Religious Vision

[Bahman]

Do you accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior?

I think each being has the potential to save himself/herself/itself and others through knowing the truth.

 

[opusAquinas]

I think each being has the potential to save himself/herself/itself and others through knowing the truth.

So you reject our Lord. Good luck to you.

 

[Padster]

I’m a Schizoaffective person who suffers hallucinations and experiences that involve religious visions, such as; the Virgin Mary, Jesus, crosses of light, angelic spirits flying through the sky…

My question is do you believe that this is solely my illness or do you think that it is possible that God could be present, on some level, within these experiences?

I care to mention that I accept these experiences as delusion and have dealt with them and am stable. I’m just curious as to what people think in regards to the experience of mental illness (especially Schizophrenia) and the religious aspect.

I have been studying the area of mental illness/spiritual experience with interest. Trying to discern one from the other is difficult. For the past six months I have been having a difficult experience too. I have tortured myself over and over again, trying to decide if I am having a spiritual experience or a complete mental breakdown. I tried to be rational and objective. I tried to understand the onset of schizophrenia, how it can be triggered by drug abuse, trauma or illness. For me it all happened at once. I received a ‘vision’, though it was in my mind’s eye and not external, and since then the most strange and mysterious things started to occur. I thought I was cracking up, I joined several schizo forums and people on there were also torn like yourself. But what I couldn’t ignore was the occasional interference with electrical equipment, from a kettle turning itself on to a spectacular power drop in one of the bathroom lights. My digital organ at home has also been dying a slow death, though to be fair that might be due to its age. I don’t believe it is myself causing these things, but what is round me. I now discount mental breakdown as an explanation. It is my opinion that** some** ‘mentally ill’ people are having a spiritual experience and are completely sane but have not learned to control their fears and anxieties and are therefore behaving out of character. This is exacerbated when one realises one has been isolated from the rest of society and is no longer sharing a common experience, the very thing that makes us human. The worst thing you can do is try to share your experience with your family. Unless you have very open-minded relations they simply won’t believe you, and the resulting abandonment will only go to increase the odd behaviour even further, to the point where stupid things are attempted.
I do think that society could do a lot more to try to understand ‘mentally ill’ people instead of shunning them or drugging them into a stupor. But this is Karl Jung’s collective unconscious at work. Sadly, you’ll see it at work on fora such as this. You’ll even see it at work in priests and religious ministers, some of which are genuinely torn between acceptance and erring on the side of caution, and others who do not believe a word they preach.

I know what you are going through. It has been awful at times, and I only find peace when I accept it and don’t fight against it. I know I am under the direct influence of something that is not of this world. But I don’t have a clue what it is all about.

Best wishes,
Padster