Peter K. Chadwick
Birkbeck College Faculty of Continuing Education and The Open University
Powerful mystical experiences easily can be followed by derangement, psychosis or death (Greenberg et al., 1992). Many people enter this territory of experience but not all survive. All who do however are irrevocably changed by it. My own encounter with the mystical occurred in the mad hot summer of 1979 and was prompted by severe life stresses that left me like a man stuck underwater with no air (see Chadwick, 2001). It is indeed when one can turn neither left nor right, move neither up nor down, when all exits are blocked, and all other avenues have proved to be dead ends that one stumbles into this "realm of the impossible".
Sat in blue shirtsleeves, stones underweight, at a small writing table in my bedsitter in Hackney, East London, I discovered what I called "The Borderline Slice" between sanity and madness. Outrageous though it sounds here uncanny phenomena occur which are not only subjectively evaluated as uncanny but which really are so (see for example Chadwick, 1992, chapter 4). In sanity the magical is rejected, in madness the magical is "over-accepted", at the Borderline the magical actually occurs. This "in between" psychic slice involves a cognitive attitude of critical gullibility; of ambiguity; of terse openness; of cynical suggestibility. For the standard cynic magic does not occur, for the suggestible the effects often are illusions, at the Borderline, unthinkable though it is, the effects are real (see for example Chadwick 1997, pp162-4).
This phenomenon has similarities to that of the sheep-goat effect in ESP research. An attitude of openness and belief, without trying too hard, actually does make ESP phenomena more likely to occur (Schmeidler and McConnell, 1958; Palmer, 1971). Hence cynical people always live in a world that subjectively confirms their attitude: "Nothing like that ever happens to ME!" Very suggestible people similarly live in a world of their own making: "Weird things happen to me all the time!" In signal detection terms the cynic makes a lot of "misses" but also a lot of "correct rejections"; the gullible make a lot of "hits" but also a lot of "false alarms". At the Borderline however the hit rate soars and the uncanny becomes almost normal. It is said of course that mystics very advanced along the esoteric path do have strong - but in their case controllable - access to the paranormal, although the abilities must never be used for personal advancement or for the achievement of power. This makes sense to me.
At the Borderline, as I call it, one's state of consciousness is changed. There is a sense of immanence through the world and yet transcendence of it; a sense of Subject-Object fusion; of the stilling - even
strangeness - of time; a sense of fusion with Space-time itself; of loss of ego; of loss of identity yet multiplicity of identity; a sense of being out of control yet in control; of power yet humility; of significance yet insignificance; of terrible doubt yet perfect certainty. In this state opposite statements both are true, one is beyond yet between; everyday logic is transcended. There is a sense of being at one with the ground of existence, of being, of accessing a realm of potential or of being at some point where the potential of infinite possibilities becomes actual and definite. There is a great lowering of the threshold of consciousness, the uncanny is normal, the normal now becomes strange. In this realm one is "back of" experiences even where Selfhood, 'I' and 'Me' are present. It is as if one is moving into "The Elsewhere".
In this state the distinction between matter and mind is blurred, mind has direct physical consequences. Levels of mind map onto, "are", levels of matter. This is the realm of everything and nothing, the ground, the very precondition for a sense of existence or Selfhood at all in the first instance. This is the realm of pure process, where nouns and integers disappear.
It is instructive, given that at the extremes of smallness in physics the distinction between the observer and the system observed breaks down, that in the Borderline state, at "the point of potential to kinetic conversion" as I put it at the time access is obtained, or so it feels, to a realm beneath mind-matter differentiation. Hence the paranormal becomes normal, the uncanny becomes the rule. Clearly the physics of consciousness is no trivial research field. Also in such an, admittedly fragile, mental state it would be no surprise, at least in principle, to find oneself sensitive to the preconscious and unconscious of others. To often be able to predict what they are about to say, to pick up on their unsaid thoughts, the associations that is, between one vocal utterance and another. And indeed at "the edge" this is the kind of thing that does happen.
This mode of experience though theoretically not surprising is experientially horrendous and disturbing. One can see why it is better to be in those states alone at the top of a mountain, at one with nature, than in the inner city where one is continually bombarded with all manner of things going on. Many people I have met over the years who have been to this territory on the periphery of madness confirm to me that here the uncanny really does occur, particularly precognition and telepathy. But why in many cases does one in some degree leave this state and crumble into insanity? What is the nature of the transition from the mystical to the psychotic?
At the Borderline one has a great sensitivity to the inter-connectedness of all things. One feels, strangely, to be a kind of personification of relationism and because of this everything has meaning, one suffers a kind of "Meaning Feeling". Meaning is everywhere, all is basically meaning rather than "facts" and "things". But the mystical state is, in some respects, a rather lofty one, one feels as if one has been sent some kind of mission, as if one is a Chosen One, that one has special powers and a close access to God. In my case I crumbled from this soaring state chiefly through guilt and self doubt. Despite many talks with vicars at this time I felt basically unworthy of the task being "sent" to me, felt wretched and so I could not hold the state. The ever-present coincidences - for example things said on the radio dovetailing with my ongoing thoughts - then shifted me from looking outwards (Self to World) to feeling persecuted - receiving messages from World to Self (see Peters 2001, p205). So instead of thinking (as I had in the mystical state) "Nothing is trivial" I would now think "Everything means something, even street signs and car number plates". Instead of thinking "I am in touch with everyone", I would psychotically think "Everyone can hear my thoughts". Instead of thinking "There is a great harmony and oneness between all things" I would think "People and the world are all together in communication against me" and instead of thinking "No-one is a stranger" I would think "Everyone knows me and is plotting against me", and so it would go on. There is still a sense of the world being pregnant with meaning and one is trying to find out what this meaning is but the polarity of the experience reverses. One is in some sense "central" but now under threat instead of being central and enlightened.
