Schizophrenia or Spirit Possession, and interview with Mike Williamson

Speaking personally, the mechanisms of control to which I have been subjected are outrageous.

I’m sure they have been Laird. I just want to say that I appreciate and respect your honesty and bravery in posting these personal experiences/thoughts.

My friend that has spent a great part of the last ten years fighting the system attempting to get justice for her autistic son who was assaulted while in care, recently made this heartfelt statement to me...“You really have no idea how they can close ranks, it’s frightening!”
 
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Thanks for your post, LoneShaman. Though it is written generally, and though I initially interpreted it as a generic response to which my own response was not sought, I gather from another thread that it was in part directed at me, so I'll craft a respond after all, and as though it were personal, hoping that I'm not being too selfish or narcissistic in doing so.



Yes. That's true. I have been locked up for nothing more than behaving oddly according to societal standards. An example: I was standing on the verge of the road near a bridge in my town of residence, close to passing traffic. Somebody must have called the police, because they turned up, and, when they arrived, they questioned me as to what I was doing. I wasn't interested in talking to them, nor in accepting their ultimatum: let us take you back to your home or we will take you to the doctor's to be evaluated under the Mental Health Act. So, they (coercively) took me to the doctor's, and, because I was reluctant to talk to anybody, let alone him, he decided that I should be sectioned.

It's that easy to find your way into the labyrinth that is the mental health system.

I have discovered over the years that a major problem too is perceived accountability. Those involved in the mental health system are very keen to cover their asses. How does this apply to my example? If they had left me near the bridge, and a car had hit me, they believe that the public would have held them, and not me, responsible (after all, I was "mentally disordered", and thus wasn't responsible for my own actions). Nevermind that from my perspective, I retained personal responsibility - albeit from a different reality frame - and that it was my choice to behave as I was behaving - they still wanted to cover themselves on the assumption that they might be held responsible for any injury that might have occurred to me given that I, myself, was not responsible.

They basically don't recognise personal responsibility in those who are in a different frame of reality. We (those of us in different reality frames) "lack decision-making capacity", and this is the part of the Mental Health Act which they invoke to deny me (us) agency, and to treat us forcibly.

But on another level, I perceive the whole "mental health" trip as a game in the perverse rather than the fun sense: "Act in this way and you are free, but act in THAT way and you come under OUR control". They are just waiting for one of us to slip into THAT way of being/behaving, and then they hook their talons into us and drag us off to their little chambers (psychiatric wards).

So, if I were to sum up my response to your quoted words: I see it more as a system of control than as a fearful reaction. I don't think that the mental health system does fear us. It holds all of the cards. It is just waiting for us to reveal our own, so that it can suck us into its dread embrace. That said, your average member of society who is not a part of the mental health system very much might fear "odd" behaviour and thinking, and very well might "deliver us into their hands".



This is where I'm not entirely sure, man. I think that what most messed me up psychospiritually was taking psychoactive drugs which weren't good for me. Those drugs opened a portal in my mind which allowed malicious disembodied entities to target me. I am not sure I am so much of a "potential shaman" as a "foolish partaker of forbidden substances". But then again: during the time (as a young adult) when I sampled those substances, I was going through an intense period of awakening, the details of which I won't go into here. So, when I throw that into the mix, I have to wonder: if it hadn't gone pear-shaped, might it have gone exponential? And then, I have to wonder about the shamanic possibilities that you bring up. It might well be that I could have attained some degree of shamanic functioning before the darkness set in, whilst I was still exploring my awakening. Or maybe the darkness is a necessary part of the shamanic journey. Maybe we need to confront our own demons before we can confront the demons of those whom we would seek to heal. And I do seem to be confronted by demons.



Yes, there is no doubt that our culture gets it wrong. As I wrote above, I think our culture responds within the parameters of a system of control rather than of a system of education and liberation. Speaking personally, the mechanisms of control to which I have been subjected are outrageous.
Laird, there is so much you have posted here to which I either relate, or can sympathise. I won't make this a long response, I'll just mention a couple of points.

One, relating to the effect of drugs. I've been friends with a number of people with either overt or borderline schizophrenic conditions, and know or knew them pretty well. Exposure to drugs did seem a factor which caused the initial onset, what I might refer to as an 'opening'. Myself, though I have difficulties, it is more depression-related with me, but again, it seemed exposure to drugs brought about an initial opening. I didn't make the connection until years later (the relationship with drugs) but it seems relevant.

Also I wanted to respond to this:
"Maybe we need to confront our own demons before we can confront the demons of those whom we would seek to heal. And I do seem to be confronted by demons."
Around the time of my own 'opening', which was quite joyful and expanding, I really felt I wanted to and was able to help others, as some sort of therapist. But not long after, my life took me on a journey to the opposite extreme, where dealing with my own life was more than enough. I have considered though that going through various experiences and troubles does eventually make it possible to put ourselves in the shoes of others, to relate to the struggles of other people as if they were our own.

As for demons, I don't have such direct interactions as you have described, but it does seem a plausible way to consider and deal with some issues in my own life.
 
Thanks for your post, LoneShaman. Though it is written generally, and though I initially interpreted it as a generic response to which my own response was not sought, I gather from another thread that it was in part directed at me, so I'll craft a respond after all, and as though it were personal, hoping that I'm not being too selfish or narcissistic in doing so.

It was both really, I had you in mind writing it. I think you are very brave opening up here. I hope it helps in a way.

But on another level, I perceive the whole "mental health" trip as a game in the perverse rather than the fun sense: "Act in this way and you are free, but act in THAT way and you come under OUR control". They are just waiting for one of us to slip into THAT way of being/behaving, and then they hook their talons into us and drag us off to their little chambers (psychiatric wards).

So, if I were to sum up my response to your quoted words: I see it more as a system of control than as a fearful reaction. I don't think that the mental health system does fear us. It holds all of the cards. It is just waiting for us to reveal our own, so that it can suck us into its dread embrace. That said, your average member of society who is not a part of the mental health system very much might fear "odd" behaviour and thinking, and very well might "deliver us into their hands".

Yes, your experience in this surely outweighs my perceptions, your words do capture what I was intending better than I could articulate.

This is where I'm not entirely sure, man. I think that what most messed me up psychospiritually was taking psychoactive drugs which weren't good for me. Those drugs opened a portal in my mind which allowed malicious disembodied entities to target me. I am not sure I am so much of a "potential shaman" as a "foolish partaker of forbidden substances". But then again: during the time (as a young adult) when I sampled those substances, I was going through an intense period of awakening, the details of which I won't go into here. So, when I throw that into the mix, I have to wonder: if it hadn't gone pear-shaped, might it have gone exponential? And then, I have to wonder about the shamanic possibilities that you bring up. It might well be that I could have attained some degree of shamanic functioning before the darkness set in, whilst I was still exploring my awakening.

I did not want to suggest using psychedelics, I would not feel comfortable iwith that. Although they have had success in treating a variety of mental conditions, not all things are equal. A mind in chaos perhaps should not induce yet more chaos. I often wonder how a initiate shaman displaying these traits overcome this, as this would be a quite common occurrence. I imagine it would be an ordeal with the potential for disaster. The shamans of the Amazon perform things that make absolutely no sense in terms of a western medical perspective. They would literally suck the negative energy and spit it out, they are operating on a different level of being, that of the energy body and not material. This may be how they can overcome the mania that would surely ensue.

Or maybe the darkness is a necessary part of the shamanic journey. Maybe we need to confront our own demons before we can confront the demons of those whom we would seek to heal. And I do seem to be confronted by demons.

Most definitely. It has often been said these substance can simulate schizophrenia, through them I realize what it may be like. I have had several very terrifying and disturbing experiences, and indeed confronted my own demons. Although traumatic it were these experiences I learnt the most from. I feel fear every time I have used them. I certainly understand your opinion and would never endorse them for something I know very little about. That being said not all Shamanism is about substances, you don't need them.

