Guru Jesus My Foot 13
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Cults May Breed Insanity
Initial Concerns
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Maybe the donna just quoted something, burning with passions that are unfit for men and mice. |
Artistic functioning can help some, and we do recommend better brain use, as that is good for man in its own right, and also because cognitive treatment is a boon in many cases of mental derangement. Tony Buzan's methods of mind-maps should work well, all in all. The basic item of his approach is told of here, and literature references are given at the bottom of the page: [MIND MAPS]
Christian Madnesses: Something that is taken to be a sign of insanity in a single person, may be a hallmark of a cult member, or maybe a common Christian, who is an "ill sheep" per definition - Jesus' definition in two gospels.
Psychopaths are strangely influential, clever, subtle, scheming, and of devious mind, though. Some of them can be very hard to detect. Often it takes years, and some may escape being diagnosed and sedated altogether. In such cases the near ones are typically made victims of their various forms of nastiness, Professor Tollak Sirnes points out. Hitler may have been a psychopath. In the opinion of Gabriel Langfeldt he was, and mind "You don't have to be ill to be a doctor", as the proverb has it. [Toh; Daks].
How to diagnose insane ones: The means to diagnose psychopathology are not much refined, but can still be useful and help us detect gross and evident cases. In testing mental sides of others, we have to decide how valid the test can be. Validity is "traditionally defined as the degree to which a test actually measures whatever it purports to measure." How reliable the test is, is another important facet. [Ebu "psychological testing"]
Face validity is a danger. Some "great ones" lie; have you ever wondered why? At the bottom of senseless or foolish drivel many an undiagnosed, mental disorder could lie. Yes, teachings of some gurus may look fine and sound fine, they say they are here to help you, but still fail in actual living. That shows up through putting cherished teachings to actual use by living them for long, or many years. It is this that is called the road-test. The term stems from testing vehicles in actual use. Afterwards we could be more fit than gullible beginners to judge some fruits of the teachings - So it should be quite fit to listen to experienced guys when they speak of from what they have actually experienced, such as, "The teachings of SRF about teaching the original Christianity of Jesus is charlatanry."
What to do in suspected cases of unsoundness:
- One should stay away from deceivers, no matter how devout their demeanours are.
- Many of the instructions of Jesus are maiming, not only hard. He says he is not a man of peace, but of splitting families and so on. He owns that his followers are in for bad times, even massacres. That is part of his scheme, after all. Psychopaths have similar tendencies. If undiagnosed they may enjoy their freedom and life to rob many of preconditions of a good and decent life. You should be better off without their influence.
- Have sense and be circumspect when road-tests are made by insincere, deceitful and bad people - some of them of unsound mind. You may not be able to afford to trust steadily in such guys for long. That is a current sect experience.
Some Nuts
Have a "nut" to chew on: What if a cult leader tells that he and all of them are part of a "crazy gang"? "The trouble is that all of us, as Paramahansaji used to say, are a little bit crazy, and we do not know it," says SRF's president, Daya Mata, or Faye Wright [On, "Qualities of a Devotee"].Don't you know what to do? Will you trade in your freedom for belonging in some group, disregarding all the vain and bombastic gas there? Your belongingness is much up to you. We hope you think twice about selling out on your freedoms for no good reasons.
Yogananda and SRF uses a kriya yoga pledge that violates normal human rights as agreed on by the United Nations. The pledge serves as a control device. [PLEDGE] [HUMAN RIGHTS]
Psychopaths may feel an inner attunement with these teachings of Jesus:
Sound individuals tend to seek and go for concord more than discord, and try to make the conditions for their children better than those of betrayals, misery and untimely illnesses and deaths. With psychopaths of inflexible, maladaptive, or antisocial behaviour it is not like that. But before we say more on the subject, here is what Britannica affirms:You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many . . . will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. [Matthew 24:9-11]
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. [Luke 12:51 etc]
There is no simple definition of mental disorder that is universally satisfactory. This is partly because mental states or behaviour that are viewed as abnormal or pathological in one culture may be regarded as normal or acceptable in another, and in any case it is difficult to draw a line clearly demarcating healthy from pathological mental functioning. [Ebu "mental disorder"]
Hallmarks of Psychopathology
Even if there is no clear-cut understanding among professionals as to what is mental disorder or not, various hallmarks are used for determining it in a lot of cases. These criteria have to be used with discretion. Even so, there are hundreds and thousands that get a wrong diagnosis in Scandinavia each year. This is in part due to the fact that so-called abnormal conduct can be rooted in the person involved, in the interplay between that one and close others, significant others, such as in-groups, and the large society too, with the estrangements, nervous troubles, and abuses of others that accompany some sides of it, but not all of them.To the last points, Kahlil Gibran observes in The Prophet: "When the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also." The Glasgow-born psychiatrist Ronald D. Laing strongly emphasises that point, and finds it very fit to suspect that if a person "snaps", turn insane, it could be the loom of family and other contacts - or lack of them - that is to blame. The warp could be unfit, askew, or suffer from other defects. More specifically, Laing thinks much insecurity may prompt a defensive reaction that can make ill by turns. In Laing's view many mental illnesses may be induced by relationships with other family members, and what is called madness could be a strong "miming" reaction to a more or less common state of alienation. [Ebu "Laing, R. D.]
To enlarge on the subject of insecurity:
Shyness among adults is now escalating to epidemic proportions, according to recent research by Dr. B. Carducci in Indiana and my research team in California. More than 50 percent of college-aged adults report being chronically shy (lacking social skills, low self-esteem, awkward in many social encounters). [Philip G. Zimbardo]Zimbardo, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Stanford University. [MORE]
It could be that individuals who initially suffer from insecurity and/or estrangements may be set adrift on the way to psychopathy through neuroticism that gradually worsens. Sociopaths may come to consider their deviant behaviour as natural, feel no guilt when they harm and ruin others, and resist therapy - or getting away from the sect or cult that have made them like that. They can be very sly and submissive to such ends. Others may get explosive, overly excitable, procrastinating, persistently promiscuous, and paranoid. Strange lack of humour marks some of them.
Not a few criminals suffer from a personality disorder. Some mental disorders involve preoccupation with fantasies. Lack of concern seems to be a key element involved, and much and unsound immodesty also. The expression of symptoms of personality disorders often tends to get less intense in middle and old age.
Back to Daya Mata's Words on the "Crazy Gang" of Yogananda
Back to Daya Mata's entertaining statement. Does she know her guru is crazy, and did Yogananda handle her in crazy ways, and how crazy is she now? or common SRF members? Are they crazy to think Christianity can be perfectly aligned with the teachings of Krishna? Or mad because many of them were Christians and Mormons and things like that in the first place?It is difficult to answer all of it unequivocally, for it could be unethical and indecent to freak diagnose (maim) others who are living far away. Suffice to say that as she publicly stands by her guru's words, and present them as true, he and she would be of "the crazy gang".
Accordingly, to the degree others are crazy, not just nervous and unfair, do not invest trust in them, at least not publicly. Be aware that such people may not have what it takes to recognise their claimed, mental aberrations real well, no matter how they pose in cultish settings that suit them fine. An ancient Chinese philosopher says:
We take many other reminders by Chuang Tzu into account as we go along. It might also do well to consider how far the octogenarian Daya Mata just quote her gurudeva for show, for entertainment, or even ceremonial purposes. It is better to be of sound mind than crazy, better to stay away from Jesus and others like him, accordingly. For Jesus teaches the healthy ones do not need him, remember, that he is only for ill ones.He who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool; he who knows he is confused is not in the worst confusion . . . the biggest fool will end his life without ever seeing the light . . . And with all the confusion in the world these days, no matter how often I point the way, it does no good. Sad, is it not? [Co 139-40]
We might add that even those of excellent health before the became part of a Jesus freak cult, can be made insane by "him" or the coercion, internal control, intrigues, pressures and lies that influence them in the cult's comparative isolation. Mind battering (brainwashing) has many forms, and cult studies reveal some typical expressions of the results.
Yogananda claims to be in liaison with Jesus. Need we say more? Jesus teaches he is not for healthy guys, he is only for ill ones. Still Yogananda, perhaps most pronouncedly in the early half of his US ministry, seeks to "heal a sick world". How can you hope to heal others if you band with Jesus? That is indeed the question. For Jesus is the originator of what started as the tense sect of Christianity, and flashes many cardinal signs of psychopathy too. That his original sect, Christianity, has grown large and aspires to clasp everyone, is no sign of it getting healthy, after all.
Get Away from Cults and Psychopaths
The best thing to do is to stay away from psychopaths altogether, unless you are a professional and know what you are doing. The next best thing is to get away from them. The third best thing could be to avoid fools too, for some sorts of fools act to your harm. At any rate, they are not good company. Suitable and decent people can be nice to be with. Buddhism tells such and other extremely useful things for the long-range good of disciples.Maybe this little from Yogananda's article "Healing the Sick World" from 1933 may serve:
The obvious question is how. Views differ. Do not ignore the obvious: he taught for selfishness too. Teaching that selfishness is good, and next teaching that it is bad, not cancelling his first dictum in the matter, may cause havoc in some gullible minds, and be just confusing to others. To confuse people, playing on their inexperience and decency and good will, is not being friendly, and may breed nervous disorders that get progressively worse. [MORE]Blinding greed for gold has divided human hearts. Let us declare a world war against selfishness, greed, race and class prejudice. Let us raise our own paradise [in] our hearts. [Paramahansa Yogananda, East West, June, 1933 Vol. 5-8, passim]
Confusion is the lot of so many trapped in cults. Freaking out can be dangerous, then. Other risks can be added. One is perhaps that SRF's current leader does not go to the guru bottom of the problem she talks of, or talks light of in the quotation. For her guru also teaches at length that the world is an illusion, a dream only. Let that be his problem, since he himself and his own teachings would come under that heading, then, and hence be of no worth - just chimerical - fantasies. We teach: Stick to your sense of reality and realism. There is a reason that you have got them.
Illusions of grandeur - on behalf of oneself and maybe vicariously as well - are among the signs of psychopathy, and so is hostility. Those who say they are God, may either be so or suffer from megalomaniac disturbances. All those who want to be with God through vicarious sacrifice, through butchering of innocents, animals or Jesus or whoever, are hardly healthy individuals, or fair.
If Public Disorders Control what is Meant by Soundness -
In an unhealthy environment demanding unhealthy, unfair, unfit adaptations, the soundness that was there to begin with, could be behind the manifestations of some mental disorders. That is another main point of Ronald D. Laing.Keep looking for the significant symptoms. Do you find painful or distressing symptoms, impairment in one or more important areas of functioning? Is there rigour, lack of frivolity and free will? Are others made to pay although they put their faith in vicarious suffering? The church is in part for all that.
Both the church and the cult within it or adjoined to it - just like mental illness - can have an effect on every aspect of a person's life, including thinking, feeling, mood, and outlook and such areas of external activity as family and marital life, sexual activity, work, recreation, and management of material affairs. Most denominations and mental disorders negatively affect how an individual feels about himself and impair or limit severely his or her capacity for participating in mutually rewarding relationships.
Some may fondly think that the effects of a deceiving church on persons is not so bad, but devout and useful for most part. That is not true. For example, the faith that long rotten and gone corpses will rise again "some day" that never comes, is freak faith, and the hocus-pocus of it serves ulterior ends, probably control of masses. Fraud is not as innocent as it looks.
Tracing Jesus
Yogananda and his Self-Realization Fellowship publicly proclaim in their Aims and Ideals that they stand for "original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ". What does Jesus do and teach that is so offensive? Self-mutilation, impoverishment, non-assertive non-retaliation are among them. You should have the good sense to refrain completely from such baseness, and stay permanently away from the church that publicly teaches that.When someone says you are guilty of sin if you have not done anything, that one becomes suspect. Jesus does. He may add that if you have not done anything terribly wrong, but still has had an urge for sex with someone that is not your partner, you should pluck out your eye, tear off your hand, foot or member. The moment he sets himself up above you, it becomes his command in your face. At least then you should think about what is insanity and what is divine.
What is insanity? First, it is a label you give someone you want to get rid of, more or less. Jesus should have learnt that - or maybe he did too well. Some who are called insane, are too troublesome in their environment. Then even their relatives want to get rid of them, for example by pushing them out of a cliff. Jesus should have learnt that lesson well too. The gospel says he experienced it.
Arnold Juklerud
What is being insane? It can be what judges in court call you to put an end to a long, expensive case. There is a memorable case in Norway about an Arnold Juklerud. The sheriff found him too troublesome about some significant matter, here Juklerud was right, by the way. That showed up later. Our bureaucrats put away in a mental hospital, where he did not quite fit in. So they called him bad and furnished him some insanity label.Diagnosis of mental diseases often function in a labelling manner, you should know, assisted by observation and possibly relevant investigations, all of which do not have to be regular, long, or fair.
With Juklerud things seemed to go from that bad to much worse, for after several years in mental institutions he had become so bad that they threw him out. Smell a rat. It was then that Arnold started "protest camping" in a tent outside the gate of that institution, Gaustad, and got much public sympathy. He came to be a celebrity too.
Notable psychologists now came to his rescue, but too late, and said he was not mentally diseased at all. His case ended in a court. One expert said he was insane, and the other he was sound. Finally the judge - who was not an expert on such matters - decided he was unsound. As if he could know. And that is part of the irony of it.
It was after the brave Juklerud died that it came up that he had been right in the first place, back home, when he first had been put away.
- When someone is called worse and worse and then finally thrown out of an asylum, smell a rat. Those who do not adapt well to asylums, may not belong there, also for good reasons. Experts in their halting labelling trade diagnose many wrongly.
- When someone who is no expert on insanity is put to judge whether you are or not, smell a bigger rat still. Incompetence in power is troublesome to deal with, like corruption camaraderie in high places.
- When someone dies in great injustice, tribulations and pains - Juklerud did - one may regard him as a massa to come, just like Jesus. Perhaps he suffered from real moral and guts. He had lots of it.
"Not so much what you believe, but how, and how many and how influential - that matters"
Officially, people are put away into funny farms by force if they are a danger to themselves and/or other people. Some swerve from that, and in actual Norwegian practice, things are not always clear-cut. Some are put away and later they are told they were wrongly diagnosed in the first place. It happens to many yearly, after all. There are yearly, public statistics on how many are wrongly diagnosed.Watch out for those in power. Much depends on corruption, and whether the so-called troublemaker is isolated, impoverished, let down or has social back up, for example by being a member of a big group. Jesus should have some experience of that too. He was let down, was called a trouble-maker and executed as a blaspheming devil or lunatic (what is the difference?) Now he is Massa (master) Jesus to many. Aside: Americans love to call Yogananda Master too. It could reflect a "southern" mentality, and lead to queries among the bondsmen like "Is he carrying a whip?" And yes, some massas do that. Not all of them.
To illustrate the last point: If a single person stood up upon a box in some local Speaker's Corner and said the public faith that the dead would rise again was insane, he, not the public majority, could risk being put away in an asylum. If that should happen, some "massas" would have used their whip - in this case bureaucrats. Maybe they are grey and quite anonymous and sharing in holding it and taking turns in whipping - that seems likely. The whipping is there anyway, a means to ensure conformity among those of inferior rank. We deal with authoritarian structures. Massa - slave; Master - disciple; Noblemen - their surfs; Jesuits of the Great Inquisition - dissidents; Norwegian officials - common men - the lines are drawn.
Liberals
Opposed to much authoritarian, tyrannical, and non-democratic ado are great liberals. Some of them may chance to get into the clutches of the whippers if they stand alone; lose their money and (hence) contacts; are free-wheeling; and get betrayed by their own. The case of Arnold Juklerud serves to illustrate some sides of this.Who is a liberal? It is one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways, and adheres to individual rights. Some liberals may focus on great develop mental capacities. Liberalism is not easy to define, but there is a stress on individual freedom, and that the state serves and protects the rights of its citizens instead of going against them where it matters. Liberalism seeks to "protect the individual from arbitrary external restraints that prevent the full realization of his potentialities" [Ebu "liberalism"]. It stands against dogmatic, often cruel and hard authoritarianism and the under-dog servility it demands of the masses.
It matters which side of the fence you are on.
Will the dead rise again after a hundred years? If you don't think so, have the courtesy to quit the church that teaches the grave nonsense
Norway has a state-governed church, a state church. About 85 percent of the population are members of it, and the official faith is that the dead will rise again. When someone is buried in the Norwegian church, the minister says, according to the faith, that "from earth you will rise again". Consider the fate of corpses after a generation years and think twice. Say "Bunkum!" to such faith. It has nothing to do with sane mind functioning. The state-paid minister says ceremoniously by the grave that dead corpses who have rotted away long ago, will rise again physically. Will the dead rise again after a hundred years? If you don't think so, have the courtesy to quit the church that teaches the nonsense.That shared faith deserves notion. By considering recycling of bio elements, the blowing away of the dust and such things, the "chain-sharing" of many elements that are used in building bodies, it becomes more than unlikely that all dead Christians well rise again in their shared bodies - recycling of elements make us sort of shareware, you know . . . Perhaps you should realize many a creed serves hidden whippers one way or another.
