Divine madness

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Divine madness (disambiguation).

Divine madness, also known as theia mania and crazy wisdom, refers to unconventional, outrageous, unexpected, or unpredictable behavior linked to religious or spiritual pursuits. Examples of divine madness can be found in Buddhism, Christianity, Hellenism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Shamanism.

It is usually explained as a manifestation of enlightened behavior by persons who have transcended societal norms, or as a means of spiritual practice or teaching among mendicants and teachers. These behaviors may seem to be symptoms of mental illness to mainstream society, but are a form of religious ecstasy, or deliberate "strategic, purposeful activity,"[1] "by highly self-aware individuals making strategic use of the theme of madness in the construction of their public personas".[2]

Cross-cultural parallels

Yan Hui depicts the crazy-wise Hanshan 寒山. Color on silk. Tokyo National Museum

According to June McDaniel and other scholars, divine madness is found in the history and practices of many cultures and may reflect religious ecstasy or expression of divine love.[3] Plato in his Phaedrus and his ideas on theia mania, the Hasidic Jews, Eastern Orthodoxy, Western Christianity, Sufism along with Indian religions all bear witness to the phenomenon of divine madness.[4] It is not the ordinary form of madness, but a behavior that is consistent with the premises of a spiritual path or a form of complete absorption in God.[3][5]

DiValerio notes that comparable "mad saint" traditions exist in Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian cultures, but warns against "flights of fancy" that too easily draw comparisons between these various phenomena.[6]

Mulla Nasruddin.[7] Divine madness has parallels in other religions, such as Judaism and Hinduism.[8][9]

Ancient Greece and Rome: theia mania

Theia mania (

Phaedrus to describe a condition of divine madness (unusual behavior attributed to the intervention of a God).[10] In this work, dating from around 370 BC, Socrates argues that madness is not necessarily an evil, claiming that "the greatest of blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods".[10][11]

Socrates describes four types of divine madness:[10][12]

Plato expands on these ideas in another dialogue, Ion.

One well-known manifestation of divine madness in ancient Greece was in the cult of the Maenads, the female followers of Dionysus. However, little is known about their rituals; the famous depiction of the cult in Euripides' play The Bacchae cannot be considered historically accurate.[13]

The Roman poet Virgil, in Book VI of his Aeneid, describes the Cumaean Sibyl as prophesying in a frenzied state:[14]

While at the door they paused, the virgin cried:
"Ask now thy doom!—the god! the god is nigh!"
So saying, from her face its color flew,
Her twisted locks flowed free, the heaving breast
Swelled with her heart's wild blood; her stature seemed
Vaster, her accent more than mortal man,
As all th' oncoming god around her breathed...

Abrahamic religions

Christianity

The 6th-century Saint Simeon, states Feuerstein, simulated insanity with skill. Simeon found a dead dog, tied a cord to the corpse's leg and dragged it through the town, outraging the people. To Simeon the dead dog represented a form of baggage people carry in their spiritual life. He would enter the local church and throw nuts at the congregation during the liturgy, which he later explained to his friend that he was denouncing the hypocrisy in worldly acts and prayers.[7]

glossolalia or the "tongue of angels".[15] Christ's behavior and teachings were blasphemous madness in his times, and according to Simon Podmore, "Christ's madness served to sanctify blasphemous madness".[16]

Religious ecstasy-type madness was interpreted as good by early Christians, in the Platonic sense. Yet, as Greek philosophy went out of favor in Christian theology, so did these ideas. In the age of Renaissance, charismatic madness regained interest and popular imagination, as did the Platonic proposal of four types of "good madness".[12] In a Christian theological context, these were interpreted in part as divine rapture, an escape from the restraint of society, a frenzy for freedom of the soul.[12]

In the 20th-century,

Augustine are stated to have had similar experiences of deliberate hallucinations and madness.[20]

