Intuition - Precognition - Divination - Lent 2023: Day 17

Today, I want to focus on precognition - being able to see into the future, being able to predict events that have not yet happened. Generally, I am sceptical of people advertising such powers, but I sense that on some small level they do exist. 

I see it this way: no one, but no one, in late summer 2019 was predicting a pandemic. No budget planner, no strategic forecaster had taken into their financial models or assumptions the fact that one would break out. By mid-autumn there was a possibility - especially since the first rumours were beginning to emerge from Wuhan in November of that year. By the end of January 2020, however, the probability of a pandemic was being taken seriously by governments and business. And by some astrologers who are now pointing out how prescient they were to predict a pandemic in January 2020. I would have been more impressed had they said that three months earlier.

Here, on the micro-scale is a little test. The time - 13:26 today, I'm in my kitchen clearing up after lunch, and happen to glance up through the window at the snowy scene in my garden and forest beyond. Unbidden, into my consciousness intrudes the following thought: "This is the last snow that will settle this winter." I check my phone weather app. Snow is forecast for Saturday night to Sunday morning, and from Sunday night to Monday morning; it is meant to be -2C on both nights. We shall see whether my pure intuition - perhaps guided by 25 winters' worth of experience in Poland - is right or wrong.

On the macro-scale, one intuition I recall from May 1979; it was General Election day. An intuitive moment flashed through me, again unbidden: "If the Tories win today, they will be in power for ages". They did and they were, winning four general elections and remaining in power for 13 years. Yet I cannot say that as a 21-year-old who did not follow party politics I had any kind of intellectual basis on which to have made that prediction - it was pure intuition, not the result of calculation.

One macro-scale intuition to test. When Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, I was naturally extremely worried, very concerned - yet my intuition told me that when it's all over, a better world will emerge.

These precognitive intuitions need to be felt as being pure, untinged by wishful thinking; they require sensitivity to receive, recognise and interpret. They cannot be called for or sought out - they come unbidden.

We humans live in a four-dimensional world; three spatial dimensions plus one temporal dimension. I've posited this before, but imagine a five-dimensional world where the three spatial dimensions are augmented by two dimensions of time rather than the one. Time can run left or right, as well as forward. While still a one-way arrow moving from past to present, it could loop around and come back on itself. Now imagine three temporal dimensions, where the arrow of time can move forward, left or right, and up or down. Again, with the possibility of looping around upon itself. Without having to call on time to run backward.

Extra temporal dimensions, should they exist, would theoretically give us the ability to experience the future from out of our past - a fascinating concept. Physically possible?

Let me now turn to divination - the practice of soothsaying. I turn to Wikipedia: "Divination (from the Latin divinare, 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardised process or ritual. Diviners ascertain how the person asking the question should proceed by reading signs, or directly through alleged interaction with a supernatural agency."

Assume that someone has a gift, even weakly, in a hit-or-miss manner, but still more likely to be right than wrong in most cases. The next question will relate to process or ritual. In the Western world, we are familiar with card readings, palm readings and crystal-ball gazing. Each method has its rules and guidelines, but at the heart of these forms of fortune telling is the diviner. Some are skilled entertainers, able to draw on cues, using intellect and instinct rather than intuition. But I would not dismiss those who genuinely - sincerely - feel an awareness of different manifestations of the future. Those who quietly practice, ideally with no motivation of material gain, but do so for people's good, because they feel they have a gift.

I believe that over time, they can hone their sixth sense, and not only feel what possibilities might happen, but to be able to draw out of the future the better outcome for the person for whom they are divining.

This is all very tentative; it is not a supernatural power that I would claim to have to any significant degree. It is weak, but strong enough for me to recognise from time to time. Practice can improve performance, but I also hold that each successive incarnation of an 'old-soul' consciousness strengthens such skills from one lifetime into the next. I'd like to think that thousands of millennia from now, precognition, telepathy, remote viewing and telekinesis will become well developed in our descendants. Indeed, I intuit so. Prove me wrong!

Lent 2022: Day 17
Defining God

Lent 2021: Day 17
Karma - more than just social control?

Lent 2020: Day 17
Religion and Feeling Good

Intuition - it is magical? Lent 2023: Day 16

Mind over matter - foreseeing the future, consciously forestalling/precluding catastrophe, willing oneself good luck or good health - this sounds at first glance like pseudoscience. Fallacious thinking - a cognitive bias. A load of bunk. 

Or is it...?

It's too early for me to tell you how effective my sense of plugging into a Cosmic stream of good fortune is. Stick around, and hopefully I'll tell you when I reach 95. When he was that age, my father would ask me, rhetorically, "Why was I so lucky?" I think he knew the answer, although it was something he could not articulate. However, I think he knew. [In parentheses, I'd say here that while my father was never a mentor to me in my youth, he certainly taught me exceptionally well how to live in old age. His attitude to life and to ageing was exemplary.] However, having got to 65, relatively unscathed, I feel more qualified to say that I feel there's something in this than when I was just 35.

The idea of intuition being a sixth sense outside of the the five that have sensory organs attached to them - sight, hearing, taste, smell and hearing - is something that mainstream science would reject, but that most people will to some degree accept.

Magic (as opposed to illusionism, merely a form of entertainment) is the use of the metaphysical, supernatural or paranormal to affect the material world. If your worldview excludes everything but the physical, there is no room for such thing as magic. Cause must precede effect, motion requires a force acting on a body, and the arrow of time goes one way.

We live our everyday lives on the edge of chaos. From macro-scale existential threats (nuclear war, pandemic, super-volcanoes, solar coronal ejections, asteroid strikes) to personal mishaps (losing your wallet, mobile phone or keys), bad things can happen. Can we stave them off with positive thought?

If we are open and sensitive to our intuitions - able to recognise a genuine intuition from a wishful thought or a gut instinct that's just wrong - maybe we just can. Don't ask me to prove it. Intuition may work better for some people than for others, and the question of whether we can improve our intuition by practice is a good one. Can we aim to improve our skills of listening to the void, as it were? Catching that calm, quiet voice that gives us short intimations of future outcomes, or optimal solutions?

Here are a few hints on how to practice intuition and strengthen your intuitive skills:

• Pay attention to that inner voice. The more attention you give it (of the right sort - not Ego-intermediated wishful thinking), the more practical use it will become to you.
• Aim for the highest level of sincerity with yourself. Ask yourself: "Is this really what I'm feeling?" Feel certain that your wishful thinking is not taking over and creating a simulacrum of a true intuition. If it is - dismiss it. Act only on those that pass the meta-sincerity test.
• The Cosmic Purpose tends towards the Good. Your intuition won't tell you how to steal or cheat.
  
• Your intuition is allied to your Consciousness - not to your Ego. Your intuition won't suggest to you how to become more popular and powerful, how to scale the Ladder of Authority to lord it over others.
• Pay attention to how your body feels - that tickling sensation on the roof of the mouth that often presages a cold or flu. When you feel something's not quite right - tell yourself emphatically "I don't want this - let it go away!" And when you do feel yourself feeling well - express conscious gratitude for it! Gratitude should also accompany the journey of recovery and recuperation.
• Pay attention to how your mind feels - when you feel a sudden rush of euphoria on opening the front door on a rain evening, on seeing a beautiful sunset, on beholding a night sky full of stars - get into the habit of feeling gratitude for that sensation. And when you feel down, remember good times roll around naturally; things will for sure improve.
• Whenever you go out - be it on a long trip or a short walk, consciously express the desire to return home safely, avoiding accidents, crime, losing something, something breaking down or ill health. And upon safe return - give thanks. We are always walking on the edge of chaos. 
• Mindfulness/meditation practices that clear the mind of the race of everyday thoughts open the conduit to extraneous intuition - ideas that pop into your consciousness unbidden. Intuitions are often subtle and require a sensitive mind; that can be worked on (see below). With practice and exercise, you can make the intuitions stronger.
• Write it down. I've had a notebook with me most of the time for the past 12 years or so; catching those moments of intuition is helpful.
• Practice decision-making based on intuition. Try making a small decision based purely on intuition, and then reflect on the outcome to see if your intuition was accurate. This may help you build trust in your intuition; bit by bit you can step it up and apply it to more important decisions. 

Developing intuition takes time and practice. However, intuition should be in balance with critical thought and analysis; intuition may be misled or influenced by wishful thinking; using it in conjunction with purely intellectual faculties will strengthen both.

"If you will it, Dude, it is no dream." [Leb. 7:19].

Lent 2022: Day 16

The difficulties of focusing on the spiritual

Lent 2021: Day 16
This planet is my home, today and tomorrow

Lent 2020: Day 16
My metaphysical journey, as I see it

Intuition and instinct - Lent 2023: Day 15

Into the third week of Lent, and I'd like to move onto the theme of intuition. 

Defined as "immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes" or "a perceptive insight gained by the use of this faculty", [Wiktionary] we instinctively know of its presence but spend little time or effort trying to understand it, even less trying to develop it as something that can be of enormous help in our lives.

Is intuition the same as gut instinct? I'd argue that it isn't - intuition is something different, something metaphysical.

Gut instinct is a biological response unguided by thought. It is an evolutionary development of the fight-or-flight response. I am in a new environment - I am on guard. Is this a threatening situation? Or can I relax? I see a strange face - should I fear it? Can I trust it? 

Instinct is set of behaviours, innate and learned, that an organism carries out unconsciously in response to external conditions. Blinking, recoiling, shielding one's face, reaching out to grab.

Intuition comes spontaneously, unprompted by circumstances. 

Intuition is something metaphysical, a 'sixth sense', perception that lies beyond the scope of today's reductionist-materialist science. Intuition is that thought that often presents itself to you unbidden, maybe as you wake, or shower, or while on a walk. It can also present itself to you as an answer to an intractable problem you've been wrestling with - a simple 'let it go' or 'act now'. The voice is calm, it has your best long-term interests at heart. And that intuiting moment may come in prayer - as the back-channel, the response to your opening up towards the Infinite and Eternal.

Learning to heed intuition is a skill that we humans have not even begun to develop. It's not taught, it's often dismissed as a cognitive bias, as a symptom of wishful thinking. Developing intuition, through practice and self-awareness, is possible - to the extent that the US military has spent millions of dollars on a programme to help develop a sixth sense among infantrymen.

The reductionist materialist approach to intuition is limited to an interaction between neurons in the brain; matter causes the effect we experience as intuition.

In this short clip below, physicist Sabine Hossenfelder (one of today's great YouTube popularisers of science) gives an extremely clear explanation in under five minutes of how reductionist-materialism sees the metaphysical. 

This is certainly not my point of view; I believe that consciousness is non-local - that is, not confined to the brain within our skull. Possibly - and this is nothing more than intuition! - consciousness is present across the Cosmos; a background, a sea within which all particles - everything - exists.

My intellectual counterargument rests on that which physics today doesn't yet know. Basing one's worldview on the Standard Model, which remains unreconciled with General Relativity, which cannot explain dark matter or dark energy, squeezes spirituality out of the physical world and into Dualism. There can be a soul, there can be Heaven - but not in the Cosmos of particles and fields. This is not what I intuit - my own feeling is that Consciousness is the force (maybe related to quantum theory, or string theory - who knows?) that binds everything together in this unfolding Universe of ours.

More about intuition over the next few days.

Lent 2022: Day 15

Religious belief, practice, inquiry and experience

Lent 2021: Day 15
The Afterlife - Faith and Doubt

Lent 2020: Day 15
Rites and Rituals

The Appeal of Mystic Traditions - Lent 2023: Day 14

Most religions have their mystic traditions - schools of thought founded on the idea that deep spiritual understanding is hidden, is not readily accessible to all, but requires some form of initiation and much study to be revealed. Jewish Kabbalism, Sufism in Islam, Zen Buddhism fit this description; Christianity does not have such well-known mystic schools. Gnosticism, which flourished among Christians and Jews around the second century, was ultimately denounced by the Church of Rome as a heresy, and persecuted accordingly.