Yes, there is no doubt that our culture gets it wrong. As I wrote above, I think our culture responds within the parameters of a system of control rather than of a system of education and liberation. Speaking personally, the mechanisms of control to which I have been subjected are outrageous.

I feel for you mate, I will give you some advice I feel sure of though. Surround yourself with beauty and people you love.
 
I have been in more psych wards than I care to list over the past two decades, and in that time I have not met anyone who I think has a "genuine" disorder which cannot be explained by "real spirits talking to [and affecting]" that person. The "and affecting" bit is crucial though. If you've simply got spirits talking to you, it's one thing - and I'm not saying it's easy; it can be debilitating - but when you've got them interfering with your cognition, affect, beliefs, and perceptions, that's a whole other thing, which easily gets you a stay in a psych ward, forced medication, and a "diagnosis", and there's not much you can do about it.
I wonder if you have tried to contact some of the wonderful people we have on these forums, to see if they can help you. Clare Broad, for example, seems able to work at a long distance, and might be able to sense what is wrong. I am certain that if she can't help, she won't pretend to do so - so it might be worth a shot.

I suppose another possibility - maybe a long shot - would be to ask around some of the Australian Aboriginal community, who are generally more aware psychically - I assume.

I see this whole sad story as yet another area where conventional science (psychiatric in this case) has come adrift from reality. Science claims to be competent in all sorts of areas where it is not.

However you got into this mess - whether because of experimenting with psychoactive drugs, or whether it was something that would have happened anyway, it seems to me that your problem is far more likely to be solved by psychical means than medical/drug means!

I don't know how close you live to LS (Australia is a big place), but maybe it would be helpful to get in touch.

David
 
Thank you all for your generous responses. I wasn't sure what to expect, and, to be honest, half expected that my post(s) would be seen as self-indulgent, uncalled for, out of place, and/or useless bellyaching, so I really appreciate that you guys have been so considerate and kind in response.

Will reflect for a bit and then perhaps will try to respond in turn. I don't want to rush any potential response.
 
I have been in more psych wards than I care to list over the past two decades, and in that time I have not met anyone who I think has a "genuine" disorder which cannot be explained by "real spirits talking to [and affecting]" that person. The "and affecting" bit is crucial though. If you've simply got spirits talking to you, it's one thing - and I'm not saying it's easy; it can be debilitating - but when you've got them interfering with your cognition, affect, beliefs, and perceptions, that's a whole other thing, which easily gets you a stay in a psych ward, forced medication, and a "diagnosis", and there's not much you can do about it.

So we need to distinguish between an affliction and an illness - and not medicalise individual crises just because the medical profession has presumed that what ails us at any time is something its limited knowledge has the primary responsibility to look at. The invalidation of spirit possession in the Bible, aided by an aversion to anything vaguely resembling 'pagan' thought has meant that whole area of knowledge has been sidelined.

Being afflicted by spirts can be hellish. In my case I wasn't being afflicted, so much as being spoken to by entirely beneficent agents. But that freaked me out because I had a head full of confused nonsense and had no confidence. Worse, I had no human guides to help me. It was entirely by accident that I discovered the only thing wrong with me was my one confusion and alarm [and ignorance].
 
Fair enough, Alex. Different people will receive these interviews differently. For me, the contrast was that whereas Jerry was not shy to cast (at least some of) the spirits interacting with those diagnosed as "schizophrenic" as beyond human; as metaphysically evil, Mike was not - he seemed to think that all of these spirits are merely human, even though for effect they might disguise themselves as demons.

I've just gone back to the notes that I took on Richard's interview with Jerry, and here are some of the powerful resonances that I found with my own experience - resonances which I found lacking in his interview with Mike. These points are verbatim from my notes, which obviously are paraphrasings of the interview:

* The entities dredge up incidents and thoughts from your past and rub them in your face. They know where your emotional wounds are. (Healing the wounds defrays this problem).

* "Fishing": they'll try out thoughts on you to see whether they get an emotional reaction, i.e., "hook" you. (Countering approach: say "That's a lie" to everything they try on you).

