Ron: THIS is what defines MYSTICISM. [Krimel] I don't get your point in this one.
Ron: The experiences that coincide with others is called sanity, the ones that do not are mystical. It's the mystical experience which drives the dynamism of the social level If the individual can convey their own experience in a way that is believable or that society is open to particular types of mystical expression. ie: visions, religious experiences, art. [Krimel] I think this kind of romanticizing of mental illness really does a disservice to the mentally ill. Certainly culture plays a role in defining what constitutes deviant behavior. But there are physiologically based disorders that impair a person's ability to function under any set of conditions. They impair a person's ability to communicate with others, to distinguish between reality and fantasy, to have a personal sense of value or to feel any value at all. I don't think equating mentally illness with mysticism does justice to either the mystic or the mentally ill. [Ron] The mysticism of the shamans is the one you describe above; they have the ability "to take on other points of view. We intentionally alter our own illusions if you will." These mystical "other points of view" are taken to be more accurate than traditional "illusions" or preconceptions simply because they come from one who is trained or "ordained" to do so. [Krimel] The ability to take other points of view is universal among healthy members of our species. I meant nothing special by this. It is an ability that, as I said, begins at about nine months of age with shared attention and develops throughout the preschool years. Very young children tend to believe that everyone else sees what they see and knows what they know. There has been a great deal of research on this that I won't bore you with except to say that all I mean by seeing another point of view is our ability to understand that others don't see things the way we do. There are people by the way who lack this ability. They are autistic. People with the milder forms of autism may be highly intelligent but lack the ability to understand that other people have emotions or to read emotions in others. They have to learn that smiles mean happy and frowns mean sad in the same way they have to learn that c-a-t spells "cat" and means fuzzy purring critter with claws. The ability to shift our illusions is the foundation of our ability to imagine different outcomes for the future and to plan our actions to affect those outcomes that we desire. In so doing we alter our own illusions at will. Having said all this let me hasten to add a couple of disclaimers. First it is true that some of our more creative people have suffered from mental disorders, especially bipolar disorder in which they cycle between phases of heightened mental activity with bursts of creativity and phases of severe and debilitating depression. People with frontal lobe epileptic seizures often come out of these seizures with the conviction that they have experienced or _are_ the divine. Nevertheless this is a far cry from saying that all mystics are mad or that all mad persons are mystics. [Ron] Back to "understanding" there are many types of understanding with accuracy being the determiner. Those who experience directly are vastly more accurate in their understanding than those who do not. Which I believe was Marsha's point. The term "understanding" was covering a lot of acreage in your use of it. [Krimel] Certainly there are different kinds and levels of understanding but I think it is folly to say that having an experience leads to a "better" understanding. Just to frame this in terms that are as annoying as possible; who do you think the average woman wants in the delivery room with her, a crack whore who has delivered four kids in the social service system and "understands" what pregnancy is like or a male nurse midwife who understands the mechanism of pregnancy and how to deal with the problems that can arise during delivery? In fact people in emergency services have to work to set aside that first kind of understanding in order to do their jobs effectively. Empathizing with a patient's pain and suffering may in fact hinder their ability to provide effective treatment. Sure I have seen "Patch Adams" and William Hurt in "The Doctor" and I get the point but in the end when I need medical care I want competence not compassion. 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