Was Jesus a Rationalist Who Tried Largely Unsuccessfully to Use Metaphor to Free the People of His Time from Dogma?
Offline People who believe that Jesus himself was a myth tend to base their argument on two things :
1. The unbelievable nature of the only written records we have of his life with their supernatural trappings and inconsistencies.
2. The absence of any references to him in contemporary histories.
But why should the life of an itinerant preacher who spent most of his time in the sticks, caused some minor disruption in a temple in Jerusalem and said some impolite things to some rabbis and was then crucified (something which happened to an awful not of troublemakers at that time) make it into the history books? The only reason we would expect to find him there is if he actually was a miracle worker who went around raising the dead and walking on water. That would be news. But we don't believe that. Clearly those stories were the product of the mythologising process when stories are passed on orally by individuals who want to convince their audience of how wonderful this individual seemed to be. Someone says, "We only had water to drink at the wedding, but Jesus was such a great guy to hang around with that we might have been drinking wine." A guy says, "Jesus brought me out of that depression. I came alive again. Before that I was a dead man." It isn't hard to imagine how the myths began. And by the time the stories were being written down the authors had a vested interest in persuading their audience so they told some deliberate lies, for instance two of the gospel authors made up stories to place Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, to link up with an Old Testament prophecy, when his birth place was almost certainly Nazareth.
The real question, if he did exist as an individual, is why one of many itinerant preachers became so mythologised. If he didn't perform the magic tricks he was reputed to have performed, what was it which excited those with whom he came in contact? The answer, I think, lies in his words. We have to allow for the fact that he was talking in parables and metaphors and using other forms of poetic language, but he was talking about the deep psychological sickness of the human race and offering a cure. Religion was a symptom of that historic sickness which had its origins long before the dawn of civilisation. Jesus was born into the Jewish religion, which believes that there is a supernatural being which stands in judgement of all humans. It seems to me that Jesus, like a good psychiatrist, engaged with his patients, using their delusion as the path out of that delusion. If nature and love between humans were what they knew of their God, then he emphasised those things, and used them as an argument against the concept that there was a supernatural God who might condemn them. Nature didn't condemn them. The sun shines on the evil as well as the good. And they needn't condemn each other. Such judgement and lack of forgiveness were the main source of their suffering. What he called "sin" is what we would call "neurosis", it is and was the natural self-interest of the suffering individual. He must have been very good at relieving that suffering in many of those with whom he came in contact. This must have seemed miraculous. But how to explain the miracle without acknowledging that the whole of the human race is suffering from a psychological sickness? Well, if we are all healthy then he must have been superhuman. The idea that he was simply a healthy human being and we are all psychological cripples just wasn't very appealing. Hence the miracles and the belief that he was divine. And various other biases would have come into play. Because many of us are afraid of sex he had to become sexless, even though the sexually repressive philosophy promoted in the laws of the Old Testament and in the writings of Jesus' main cheerleader Paul are not to be found in the words attributed to him. His comment about men who look lustfully at women committing adultery with them in their hearts can be seen more as a plea for honesty and against hypocrisy, i.e. why punish people for doing what we all want to do anyway?
Recently I've started writing a series of essays in which I, as a person who doesn't believe in the supernatural, give my own interpretations for some of the things Jesus is quoted as saying. For me it doesn't really matter whether or not he existed. What matters for me is the inspiration I get from the words. I could be writing a commentary on a fictional novel, or an ink blot for that matter. If something helps me to excavate something of value from myself, then it has value for me regardless of its source. My approach is nothing new. I'm just following the example of one of my heroes, Wilhelm Reich, who put forward much the same kinds of ideas in his 1953 book The Murder of Christ : The Emotional Plague of Mankind.
http://www.howtobefree-theblog.blogspot.com.au/
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Offline A_Nony_Mouse wrote:Aussiescribbler wrote:A_Nony_Mouse wrote:Lets first start with all that being long discarded Jungian and Freudian cult gibberish. That is how they ran their psychoanalysis con that L. Ron Hubbard copied.Fools may have discarded Jung and Freud. I have not. I view this throwing of a bold exploration of depth psychology onto the garbage heap as an act of cowardice by increasingly insecure intellectuals who are suffering from what R. D. Laing called "psychophobia" (i.e. fear of one's own mind).
