Time for a Spiritual Revolution?

Many bright and creative people suffer from mental health conditions.  Unfortunately, society often condemns people labeled with a diagnosis like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.  Furthermore, though spirituality has been proven to help people suffering from these maladies, the medical community has a history of overlooking it as a serious means of treatment.  American society operates at an overwhelmingly fast pace.  By contrast, in France, mealtime is sacred and allows people to pause and reflect while enjoying a delicious meal.  It is a modern day ritual, which the French have long recognized as an important component of psychological health.  Here in the US, however many people must rely on medications to fit in with the exacting norms of everyday life.  If spirituality and its corresponding rituals could be made more accessible in schools and the workplace, people would be much happier, healthier and less stressed.  The lives of two historical figures who are now widely believed to have suffered from mental illnesses, Joan of Arc and Vincent VanGogh, showcase not only the importance of Spirituality, but also some important differences between Spirituality and Religion.

Spirituality has long been known to help people cope with their problems.  Happily, the calming practice of meditation is being incorporated more and more into schools and hospitals, especially psychiatric units.  Religion is different from, but related to spirituality.  Religion is a set of beliefs, whereas spirituality is an attempt to transcend.  The Christian denomination which focused primarily on the transcendent properties of prayer and meditation is mysticism.  “Significant research seems to show that people who experience genuine mystical states enjoy much higher levels of psychological health.” (Why God Won’t Go Away, Andrew Newberg, Eugene D’Aquili and Vince Rause, 108)  Joan of Arc. considered by many to have been bipolar, was put on trial for heresy at the age of 19.  Confined to a cold, damp dungeon cell without a window, she wore heavy chains on her wrists and ankles.  She had several guards who constantly teased and taunted her.  Every day she underwent hours of brutal questioning, yet she remained calm throughout the whole ordeal.  “That after seven weeks of such torture she was still able to go before her judges and answer as she did must be held the crowning miracle of her miraculous life.” (The Girl in White Armor, by Albert Bigelow Paine, 158)  Joan was constantly praying and communicating with “her voices.”  The transcript of Joan’s trial shows that she answered admirably, despite being so cruelly mistreated.  She had the right to be kept in the Church prisons, as well as to go into the Church to pray, but her captors denied her both privileges and yet she kept her composure.  Similarly, Vincent Van Gogh struggled with depression and a severe form of epilepsy.  He, too found solace in his own unique sense of spirituality which fed into his art.  He believed in the transcendent power of art, saying “Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside.”  Van Gogh’s spiritual connection was the impetus for his paintings.  At the time that he painted Starry Night he was residing in an insane asylum, St. Paul de Mausole, in the south of France.  In a time before pharmacies on every corner and sophisticated knowledge of pharmaceuticals, Van Gogh was able to be one of the most prolific painters of all time, even in the face of severe mental illness.  This is a testament to the power of a spiritual existence.

Spirituality often gets a bad reputation because of atrocious acts committed in the name of Religion.  Joan of Arc’s trial is a classic case of a religious leader using God to justify a horrendous act.  A distinguished French lawyer named Lohier visited Rouen during Joan’s trial.  When asked for his opinion on Joan’s case he stated that it was not legal for the following 3 reasons, “first, Joan had no counsel, secondly, it was carried on behind closed doors and third, no witnesses were summoned from the other side.” (Paine, 173)  After the French accused her of heresy and the English burned her at the stake, a guard is said to have immediately declared that they had killed a saint.  Joan was by all accounts a well-loved, innocent girl.  She was killed because of the self-serving agenda of Bishop Cauchon, who felt threatened by her.  Unlike Joan, who kept her faith in the Church until the end, Van Gogh became very disillusioned with religion as he grew into an adult, calling it, “the rear end of some sort of Buddhism.”  (Van Gogh, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, 766) Van Gogh’s father was a minister and Van Gogh himself studied to become one in his twenties. He stopped however, because he was not impressed by the Church’s lack of interest in helping people.  He also noted that it (the Church) seemed overly interested in money.  So, the religious zeal he experienced as a young man transformed into passion for his art.  Despite Van Gogh’s apparent spiritual connection to “the other side of life,” he suffered a psychotic episode during which he cut off his ear and he went on to commit suicide at the age of 37.  During his final years he was scorned and even reviled by the villagers in Arles where he was living and painting at the time of his death.  The fate of both Vincent Van Gogh and Joan of Arc illustrate the connection between society and spirituality.  Individuality is often problematic in a tight knit community or society.  The presence of a strict and closed minded religious community can drive away or attack individuals such as Joan of Arc or Vincent Van Gogh.    

Joan of Arc and Vincent Van Gogh were visionaries.  They were ahead of their time and as a result, they were misunderstood.  Ideally, society will evolve to the point where it doesn’t exclude or persecute artists and revolutionaries.  In modern American society people who venture outside of the prescribed behavioral norms meet with a lot of push back.  According to the article What a Shaman Sees in a Mental Hospital, by Stephanie Marohn, “another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world. In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated.”  In aboriginal or indigenous societies people like Joan of Arc and Vincent Van Gogh are revered.  Here, in the US many people don’t understand spirituality and it becomes taboo because of this.  We have a habit of pushing away or punishing what we don’t understand.  In the process the unique talents of individuals who see a way to evolve are lost or underutilized.  Likewise:   

In ancient and medieval cultures, mystics were

often held in high esteem as the wisest and most

spiritually attuned members of a society. The

rationalistic and empirical demands of Western

science, however, seem to leave professional

observers no choice but to regard these modern

mystics as the victims of a damaged or deluded minds. 

(Newberg et al.,107)

The medical community operates in tandem with society at large to perpetuate the stigma born by those who are termed “mentally ill.”  Because the spiritual realm is not tangible, there is no formal way to observe and measure spiritual experiences.  And yet, “A neurological approach suggests that God is not the product of a cognitive, deductive process, but was instead “discovered” in a mystical or spiritual encounter made known to human consciousness through the transcendent machinery of the mind.” (Newberg et al., 133)  Thus, humans did not invent the concept of God, but rather they tapped into it through prayer and meditation.  Our brains are, essentially hardwired to find and to know God.  Religions invent prayers and rituals that help us experience God, but because we are human no one person or group has all the answers.  What works for one person may not for another and that’s OK.

I believe that if Joan of Arc and Vincent Van Gogh lived today they would be met with more acceptance.  I believe that society is evolving in the right direction.  Suffering and persecution are slowly, but steadily being alleviated.  It is my wish that every person have the opportunity to experience fulfilling spirituality.  It is an important component in a person’s overall well-being.  I believe that the true tragedy of our time happens when Religions push people away from God.