* The entities can insert thoughts into your mind. Not just schizophrenics but everybody: every negative thought a person thinks comes from them. e.g. you're walking along and some terrible thought comes into your mind and you think to yourself "I would never do something so awful; where did that thought even *come from*?"

* Low energy levels - drained by psychic entities (energy vampires/parasites) catalysing then feeding off negative energy: fear, guilt, lust, and greed. (Richard's observation about how after training himself out of a negative mindset, testing how it felt to think a negative thought was like a sugar high: felt good initially but then there was a "crash" and a feeling of "I wish I hadn't done that").

* Use every form of deception. Cause perceptual errors, esp. paranoid perceptions.

* Ouija boards and drugs (esp. amphetamines) leading to voice hearing.

The interview with Mike felt tame in comparison. I didn't have so many "Yes! Exactly that! That's my experience too!" moments. Though I want to make clear that I don't resonate with everything that Jerry said, and that I am even skeptical of some of his claims, simply because they are so foreign to my own experience. Maybe I just haven't gone far enough down the road to have had them yet.
fair enough back at you :-) another difference here that I think is interesting is that Mike is an experiencer of the extended Consciousness Realm where is Jerry is a third party people helper.
 
The western mind has no place for someone who exhibits non ordinary states of mind who may drift into the mental worlds, our culture is very uncomfortable with behavior that is outside of what has been constructed for us. I can certainly see and know how terrifying the prospect of madness is for the house of cards that is the western mind. We fear it and we react to it within the narrow framework of what is slated as normal behavior.

We lost our shamanic past, other cultures who have not would not hospitalize, lock up, separate and medicate. They would take you aside and tell you you are special and be put under the guidance of master shamans benefiting from a lineage of thousands of years of experience in these things. That may be the difference between the shaman and the schizophrenic in some cases. Without understanding and being told you are sick, and having to deal with having one foot in these other mental worlds is terrifying, I truly understand this. It could very well drive someone to the brink, and has done so.

In these cultures you would be told you will be of fundamental importance, you are special, you will be trained. Now think of how our culture treats this. We would rather put you in a place were society does not have to deal with you for it's own sake and it's own fear of these things, making it incurable by definition.

On a biological level there may be involved a process called transmethylation where certain neurotransmitters are converted into psychoactive molecules. This is why certain psychedelics can replicate the effects of schizophrenia so well. Not to say this is all just chemical, I do not think of it this way, just that the physical is a reflection of the mental the same way psychic wounds can manifest as physical afflictions.

Here's a perspective on the Shamanic theory.

WHAT A SHAMAN SEES IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL
https://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/08/22/shaman-sees-mental-hospital/
amazing... great post. thx:
“I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.”
 
I watch a lot (and I mean a lot!) of what my kids would call "Ghost Shows" because of my interest in the subject of spirits/ghosts/demons etc.. I am fascinated by one show where a medium walks through a house and 'converses' with the energies haunting and sometimes tormenting the living there. What I find interesting is the variety of 'entities' she describes which has broadened the types of spirits responsible for hauntings. She has described aliens, spirits of dead people who have transformed themselves into other kinds of entities, spirits who pretend to be demons, demons who pretend to be people, shadow people, land spirits, things so old she has no name for what they are, and you're regular run of the mill ghost of dead grandpa kind of spirits. This raises huge questions about what happens when we die, why do some 'people' or their negative energy stick around, and how the living experience different energies. Many of the most negative energies have a physical effect or mental effect on the living and this medium often encounters spirits/entities that make it their mission to make the person physically or mentally unwell.
As a nurse, I have had several patients who claimed that demons tormented them and given their behavior, I wasn't entirely convinced that that wasn't true. But the brain is a finely tuned machine that doesn't like miniscule changes to the chemical environment. Many of my patients with hallucinations, paranoia and manic depressive states also had thyroid disorders, which I found to be an interesting co-morbidity. So there's the physiological explanation for altered perceptions and behavior that I tend to resonate with. Still, having had experiences with 'ghosts' as a child and being sensitive to energy...it raises questions about just how much influence does the stuff on the other side have on the living?
 