Most people saw the con game and never took them seriously. They never cured anyone. Talk your way to mental health is a known con.
Serious research has established the ideas they expounded have no basis in the way the mind works. You may call it bold exploration but if it does not work it is wrong for the same reasons alchemy is wrong despite the gibberish philosophy often associated with it. Their ideas are sterile and lead no place but do permit an astounding amount of mental masturbatory gibberish to be spouted and sound profound.
So while the con artists go on and on about conflict between the id and ego and superego these conflicts are directly related to chemical imbalance in the brain and the conflicts go away when the balance is restored. So one may have a deep and profound philosophy on the relation of humors to disease penicillin works shitcans the profound philosophy. So also with Freud, Jung, Adler and the like.
They were all crooks and con artists selling talk your way to mental health at $100/hr and up just like all the rest of the hucksters around today including the Scientologists.
I see you've bought the con of chemical imbalance. We'll see how long that one lasts. At the moment it is selling a lot of drugs, but mental illness is on the increase. And very few psychiatrists or general practitioners who prescribe anti-depressants would deny the importance of cognitive therapy. In other words, they admit that depression is at least partly controlled by the things we think.
All of this is fear based. Laing showed that some patients who were diagnosed as schizophrenic would return to a rational way of thinking and behaving if treated with kindness, but when returned to their families they quickly became insane once again. This led him to analyse the sick power relationships within families. Parents were offended that he was implying that they were unwittingly sending their children out of their minds. In another case a girl had hallucinations every time she entered the family home. Laing found that her father was periodically raping her. He suggested that she learn karate before returning to live with her parents. She did and her hallucinations never returned because she knew she could stop her father from raping her. Today, a psychiatrist might just hear that she had hallucinations, put her on anti-psychotics, and her father could just go on raping her.
It is hardly limited to depression, something not explained by id, ego and superego nor addressed by talking. It started working in the 1950s and has continued to work since then. Since then drugs have worked on a broader range of illnesses. The asylums are still empty.
One might as well ask how long antibiotics will continue to work as they continue to have the same success as antibiotics by the same measure and the same matter of testing as antibiotics and for only a decade less than penicillin.
And yet there are still faith healers.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
Offline A_Nony_Mouse wrote:Quote:3. Neurosis interferes with our ability to think freely.That is part of the Freudian con gibberish. But if you think otherwise, give me a working definition of neurosis. I will be asking how it differs from a Scientology thing that interferes with free thought.
Neurosis is just a technical term for persistent emotional distress or suffering, a sense of dis-ease with the self.
That is a description not a working definition. What are the specific symptoms which characterize it? How does one know what it is as opposed to what it is not?
A_Nony_Mouse wrote:I would not say you are a Scientologist. I do say your list demonstrates how well Hubbard copied the psycholanalysis con game to convert Dianetics to Scientology. You have recited almost exactly his take on the con by taking it from a cure of the ill to normal to an improvement on the normal to the superior or, if you are being humble the super-normal or what normal should be.I don't know much about Scientology. I've heard or read bits or pieces here and there. And I have heard of the idea of "the clear" - the person whose mental blocks have been cleared so that they can remember anything. I read somewhere that the supposed first "clear" couldn't even remember what colour tie L. Ron was wearing while he was standing behind her.
Was I unclear that both Dianetics and psychotherapy are con games?
My flat mate does like to refer to me as L. Ron and his Church of Wankenetics.
Hardly surprising given all the points you did not quote and how close they are to Scientology.
Of course, if all free-thinking individuals will tend to converge on a unified vision of reality, one would expect the same ideas to pop up in different places. Though I grant you that you could infer that it is simply a case that both L. Ron and myself were/are influenced by psychoanalysis.
I did not say influenced by common ideas. He specifically started his con as an imitation of Freudian psychoanalysis claiming better results. He converted it to a religion because he was doing the same things they were doing but they got their classified as practicing medicine and were getting him charged as practicing without a license.
A_Nony_Mouse wrote:There are many paths to take you many places. Most of them take your money along the way. In the end I suggest you heed the words of the great philosopher Buckaroo Banzai, No matter where you are going there you are. It will save you a lot of money.What am I spending my money on? My psychiatrist is provided free by the state.
