Читать книгу A Sourcebook for Helping People With Spiritual Problems - Emma Inc. Bragdon - Страница 6

Gallup polls and numerous studies in the last 20 years conclude that 30 to 40% of the population have had "mystical experiences." This spiritual experience is a transient, extraordinary episode marked by feelings of unity, harmonious relationship to the divine and everything in existence, as well as euphoric feelings, noesis, loss of ego functioning, alterations in time and space perception, and the sense of lacking control over the event (Lukoff, Lu and Turner, 1992). Many of these mystical experiences are the result of a Near Death Experience (NDE), when a person approaches clinical death for a short period of time and then comes back to life. As someone revives from this experience, he or she reports statements like,

"I came out of my body and felt like I was floating on the ceiling, looking down at the people who were operating on me. "

"As I lifted out of my body I was greeted by an exquisitely beautiful, kind being who made me feel very safe and loved. I have never felt so peaceful and comfortable. "

"I now know that the spiritual dimension exists. I have no doubts."

"I am no longer afraid of death. I know it is a joyful transition. "

"I feel moved to do more work in service to my fellow man. Material goals are just not very important. "

According to a Gallup survey in 1982, people who have had near-death experiences number at least 8 million in North America. How does this kind of spiritual experience affect psychological well-being? Clearly, those who choose to accept their inner experience as valid find a renewed appreciation for life as they have realized new dimensions and new resources of love and peace; this, together with the loss of fear of death and the conviction that there is life after death brings great comfort. Those who feel threatened by their experience or are told to believe that their experience is delusional, a hallucination, unreal, etc., gain no psychological benefit. Those who find their religious convictions challenged by their spiritual experience may likewise be uncomfortable until they resolve their questions. (Pastoral counseling or psychological counseling may be called upon to help a person resolve their questions in these instances.)

The people who have experienced a greater reality through spiritual experience and integrated it into their lives are likely to be better educated, more economically successful, less racist, and substantially higher on scores of psychological well-being (Allison, 1967; Greeley, 1975; Hood, 1974, Thomas and Cooper, 1977, Vaughan and Walsh, 1980). "An appreciation of the holistic, unitive, integrated nature of the universe and one's unity with it" (Vaughan and Walsh, 1980) is further evidence of the positive changes which can come from integrating spiritual experience. Thus, it appears to be a contribution to individuals to help them integrate mystical experiences.

As our resuscitation technology improves increasingly more people will have these experiences when they are revived from near-death. Similarly, people anesthetized with ketamine and a variety of other anesthetics, will find themselves having NDE-like experiences (Rogo, 1984). Psychotropic drugs such as LSD and MDMA (Ecstasy), street drugs which are readily available, although illegal, also may facilitate the phenomena of spiritual experience.

A recent study (Allman et al. 1992) indicates that 4.5% of clients seeing full-time psychologists wanted to talk about their mystical experiences. Obviously, people who unexpectedly drop their fear of death or waylay doubts that the spiritual dimensions exist, or feel complete love and peace for the first time are having experiences which will have a profound impact on psychological health. These changes often include radical changes in values, radical changes in relationship to family and work, and new behaviors. Religious conversion mayor may not be central to this transformation as people often move away from established religion and prefer a more spontaneous spiritual expression in alignment with a sense of the underlying unity of all religions.

Other spiritual experiences include the awakening of expanded perceptual abilities that are not related to paranoid ideation and have a positive, transformative impact. These abilities might include:

precognition: the ability to see into the future through awake vision or dream. This might include extraordinary inspiration such as Mozart hearing a whole symphony or Einstein seeing a new theorem through tapping resources that transcend logical processing.

clairvoyance: the ability to perceive constellations of energy through inner sight which are imperceptible to ordinary vision. Clairvoyant perceiving might include "seeing" roots of problems manifesting as physical disease, mental disturbance, or relationship difficulties. Clairvoyant "seers" can be used for health diagnostics and psychological counsel and are extraordinary resources for knowledge that transcend the limitations of time, space and technology.

clairsentience: the ability to feel energies in one's own body which duplicate the emotions, physical wellness, or thoughts of another being. Similar to clairvoyance, clairsentience can be useful in human health services as well as having applications in personal problem solving. When people feel their unity with the earth itself, it can be a source of great comfort and inspiration.

clairaudience: the ability to hear messages from a source of intelligence which goes beyond the rational information of the present life. Examples include speaking with nonphysical spiritual guides or angels who give uplifting, positive direction and open the person to increased resources of compassion for all beings.

healing: the ability to manifest health-giving changes in the physiology or psychology of oneself or another being through laying on of hands, prayer, or psychic transmission.

psychokinesis: the ability to move material objects through psychic transmission.

Both the influences of medical and pharmaceutical experiences in our lives and psycho-social factors discussed in Chapters 2 and 8 contribute to this being a time in history when many people are able to have spiritual experiences, acquire some of the abilities mentioned above, and make the passageway to the increased well-being that spiritual experiences can promote. The following table published by A. Greeley in American Health in January, 1987, illustrates polls which indicate that spiritual experiences in the USA are on the rise. This is further evidence that the spiritual aspect of life increasingly plays a major role in the psychological lives of the majority of the population.

