When a man converts to Judaism, it is one of the more strict requirements that he be circumcised, even in the more liberal movements. Some converting men, however, already received this procedure when they were infants. The reasons for why this is fortunate are twofold. First, and most obvious, is how painful it is for a piece of the penis to be sliced off. Second, and more importantly, is that a significant number of nerve endings live in the foreskin, so after circumcision as an adult, the man has noticeably less sexual pleasure. One could argue that the latter is precisely the reason for circumcision in its ritualistic context.

Even for a man who has been previously circumcised, however, there must be a ritual to officiate this procedure into an act of entry into the Jewish people. This is treated in the conversion process by a medical professional who takes a drop of blood from the penis and shows it to the rabbi who is sponsoring the convert.

For clarity, the man never gets to this point until the rabbi knows he is ready to take the final officiating steps. Leading up to these moments is a minimum of one year, but often longer, of the prospective Jew simultaneously learning in depth about the details of Jewish culture, and being integrated into Y’israel as a people.

Now, if you were to ask any Jew what it means to be Jewish, it is unlikely that every one would give the same answer, but more importantly, the answer would (arguably) always be incomplete; it is possible that you would only be able to understand the answer fully if you yourself were to become Jewish. Take, for example, the idea of God. Being Jewish does not require you to believe in God, and many Jews don’t. In fact, so many don’t that it is sometimes considered taboo to speak of God inside the synagogue outside of a service. Therefore, a belief in God is not what defines a Jew. However, if a Jew does believe in God, they are required to believe in only one God. One rabbi in particular likes to continually remind her congregants that “all Jews must believe in one God or less.”

That being said, one feature that separates Judaism from other religions is the allowance to question God’s authority. Abraham, the father of all Jews, had a moment where he confronted God because He was being tyrannical. With this in mind, it is not too much of a leap to understand that people don’t often convert to Judaism out of a desire to somehow be spiritually “saved.” This is much unlike Christianity, one descendent of Judaism, whose key feature is to be saved by Jesus Christ, whom they believe is the messiah prophesied in the Hebrew bible. Therefore, Judaism and Christianity are governed by unrelated paradigms, despite the latter having its origins in the former. Nevertheless, the most important component of Jewish prayer is the Jew’s continual declaration that The One true God is in fact his, her, or their God, to the rest of the Jewish people. So in reality, the most important Jewish prayer isn’t a prayer at all.

Once the prospective Jew is ready, he, she, or they, stand before a court of three rabbis to be deemed fully prepared to enter the Jewish people and take the final step to Jewhood, which is an immersion in a special kosher bath that is considered to be Holy. The converting Jew must have a clean and naked body when entering the water, and thrice must they fully submerge themself without even touching the floor of the bath. This is so that for a brief moment, they are one with only the water. After every submersion, they come back up for air and recite a specific blessing in Hebrew. And upon surfacing for the final time, they make the declaration that The One true God is their God. This declaration is called the “Sh’ma.”

The Schizo-Effect—Chapter 2: Questioning Divinity (part 1) was originally published in The Schizo-Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For additional chapters, start here.

The memory stings of the inner echelons of confusion. He demanded my ascension. Crowley’s deck claimed him to be my Emperor; perhaps Christ himself, but I’m not sure; he never clarified.

The terror was my own. Only through my face and actions could others see it; but know it they cannot. Micheal Larsen understood, but death took him, less than two weeks after I was released from the hospital the frist time.

The doctors claimed that the Greeks would call my mind “split.” It brought me comfort that would again be limited by a resurgence of chaos in the walls of my perception; a dis-ease indeed. However, the walls were ill-defined; he never clarified.

The second round was worse: the distortions more sophisticated. My physical body had decayed much closer to the point of extinguishing awareness eternally. I was convinced that I had been cast out of my faith for crimes too abstract to remember.

12-Step recovery meetings were the last of my thread, no longer a rope, which I held fast to, with the only hope of not sinking into the fear which patiently consumed my body. (Precisely 70 pounds by the time I had checked myself into the hospital for the second reprieve.) Although none of the others knew, he made it clear that I was no longer welcome at these meetings. He said I was taking from them and not giving anything back. I was so sick that I could only believe him without arguing. . . Was it really him who said I wasn’t welcome? Or was it the demon planted on my tactile periphery in the previous aeon? He never clarified.

Much later, I found remnants of my darkest night in the Torah I had thrown across the room. I remember a dream about throwing the Torah, so that was accounted for, but I don’t remember the remnants.

It appears that, if I deplete my own life to the point of having no more conscious awareness (or even dream) I will carefully take a siddur from its place of peace, find the Sh’ma, rip the page out, then carefully put the siddur back in its place of peace, only for it to go unnoticed for some months.

Earlier, he had demanded penance. It took place in my office. Surprisingly, I was never caught. I would read a paper about Chern-Simons forms; a specific passage, about 20 pages. It was a cold read with beautiful math. The relevance to my work is that these forms are solutions to the Wess-Zumino consistency condition, which the anomaly MUST satisfy.

I would read the text and copy all of the equations in a separate notebook. I was required to do this until he told me to stop. Sometimes, he would tell me to start over. One run would take a couple of hours; I would be standing the entire time.

My office has cinder-block walls, and it was summer, so the building itself made the reading even colder. Sometimes, I would achieve the evening goal. Sometimes, I would walk away instead. The latter angered him.

In the months leading up to this, I stopped drinking coffee. My intellect suffered tremendously, (yet another thing he chastised me for); and I began to think demons were controlling my thoughts. I wrote a note on my front door to warn myself of the involuntary actions. I would sit and think for a long time before doing anything because I was afraid of setting fire to my relationships and other aspects of my life.

I had stopped drinking coffee because I thought I was supposed to.

That was the theme:

“I am supposed to do this.”

“I am not supposed to do that.”

These two options were not always distinguishable. In fact, it would be safe to say that, during this phase, they were never distinguishable. One thing was for certain, however: these were the only two options, ever.

It was always a trap!

I would think that I was supposed to do something, and I would do it. But then I would realize I shouldn’t have done it! The only explanation was mind control, so I had to stay vigilant, and writing notes was the only way to remember when I was so tired.

So tired.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had gotten a good night’s sleep. Cutting coffee made it hard to get going in the morning, so I started my days with a pre-dawn jog and found that I could actually fall asleep mid-run.

Eventually, it caught up to my digital devices. I had to be very cautious when looking at my phone or using my computer. This was a very serious problem because I was teaching an online lab and discussion. If I didn’t plan every step before making a move, I would pay for it with the experience of radio static in my field of vision, and my thoughts would melt into something even more incoherent.

The demons were doing it and he was the only way out, but he maintained that discipline through operant conditioning was the optimal way to teach me to rise above this mess and become a respectable man. After each fall, he would continue to stand me back up until I did something unworthy, such as tell a joke from my unwholesome past, or work on the Christian sabbath. Then he would let my mind explode like when a dragonfly smacks into your living room window at maximum velocity because he doesn’t see it.

I was broken, and he clearly didn’t like me.

Yet he continued to push me towards a perfection which I will never know. Perhaps it was my fault for summoning him with the deck. But that wasn’t entirely clear either:

On the one hand, he claimed to be of The Divine Royalty.

On the other, he claimed Crowley was an agent of the devil.

My previous belief that the deck gave me direct access to The Word of God Almighty Himself now seems absurd, even comical. So where did this ethereal entity come from?

He never clarified.

The Schizo-Effect—Chapter 1: Adon Dag (Part 1) was originally published in The Schizo-Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.