Islam

Divine madness is a theme in some forms of

masts and the intoxicated Sufis associated with shath.[21] In parts of Gilgit (Pakistan), the behavior of eccentric faqirs dedicated to mystical devotionalism is considered as "crazy holiness".[22] In Somalia, according to Sheik Abdi, Moḥammed ʻAbdulle Hassan eccentric behavior and methods led some colonial era writers to call him "mad mullah", "crazy priest of Allah" and others.[23][24]

According to Sadeq Rahimi, the Sufi description of divine madness in mystical union mirrors those associated with mental illness.[25] He writes,

The similarities between the Sufi formulation of divine madness and the folk experience of psychosis are too clear and too frequent among the Turkish patients to be treated as coincidences.[25]

In West African version of Sufism, according to Lynda Chouiten, examples of insane saints are a part of Maraboutisme where the mad and idiotic behavior of a marabout was compared to a mental illness and considered a form of divine folly, of holiness. However, adds Chouiten, Sufism has been accommodating of such divine madness behavior unlike orthodox Islam.[26]

Indian religions

Hinduism

The theme of divine madness appears in all major traditions of Hinduism (Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism), both in its mythologies as well as its saints, accomplished mendicants and teachers.[9] They are portrayed as if they are acting mad or crazy, challenging social assumptions and norms as a part of their spiritual pursuits or resulting thereof.[9]

Avadhuta

According to Feuerstein, the designation

antinomian. The term means "shaken off, one who has removed worldly feeling/attachments, someone who has cast off all mortal concerns". He is described as someone who is actually wise and normal, but appears to others who don't understand him as "mad, crazy". His behavior may include being strangely dressed (or naked), sleeping in cremation grounds, acting like an animal, a "lunatic" storing his food in a skull, among others.[28][29][9] According to Feuerstein, "the avadhuta is one who, in their God-intoxication, has "cast off" all concerns and conventional standards."[27] Feuerstein further states that in traditional Tibet and India, "the "holy fool" or "saintly madman" [and madwoman] has long been recognized as a legitimate figure in the compass of spiritual aspiration and realization."[27]

Bhakti

The

Vaishnava-Sahajiya sect.[33]

McDaniel notes that the actual behavior and experiences of ecstatics may violate the expected behavior as based on texts. While texts describe "stages of religious development and gradual growth of insight and emotion," real-life experiences may be "a chaos of states that must be forced into a religious mold," in which they often don't fit.[34] This discrepancy may lead to a mistaken identification of those experiences as "mad" or "possessed," and the application of exorcism and Ayurvedic treatments to fit those ecstatics into the mold.[34]

McDaniel refers to

ajativada, "sudden knowledge or intuition."[35] Both approaches can also be found in Bengal bhakti. In ritual ecstasy, yogic and tantric practices have been incorporated, together with the idea of a gradual development through spiritual practices. For spontaneous ecstatics, the reverse is true: union with the divine leads to bodily control and detachment.[35] The same distinction is central in the classical Zen-rhetorics on sudden insight, which developed in 7th-century China.[36][note 2]

The path of gradual progression is called sastriya dharma, "the path of scriptural injunctions."[37] It is associated with order and control, and "loyalty to lineage and tradition, acceptance of hierarchy and authority, and ritual worship and practice."[37] In contrast, the path of sudden breakthrough is asastriya, "not according to the scriptures."[37] It is associated with "chaos and passion, and the divine is reached by unpredictable visions and revelations."[37] The divine can be found in such impure surroundings and items as burning grounds, blood and sexuality.[37] Divine experience is not determined by loyalty to lineage and gurus, and various gurus may be followed.[37] According to McDaniel, divine madness is a major aspect of this breakthrough approach.[37]

Tibetan Buddhism: nyönpa, drubnyon, and "Crazy Wisdom"

