Unarchiving: Amnesia & Innocence
"Psychotic vs. Mystic
--pyschotic tries to numb out
vs.
--mystic lives here / takes and uses it to get wiser and bigger"
I watched/listened to a lot of Caroline Myss youtubes while stretching and dancing in the studio. I didn’t try to do any specific studies or experiments except to be present with her talks and allow my body to rejuvenate, circulate and do what felt replenishing and satisfying. Yoga helps me take in information like hers…the asanas are like water catchments where information and insights can drop, collect and sink into the soil. I’m also busy physically in a non-busy way , connected to breath and physical alignment, so my ego-monkey-mind is occupied allowing my other mind to be more present with the auditory inputs.
She doesn’t talk much of the psychotic but more of the mystic. Of course a main characteristic of a mystic is an intense suffering or overload of information and perspective of realities. It’s not uncommon for Myss to frequently encounter students who wish to embody the archetype of the mystic. Myss always says that they have no idea what kind of torment and difficulty they would be in for if they were indeed mystics. It’s not easy or sexy, but rather the opposite.
Don Hanson made the distinction between psychotics and mystics, and it seems that the only difference is in application and habit. A mystic probably has the same proclivity towards psychosis as a psychotic person, but they engage this condition through skill and practice and structure. A psychotic is perhaps not so lucky to have gotten the help they need and/or their situation is too difficult for them to overcome and manage, and they succumb to the burden through addiction or just breaking from reality.
Movies show characters who had humble beginnings as a homeless person or addict or jerk, but then they had mentors or destinies or something that whipped them into shape to be the action hero or successful, strong protagonist in the end.
Myss always mentions that people can follow the path of the mystic, and she describes what that entails. So either a person is psychotic in a way and can either choose between going crazy or working on it and with it to be truly powerful…OR, a person can self-induce the crazy and mystical through an intentional cleansing and transformation of lifetimes of collective trauma held in one’s body. The process of intentionally engaging the spiritual path, especially a mystical one, is to engage not just the beautiful and feel-good states but the horrors as well.
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR, aid programm DIS-TANZEN by the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland