LISTENING TO THE SILENCES

However, analogies can be stretched too far. If the scientists who are using the canons of science to try to find a cause and cure for schizophrenia really want the answers, they must abandon their science and become just ordinary people. The canons of science that they must apply are those of fundamental human science - the canons of personal experience. For unless the scientists themselves start to hear voices or acknowledge the truth of what the voice-hearers themselves say, they will never identify the true cause, which very many of us who hear voices already know with stark certainty.

They will certainly never find a cure via science. All that will be achieved will be the creation of more mind suppressors, or variations of E.C.T, perhaps, perpetuating one of medicine's more notorious barbarisms.

Yes, I am a voice-hearer and have been for over twenty years, during which time I have never sought, nor would have accepted, the intervention of psychiatry or medicine. I know the exact moment when, and the exact mechanism by which the intrusions into my mind and body began. Yes, intrusions, not delusions nor hallucinations.

The scientists who would know the cause of schizophrenia must join the rest of the human race - at least that part of it which acknowledges the existence of a spiritual state of being.

Is it not odd that, worldwide, and for virtually the whole of recorded history, there are or have been popes and prelates; bishops and priests of all sorts and persuasions; rabbis; muftis and mullahs; ayatollahs and archimandrites; assorted clerics and ministers of a variety of religions; lamas, shamans and medicine men; and a whole range of other religious functionaries, all proclaiming, and at least 60% of the population of the world believing or paying lip service to the belief, that there exists a spiritual world or 'dimension'; that there is spiritual good and spiritual evil, and that the religion which each espouses is the one that will help to avoid evil, promote good and bring a happy landing in the heaven of choice? Yet, when it comes to applying the reality of this belief to the relief and understanding of the human condition in our 'enlightened' western culture - Oh dear me no! "Intrusive spirits, evil spirits? … My dear chap…ha…ha…that's positively mediaeval and arcane!… Yes, of course I pray in my faith…To whom or what, you ask?… Yes, of course I am asking for spiritual intervention, and to be protected from evil, if you put it like that".

My former parish priest would often deliver sermons or homilies based upon the wonderful and noble deeds of someone, now probably canonised, who had achieved so much at the behest of spiritual voices, but would invariably end by saying "Of course, if any of us hear voices, we should seek psychiatric help". So there you have it; look no further; the great dichotomy, the great divide! If you hear voices that encourage you to do noble deeds, or give you aid or succour at times of tribulation, well, my dear people, they must be of divine origin, coming from at least an angel or saint, or even God Himself. But, if you hear voices that are nasty, tormenting, obscene; voices that are threatening, or encourage you to do things that you know are unwise or wrong - well, you poor sod, you are deluded, hallucinating, you must be 'sectioned', isolated and treated.

When I told the same priest, as I shall tell you, exactly what happened to me, he heard me out and then said "Oh my dear chap, my heart bleeds for you, you have had a breakdown, but you're obviously all right now; get the kettle on there's a good chap". When the religious have lost their way in their chosen world of spirit, within which they should be guides, what hope is there for the rudderless, blown hither and thither by tormenting voices?