So the crook is being paid from your tax money instead of by you directly. That changes nothing. Drugs alone work. Drugs with talk work. Drugs without talk work. Do you see a pattern here?
If I wanted to read about Scientology we have books I can read for free from the library, though, if L. Ron wasn't saying anything I'm not saying better than I don't know why I'd bother. I buy a few second hand books by Reich and Laing which cost me a pittance.
It depends which version of the scam you prefer. Does reading any of those books you do have help you read your way to mental health?
Those who try to buy enlightenment are falling for a con. On that we can agree. I get mine for free.
It is the same con no matter how the con artist gets paid. How the crook gets paid does not change the nature of the scam nor the fool who is being taken in by it.
If you had some described but undefined problem and you were sent to a state paid faith healer and you were directed towards a dozen famous authors on faith healing would you spend so much of your time and effort waiting for the healing from faith to start happening? Yet here you are.
And I offer it for free to others. How to Be Free and Materialism is Masturbation : Essays in Freedom are free as ebooks and always have been and always will be. I've just organised a print-on-demand paperback of How to Be Free for which i'm charging $10.00. A small amount of that is profit. So far I've only sold a copy to my sister, but if it does sell more widely I'll use the profit to pay for advertise or something. I have no intention of ever giving workshops (for free or for charge). I use a pseudonym partly to avoid the possibility that anyone might expect me to do such a thing. I just throw my ideas out into the world to have what effect they may. I like to discuss them with people, but I have no desire to attract attention to myself in my life away from the internet.
It sounds like you have gotten the hang of the scam. Self help books most always make some profit. You might also look to Amazon for their eBook publishing where the profit margin is many times higher. Or if your are still in a manic phase you can lower the price to keep the same profit.
If it sells enough you will come to understand the importance of workshops and the basics cost of them is quite high so your profit will still be percentagewise quite low. Keep your eye on the annual gross not the week to week net. There are motivational speaker circuits that are always looking for new talent.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
Offline It is hardly limited to depression, something not explained by id, ego and superego nor addressed by talking. It started working in the 1950s and has continued to work since then. Since then drugs have worked on a broader range of illnesses. The asylums are still empty.
One might as well ask how long antibiotics will continue to work as they continue to have the same success as antibiotics by the same measure and the same matter of testing as antibiotics and for only a decade less than penicillin.
And yet there are still faith healers.
Yes, drugs are used for a number of conditions.
Depression
There are a number of different kinds of anti-depressant. At least one study has come to the conclusion that their effectiveness is not much greater than that of a placebo : http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57380893/treating-depression-is-there-a-placebo-effect/ . I know from my own experience that doctors often have to try a number of drugs before one appears to be effective. And it take so long for them to take effect - about two weeks - that it is hard to know if the person would pull out of the depression naturally. There are two kinds of depression - endogenous depression and exogenous depression. Endogenous depression occurs for no obvious external reason. Exogenous depression is reactive depression which may be triggered off by negative events in the patients life, such as a loved one dying or the loss of a large amount of money, etc. The fact that there is such a thing as exogenous depression indicates that depression is a response to thinking and not simply to a chemical imbalance. Drugs are not the only non-talking treatment for depression. Electro-shock therapy (the application of electrodes to the head to induce an epileptic fit) is still used as it is sometimes effective to break a particularly severe depression when anti-depressants alone are ineffective. I've had two courses of this. It has the annoying side effect of wiping out portions of your memory.
Anxiety conditions
This includes phobias and obsessive compulsive disorder. I have suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. I had obsessive thoughts about gouging out my own eyes or killing babies. Some obsessive compulsives find themselves driven to repeat certain rituals in order to keep their anxiety under control. They feel that if they don't straighten all the paintings on the walls of their house constantly that their wife will die or something like that. While drugs can be used to treat anxiety conditions in the very short term, all anti-anxiety drugs (valium, serepax, xanax, etc.) are extremely addictive. The most effective treatment for anxiety disorders tends to be exposure therapy, i.e. gradually exposing oneself to the thing or situation about which we have anxiety. In the case of rituals, gradually reducing them and learning that the bad thing doesn't happen.