Paul and His Former Comrades in Killing
Paul said that before his conversion, he had taken part in killing early Christians. He was a mass murderer, then, a Pharisee. In a pucker he set up two "whipper parties" against one another and saved his life, it seems. They wanted him as their whipping boy for a time, for these two parties were not liberal, but dogmatic, authoritarian.There was a great uproar, and even though the Jews conspired to kill Paul, two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen instead carried him to Caesarea. [Acts 23:9-23] This does not ridicule or deny the possibility of rising recent corpses, where there is something that can get up and going. It is especially when there is nothing left it is foolish to expect a miracle of that sort. Just accept the facts, refrain from denials, and let your deep sorrow over losing someone help you on too.Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead." When he said this, a dispute broke out . . . and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.) [Acts 22:29 to 23:6-8]
Do the dead bury anyone? Is scapegoating healthy?
To believe that the dead are to bury their dead, seems insane. The gospel says Jesus taught it. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." [Matthew 8:22] Does this mean that all those who bury their dead relatives are dead themselves? Maybe inside, where a sense of propriety should govern. After all, Jesus lets us in on that Supreme Secret of Christian Living:This means his followers are really ill, and that healthy ones are not for him. It does not matter if they believe that dead, long gone bodies will rise out of the turf again, the problem goes deeper. They put their faith in sacrificing others for their sins. To okay that innocents suffer is mean and low and really contemptible. That is a widespread, big problem, and humbug does not solve it. And do you know what? Large, looming problems may not be recognised as that by those who have them, because they are "blind", and some probably find vicarious outlets. Jesus would say his followers are mentally unsound and without enough mercy. Remember it comes by degrees. So do not harden your heart untimely. Agreeing to let innocents (animals and himself) forcibly suffer and die and get butchered as a vicarious sacrifice. They call the Bible's God - who instituted the horrible practice - righteous. They are blind that do, and can be dangerous too. In a normal society vicarious scapegoating is to be condemned as corrupt. Do not hail anyone for it. It estranges.
Insanity - Definitions Vary
To revert to the question, what is insanity: In criminal law there are different principles to decide by in different countries. Laws differ, in other words. Also, "Various legal tests of insanity have been put forward, none of which has escaped criticism," says Encyclopaedia Britannica. [Ebu "insanity"]The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary helps us to circle in on what insanity might be by defining it for us. What can be meant by it:
- A deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as schizophrenia);
- A mental disorder;
- Such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility;
- More loosely: extreme folly or unreasonableness, in other words something utterly foolish or unreasonable.
We may enlarge on the subject further by "mentally disordered", "demented", "of unsound mind".
Now these few inroads to "insanity" may do for now. There are textbooks on the subject, and very helpful symptom lists (called inventories) that seem to catch main marks of various mental illnesses. Before we go into that, may it be said that neuroticism lets itself be cured, whereas some mental diseases are beyond treatment by today's standard procedures. Understandings of just what is health are not clear-cut.
Onword
On the next page you may find the main criteria that are used today to ascertain a compulsive personality disorder. We try a much used labelling test on Jesus. |
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| Literature | SECTION | First Page |
Ay: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 1st ed. New York: Theosophical, 1946. Online. [oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk12.html]
Co: Watson, Burton, tr. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
Daks: Langfeldt, Gabriel. Abnorme karakterer. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1976.
Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006.
Eksy: May, Rollo, ed. Eksistensiell psykologi. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1971. (Existential Psychology, New York: Random House, 1961).
On: Mata, Daya. "Only Love". Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1976.
Pa: Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. 11th ed. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1971.
Toh: Sirnes, Tollak. - at vi skal elske hverandre (- that we shall love each other). Oslo: Gyldendal, 1968.
We: Koestline, Henry. What Jesus Said about It. New York: Signet, 1970.
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