of our evolutionary history which is Bad for the World.
Certainly there has been scientific study of the neurological science behind mystical experiences and there is unquestionably something scientifically observable going on there. Before checking out that article I linked above again, I hadn't heard of the term "neurotheology," so there may be some value following that up (and note the more info link at the top of that article).
Although it is out of print, a book that gets into the topic (and a lot of others around the whole spirituality/consciousness expansion theme) is Powers of Mind by Adam Smith. You might find it at the library or it is quite accessible used (at least it was when my wife tracked down my copy half a dozen years ago). Although now dated it has a fantastic bibliography of study on these topics and attacks the subject with a nice mix of openness and healthy skepticism.
posted by nanojath at 11:32 PM on February 25, 2007