The problem is that you can represent the same object with different words.
Let’s take this very web page. You can get here by using Is becoming a magician and having occult beliefs schizophrenia? or Is becoming a magician and having occult beliefs schizophrenia? - General Discussion - Become A Living God.
It is not that while one are right other are wrong. It is not a binary option. Mystical experiences are experiences that are researched but do not fit to materialistic paradigm that penetrated present science. But in science paradigms changes more often and faster than in theology.
Mystical experience have similar indicators as psychotic experience. The difference between them two is how person who experience such things deals with their life. If person is able to work , keep realationships with others, integrate and move on, it is ok. If a person under such experiences turns into antisocial, is unable to find a role to fit, stays disintegrated, it is red light for mental condition.
Each of us can from time to time experience different crisis, dependable on how well and how fast we are able to reintegrate after a crisis is sign of mental health and strenght. Religious/mystical/occult practices can put you in state of psychosis, but it is usually gradual and step by step you learn how to induce and integrate that state.
I used to know a psychiatrist who had been a fan of Crowley for a long time. I wasn’t that much into the occult back then but now I actually think that he probably was a practitioner.
He once said that students of psychiatry tend to have a natural curiosity toward the occult. And some of them are well educated on the topic, contrary to common beliefs. Needless to say that people with mental disorders cannot become practicing doctors.
I’m talking about general flow of things. These are exceptions.
By that standard, you could have said that there were no practicing doctors and would have been just as correct.
It is obvious that there is no such thing as a universal social rule that fits every person involved. Generalizing is not equal to elevating a matter to the absolute, it does not exclude the possibilities of exceptions. And although every generalized statement is a nice ground for the nitpicking debates, I’d like my statement to be taken for what it is.
It’s my personal opinion that all forms of religion and also love are forms of madness.
Not because the underlying energies and entities don’t exist - I think they do. The problem I see is in the need to give away personal responsibility and self worth to these entities, to become subservient to not just the entities, but the organizations of - frequently corrupt - humans that claim to know better than you.
Stop bothering the god botherers?
Why do you care that they’ve enslaved themselves and want to be sheep? It’s normal for any dedicated forum that is gathered to discuss a topics that they don’t want to spend time discussing if it’s real or not - they accepted that and moved on long ago and that’s boring for them. You can’t help them, respect their boundaries and leave them alone.
I know someone who is heavily schizophrenic. Before he was getting drugs to help with it he had a hard time differentiate “magickal” experience and those caused by his mental health issues. After he started taking medicine he can more easily separate the two. One could argue that if someone was border line schizophrenic, where they can control the visual and audio input that occurs, would probably make a very strong magician and many of past “elite” magicians or prophets were most likely at least borderline schizophrenic.
But according to my friend, there is a major difference between the two experiences but they may tap into a similar mental function.
It’s similar to Evoking a spirit while gazing into a mirror. Stare at it long enough and your brain literally forces you to see something in the mirror, regardless of whether you’ve actually evoked anything or not. So the brain’s functions do not always equate to true magickal experiences.
True but imagine telling a psychologist you can kill people with baneful magick or influence events with blood magick? A good psychologists would see something like this as a red flag and depending on what you’re involved in they might contact the authorities. There’s a reason for keeping this stuff secret. 
Seems the most “socially” accepted claims are ones that aren’t edgy 
It’s the edgy books that sell and influence people. Who wants to do something that’s socially acceptable when they could be out robbing graves for the right ingredients to make that possession work? Going that route, the only possession you’re going to find is being one of bubba’s possessions in a jail cell.
Just a few days ago I watched several video interviews by Jerry Marzinsky who was a licensed psychotherapist. After years of treating schizophrenics he noticed a pattern that made him doubt the voices were hallucinations, but entities. All the other mental health patients went to chapel because they got cake and ice cream. But EVERY schizophrenic hated anything spiritual, from Psalm 23 to meditation and yoga. Once he figured it out, the voices in his patients head started making themselves known to him. One sent a popping electric sound around his office. He knew when a patient was cured because the spirit would wake Jerry between 3-4am and hold him down on the bed briefly. Late in his career, he worked with schizophrenics in ER setting with limited time. So he called on Archangel Michael and captured the voices by envisioning a net made of light. He then put them in a light box and through it in the void long enough to talk to the patient without the voices present. He even noticed a hierarchy among the voices and has sent some of the “voices” into the light by calling for their loved one or an animal spirit guide. Fascinating and sad at the same time. He says many professionals think he’s crazy too. Here’s a link to one of his interviews if anyone is interested: THE VOICES SCHIZOPHRENICS HEAR ARE NOT HALLUCINATIONS
Barring descent into scrupulosity (pathological religious mentality/obsession) it’s a far cry from a mental health issue.