The acquisition of secret knowledge - in contradiction to Christian teaching, which holds that the Church holds all received truth - was once a risky endeavour. With the Holy Inquisition rooting out heresy, people with unorthodox views would indeed hide them and engage in secret rituals with passwords and levels of initiation. To this day, Christianity continues frown on esotericism as something difficult to control; something it associates with New Age or even the dark arts - black magic - tainted with Satanism.

The occult, knowledge of hidden secrets, appeals to our innate interest in for mystery. Yet the search for meaning in secret symbols tends to attract those with an inclination towards restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests - the Asperger's spectrum. 

There's another personality aspect to interest in mysticism; a superiority complex. Adepts tend to believe that their intellects can grasp that which weaker minds cannot. It must be said, however, that Zen masters would disabuse any monk who offered such a view.

The mystic traditions interest me more than the main streams of religious thought; Catholicism is an open book; there are no mysteries - if you seek salvation, here it is, in the form of the Catechism - something simple enough for a child to understand. Asking questions of the priest, the intermediary between you and your God, is not considered good form, especially if he is unable to answer them. In a church claiming to be for everybody (katolikos, the Greek for universal) regardless of personality type, there is no room for the hermetic or arcane, the mystical or the occult. The Catholic church is for the neurotypical. 

It is my belief that spiritual growth requires an openness to learn and an active desire to gain insights -  and through them to grow in understanding.

Mysticism appeals to some, but not all. Many will find weekly religious practice within their own faith as being central to their pathway to God. Others might find it not fulfilling enough, and seek elsewhere in parallel.

We are on a spiritual quest, an evolutionary journey from Zero to One; we are aware that we perceive and that awareness should grow, within our lifetimes - and beyond - but we must keep searching. 

Indeed, one lifetime is not enough. My intuition says the journey is infinitely long; at death we shed our Ego, but our consciousness continues - it will grow, it will evolve, it will gain in understanding - until finally it shall unite in God. All in God - God in All - the Destination.

Lent 2022: Day 14
Between Serendipity and Proactiveness

Lent 2021: Day 14
Prayer

Lent 2020: Day 14
Choose the music for your religion

High Church and Low - Religious styles and personality - Lent 2023: Day 13

European history between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment was characterised by an almost-unbroken succession of wars, wholly or partially sparked off by religious differences. The European Wars of Religion (1522-1648), which culminated in the Thirty Years War, were the aftermath of Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation. This series of conflicts left Germany's population reduced by one third. Indeed, go back to the proto-Reformation Hussite Wars (1419-1434) and forward to the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715) and you will find that for the best part of three centuries, religion was the main cause of war in Europe, woven inseparably with economic and dynastic struggle.

To us today, our societies riven by ideological discord, and with nationalism threatening world peace, the idea of fighting and dying for the sake of theology seems absurd. Let us hope that in future, our descendants will look upon our times with similar condescension.

After Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, the conflagration began. Imagine having to take sides; would you throw in your lot with the faith you grew up in, or with something new that promises to address the glaring faults of the old? Or would you go along with your neighbours - or meekly carry out the bidding of the lord of the manor?

On one side, Roman Catholicism, on the other Lutheran Protestantism. The former, over the centuries since its inception, had accreted a well-defined hierarchy, wealth, and a rigid theology, placing itself firmly between God and Man. The latter was a clear rejection of the pomp and corruption of the established Church, embracing the notion that Man should have a direct relationship with God.

The Catholic Church had much to lose, power, prestige and money. Luther's ideas found popularity, and not only with the downtrodden. Intellectually, there was much to commend them. The Vatican quickly denounced Protestantism as heresy (much as was the case with Jan Hus, who was burnt to death in 1415, sparking the Hussite Wars). As the new religion spread. Europe descended into barbarism.

It is hard to imagine being given the chance to escape death in a bonfire simply by recanting one's views - and not doing so. Yet in the late Middle Ages, the difference between the doctrines of transubstantiation and consubstantiation was literally a matter of life or death. 