Holy Madmen

See also: Mahasiddha

In Tibetan Buddhism, nyönpa (Wylie: smyon pa), tantric "crazy yogis," are part of the Nyingma-tradition[38][39][40] and the Kagyu-tradition.[41] Their behavior may seem to be scandalous, according to conventional standards,[40] but the archetypal siddha is a defining characteristic of the nyingma-tradition, which differs significantly from the more scholarly orientated Gelugpa-tradition.[40] Its founder, Padmasambhava (India, 8th century), is an archetypal siddha, who is still commemorated by yearly dances.[40] Milarepa (c.1052–c.1135 CE), the founder of the Kagyu-school, is also closely connected to the notion of divine madness in Tibetan Buddhism.[41] His biography was composed by Tsangnyön Heruka (1452-1507), "the Madman of Tsang," a famous nyönpa.[42] Other famous madmen are Drukpa Kunley (1455–1529) and the Madman of Ü. Together they are also known as "the Three Madmen" (smyon pa gsum).[43] Indian siddhas, and their Tibetan counterparts, also played an essential role in the Tibetan Renaissance (c.950-1250 CE), when Buddhism was re-established in Tibet.[44]

According to DiValerio, the Tibetan term nyönpa refers to siddhas, yogins and lamas whose "mad" behavior is "symptomatic of high achievement in religious practice."[45] This behavior is most widely understood in Tibet as "a symptom of the individuals being enlightened and having transcended ordinary worldly delusions."[46] Their unconventional behavior is seen by Tibetans as a sign of their transcendence of namtok (Sanskrit: vipalka), "conceptual formations or false ideations."[46] While their behavior may be seen as repulsive from a dualistic point of view, the enlightened view transcends the dualistic view of repulsive and nonrepulsive.[46]

It is regarded as manifesting naturally, not intentionally, though it is sometimes also interpreted as intentional behavior "to help unenlightened beings realize the emptiness of phenomena, or as part of the yogin's own training toward that realization."

emptiness, rather than our imperfect habits of mind."[47] While the well-known nyönpa are considered to be fully enlightened, the status of lesser-known yogins remains unknown, and the nature of their unconventional behavior may not be exactly determinable, also not by lamas.[48]

According to DiValerio, the term drupton nyönpa is regarded by Tibetans as an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and so

An insane person cannot be a siddha, and a siddha, by definition, cannot be insane - at least, not in the medical understanding of madness.[43]

DiValerio also argues that their unconventional behavior is "strategic, purposeful activity, rather than being the byproduct of a state of enlightenment,"[1] and concludes that "the "holy madman" tradition is constituted by highly self-aware individuals making strategic use of the theme of madness in the construction of their public personas,"[2] arguing that

...the distinctive eccentric behavior of the Madmen of Ü and Tsang is best understood as a form of "tantric fundamentalism" in that it was based on following a literal reading of the Highest Yoga tantras, enacted as a strategic response to changes taking place in late 15th-century Tibetan religious culture. The "madness" of Drukpa Künlé resulted from his taking a critical stance towards Tibetan religious culture in general.[49]

Crazy Wisdom

In some Buddhist literature, the phrase "crazy wisdom" is associated with the teaching methods of

tülku
Chögyam Trungpa describes the phenomenon as a process of enquiry and letting go of any hope for an answer:

We go on deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, until we reach the point where there is no answer. [...] At that point we tend to give up hope of an answer, or of anything whatsoever, for that matter. [...] This hopelessness is the essence of crazy wisdom. It is hopeless, utterly hopeless.[54][note 4]

Since Chögyam Trungpa described crazy wisdom in various ways, DiValerio has suggested that Trungpa did not have a fixed idea of crazy wisdom.[55]

According to DiValerio, Keith Dowman's The Divine Madman: The Sublime Life and Songs of Drukpa Kunley is "the single most influential document in shaping how Euro-Americans have come to think about Tibetan holy madman phenomenon."[56] Dowman's understanding of the holymadmen is akin to the Tibetan interpretations, seeing the Tibetan holy madmen as "crazy" by conventional standards, yet noting that compared to the Buddhist spiritual ideal "it is the vast majority of us who are insane."[57] Dowman also suggests other explanations for Drukpa Künlé’s unconventional behavior, including criticising institutionalized religion, and acting as a catalysator for direct insight.[58] According to DiValerio, Dowman's view of Künlé as criticising Tibetan religious institutions is not shared by contemporary Tibetan religious specialist, but part of Dowman's own criticism of religious institutions.[59] DiValerio further notes that "Dowman’s presentation of Drukpa Künlé as roundly anti-institutional [had] great influence [...] in shaping (and distorting) the Euro-American world’s thinking on the subject."[60][note 5]