Bipolar disorder
This is another condition I have suffered from and for which I am still taking medication. With bipolar disorder there are periods of depression alternating with periods of speeded up thought and reckless behaviour. The manic phase can be psychotic, involving delusional thinking or even hallucinations. I never had hallucinations. Many of my mood swings could clearly be related to life crises and accompanying stress in my life. My major breakdown was brought on by a double bind - a situation in which I had placed too much faith in a particular individual who was the leader of an organisation of which I was a member. My absolute need to believe conflicted with what my reason was telling me. I lacked the faith to believe in myself, but I also lacked the ability to deny my own reason. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. (This tends, in my mind, to lead credence to the idea, expressed by Gregory Bateson and R. D. Laing that psychotic episodes often are brought on by a double bind situation.) Bipolar disorder is treated with three kinds of drugs - anti-depressants to lift depression, anti-psychotics (the major tranquillizers) to dampen down mania, and mood stabilisers such as Lithium and Sodium Valproate (a drug also used for epilepsy). Care is needed when using anti-depressants on a bipolar patient as they can tend to bring on a manic episode if continued for too long after depression abates. Anti-psychotics are also used only in the sort term when mania needs to be controlled.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a form of disordered thinking which can incorporate such a varied range of symptoms, of which only a few need be present for the diagnosis, that some (like R. D. Laing) have questioned whether it is a useful term. Hallucinations, hearing of voices and paranoid delusions are common symptoms. Those diagnosed this way are usually treated with a steady dose of anti-psychotics. These are not a cure, but they do inhibit the brain's ability to produce the symptoms. They do this at a great cost. They are often appropriately referred to as "a chemical strait-jacket". Their use is under increasing scrutiny : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/02/mythoftheantipsychotic Laing's view was that psychosis is itself a healing process and that by impeding that process anti-psychotics keep the patient from ever getting better.
As for an explanation for depression, here is mine from How to Be Free :
When we are depressed we are cut off from reality, trapped within the tiny world of our own withdrawn ego. This is a bit of a paradox. If reality were an unpleasant place and we withdrew into our own ideal dream world, that might make sense. But reality is a beautiful place and when we are depressed we retreat from it into a place which is truly horrible. Why?
Thoughts are the body of the ego, whether it is a free ego thinking spontaneously and laterally, or an obsessed ego running around in circles.
Though it has many variants, the central thought of the depressed mind is, “I’m a bad person.” This thought makes us think that we deserve to be cut off from the beauty of reality and, ironically, our attempts to fight our way back out again are what keep us where we are. We become like the man who is so anxious to escape the burning building through the revolving door that he runs too fast and ends up constantly revolving back in again.
What keeps us cut off from healing reality is that we keep thinking about ourselves. There is a simple trick we might try to short-circuit this process. If we fear that we may be a worthless individual, then we might ask ourselves : “How bad would it be if that were the case?” What would it mean if we had no worth? Nothing could be expected of us. The world would not cease to exist. We would still be capable of experiencing pleasure. To be worthless would simply be to be insignificant or unimportant. (Of course this isn’t the same as being bad, but it is still worth a try.)
If we can accept that, even if we were worthless, it would not be such a bad thing, then we can stop the self-justification merry-go-round that keeps us cut off from our capacity for unconditional love. Our inner child is capable of loving us unconditionally as much as anyone else.
There are two major kinds of depression - reactive and endogenous. Reactive depression is depression which is triggered by an outside event. This could include the break-up of a relationship, a death in the family or giving birth. Endogenous depression seems to originate spontaneously without an outside trigger.
Given that the central thought of depression is “I am a bad person” we can see that the most likely cause for endogenous depression is self-condemnation based on “sick” ideas formed from repressed emotions. Very often those most prone to depression are those whose behaviour is impeccable. So why should such individuals come to believe that they are bad? The well-behaved person is someone who represses any antisocial impulses. This means that the subconscious of the well-behaved individual is more likely to contain “evil” thoughts. Not realising that the existence of such thoughts is a sign of moral rectitude rather than the opposite, the endogenous depressive condemns himself when he comes in contact with such thoughts.