After the bloodshed subsided, Europe (and indeed Germany itself) ended up split between Catholic and Protestant. Christianity took on two distinct flavours. Catholicism became the 'high church' - smells and bells - ornate decoration, formalised ritual, angelic music, incense, vestments, magical incantations in a language few understood. Protestantism - the 'low church'. Plain, unadorned, austere - the people speaking directly to God, in their vernacular. Two entirely different approaches to spirituality evolved.

In them I see a reflection of the spectrum of human personalities: Catholic - extroverted, gregarious, loquacious, pleasure-seeking, focused on ritual; Protestant - introverted,  taciturn, ascetic, focused on message over form.

Both have their attractions and drawbacks. The showy nature of the High Church approach is spiritual entertainment; "church and stage have always been closely connected," said John Betjeman in Metro-land. Imagining the awe that a simple peasant must have been experienced on entering a magnificent late-Gothic cathedral on a Holy Day;  the gilded Monstrance held high, the censer swinging, wafting exotic smells into the air; the gaudily dressed parade of bishops and their retinue of hooded monks; gazing around at the high vaulted ceiling reaching up to Heaven, the stained glass, the statues, the paintings, listening enraptured to the chanting, the magic spells uttered in an incomprehensible tongue - an all-out onslaught on the senses.

The low church appealed to the spirit via the mind rather than the senses. Prayer and sermons delivered in the vernacular, reasoned arguments, mental focus on the Word of God, undistracted by sounds, smells or sights or wealth. The notion of a tight-knit community, an egalitarian fellowship - not a social hierarchy.

I must say that in my church-going years, I found neither; the Polish Catholic Church (for such it has become de facto if not de jure) delighted me not - offering neither intellectual rigour nor uplifting experiences through contact with beauty - only sermons that were mostly forms of social control, and above all dreadful, dirge-like music. One exception was the Dominican Abbey in Służew which, though modern in architectural form, ticks the rest of the smells-and-bells boxes and lifted the spirit admirably.

Which religious style appeals to which personality traits? Are you easily distracted? Want to be seen by all as you sit in the front pew, dressed in your finery? Or do you find conspiracies everywhere? Only go every now and then when you feel up to it? 

Considering my own preferences,they are not for any mainstream spiritual form, but more esoteric flavours of mysticism. Not being a gregarious person, I feel no need for a sense of communal togetherness with co-religionists; rather I seek inspiration and insight through reading, solitary walks or discussion. And whilst I can appreciate the notion of religious practice for its own sake, disconnected from dogma, it's not enough to make a churchgoer of me.

Tomorrow I shall write more about mysticism in the search for spiritual understanding.

Lent 2022: Day 13
Comfort and Luxury, Consciousness and Ego

Lent 2021: Day 13
Comfort and Luxury - knowing when to stop

Lent 2020: Day 13
Holy buildings and the sense of the mystical

Obstacles on the Path to Growth - Lent 2023: Day 12

How do we learn? We make the greatest progress through insights - the acquisition of discrete packets of understanding, learning moments. These may come spontaneously in the form of intuition, or they may be guided, part of a structured course - formal education, or picked up from a YouTube video. 

We build our overall understanding of life and the universe through a whole series of insights, not necessarily connected; many of these learning moments coming randomly throughout our lives.

Of course, if we want to grow in understanding, we should actively seek them out, watching educational videos rather than football matches or soap operas or reading about celebrities. Though even here, moments of deep insight can occur from time to time (I'd surmise that these would tend to centre around determination).

It occurred to me maybe about 12 years ago that I am actually a slow learner - these learning moments, these insights, which build into understanding, come to be five or ten years (or more!) after those of my peers who are at the leading edge of thought. What has been holding me back?

Laziness, distraction, lack of focus, setting the wrong priorities... and here we are in the territory of personality traits and disorders. Attention deficit, obsessions, mood swings and addictions all get in the way of learning and growth.

The 'growth' here relates to understanding of classical reality at our human scale; learning moments related to work, business, economics, household matters etc. But how about spiritual growth? 