TABLE 1:

Increases in paranormal experiences in 1973 (in parentheses) and 1986.

Americans Who	1973	1986
Had contact with the dead (adult pop.)	(27%)	42%
Had contact with the dead (widows)	(51%)	67%
Had visions	(8%)	29%
Experienced ESP	(58%)	67%
Experienced deja vu	(59%)	67%
Experienced clairvoyance	(24%)	31%
Believe in life after death	(*)	73%
Believe the afterlife is Paradise	(*)	68%
Believe that after death they'll be
reunited with dead loved ones	(*)	74%
(*) No figures available

National surveys by the Gallup Organization bolster Greeley's polls showing paranormal experiences in the United States are on the rise:

Had an unusual spiritual experience	43%	('85)
Had a near-death experience	15%	('81)
Believe in life on other planets	46%	('81)
Believe in life after death	71%	('81)
Believe in reincarnation	23%	('81)
Believe in God or a Universal Spirit	95%	('81)
Believe Jesus is God	70%	('83)
Believe in angels	67% of teenagers	('86)
Believe in heaven**	71%	('80)
Believe in hell	53%	('80)
Expect the afterlife to be boring	5%	('81)

**Of those who believe, 20% think their chances of going to heaven are excellent.

Spiritual Experiences and Psychological Disturbance

Can the above-mentioned spiritual experiences cause psychological disturbance or be symptomatic of preexisting pathology? The advent of these spiritual experiences often do stimulate a process of re-evaluation of values and convictions. New perceptual abilities and a greater sense of relatedness to spiritual forces may be disorienting at first. But, the spiritual experiences themselves, if they stimulate increased compassion, deeper relatedness and peace of mind, are not indicators of psychological disturbance. On the contrary, they are openings to higher states of well-being and more effective functioning in the world.

People who are becoming increasingly fearful, more isolated, less trusting, less energetic, and less interested in life, without remission, are psychologically disturbed. Some of these people may report hearing voices which tell them what to do or think, or feeling things in their body which do not belong to them, or seeing visions which impel them to destructive thinking or destructive behavior. An inner experience which robs a person of his or her free will, peace of mind or positive relatedness to others is indicative of psychological disturbance. People with these experiences should have a thorough physical examination checking for physical disease that can cause psychological imbalance as well as be attended to by someone skilled in psychiatric differential diagnosis. Mental health professionals need to recognize the varieties of spiritual experiences and learn to differentiate them from paranoid ideation, delusions, and hallucinations. People absorbed in integrating spiritual experiences are breaking through to higher levels of functioning. People absorbed in inner experiences which leave them chronically drained, fearful and isolated are breaking down and need skilled psychological intervention. The subtleties of differential diagnosis come to play when a person seems to be having both spiritual experiences and symptoms of mental disturbance. These issues are discussed in Chapter 3, Diagnosis.

Unfortunately, neither psychiatrists nor mental health professionals are given adequate training to prepare them to deal with issues arising in the realm of spiritual experiences or the subtleties of differentiating spiritual experiences from the symptoms of mental disturbance (Peck, 1993). Excerpts from the article in Appendix C by Drs. Lukoff, Lu and Turner (1992), relate: "Few psychiatrists are trained to understand religion, much less treat it sympathetically. Similarly, in a survey of members of the American Psychological Association, 83% reported that discussions of religion in training occurred rarely or never (Shafranske and Malony, 1990.) A study of training directors of the Association of Psychology Internship Centers found that 100% indicated they had received no education or training in religious or spiritual issues during their formal internship. Yet 72% reported that they had addressed those issues, at least occasionally, in clinical practice."

The people having spiritual experiences and needing counseling may well find themselves with clinicians who are not adequately trained to work effectively with this aspect of human experience. The conventional psychologist or psychiatrist is typically trained to interpret any experience of communication with invisible beings, perceptual distortions of time and space, and/or a sense of unity with larger forces as indicative of a radical debilitating psychological disturbance, a psychosis or mania. The aforementioned phenomena are perceived as indicators that the patient is "out of touch with reality." The administration of psychiatric drugs is the most often used therapeutic intervention for those perceived as manic or psychotic. This medical treatment may be the most compassionate intervention for someone who is psychologically disturbed, but may be debilitating for someone in the process of integrating spiritual experiences (Breggin, 1991).

The new diagnostic category in the DSM-1V for "spiritual or religious problem" is an important step in bringing the arena of spiritual experiences out of the shadows where it has been summarily confused with mental disease. Placed in the category of "other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention," these problems can now be viewed as natural changes that may demand psychological and social adjustments but are not in themselves necessarily indicative of illness. Health professionals will now have a codified alternative to assuming that all spiritual experiences are indicative of pathology.