One of my early depressive episodes, as I’ve mentioned, was exacerbated by the thought of killing a baby. Such a thought is a fairly typical one for the individual who keeps a very tight reign on his anger. When we are feeling unhappy it makes us selfish. A new baby gets all the attention, so we feel jealous. Our mind throws up the idea, “If I killed that baby, then they would pay attention to me.” It is just a passing thought fired off by the brain. But the conscience comes into play. The conscience, as I’ve said, is another part of the ego which contains our ideas of right and wrong. The conscience condemns us for such a though. We try to think of some way of proving we are not really bad, but even the best defence is, in itself, a jail cell, because it is thinking obsessively about ourselves which keeps us cut off from the healing power of our deeper unconditionally loving self.
With reactive depression the process is exactly the same. It is not the event which triggers the depression which is really important to understanding it. What is important is understanding that the event leads the individual to feel that they are a bad person. In the case of a relationship break-up, “If I’m a good person, why did she dump me?” In the case of a death there is no doubt some regret involved for the person who becomes depressed, “If only I’d been a better son,” or whatever. In the case of postnatal depression, there are two possible kinds of negative thought, “What a bad, screwed up person I am when I compare myself to a healthy, unspoilt infant!” and/or “I’m not a good enough person to be responsible for the care of this precious child.”
Some claim that depression is all a matter of brain chemistry. While it may be true that the stress of depression brings about changes in the chemistry of the brain, from a close examination of the way that the obsessional thinking characteristic of depression keeps us trapped within ourselves and cut off from the healing potential of spontaneous and open communication with other people and the world around us, we can see that there are better approaches to releasing ourselves from depression than swallowing pills or having epileptic seizures induced by the application of electricity to our brains. These things have provided a limited amount of help to some individuals, including myself, but they are really the equivalent of providing air-conditioning in the prison cell instead of unlocking the door.
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Offline That is a description not a working definition. What are the specific symptoms which characterize it? How does one know what it is as opposed to what it is not?
There are so many symptoms I can't list them here. Clearly, if my contention is that our species has been characterised by this condition for its entire existence, it would be easier to say what is not a symptom than what is. The opposite of neurotic, in my conception, is free, spontaneous, loving, uninhibited, irreverent, creative, sensual.
If you had some described but undefined problem and you were sent to a state paid faith healer and you were directed towards a dozen famous authors on faith healing would you spend so much of your time and effort waiting for the healing from faith to start happening? Yet here you are.
I don't know about faith healing, but my healing has happened. I'm waiting for fuck all. I see my psychiatrist because it seems wise to be cautious and I'm a cooperative guy. I take the mood stabilisers because they have minimal side-effects and my psychiatrist feels less nervous if I take them. But I haven't had any problems for about five years. And it is not drugs which have done that. They helped at times along the way when I was either very depressed or psychotic, and they may have taken the edge off my mood swings a little. But the bulk of my cure has come from gaining insight.
It sounds like you have gotten the hang of the scam. Self help books most always make some profit. You might also look to Amazon for their eBook publishing where the profit margin is many times higher. Or if your are still in a manic phase you can lower the price to keep the same profit.If it sells enough you will come to understand the importance of workshops and the basics cost of them is quite high so your profit will still be percentagewise quite low. Keep your eye on the annual gross not the week to week net. There are motivational speaker circuits that are always looking for new talent.
I won't use Amazon for my ebook because they won't let me distribute it for free through them. The paperback should go up there. If I sell any paperback copies through Amazon I'll make $1.46 on each. It might pay for a few Facebook ads or something. If you think that my decision to make no money from the ebook is a product of mania then I would have to have been manic for over a year. My psychiatrist would not agree with your diagnosis. 
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Offline A_Nony_Mouse wrote:That is a description not a working definition. What are the specific symptoms which characterize it? How does one know what it is as opposed to what it is not?There are so many symptoms I can't list them here. Clearly, if my contention is that our species has been characterised by this condition for its entire existence, it would be easier to say what is not a symptom than what is. The opposite of neurotic, in my conception, is free, spontaneous, loving, uninhibited, irreverent, creative, sensual.