Whereas gravity is the arthritic's greatest enemy, for the psychotic it is coincidence. Once one perceives the world outside as being one's enemy one shifts from the sublime to the paranoid - in my case I came to think some kind of Organisation was engineering these "coincidental" events to control my thoughts and behaviour - this "external locus of control" easily leads to all manner of trivia seeming to be "significant" from the pattern of placing of milkbottles on a step to overheard fragments of conversation of passers-by in the street. Once this mode of thinking has in some sense "locked in", and partly taken over from the mystical, one's whole perception of the world in every detail is changed, one's bonds with other people are broken, one's level of arousal surges, causing further cognitive derangement and, soon, suicide is a likely destination, In my case I ended up throwing myself under the wheels of a double decker bus in some measure to get away from the tormented agony that my life had become.
So ingrained by uncanny coincidences had my "Organisation" delusion become that I do not believe I could have gotten out of it without receiving anti-psychotic medication (see Chadwick 1997, chapters 4 and 5). At that time (mid-September 1979) the drive to suicide had encroached upon me, but the medication, in effect, saved my life. One does not easily forget things like this when one hears anti-psychiatrists demeaning chemical solutions to psychosis, as often one does.
The aftermath of this strange and terrible time in my life has however been characterised by the positive. My spiritual sensitivities were enlivened, my cynical scientific belief in a mechanistic materialistic world was shattered, my doubts about the paranormal were removed, my respect for those of religious orientation was increased and generally I would say that my perception of the world and of life and mind was deepened and enriched. I ceased to be the crass fact-finding scientist I had been and became more of an artist and indeed one of spiritual orientation. Systems of thought previously alien to me such as Romanticism and Expressionism now came to be centre state in my life and took over from Structuralism and Positivism. I recognised at last the important links between sensuality and spirituality, something that greatly enhanced my sensual life as well and I came to see the sense in madness, the folly in reason and the purchase to be had from all those activities (that previously I had under-rated) such as painting, poetry and dance that exist and have their power in the realm between dream and memory.
In the end however one has to return to consensual reality and "ordinary sanity" in order to be effective in life - and even to be able to write about and communicate these experiences such as I have in a way that people can grasp, however tenuously. This normalisation of my mind depended a lot on mixing with congruent people, re-building trust, involving myself with everyday things and developing greater self-esteem. It is important after crises such as the above to mix with people who reflect back at one a good image of oneself. Mixing with cynics, fault-finders and criticisers is definitely to be avoided (character-attacked psychodynamic psychotherapists who work with psychotics should be mindful of this).
Finding people who took my spiritual experience seriously also was of great help to me as was the sense of expression of Self one has in creative work, particularly, in my case, in writing (see Glover (2001) for a study also of the value of creative photography in recovery from mental distress). Continual involvement in everyday life and everyday talk, as I had because of my heavy teaching schedule, was important in enculturating me back into the flow and flux of normal living and took me away from the isolated, private, claustrophobic ambience of my experiences of mid-1979. In recovery from psychosis keeping in touch with people that one can get on with is just so important.
It has also been critical for me, given what happened to me in 1979, for me to work on my relationship with God, which in the 1970s was clearly fraught with difficulties. That remains an ongoing task and is still an area of vulnerability for me as my feelings towards God are still very mixed and, at times, turbulent.
Strangely, after events of this kind, coincidences still seem to come one's way, but whereas in psychosis they are fast, disturbing, weakening and overwhelming, at what I call "the Positive Borderline" they are timely and strengthening and occur such that one can make constructive use of them - rather than happening so quickly that they are bewildering (see Chadwick, 2001, Table 5.2, p88).
All mystical experiences are intrinsically ineffable and indescribable. All one can do is "throw thoughts sling-like into the domain" as I described it in my journal and ideas notebook in 1979. What happens in this realm is a formidable challenge to human intelligence to understand (or "overstand"). I believe that research at this frontier therefore could take us to new levels of apprehension not only of reality, however one construes this, but of the intrinsic relatedness of mind and cosmos.
Chadwick, P.K. (1992) Borderline: A psychological study of paranoia and delusional thinking, London and New York: Routledge.
Chadwick, P.K. (1997) Schizophrenia - the Positive Perspective: in search of dignity for schizophrenic people, London and New York: Routledge.
Chadwick, P.K. (2001) Sanity to Supersanity to Insanity: A personal journey, in I. Clarke (ed), Psychosis and Spirituality: Exploring the new frontier, London and Philadelphia: Whurr, Chapter 5, pp75-89.
Glover, G. (2001) Technician to the Imagination, Mental Health Today, November, pp12-13.
Greenberg, D., Witztum, E. and Buckbinder, J.T. (1992) Mysticism and Psychosis: the Fate of Ben Zoma, British Journal of Medical Psychology, 65: 223-235.
Palmer, J. (1971) Scoring in ESP tests as a function of belief in ESP. Part 1: The sheep-goat effect, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 65 (4; October): 373-407.
Peters, E. (2001) Are delusions on a continuum? The case of religious and delusional beliefs, in I. Clarke (ed) Psychosis and Spirituality: Exploring the new frontier, London and Philadelphia: Whurr, Chapter 11, pp191-207.
Schmeidler, G.R. and McConnell, R.A. (1958) ESP and Personality Patterns, New Haven: Yale University Press.