I watch a lot (and I mean a lot!) of what my kids would call "Ghost Shows" because of my interest in the subject of spirits/ghosts/demons etc.. I am fascinated by one show where a medium walks through a house and 'converses' with the energies haunting and sometimes tormenting the living there. What I find interesting is the variety of 'entities' she describes which has broadened the types of spirits responsible for hauntings. She has described aliens, spirits of dead people who have transformed themselves into other kinds of entities, spirits who pretend to be demons, demons who pretend to be people, shadow people, land spirits, things so old she has no name for what they are, and you're regular run of the mill ghost of dead grandpa kind of spirits. This raises huge questions about what happens when we die, why do some 'people' or their negative energy stick around, and how the living experience different energies. Many of the most negative energies have a physical effect or mental effect on the living and this medium often encounters spirits/entities that make it their mission to make the person physically or mentally unwell.
As a nurse, I have had several patients who claimed that demons tormented them and given their behavior, I wasn't entirely convinced that that wasn't true. But the brain is a finely tuned machine that doesn't like miniscule changes to the chemical environment. Many of my patients with hallucinations, paranoia and manic depressive states also had thyroid disorders, which I found to be an interesting co-morbidity. So there's the physiological explanation for altered perceptions and behavior that I tend to resonate with. Still, having had experiences with 'ghosts' as a child and being sensitive to energy...it raises questions about just how much influence does the stuff on the other side have on the living?
good stuff. thx for sharing this
 
As a nurse, I have had several patients who claimed that demons tormented them and given their behavior, I wasn't entirely convinced that that wasn't true. But the brain is a finely tuned machine that doesn't like miniscule changes to the chemical environment. Many of my patients with hallucinations, paranoia and manic depressive states also had thyroid disorders, which I found to be an interesting co-morbidity. So there's the physiological explanation for altered perceptions and behavior that I tend to resonate with. Still, having had experiences with 'ghosts' as a child and being sensitive to energy...it raises questions about just how much influence does the stuff on the other side have on the living?
Are you talking about hypothyroidism and/or its opposite - hyperthyroidism?

Also, do you see any improvement when this problem is treated?

I suspect, like you, that it isn't a case of either it is chemical imbalance, or its is spiritual. More that a chemical imbalance makes it easier for other spirits to get in. After all, if we take seriously the idea that our brain and spirit are quite distinct, the remarkable thing is how well tuned our brains are to exclude multiple channels.

I am reminded of this every time the batteries in our radio need recharging. Unlike some radios, where the volume simply peters out, this radio starts to skip channels or bring in mixtures of channels.

David
 
interesting point. And while I don't disagree with it I wonder if you have any links / references on this?
Unfortunately I have nothing specific, but it does seem very plausible. Also drugs like ayahuasca seem to put people in touch with spirits, and DMT (the primary ingredient) is made endogenously in small amounts. I believe schizophrenia runs in families to some degree, so there is presumably some genetically determined fault.

David
 
I believe that in some cases spirit influence may be misdiagnosed as mental illness. But I also believe schizophrenia, properly diagnosed, involves multiple symptoms (not just "hallucinations") some of which are better explained as a disease of the nervous system than as spirit possession.

I've posted on this and related subjects frequently and I recently realized one of the reasons I feel this way ... I've had more than one experience where I felt like I was not in my body. At those times my emotional state was nothing like I experience during ordinary consciousness. It felt like a huge weight of emotional baggage was lifted off my shoulders. I felt free, like waking up from a bad dream. It seems to me that the vast majority of emotions I normally experience are coming from the physical body (brain, nervous system, hormones). All the emotions that seem so important in life, desire for success, desire for relationships with other people, anger, fear, are really temporary illusions produced by the brain and body that have nothing to do with our real existence as non-physical conscious entities. I don't mean that we are emotionless in the afterlife or that personality is not preserved in some way in the afterlife, just that the feelings we get hung up on and obsess over during life are often not meaningful to us except as physical organisms. And I think this is supported by a common theme reported by NDErs who say that during their life review they see that the important things in life are not success or failure but how we treat other people. This is also why I think "evil spirit" is not always the best explanation for "evil" people. (Maybe it is sometimes, but not necessarily always).
^
I understand exactly. It's like all those things we worry about, material things, or relationships, the bills, the house, paying for whatever doesn't matter anymore. It is lifted from us. How you look, if we are tired or sick is gone. Those were with the body. Judgments of things no longer are the same. It is if you are totally free to travel anywhere, fly through the forest, over the seas & be free.
 