A_Nony_Mouse wrote:If you had some described but undefined problem and you were sent to a state paid faith healer and you were directed towards a dozen famous authors on faith healing would you spend so much of your time and effort waiting for the healing from faith to start happening? Yet here you are.I don't know about faith healing, but my healing has happened. I'm waiting for fuck all. I see my psychiatrist because it seems wise to be cautious and I'm a cooperative guy. I take the mood stabilisers because they have minimal side-effects and my psychiatrist feels less nervous if I take them. But I haven't had any problems for about five years. And it is not drugs which have done that. They helped at times along the way when I was either very depressed or psychotic, and they may have taken the edge off my mood swings a little. But the bulk of my cure has come from gaining insight.
A_Nony_Mouse wrote:It sounds like you have gotten the hang of the scam. Self help books most always make some profit. You might also look to Amazon for their eBook publishing where the profit margin is many times higher. Or if your are still in a manic phase you can lower the price to keep the same profit.If it sells enough you will come to understand the importance of workshops and the basics cost of them is quite high so your profit will still be percentagewise quite low. Keep your eye on the annual gross not the week to week net. There are motivational speaker circuits that are always looking for new talent.
I won't use Amazon for my ebook because they won't let me distribute it for free through them. The paperback should go up there. If I sell any paperback copies through Amazon I'll make $1.46 on each. It might pay for a few Facebook ads or something. If you think that my decision to make no money from the ebook is a product of mania then I would have to have been manic for over a year. My psychiatrist would not agree with your diagnosis.
I can't get your book to download and the buy option doesn't work either. When I read on line it times out. Houston---are you there-----Houston----damn. Advice---Advice-----advice. If you're here turn on a light.
The only possible thing the world could need saving from are those running it.
Offline I can't get your book to download and the buy option doesn't work either. When I read on line it times out. Houston---are you there-----Houston----damn. Advice---Advice-----advice. If you're here turn on a light.
Just email me at aussiescribbler@dodo.com.au and let me know what format you want it in and I'll help you out. Was it Smashwords where you were trying to download it? It is also at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Diesel, Sony and the I-Tunes store among other places. Or you can read it easily on-line at Worthy of Publishing.
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Offline ...Bipolar disorder
This is another condition I have suffered from and for which I am still taking medication. With bipolar disorder there are periods of depression alternating with periods of speeded up thought and reckless behaviour. The manic phase can be psychotic, involving delusional thinking or even hallucinations.
...
For a fact after considering your posts that is what I was going to suggest. Further I was going to suggest you are not taking your meds to enjoy the manic phase and are hoping to get through the down side with anti-depressants. I was then planning to add you are about a week away from learning that does not work.
You will have better results if you stop playing with your medications and take them as prescribed. You would not play dosage game with antibiotics. The same reasoning applies.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
Offline A_Nony_Mouse wrote:That is a description not a working definition. What are the specific symptoms which characterize it? How does one know what it is as opposed to what it is not?There are so many symptoms I can't list them here. Clearly, if my contention is that our species has been characterised by this condition for its entire existence, it would be easier to say what is not a symptom than what is. The opposite of neurotic, in my conception, is free, spontaneous, loving, uninhibited, irreverent, creative, sensual.
That you are seeing what is average behavior of which yours is exaggerated is denying the facts by declaring your symptoms as normal. The correct term is average not normal. A symptom is a normal aspect of personality that is extreme or inappropriate. It is true of most physical illnesses also. The symptoms of a cold are reactions to the virus not the virus itself.
Good luck.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
Offline Aussiescribbler wrote:...Bipolar disorder
This is another condition I have suffered from and for which I am still taking medication. With bipolar disorder there are periods of depression alternating with periods of speeded up thought and reckless behaviour. The manic phase can be psychotic, involving delusional thinking or even hallucinations.
...
For a fact after considering your posts that is what I was going to suggest. Further I was going to suggest you are not taking your meds to enjoy the manic phase and are hoping to get through the down side with anti-depressants. I was then planning to add you are about a week away from learning that does not work.
You will have better results if you stop playing with your medications and take them as prescribed. You would not play dosage game with antibiotics. The same reasoning applies.
You are making unfounded assumptions. I have not varied my medication for over a year. And that variations, a slight reduction in my Lithium in response to an irritating need to take a urination break in the middle of movies, was made on the suggestion of my psychiatrist and is something she has continued to monitor, as is always the case with patients on mood stabilisers, through regular blood tests.