When I think back to my childhood and youth, I have always had an innate sense of the notion of a Deity. At first this would have been through the Catholic church, but then in adolescence I began questioning many of its dogmas and practices, and drifted away, seeking improved pathways to God - which of course necessitate an improved understanding of the nature of God.

This is not just an intellectual pursuit. It is central to my being. It is a journey guided by intuition and by insights, chance discussions, deep thoughts often on solitary walks, all coming together to form an ever-higher level of understanding.

One cannot spend every waking moment of life pursuing the Numinous, seeking answers to nothing other than the Holy Mysteries. Our material reality calls for action - getting stuff done. But the balance between physical reality and the spiritual must be addressed in our day-to-day lives. Hence my frequent question, "how much spirituality do we need?". I feel this increases as we get older and more aware of our mortality.

The development of the internet, unfettered access to knowledge, offers us new chances to escape down new rabbit-holes; delving into diverse areas of knowledge deeper and deeper as the hours fly past. The oft-quoted '10,000 hour' rule - practice making perfect - comes into play here. As we dive down our newly-opened rabbit holes, are we indeed finding they deepen or broaden our knowledge? Are they mere distractions, the result of attention deficit, or are they obsessions - restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests - the result of being on the Asperger's spectrum? Is a quest for perfection - obsessive-compulsion - preventing us from developing? Are we being held back by an unhealthy focus on our Ego, framing our development largely in terms of how others see us - PhD, MBA, CEO?

I cannot say that every human has their own innate, built-in, sense of spiritual wonder or any kind of metaphysical mission. This element is, I think, key - not everyone seeks God, not everyone is looking for an understanding of life and the universe in spiritual terms. Many people are comfortable with an entirely materialist-reductionist explanation for why we are here and what is our purpose. I wouldn't even want to try to change their minds. However, it is highly educational to talk with them, to reason, to bounce my arguments off their counter-arguments, making my thinking more robust.

Yet for me, the most fruitful learning, however, comes from listening to intuition. And having just written those words, intuition comes to me and says - "yes, that's right".

Lent 2022: Day 12
Understand our Universe and our physical reality

Lent 2021: Day 12
Chance and Luck: can we will an outcome?

Lent 2020: Day 12
Find your own Holy Places

Personalities and Disorders – Lent 2023: Day 11

Psychologists have long been devising matrices and grids with which categorise human personalities. (And not only human personalities, as any pet-owner knows!) If we think back to the Ancient Greeks, they had their four fundamental elements, fire, water, earth and air, were matched by the four humours – Phlegmatic, Sanguine, Choleric and Melancholic. Alchemy also attempted to categorise human personality types. Today, psychologists use various methodologies in the arcane practices of corporate HR, some of which have become commonplace though controversial, such as Myers Briggs Type Indicator. There are many other competing methods for assessing and defining personality types; no one consensus model exists.

Yet given the precision that physicists have attained with in classifying basic forms of matter with the Standard Model, the lack of any generally agreed descriptions (even introvert/extrovert are vague and woolly away from the extreme presentations) shows up the gulf between science and social science.

And so – there are traits, habits, behaviours that allow themselves to be classified as personality types; each one drifts off into the arena of personality disorders - from the realm of the psychologist to that of the psychiatrist.

Yes, we are all individuals. We may display certain characteristics in common, but these can overlap, cancel each other out or be subject to wildly varying interpretations. Just looking at the personality traits that I display using different scales and indicators, I can see I fit precisely into none.

Am I introverted or extroverted? If my interlocutor is interesting, I am extroverted. The discussion becomes animated, the more so in the presence of alcohol. If I’m in the presence of bores, I switch off and prefer to stand alone in the corner.

One spectrum that I consider to be greatly important is Ego – Consciousness (my thoughts on this from Lent 2022 in the link below).

The pure experience of being conscious, the awareness of being aware that I AM, is in itself an introverted act, a detachment from the here and now of classical reality. At the other end of the spectrum is pure ego, the narcissistic inability to perceive reality through any other filter than that of the Great Me.