Can I recommend Baldwin's Spirit Releasement Therapy? https://www.google.com/search?q=spi...9j69i57j0l4.3578j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I have been involved in communicating with 'attaching spirits' in a number of instances and I have no doubt soever that such influences are instrumental causing 'mental illness' in many.

I was 'diagnosed' as a paranoid schizophrenic in the early 1970s after seeking psychiatric assistance following an intense series of radical psi experiences. I was told I would have to be on medication for the rest of my life. That was garbage. I needed help to live with the psi phenomena, not suppress it. I didn't have any help so it took me a couple of decades to get things under control. Since the mid 1980s I have been constantly employed in role that require high functioning - aided from a 2 year interlude when I went to the UK and came back homesick.

I rejected the diagnosis because what I wanted was help with living with my sensitivity and not crushing it.I gotta be frank. Taking that pathway is tough. I had to work hard to get stuff under control.

So my POV now is that most so-called mental illness is down to 2 things - trauma or spirit interference. Happy to debate or argue as folk wish.
^^^
Maybe 3 things or more. Trauma, spirits, chemical imbalance. I was kind of thinking trauma & chemicals because if you look at some people who hit their head, went into a coma then come out speaking 7 languages, math skills off the charts or painters. I mean like the idiot savants. It's the brain. Imagine if we could actually figure out how to rewire the brain so we could be on THAT level. wow. I don't want to believe in spirits. It's too freakin scary to me. Some weirdo enters into your body!? ouch.... nooooooo.

I haven't believed in that for a long time. That said, lately watching man (and the things he does) and so many people saying "this is the end times". eh, each age thinks theirs is the "end times" but, lately there are so many evil people who just have no compassion for the things they do to others. It's painful to see.

There must be something, some force... could be the collective unconscious coming together as some kind of force. Thank God Epstein is gone.
 
My sister has schizoaffective disorder. In her case, its anxiety and panic and depression (not paranoia), which then leads to her voices being extremely difficult. And she hears them all the time, like at least every few minutes.

My sister is in the hospital due to a prescription drug overdose. Not sure if it was a suicide attempt but it looks like one. She is expected to make a full recovery if her lung infection resolves itself.

My sister believes her voices can suppress her hearing. She has become deaf in her left ear. But the voices didnt predict it, let alone cause it. An infection did.

I don't know how you overcame your condition but it seems astonishing to me if your description is the truth. How many people with schizophrenia improve without treatment? I havent a clue.
^^^
 
Thanks for your post, LoneShaman. Though it is written generally, and though I initially interpreted it as a generic response to which my own response was not sought, I gather from another thread that it was in part directed at me, so I'll craft a respond after all, and as though it were personal, hoping that I'm not being too selfish or narcissistic in doing so.



Yes. That's true. I have been locked up for nothing more than behaving oddly according to societal standards. An example: I was standing on the verge of the road near a bridge in my town of residence, close to passing traffic. Somebody must have called the police, because they turned up, and, when they arrived, they questioned me as to what I was doing. I wasn't interested in talking to them, nor in accepting their ultimatum: let us take you back to your home or we will take you to the doctor's to be evaluated under the Mental Health Act. So, they (coercively) took me to the doctor's, and, because I was reluctant to talk to anybody, let alone him, he decided that I should be sectioned.

It's that easy to find your way into the labyrinth that is the mental health system.