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Offline Aussiescribbler wrote:A_Nony_Mouse wrote:That is a description not a working definition. What are the specific symptoms which characterize it? How does one know what it is as opposed to what it is not?There are so many symptoms I can't list them here. Clearly, if my contention is that our species has been characterised by this condition for its entire existence, it would be easier to say what is not a symptom than what is. The opposite of neurotic, in my conception, is free, spontaneous, loving, uninhibited, irreverent, creative, sensual.
That you are seeing what is average behavior of which yours is exaggerated is denying the facts by declaring your symptoms as normal. The correct term is average not normal. A symptom is a normal aspect of personality that is extreme or inappropriate. It is true of most physical illnesses also. The symptoms of a cold are reactions to the virus not the virus itself.
Good luck.
are interchangeable. Each can be used in place of the other---- is equal to median.
The only possible thing the world could need saving from are those running it.
Offline That is a description not a working definition. What are the specific symptoms which characterize it? How does one know what it is as opposed to what it is not?
There are so many symptoms I can't list them here. Clearly, if my contention is that our species has been characterised by this condition for its entire existence, it would be easier to say what is not a symptom than what is. The opposite of neurotic, in my conception, is free, spontaneous, loving, uninhibited, irreverent, creative, sensual.
That you are seeing what is average behavior of which yours is exaggerated is denying the facts by declaring your symptoms as normal. The correct term is average not normal. A symptom is a normal aspect of personality that is extreme or inappropriate. It is true of most physical illnesses also. The symptoms of a cold are reactions to the virus not the virus itself.
Good luck.
When did I talk about what is "normal"? A norm is a statistical average. In an unhealthy society the norm is to be unhealthy.
I judge my own state of mental health by how comfortable I feel in the real world and how smoothly and spontaneously I interact with others and how easily I am able to perform the tasks required of me by my work and home life. When I have been unwell it has sometimes taken the form of distress (depression or anxiety) and sometimes it has taken the form of a disjuncture between myself and others based on powerful feelings and accompanying ideas which do not directly relate to the reality of my environment.
People are not diagnosed as mentally ill based on their beliefs, regardless of how delusional those beliefs may appear, but on their ability to function in society. Many members of the so-called "new age movement" believe in angels. This is not enough for them to be proscribed anti-psychotics. But if they take a dump on the neighbour's lawn and say the angels told them that they could, then they will probably get locked up for a while. People are diagnosed on the basis that they report that they are suffering (as with depression or anxiety) or because their behaviour suggests that they may be a danger to themselves or others or if people find their behaviour difficult to tolerate.
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Here we have an example of your tendency to see what you want to see rather than what is in front of your eyes. Anyone whose head was not filled with rigid dogmatic thinking would have been able to read what I wrote there and understand it. I talk about a group of people who are authoritarian possibly objecting to something which is non-authoritarian, i.e. anarchistic (from anarchism - rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority). But, while you acknowledge that the church was authoritarian, you are unprepared to open your mind to the possibility that the words of Jesus can be read as an articulation of an anarchistic philosophy, so you misread the word as "anachronism", because that allows you to play to your strength, which is assigning things to time periods. Freud would have been able to deduce much about you from this no doubt.
It's a fun challenge to enter into a debate and see how well I can pull responses to counter-arguments out of my arse.
And it has led to a positive sharing of insights with someone else who is on a similar wave-length to myself (Old Seer). Anyway, debate on these kinds of boards is more about opinions than facts. You use facts (or the best guesses by scholars as to what the facts might be) to support your pre-existing prejudices. Your factually unsupported assertions about Freud and Jung indicate this. One thing which impresses me about this fictional character Jesus is that he was so eloquently able to sum up someone like yourself : "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." You strain at the gnat of every little historical detail while ignoring the camel that, fictional or not, the gospels contain at least some important thought. And yet, if the gospels have no value, why waste so much of your time researching the evidence for rejecting them? You already have your reason for rejecting them. You see nothing of value n them. That would satisfy me and I'd be off watching more episodes of Buffy if I were you. To paraphrase from that fictional shyster again : "It is better to pop another season of Buffy into the DVD player than to curse the darkness that is Christianity." 
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
You are so far from rational thought you may never achieve it. Let me demonstrate.
