Psychosis
I think psychosis is the absolute shadow of culture. Our culture is rooted in the idea that only outer life is real, and not inner life. Rooted in the idea that inner life emerges from outer life, not both from both in moebius fashion. In psychosis one sees patterns and connections between everything and it seems to suggest that the outer world follows inner rules, that one’s inner states are emanating outer realities. This is what, imo, generates delusions of grandeur, paranoia, etc. The reason it generates this suffering is not because “seeing the outer as a reflection of the inner” is wrong, but because (imo) it is the absolute shadow of culture. Our culture doesn’t allow for alternate cosmologies. Plus, our culture teaches us to not accept alternate cosmologies, so when we feel like we are experiencing life from a point of view that is contrary to culture’s, we have been trained by culture to “not accept ourselves”. We aren't used to balancing opposites, so instead of saying “wow, I’m experiencing the outer world as a reflection of the inner (psychosis), and the inner as a reflection of the outer (culture)” we say “only one of these can be right”. This means it is us against the world, and that’s where the pain comes from I think. Your entire self is raging against your self. There is a split in your self (lower case “s”). Not in the stereotypical image of the “schizoid” as being “multiple personality disorder”, but in the sense, as R D Laing describes, in that you don’t believe in your own existence, so you’re desperately trying to prove your own existence (some “agent” which represents “you” (1), is fighting for “you” (2)). Culture forces you to deny yourself if you have inner experiences that seem as real as the outer ones. It’s like culture’s defence mechanism, ingrained in the unconscious.
It’s like, culture is all about saying “this way of experiencing reality is the real one, not that one”. “The outer is the real place, not the inner”. So, we all carry that attitude with us. So when we experience the inner as being real, we don’t say “of, the inner is also real”; we say, “all I’ve known about the outer being real must have been a lie. Now I see, I am enlightened! Only the inner is real! The outer is an illusion! All is inner! All is symbolic and not real (whatever is meant by that)!”. Yes, we say that — but the part of us that is still bound to culture is strong, stronger than any other part in us. So, while we claim that the inner is real, an inner guilt, an inner tug, pulls us towards a deep, unconscious conviction that the outer is real. We believe that both are real, but that only one can be. So a war is raging within us: our entire experience is enveloped by inner-ness, but culture tells us that it is not real, so, we are not real. We feel realer than anyone else, everything else is an illusion! We’re in a sort of solipsism, we are the only real one! But, we feel a cultural tug of doubt: maybe everything else is real except us, maybe we don’t exist. There is a split, a schism (this is my take on it, not a professional opinion, of course). So, when culture accuses the psychotic of being delusional because they “believe the world is 100% inner”, culture is simply projecting its own shadow (the fact that it believes the world is 100% outer) onto the marginal elements that don’t fit into its structure, onto the scapegoats. To heal from the suffering of psychosis, one must not heal the psychosis itself — but heal culture itself, and one’s relationship to culture, as Terence McKenna says. The psychotic experience, when brought into health, doesn’t “disappear”. Healing psychosis doesn’t mean making it go away — the “healed” psychotic experience is the mystical experience, the shamanic experience (something which culture despises even more). It is important to cast boundaries between the inner and the outer, and culture does it very well. The Apollonian does it very well, no complaints. But it is equally important to cast connections between those boundaries, which is what psychosis does, finding patterns and connections between everything, the Dionysian soup that dissolves it all into all in an orgiastic swirl. Both are important, the boundary and the connection. No one is better than the other. You need them both. Culture insists that only one is correct, and in a sense, that is culture’s job. It’s doing what it does, and it’s doing it well — separate things from other things, distinguish difference between things, nuances. So it’s not so much a question of blaming culture I think, but of taking on the responsibility of expressing the subjective as best as one can. Culture does what it does, so you do what you do. If you do what culture does, that’s too much culture. If the subjective “does” culture, and the objective (culture) also does culture, then where is the subjective? I think the key is to unashamedly embrace inner experience, embrace subjective experience, not try to contrast everything with the outer judge, to ask him if it’s true or not. Don’t ask the outer to explain your inner world for you, to tell you it works this way or that way. The subjective should be its own deity as the outer is its own deity, and both should intermingle (in my opinion). Many of us will share opinions, share beliefs — I’m not talking of a world where everyone just walks their own path, alone. Again: there is connection, and there is separateness. We should embrace direct experience, immediate experience, take it seriously — it’s your inner experience, after all! No one is living that life other than you. The subjective impressions you get of stuff are real, just as real as the objective studies on “what is actually happening”. Paradoxically, both are just as important. And how do we cultivate this inner experience? Water it, tend to it? Well, by expressing it, that is to say, by becoming artists, shamans, by creating. The world has created us, and we create it. Yin yang.