I have discovered over the years that a major problem too is perceived accountability. Those involved in the mental health system are very keen to cover their asses. How does this apply to my example? If they had left me near the bridge, and a car had hit me, they believe that the public would have held them, and not me, responsible (after all, I was "mentally disordered", and thus wasn't responsible for my own actions). Nevermind that from my perspective, I retained personal responsibility - albeit from a different reality frame - and that it was my choice to behave as I was behaving - they still wanted to cover themselves on the assumption that they might be held responsible for any injury that might have occurred to me given that I, myself, was not responsible.

They basically don't recognise personal responsibility in those who are in a different frame of reality. We (those of us in different reality frames) "lack decision-making capacity", and this is the part of the Mental Health Act which they invoke to deny me (us) agency, and to treat us forcibly.

But on another level, I perceive the whole "mental health" trip as a game in the perverse rather than the fun sense: "Act in this way and you are free, but act in THAT way and you come under OUR control". They are just waiting for one of us to slip into THAT way of being/behaving, and then they hook their talons into us and drag us off to their little chambers (psychiatric wards).

So, if I were to sum up my response to your quoted words: I see it more as a system of control than as a fearful reaction. I don't think that the mental health system does fear us. It holds all of the cards. It is just waiting for us to reveal our own, so that it can suck us into its dread embrace. That said, your average member of society who is not a part of the mental health system very much might fear "odd" behaviour and thinking, and very well might "deliver us into their hands".



This is where I'm not entirely sure, man. I think that what most messed me up psychospiritually was taking psychoactive drugs which weren't good for me. Those drugs opened a portal in my mind which allowed malicious disembodied entities to target me. I am not sure I am so much of a "potential shaman" as a "foolish partaker of forbidden substances". But then again: during the time (as a young adult) when I sampled those substances, I was going through an intense period of awakening, the details of which I won't go into here. So, when I throw that into the mix, I have to wonder: if it hadn't gone pear-shaped, might it have gone exponential? And then, I have to wonder about the shamanic possibilities that you bring up. It might well be that I could have attained some degree of shamanic functioning before the darkness set in, whilst I was still exploring my awakening. Or maybe the darkness is a necessary part of the shamanic journey. Maybe we need to confront our own demons before we can confront the demons of those whom we would seek to heal. And I do seem to be confronted by demons.



Yes, there is no doubt that our culture gets it wrong. As I wrote above, I think our culture responds within the parameters of a system of control rather than of a system of education and liberation. Speaking personally, the mechanisms of control to which I have been subjected are outrageous.
^^
Wait, what? You were standing next to traffic. Like just hanging out there for some time? Looking at oncoming traffic? Hey, if you looked like you were in a daze they have to take you down. Come on. What if someone ran you over in the car? What if a child was in that car? It could traumatize people who kill someone. Don't be doing that. The deal is maybe you had no intention of jumping into traffic, but if you are not responding in a "normal" way & don't want to be questioned about acting like this... hey, then you have to be taken someplace.

It's the police job to protect all of society so you are freaking people out. You can't do that. Sit on a park bench next time.
 
^^
Wait, what? You were standing next to traffic. Like just hanging out there for some time? Looking at oncoming traffic? Hey, if you looked like you were in a daze they have to take you down. Come on. What if someone ran you over in the car? What if a child was in that car? It could traumatize people who kill someone. Don't be doing that. The deal is maybe you had no intention of jumping into traffic, but if you are not responding in a "normal" way & don't want to be questioned about acting like this... hey, then you have to be taken someplace.

It's the police job to protect all of society so you are freaking people out. You can't do that. Sit on a park bench next time.

A couple of points:

  • This was in a small town (maybe a couple of thousand residents) with little traffic. The road I was on was windy and so people are driving slowly anyway. There was very little chance of me actually being hit by a car.
  • There has anyway got to be a better response to "This guy is standing too close to traffic and isn't interested in responding to us in any depth" than "Throw him into a psych ward for a few weeks/months, and force-feed him psychotropic medication during that time even if he doesn't want it".
 
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