[Help] Spiritual awakening or psychosis?

[Glaux]

Hi all, I posted some months ago after what I think was a Hermetic initiation without my knowledge. Since then I believe I’ve developed along this path. I’ve tested spells empirically with others and they report that the things I did have worked as intended for them and they appear to have worked for me. Recently, I began (slowly) reading the Corpus Hermeticum. Not long after, my mental state began to change. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it seems to be a sort of detachment from the material world. I feel more at one with the all and I’m quite care free. However, my executive functioning is in the gutter.

I’m terrified that this has all been psychosis, that I’m actually mad. I’ve glimpsed Hermetic truth, just a sliver. I know it’s all true somehow, at least that’s what I feel in my deepest gut of guts. I employ Ancient Greek in my spells along with scrollwork and so far I’ve invoked my main patron, Apollo, Asclepius as well as Tyche and Persephone. I’ve recently made a black book which I’ve started journaling my thoughts on all of this.

Once again, the point of this post is to try and parse out psychosis from “reality”, if that’s even possible. If anyone has struggled with this, don’t hesitate to leave a post. Thanks guys.

 

[iseht]

Rest in uncertainty.

 

[solxyz]

Hi all, I posted some months ago after what I think was a Hermetic initiation without my knowledge. Since then I believe I’ve developed along this path. I’ve tested spells empirically with others and they report that the things I did have worked as intended for them and they appear to have worked for me. Recently, I began (slowly) reading the Corpus Hermeticum. Not long after, my mental state began to change. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it seems to be a sort of detachment from the material world. I feel more at one with the all and I’m quite care free. However, my executive functioning is in the gutter.

I’m terrified that this has all been psychosis, that I’m actually mad.

It doesn't sound fully healthy; I can say that much. Too much precariousness, anxiety, and dis-ease. It is pretty clear to me that much of what you are experiencing is part of a more-or-less transitory state of mind. But that doesn't mean it is psychosis, or just psychosis. In any case, you should find some practices for cultivating ease and peace in your body while building simple, grounded present-moment awareness.

 

[HoldAll]

Psychosis? Not even close. When you're truly psychotic, you lose your entire everyday functionality, start having hallucinations, behaving erratically in public, endangering yourself and others and urgently require professional help & care just to stay alive. I'd say you're having a severe existential crisis; you wouldn't even be able to reflect on your own state of mind or make this post if you were truly psychotic. Personally, I don't believe occultism has ever driven anybody to madness unless such a condition had been latently present beforehand.

In the 1940s, the lectures of B.F. Skinner about his radical behaviourism often triggered what was called the 'Skinner's Shock' when his students confronted with his theories realized that — by Skinner's deterministic framework — free will was merely an illusion and human actions were merely conditioned responses to environmental stimuli. They'd sit around the campus grass, dazed and confused, their idealistic worldview shattered. Those young people hadn't become psychotic, they just had their minds blown.

In my thinking, great insights and genuine glimpses of the truth always carry a powerful emotional charge. It's not just the sublime philosphy, it's also how it affects our feelings, and that takes a lot longer to digest than the texts themselves. Don't fight it, ride it out. Things will get smoother as you progress. If you feel too top-heavy (which I can imagine can happen quite easily with Hermeticism), do something physical to get grounded, like exercising, cleaning, washing the dishes, or going for a walk.

 

[Morell]

@HoldAll is right about psychosis. What you describe sounds more like being in process of adapting to new experiencing of reality. Just make sure you are grounded enough and have enough of "material time" when spirituality is put aside.

You might want to slow down your furthering of experiencing and let it settle so that you can keep your physical life healthy and manageable. It might feel like living a double life until you can reconnect them again and that's fine.

 

[Kellhuss]

Psychosis? Not even close. When you're truly psychotic, you lose your entire everyday functionality, start having hallucinations, behaving erratically in public, endangering yourself and others and urgently require professional help & care just to stay alive. I'd say you're having a severe existential crisis; you wouldn't even be able to reflect on your own state of mind or make this post if you were truly psychotic. Personally, I don't believe occultism has ever driven anybody to madness unless such a condition had been latently present beforehand.

In the 1940s, the lectures of B.F. Skinner about his radical behaviourism often triggered what was called the 'Skinner's Shock' when his students confronted with his theories realized that — by Skinner's deterministic framework — free will was merely an illusion and human actions were merely conditioned responses to environmental stimuli. They'd sit around the campus grass, dazed and confused, their idealistic worldview shattered. Those young people hadn't become psychotic, they just had their minds blown.

In my thinking, great insights and genuine glimpses of the truth always carry a powerful emotional charge. It's not just the sublime philosphy, it's also how it affects our feelings, and that takes a lot longer to digest than the texts themselves. Don't fight it, ride it out. Things will get smoother as you progress. If you feel too top-heavy (which I can imagine can happen quite easily with Hermeticism), do something physical to get grounded, like exercising, cleaning, washing the dishes, or going for a walk.

Perhaps add a disclaimer here that psychosis has actual medical definitions and your hyperbolic definition here doesn’t actually reflect that; several of OP’s experiences could potentially be psychotic in fact, and confidently claiming otherwise is ethically appalling.

 

[querent k]

a sort of detachment from the material world. I feel more at one with the all and I’m quite care free. However, my executive functioning is in the gutter.

Nope, doesn´t sound like psychosis at all. But a phase in enlightenment which ain´t the Grande Thing it´s cranked up to be, but just a big mess.

 

[HoldAll]

Perhaps add a disclaimer here that psychosis has actual medical definitions and your hyperbolic definition here doesn’t actually reflect that; several of OP’s experiences could potentially be psychotic in fact, and confidently claiming otherwise is ethically appalling.

I didn't look up the medical definition or what the DSM-5 says, I just recounted the stories other people told me about their own experiences in self-help groups and how the therapists in charge of these groups rated and diagnosed them. If you're not severely delusional and still in control of your actions, it's not psychosis, says my doc as a rule of thumb. I'll admit my opinion is based on hearsay, non-clinical psychologists may have other views.

 

[Kellhuss]

I didn't look up the medical definition or what the DSM-5 says, I just recounted the stories other people told me about their own experiences in self-help groups and how the therapists in charge of these groups rated and diagnosed them. If you're not severely delusional and still in control of your actions, it's not psychosis, says my doc as a rule of thumb. I'll admit my opinion is based on hearsay, non-clinical psychologists may have other views.

Right, you didn't look up the medical definition or what the DSM-5 says, instead you relayed your own notion of what is 'truly' psychotic based on a 'rule of the thumb' from your doc.

You haven't even defined what you mean by delusional or severely delusional in your reply or your original post. You've just ejected a bunch of word salad too idiosyncratic to be of any use, and which doesn't at all address the OP's good faith query as to the difference between psychotic experience and mystical experience.

You could have replied with actual defintions or descriptions of psychosis, but instead took the opportunity to showboat your own preferred aesthetic as to experience plus a completely non-sequitur anecdote about Skinner.

I wouldn't normally criticise at length posts like this as the general quality of output on this forum is equally poor but your account is flagged as 'staff member' which means you do have some responsibility as to the quality of your responses.