According to Feuerstein, who was influenced by Chogyam Trungpa,

holy fool and the trickster.[61][note 3]

Immediatism

See also:
Mystical experience

Arthur Versluis notes that several or most of the teachers who are treated by Feuerstein as exemplary for divine madness, or crazy wisdom, are exemplary for immediatism.[62] These include Adi Da, the teacher of Feuerstein, and Rajneesh.[62] "Immediatism" refers to "a religious assertion of spontaneous, direct, unmediated spiritual insight into reality (typically with little or no prior training), which some term 'enlightenment'."[63] According to Versluis, immediatism is typical for Americans, who want "the fruit of religion, but not its obligations."[64] Although immediatism has its roots in European culture and history[63] as far back as Platonism,[65] and also includes Perennialism,[66] Versluis points to Ralph Waldo Emerson as its key ancestor,[63] who "emphasized the possibility of immediate, direct spiritual knowledge and power."[65]

Versluis notes that traditional Tibetan Buddhism is not immediatist, since Mahamudra and Dzogchen "are part of a fairly stricted controlled ritual and meditative practice and tradition."

nondualism as more or less inexorably to antinomianism, immorality, and social dissolution."[68] Versluis further notes that in traditional Mahamudra and Dzogchen, access to teachings is restricted and needs preparation.[69] Versluis further notes that immediatist teachers may be attractive due to their sense of certainty, which contrasts with the post-modernist questioning of truth-claims.[70] He further notes the lack of compassion which is often noted in regard to those immediatist teachers.[71]

Shamanism

According to Mircea Eliade, divine madness is a part of Shamanism, a state that a pathologist or psychologist is likely to diagnose as a mental disease or aberrant psychological condition. However, state Eliade and Harry Eiss, this would be a misdiagnosis because the Shaman is "in control of the mystic state, rather than the psychotic state being in control of him".[72] A Shaman predictably enters into the trance state, with rituals such as music and dance, then comes out of it when he wants to. A mental illness lacks these characteristics. Further, at least to the participants, the Shaman's actions and trance has meaning and power, either as a healer or in another spiritual sense.[72][73]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Feuerstein: "The appellation "avadhuta," more than any other, came to be associated with the apparently crazy modes of behaviour of some paramahamsas, who dramatize the reversal of social norms, a behaviour characteristic of their spontaneous lifestyle. Their frequent nakedness is perhaps the most symbolic expression of this reversal."[27]
  2. ISBN 978-0-520-23798-8

    Bernard Faure, The Rhetorics of Immediacy
  3. ^ a b DiValerio questions the reliability of Feuerstein's account: "Feuerstein is by his own admission an advocate of spirituality rather than a scholar of religion. But what he lacks in scholarly rigor, he makes up for in popular appeal and book sales. Unrestrained by indebtedness to traditional Tibetan ways of thinking or to scholarly standards, writers like Feuerstein and Dowman are free to tailor their accounts for western readers.[51]
  4. ^ Trungpa: "Instead we explore further and further and further without looking for an answer. [...] We don't make a big point or an answer out of any one thing. For example, we might think that because we have discovered one particular thing that is wrong with us, that must be it, that must be the problem, that must be the answer. No. We don't fixate on that, we go further. "Why is that the case?" We look further and further. We ask: "Why is this so?" Why is there spirituality? Why is there awakening? Why is there this moment of relief? Why is there such a thing as discovering the pleasure of spirituality? Why, why, why?" We go on deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, until we reach the point where there is no answer. [...] At that point we tend to give up hope of an answer, or of anything whatsoever, for that matter. [...] This hopelessness is the essence of crazy wisdom. It is hopeless, utterly hopeless."[54]
  5. ^ Compare Spiritual but not religious.

