The Psychology of Insanity

     It is appropriate to talk about insanity in World Psychology. Insanity is an interesting word whose meaning is greatly restricted to what would normally send you to a mental institution. That this world could be seen to be one of the largest insane asylums in the universe is not a popular thought, for those who pride themselves in their sanity, but a closer look at ourselves tells a different story. We are used to looking at humanity in terms of good vs. bad, decent vs. indecent, moral vs. immoral, sane vs. insane, dividing up humanity into the light and the dark. It is easy to point to the ‘really’ insane people who run into schools shooting everyone up, the terrorists who fly planes into buildings or strap bombs onto their bellies. Our film industry has imprinted ‘correct’ views of mental patients in hospitals and they and the news are probably more responsible than anyone for whatever our understanding or misunderstanding of insanity is.
    
    The rest of us, of course, are normal. The greatest thing to understand about insanity is that to the naked eye insanity seems normal. On earth it is normal, far more normal than anyone would think. That father who is abusing his daughter or the priest one of his choirboys seems ‘normal’ in almost all other regards. The rapist or child molester can be president of a firm, a lawyer, normal college student, or the garbage man from down the street. It is rare the direct perception of insanity. You cannot look at a person and see their insanity. Insane people usually seem and appear normal. And then they do something that is not normal at all. When the normal becomes insane then we have a really big problem on our hands and this is the problem we are actually facing in today's world. It is quickly reaching a point where insanity is invading the mainstream of life - becoming the norm. We certainly almost always seem normal to ourselves no matter how many inanities surround us and it is unlikely that even the most crazy and violent are thinking him or herself insane.

     Different people have said this in different ways to different degrees. David Reynolds, and American exponent of Japanese Morita psychotherapy said, “People deny reality.” Carl Jung said "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering." Scott Peck said, "The tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Denials, avoidance, repression, are all ways we separate from something. Through twisted personality defense mechanisms we try to distance ourselves from unpleasantness not knowing or understanding the cost. Mental illness is thus seen as a departure or separation from some basic reality yet many get away with this sitting in the highest offices of government, denying the realities, truths, needs feelings and perceptions of others. 

     Dictionaries basically define insanity as being a deranged state or unsoundness of mind, lack of understanding, extreme folly, or something utterly foolish or unreasonable. From these definitions we could say that the American government’s spending beyond its means to the tune of over six trillion dollars is extreme folly and is Bush’s administrations plan to install a anti-ballistic missile system that does not really work. And how about the rest of us, are our minds reasonable? Is any mind cut off from the flow of its own heart reasonable? 

     The basis for insanity lies exactly here. It is the lack of our capacity to see the unreasonableness of our thoughts and what we do with our minds. Mental illness and insanity are a matter of degrees, not really measurable in any absolute way by anyone’s behavior. The most fundamental insanity seeps up from the mind that perpetrates and unconsciously engineers is its own separation from its own nature state of being, which is represented by the heart. The most basic insanity on earth is this disease of separation, which all begins when we separate from our selves, from our own feelings, from the most beautiful and most vulnerable aspect of our self. 

     But like fish, which know only water, having never tasted the air, we have no relative point of knowing this state of separation and thus our insanity. Separation and insanity are the 'normal' states of human consciousness and from this point most of our pain and suffering begins, and in our normality we do our best to destroy the beauty of the world. 

The Fourth Principle of World Psychology
Separation is Insanity

     It is not the point of this chapter to elaborate on the nature of the mind that separates itself from others and the total environment it lives in. This is a theme that runs throughout this entire series and is elaborated on in later volumes. But basically in reality we are not separate from the total environment that surrounds us and even the terrorist is part of the same race to which we belong. Yet we love to think we are separate from other people just like we think we are separate from the ecology of our environment. We are subtly connected to the outside whether we like it or not but sometimes we literally need to have buildings fall down on us to realize that what is happening on the other side of the world will eventually effect us and our children one day. The heart holds our capacity for empathy and compassion because it can 'feel' with others because on a being level it is not separating. The mind has a way of insisting that it cannot hurt anyone for each individual is supreme in its own separate individuality. There are even some new age people who make a spiritual principle saying that one being cannot really cause the suffering of another. Though there is a limit to how much we can or should make ourselves a victim, and go down the tubes in self-pity with the hurt of it all, and though we do need in the final analysis to take full responsibility for what we feel and how we react, all of us are vulnerable to being hurt.