Please give me a working definition of soul which can be tested as to being correct. After that demonstrate that it is common to all humans. Please explain the difference between a shared soul and a collective soul and if the same, a means of objectively testing your explaination.
You can string words together in any arbitrary and capricous manner. You can also maintain internal consistency of usage as is a requirement of any work of fiction particularly fantasy fiction. But those do not transfer information without working definitions of the terms being used.
That is part of the Freudian con gibberish. But if you think otherwise, give me a working definition of neurosis. I will be asking how it differs from a Scientology thing that interferes with free thought.
Hubbard copied that almost verbatim.
Again that is Scientology doctrine and the ET is named Xenu.
The e-meter sessions are specifically to remove the blocks to clear thinking.
L. Ron was Jesus or vice versa.
I would not say you are a Scientologist. I do say your list demonstrates how well Hubbard copied the psycholanalysis con game to convert Dianetics to Scientology. You have recited almost exactly his take on the con by taking it from a cure of the ill to normal to an improvement on the normal to the superior or, if you are being humble the super-normal or what normal should be.
The christian version of the con is born into sin and by constant struggle to overcome the neverending stream of temptations and sin one can achieve an enlightened state in this life.
Then there were the highest levels of the "pagan" religions all of which appear to have involved some form of drug usage at the highest level of initiation.
In the Orient this is the search for enlightenment. The belief that one must search and struggle for the ultimate goal.
There are many paths to take you many places. Most of them take your money along the way. In the end I suggest you heed the words of the great philosopher Buckaroo Banzai, No matter where you are going there you are. It will save you a lot of money.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
I see you've bought the con of chemical imbalance. We'll see how long that one lasts. At the moment it is selling a lot of drugs, but mental illness is on the increase. And very few psychiatrists or general practitioners who prescribe anti-depressants would deny the importance of cognitive therapy. In other words, they admit that depression is at least partly controlled by the things we think.
All of this is fear based. Laing showed that some patients who were diagnosed as schizophrenic would return to a rational way of thinking and behaving if treated with kindness, but when returned to their families they quickly became insane once again. This led him to analyse the sick power relationships within families. Parents were offended that he was implying that they were unwittingly sending their children out of their minds. In another case a girl had hallucinations every time she entered the family home. Laing found that her father was periodically raping her. He suggested that she learn karate before returning to live with her parents. She did and her hallucinations never returned because she knew she could stop her father from raping her. Today, a psychiatrist might just hear that she had hallucinations, put her on anti-psychotics, and her father could just go on raping her.
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free
Neurosis is just a technical term for persistent emotional distress or suffering, a sense of dis-ease with the self.
I don't know much about Scientology. I've heard or read bits or pieces here and there. And I have heard of the idea of "the clear" - the person whose mental blocks have been cleared so that they can remember anything. I read somewhere that the supposed first "clear" couldn't even remember what colour tie L. Ron was wearing while he was standing behind her.
My flat mate does like to refer to me as L. Ron and his Church of Wankenetics.
Of course, if all free-thinking individuals will tend to converge on a unified vision of reality, one would expect the same ideas to pop up in different places. Though I grant you that you could infer that it is simply a case that both L. Ron and myself were/are influenced by psychoanalysis.
What am I spending my money on? My psychiatrist is provided free by the state. If I wanted to read about Scientology we have books I can read for free from the library, though, if L. Ron wasn't saying anything I'm not saying better than I don't know why I'd bother. I buy a few second hand books by Reich and Laing which cost me a pittance.
Those who try to buy enlightenment are falling for a con. On that we can agree. I get mine for free.
And I offer it for free to others. How to Be Free and Materialism is Masturbation : Essays in Freedom are free as ebooks and always have been and always will be. I've just organised a print-on-demand paperback of How to Be Free for which i'm charging $10.00. A small amount of that is profit. So far I've only sold a copy to my sister, but if it does sell more widely I'll use the profit to pay for advertise or something. I have no intention of ever giving workshops (for free or for charge). I use a pseudonym partly to avoid the possibility that anyone might expect me to do such a thing. I just throw my ideas out into the world to have what effect they may. I like to discuss them with people, but I have no desire to attract attention to myself in my life away from the internet.
"Dogma is a defence against the brain’s capacity for free thought based on the fear that such thought might lead to a scary place."
Joe Blow - How to Be Free