References

  1. ^ a b DiValerio 2011, p. ii.
  2. ^ a b DiValerio 2011, p. iii.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-936862-4
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  4. ^ McDaniel 1989, p. 3-6.
  5. ^ McLeod 2009, p. 158-165.
  6. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 3-4.
  7. ^ a b c Feuerstein 1991, p. 69.
  8. ^ Horgan 2004, p. 53.
  9. ^
    S2CID 161324332
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  10. ^ a b c Plato, Phaedrus 244-245; 265a–b.
  11. ISBN 978-1-4438-4675-2
    .
  12. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-32383-3
    .
  13. ISBN 978-3-16-153813-1
    .
  14. ^ Virgil, Aeneid 6.45–51.
  15. ^
    ISBN 978-90-04-23416-1
    .
  16. ISBN 978-0-334-04626-4
    .
  17. ISBN 978-1-61069-403-2
    .
  18. ^ John Gordon Melton, Pentecostalism, Encyclopaedia Britannica
  19. ISBN 978-0-307-27727-5
    .
  20. ISBN 978-0-307-27727-5
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  21. ^ Feuerstein 2006, p. 15f; 28-32.
  22. S2CID 145576026
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  23. ISBN 9780862324438
    .
  24. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098824
    .
  25. ^
    ISBN 978-1-317-55551-3
    .
  26. ISBN 978-0-7391-8593-3
    .
  27. ^ a b c d Feuerstein 1991, p. 105.
  28. ^ Feuerstein 1991, pp. 104–105.
  29. ISBN 978-0-19-536137-7
    .
  30. ^ McDaniel 1989, p. 1-2.
  31. ^ a b McDaniel 1989, p. 2.
  32. ^ McDaniel 1989, p. 3.
  33. ^ Dimock 1966.
  34. ^ a b c McDaniel 1989, p. 4.
  35. ^ a b c McDaniel 1989, p. 5.
  36. ^ McDaniel 1989, p. 17.
  37. ^ a b c d e f g McDaniel 1989, p. 6.
  38. ^ Curren 2008, p. 43.
  39. ^ White 2001, p. 16.
  40. ^ a b c d Pettit 2013.
  41. ^ a b DiValerio 2015, p. 4.
  42. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 5.
  43. ^ a b DiValerio 2015, p. 6.
  44. ^ Larson 2007.
  45. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 2.
  46. ^ a b c d DiValerio 2015, p. 7.
  47. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 8.
  48. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 9.
  49. ^ DiValerio 2011, p. ii-iii.
  50. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 242.
  51. ^ a b c DiValerio 2015, p. 241.
  52. ^ Bell 2002, p. 233.
  53. ^ Trungpa 2001.
  54. ^ a b Trungpa 2001, p. 9-10.
  55. ^ DiValerio 2015, p. 239.
  56. ^ DiValerio 2011, p. 27.
  57. ^ DiValerio 2011, p. 28-29.
  58. ^ DiValerio 2011, p. 29.
  59. ^ DiValerio 2011, p. 31-32.
  60. ^ DiValerio 2011, p. 32.
  61. ^ a b Royster 1992.
  62. ^ a b Versluis 2014, p. 237.
  63. ^ a b c Versluis 2014, p. 2.
  64. ^ American Gurus: Seven Questions for Arthur Versluis Archived April 17, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  65. ^ a b Versluis 2014, p. 3.
  66. ^ Versluis 2014, p. 4.
  67. ^ Versluis 2014, p. 238.
  68. ^ Versluis 2014, p. 239.
  69. ^ Versluis 2014, p. 239-240.
  70. ^ Versluis 2014, p. 240-244.
  71. ^ Versluis 2014, p. 244.
  72. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4438-3329-5
    .
  73. ISBN 9780061319433
    .

Sources

Further reading

External links
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