Sixth Principle in World Psychology
Uncaring is the most basic and fundamental
form of human insanity.

     Insanity could certainly be seen as being as far away from love as you can get. But in professional circles the word "insane" is now only a legal term. It is only a legal defense that people use to excuse inexcusable behavior. Because modern psychology and psychiatry have identified many different mental illnesses of varying severalties, it is now too simplistic to describe a severely mentally ill person merely as "insane." In fact, the vast majority of people with a mental illness would be judged "sane" if current legal tests for insanity were applied to them. A mental illness may explain a person's behavior though it seldom excuses it. But psychology is not free to define its own relative insanity thus the basic insanity of humanity remains unchallenged. This chapter’s aim is to redefine the definition of insanity, to broaden it and make it useful. Common language's usage is much clearer than dictionary, psychologists or legal definitions. When one person says, “You are insane” we know exactly what they are meaning and almost everyone has said or thought that, even about people they love. And many of us have thought that about our politicians, educators, doctors and therapists.

     Charles Ward wrote me saying, "A psychotic delusion is a form of insanity, because the individual with the delusion has a fixed belief that is not only false but also unshakable by any possible fact and impervious to reason." Later he went on "If irrational beliefs were insanity, then more than 95% of the people would be grossly psychotic. People are irrational, impulsive, undisciplined, illogical, and prejudiced in various ways, but most people are not insane." Yet he admitted, "Insanity means to be "seriously" out of touch with reality in one or more ways."

     The reason it is important to redefine the meaning of insanity is that the collective consciousness, including the psychiatrists and psychologists, have no idea of the reality that they are out of touch with. Ward said, "Insanity is an extreme form of mental illness, devastating to the affected individual.” Today the problem is that awareness is very short as to consciousness about the effect, the devastation.  Human awareness is not that open yet to all the problems and insanities that abuse and hurt uncountable people. Humans are not aware enough of the insanities that are threatening racial survival through ecological disaster. It is the defining issue of this century. It is clear that we do not see our own insanity and how that insanity is coagulating in the collective ignorance and blindness in our political and industrial leaders.

     When Ward wrote to me I was busy writing The Heart of Sex book, and I was focused on the insanity of rape and child sexual abuse and the terrible suffering that is perpetrated on the innocent. Ward tried to make the point "that most child abusers are not insane; they are perfectly in touch with reality and know exactly what they are doing and know that it is wrong. There is no distortion of reality; these people simply have perverted impulses that they do not control." I would agree with him on the first point only, from traditional point of view, they are not insane, but are they perfectly in touch with the reality of how much hurt and suffering they will cause? Are the politicians and CEOs of the major industrial companies in the world in touch with the reality of the harm they are doing to the environment and the disastrous consequence it will have in human terms? Is the President and many others insane when they deny that there is nothing even to worry about? Are the Christians aware of how much suffering they cause the collective unconsciousness with their shame, guilt and sin based principles? 

A question that each of us can ask ourselves,
are we, or is anyone 'perfectly' in touch with reality?

     Could it be that all people who live on planet earth are insane to one degree or another? Could it be that even the most sane person is partially insane? Take the case for one of the most popular spiritual people on the planet, Sai Babba. Is this man insane or a saint claiming to be of virgin birth and the very incarnation of God himself? How about the millions of people who follow and worship him, if he is insane what about the rest of them? My point is that if a case can be made that one of the most holy people on the planet is slightly bonkers could we not all be? And why would we judge him for copying the most popular hallucination in history?

     What is the point of realizing our insanity? If we are insane (or partially so) the first step toward sanity is the realization and acceptance of this. How can we move, as a race, toward sanity while thinking we are all just fine and dandy? Obviously this Sai Babba fellow thinks he is fine so he will make no efforts to clear his consciousness of his insanity. And so it is with the rest of us sitting comfortably in our ego shells of separation thinking we are fine, as billions in our race suffer, and as insanity, across the board, increases.

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