I’d say magick has the potential to brick you and break your brain but only if you don’t keep things grounded in the real
You’ll see larpfests galore within occult comunities when this stops being the norm. If you’re actually getting what you’re asking for then it becomes real. That’s my measuring stick and it works great having a magickal thinking varient of OCD myself. Some of the downloads I get are indeed magickal, many of the intrusions I get aren’t. There’s a distinct quality that separates them one can learn to observe
I’d also take anything in the DSM-V with a grain of salt. The DSM-IV was speculative at best. There is indeed further understanding about certain conditions, yet many have gotten caught up in modern narratives I can’t talk about on here. Reverse understanding and contemplation will shine light on them if this is of interest to you.
If anything, dig deeper into the pathology you’re interested in and stay objective and rational as you do so. If you think the microwave talking to you telling you to get on the roof for the next sign is a serious download you might be crossing the line …a bit. If life happens to give you some interesting insight out of the blue feel free to lean into that.
The line is always in the real world results. Never forget that
(Nothing in this post constitutes medical advice. It reflects my own academic view only)
I personally like to say that I’m bat shit crazy, but I’m functioning crazy so whatever.
I pay my bills, have food in my fridge, take care of my kids when they are here, yada yada yada. So my beliefs may be bat shit crazy but it doesn’t effect my ability to function or operate here and now or distinguish between this reality and the reality I believe in.
My mother was diagnosed Schizophrenic, so out of fear I’ve had my self tested a few times. The last one, I was told that I not only did not have it, but it was unlikely it would develop within me as it usually onsets with trauma, and I was passed the age of normal onset as well as the number of traumas in my life should have already brought it out. The interesting part was that they told me I could distinguish between the physical reality and the things I see, and that was the most defining aspect in whether or not I was clinically crazy or a functioning member of society.
No I didn’t read all of the replies, I swear we’ve had this discussion before lol.
There seems to be a lot of grey area. If someone can take care of daily living tasks, hold down a job, not be extremely disruptive toward others and show some discernment about talking about a lot of unusual topics with people who are highly unlikely to be receptive to such things, it’s probably a good way to get by in the world. There have been times when I sort of “tested the waters” about discussing unusual topics with some people to sort of gauge how they acted. If they didn’t seem receptive to possibilities, I would pull back. Other times, it actually helped someone else open up and share some of their own stories, discuss topics of mutual interest, etc.
—as a person who has been in the medical field for years and immersed in science, yet also interested in magick and esoteric subjects, I do try and be aware that there are some people out there who are prone to want to label anyone who has some unusual experiences as mentally ill, delusional, stuff like that—which of course causes a chilling factor and makes many just shut up about unusual experiences because they don’t want to be marked as “crazy” and/or controlled by disruptive interventions and so on.
There has been tons of research about the link between Schizophrenia and Grain. It seems consumption of grain can cause Schizophrenia to develop in some and switching to a diet that excludes grain has caused remission in some individuals with schizophrenia.
I doubt entities really care about grain all that much, or that it allows them to interact with others as I didn’t eat grain for many months and yet magickal workings with entities was still completely fine for me and interaction with them was normal. My anxiety was reduced and I have many OCD-symptoms that were drastically reduced from cutting out grain but genuine spiritual practice was still normal for me. That to me suggests it is mostly a non-spiritual issue, although I do think it is possible for it to have a spiritual source.
And saying that ALL Schizophrenics (Or at least those who have auditory hallucinations) are against anything spiritual is a bit of a stretch. Sometimes schizophrenic patients can be very religious. I’ve heard that’s more common in the east than in the west but I haven’t looked into what that’s like much, but it makes sense if religiosity is more common in a culture as schizophrenia is also heavily affected by culture (In the east symptoms tend to be less distressing and often times more helpful while in the west where there’s a massive stigma around the disorder patients tend to experience more distressing symptoms)
And there is also a lot of research that points towards having a father over age 50 during conception causing schizophrenia. And then there is the use of cannabis before the prefrontal cortex is fully developed (the theory behind the Colorado theater gunman). Or it’s their diet or a combination of these factors. No one has nailed down the cause.
