AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:16 pm
Barfield explores the phenomenon of modern mental illness, such as Schizophrenia, and how it reveals a fundamental alienation of the 'self' from the surrounding world and from the true Self in all of human society, with the Schizophrenics being the ones who are most aware of the alienation. Moderns experience this alienation as varying forms and degrees of insanity, while our ancestors experienced it as "sin". The former feels it is something that is happening
to them, while the latter felt it was something they were actively involved in and, therefore, needed to take responsibility for.
Riffing on the above:
Mental 'illness' is really
emotional 'illness'. 'Ill'-ness is really 'ill'-health which in turn is really just 'un'-wholesomeness, 'non'-integration, etc.
In thinking about such matters as a psychologist, I often speculatively theorized that as people 'grow' in terms of degree of 'intelligence', they develop what might be called 'conscience' (
science=knowledge; con=all-inclusive), or at least 'sense' of 'conscience' even though this may be
unconscious, repressed (and so 'denied') - I am talking about a 'self-transcendant "super-superego"
, not the internalized kind of socially 'conditioned' super-ego that Freud postulated, here, although
such 'introject' (which itself may be a function of social/parental 'illness') may also be included as a 'feature' of said 'conscience'.
If and when a person thinks, feels and/or acts
against the 'judgment' of said conscience he/she experiences a (self-generated!) feeling of 'guilt', a 'sense' of being unworthy and undeserving of the 'goodness' of Life-at-Large, depending of the
degree of said 'ant-Life 'violation', even think and feel and
so expect retribution (punishment,
negative karma, etc.) therefore. The ramifications of such feelings and expectations 'show up' in a kazillion and one ways which relatively 'sane' (i.e. more 'integrated') folks 'see', 'diagnose' etc,
as mental/spiritual 'illness'. The condition(s) labelled
shizophrenia (hearing 'crazy' voices, paranoia, self-hate 'freak outs') are just a function of said guilt feelings and anxiety-induced expectations (whch may be quite unconscious, mind you!) reaching and exceeding a subject's ability to handle calmly and manage rationally.
Here are a couple of quotes from my book which touch on this much too large to be 'simply' described, but I tried to do so anyway, subject:
"
If you aren’t aware of the attendant possibilities for negative ramification, you might simply expect our higher degree of Intelligence to be an unqualified blessing. However, the fact is, we each run the very real risk of sinking and drowning in a psychospiritual hell of our own making until we learn to float and swim in the boundless flow of consciousness that results from our developing to the point where we partake of ‘the fruit of the tree of knowledge’.
Unlike creatures with lesser capacity, we grow past the stage of simple innocence. Whether we personally want to or not, all but the most feeble-minded among us develop and savor a vast range of ideas about what is ‘better’ and what is ‘worse’, as well as ‘how much’ better or worse a specific other condition or circumstance would be, as a result of our capacity for logical comparison and imaginative projection. Not only are we therefore more intensely, and in many more ways, motivated to try to attain and hold on to what we decide is better and to try to avoid and secure ourselves from what we decide is worse, no matter how 'good' our present situation may be, we keep conceiving of and so desire to actualize and experience ever higher ideals. Concomitantly, because we ‘see’, again by way of projection and comparison, how far present actualization and experience fall short of the higher ideals we desire, we suffer disappointment and dissatisfaction, in proportion to the intensity of our fancies. Such suffering disposes us to construe our current condition and circumstance negatively, as ‘not good’ or ‘not good enough’. This sets the stage for the sequence of sometimes quite tragic ‘acts’ in the drama most of us know as ‘the human predicament’."
and
"
The demoralization and demise of those who don’t accede to and accord with the prescriptions of conscience is assured by their own apprehensiveness—they are simultaneously afflicted from within. Particularly when others around them increasingly suffer, because they then cannot escape knowing that selfish excess is unjustified and denying others their due is a sin [i.e. anti-Life in function], personal misgivings and anticipation of retributive misfortune overshadow their thoughts and feelings. Their fantasies become more troubled. Horrible happenings haunt their dreams. They keep imagining not obtaining what they want and losing what they already have. More and more, what is strikes them as personally insulting. However much may actually be available to them, they experience what isn’t as a significant denial. A sense of incompleteness and insatiety dogs their heels. Feeling more and more alienated from others and less and less a part of Life’s flow, they find being alone and doing nothing ‘grand’ unpleasant and disquieting.
In conjunction with the effect of the psychospiritual reactions they evoke from others, such wretched thoughts and feelings psychospiritually operate to guarantee them consequences that are most unfortunate. In proportion to how callous and destructive they are, judgments and forebodings see to it that they become foci for what, to those who are naive, appear to be ‘chance’ accidents, ‘natural’ illnesses, ‘inadvertent’ errors in judgment and ‘unavoidable’ catastrophes. However hard they try, wherever they may be, those who are not aligned with Life’s greater expression suffer eventual ill fate as, in realms of Mind and Spirit, they accrue more and more negativity. One way or another, those who don’t lovingly do what they can to advance our common cause go awry; if they don’t change for the better along the way, irretrievably."