Ego has its purpose; I would argue that it is essential to the biological imperative to survive and reproduce. But having reproduced, and having helped its biological owner attain a comfortable and relatively stress-free existence, it needs to be dialled back, and Consciousness should rise to the fore.

Does being on the Ego end of this spectrum hold back spiritual growth? Not necessarily – many great spiritual leaders were driven by Ego (especially in religions with hierarchies). “You! God wants you to be a mendicant monk, living in Holy Poverty!” “Very well, sire!” Ego-related disorders are often perceptible in leaders across all hierarchies.

Each spectrum has its pluses and minuses when placed into the context of spirituality. Would, for example, those on the Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour Disorder spectrum focus too much on ritual, getting agitated by a rite being conducted in, say, the wrong order? The "TV Tie syndrome" – being unable to absorb the message of a talking head on TV because his tie was too garish, too wide, too narrow, or the stripes clashed with the pattern of his shirt, comes into play here. “I must have a Latin Mass, and yet I become distracted if the priest mispronounces his Latin words!”

The attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder spectrum poses its own problems, as those experiencing symptoms may find it hard to dwell long enough on matters spiritual to find answers in them. (Indeed, my chief problem in regular church-going was the ease with which my mind drifted off topic in a room full of sensory distractions.)

Episodic disorders characterised by mood swings also have their reflections in the way those who experience them seek or connect with the Numinous.

The more I think about overlaying personality traits and behavioural disorders onto the spiritual realm, the more convinced I am about the rightness of the intuition I felt one night in the summer of 2021 – “everyone who seeks God shall find God in their own way.” There is no one-size-fits-all solution – other than for the well-adjusted, emotionally balanced, neurotypical minority.

Lent 2022: Day 11

Aliens, Angels and Daemons

Lent 2021: Day 11
The Ego, Consciousness and Spiritual Evolution

Lent 2020: Day 11
Dreams and the Afterlife

Spirituality and Neurodiversity - Lent 2023: Day ten

"There is no such thing as a healthy person; there are merely undiagnosed diseases." 

"There is no such thing as a sane person; most of us are on the spectrum of one psychiatric disorder or another."

Harsh words.

Doctors diagnose a disease by looking for a set of associated symptoms; displaying some them raises the probability of having that disease. Psychiatrists do the same for psychiatric disorders, seeking symptoms in our behavioural traits or characteristics so that they can classify said disorder.

I asked ChatGPT to give me a ranking of psychiatric disorders; it came up with these:

Depression - 4.4% of the global population

Anxiety disorders - 3.8%

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - 3.4%

Bipolar disorder - 1.3%

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) - around 1%

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) - 1.0%

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - 1.0%

Schizophrenia - 0.3-0.7%

Not entirely trusting ChatGPT, I dug further, and found, for example, that the range of prevalence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) goes up to 15% of the population! And then I read that "NPD may co-exist with the following mental disorders, including histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, or paranoid personality disorder."

As I wrote a few weeks ago, psychiatry today is defining more and more spectrum disorders with a long tail. At the mild end of the spectrum, these disorders are not debilitating but are still present in sufficient measure to be noticeable in how we behave, showing up in our traits and our habits.  A majority of human beings would not meet the full diagnostic criteria for any psychiatric disorder, but many people may experience some degree of symptoms related to these disorders, indeed, multiple overlapping disorders (co-morbidities).

So - here we are, faced with a catalogue of disorders, which, it seems, are present in many of us to some degree or other, just waiting for a trick cyclist to tease them out during a therapy session!

My big question is this - how do neurological differences affect our spirituality? After all, they affect our social, cognitive and emotional functions. But our faith in a supreme being - or belief in the lack thereof? Our search for meaning and purpose in life? The relationship between our Consciousness and our Ego?

Example: a relationship between narcissistic personality and paranormal belief was discovered in a study involving the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale - "He/she believes in God because they are 'poor at reasoning'." 

Is this the case? 

This is what I'll be looking at over the next week.

Lent 2022: Day ten
Where was God in Auschwitz?

Lent 2021: Day ten
The Sins that cannot be Purged

Lent 2020: Day ten
Those who have created their own religion