And this guy explains how healthcare professionals would rather give people drugs than cure the problem. You’re preaching to the choir about the mental and physical benefits of a grain (and sugar) free diet. But Marzinsky noticed different patterns of behavior with schizophrenics than patients with other mental disorders. In fact, he questioned superiors who repeatedly said, “It’s a chemical imbalance” even though that IS the case in some types of mental disorders. It’s the voices in the head that set schizophrenics apart from other mental health problems.
Maybe that’s because they realize it’s a good way of dealing with the voices. Marzinsky encouraged them to start a spiritual practice of some type but it didn’t cure them within weeks. He also talks about people who have healed (although some never completely) themselves through a spiritual practice, forgoing any help from an institution.
Sure, maybe the dislike of spiritual things is due to his experience solely in a Western culture.
But he speaks from decades of career experience with hundreds of patients in various institutions. So, yeah. He noticed his patients usually had a meth or really bad coke problem.
What convinced him the voices were entities is when they left the patient and effected his own life (ie shadows, static noise). If it’s hallucinations caused by diet or chemical imbalance, how can it be contagious to the counselor?!
I don’t agree with everything he said. He thinks ALL negative thoughts are from outside our minds. I disagree. But he did talk about having crazy negative ideas pop into his head that certainly were not his own. He had the thought to chop his dog’s head off while doing yard work. I too have experienced these thoughts in years past. “Drive left of center and kill yourself and everyone in that car.” Followed by, “WTF?! Where did that come from?” As someone who now knows how to summons spirits to put thoughts into someones head, most of what this guy was saying rang true to me especially when he talked about using light to fight off negativity.
If you have the time, listen to one of Jerry Marzinsky interviews (on 1.5 speed because it is boring at first) while you’re doing dishes or whatever. You might change your mind.
It’s not about finding a single cause to it, just like many mental disorders have multiple causes, but the thing is that all those things affect the brain.
Perhaps the clarity of auditory hallucinations are on average higher in those with Schizophrenia, but auditory hallucinations are also prevalent in various mental disorders and other things that affect the brain. Some who have OCD also experience voices to an extent. Stress can also cause hallucinations like that, which is sometimes a mechanism of the brain to help alert someone to possible danger. So the brain has parts that govern these experiences.
Not necessarily as a way to deal with the voices, sometimes the voices are part of it, but that is true sometimes it is used in an attempt to help it in a way. In a way I think it can definitely help, although in times past all manner of spiritual and religious methods have been applied in an attempt to cure it since it has a long history of being associated with being caused by Demons in the Christian world, and occasionally by the Gods in Roman times.
In times long past, many people were afraid of “catching the crazies” from such people, so they locked them up at ‘mental asylums’ so that they don’t have to deal with that. But since medicine and the field of psychiatry has advanced, most can now live in society among others and since the belief has been dropped, many psychiatrists have worked with schizophrenic patients without experiencing any supernatural phenomena.
You said Jerry Marzinsky said that the entities only caused him problems once he realized that they were entities or found that Schizophrenics don’t like spirituality that the entities then started to make themselves known to him. That can explain it but I used to be prone to very similar thinking that entities are now bothering me because I was exposed to people, but nothing ever came of it and seemed to be more because of hyper-awareness or placebo at other times.
These kind of thoughts are extremely common for me and have been dealing with them for years. Even had a similar thought to him regarding killing a dog, just for me it was about a kitten that was with me, even though I would never do something like that. They are intrusive thoughts and are a very big part of OCD. I experienced significantly less when I stopped eating grain, to the point where it was really life changing. When anxiety increases they increase but when things are peaceful they tend to be much less. So banishing and removing parasites and other entities never had an effect on them. Pretty much almost everyone has them, but the thing is most people aren’t disturbed by them.
The thought of making yourself crash while driving is actually very common, there used be a thread dedicated just to that intrusive thought on the forum https://boards.straightdope.com/. Some people have more of a urge to do it which is part of the intrusive thought. That feeling was been in poetry by Edgar Alan Poe who called it the ‘Imp of Perversion’, and has been discussed in other poetry and works of fiction as well. Maybe it is possible but I do doubt that there are ‘imps’ that roam around nearly the entire global population just waiting for the opportunity to make them think of doing something that is so contrary to their nature that 99% of the time they won’t do it.
I might watch it some time, thanks for the link 