{"id":133092,"date":"2019-01-30T11:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=133092"},"modified":"2019-01-29T17:28:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T22:28:51","slug":"schizophrenia-and-the-supernatural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/30\/schizophrenia-and-the-supernatural\/","title":{"rendered":"Schizophrenia and the Supernatural"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Rider-Waite tarot deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.<\/p><\/div>\n

One winter morning I shuffled a deck of oracle cards with my eyes closed, and I realized that despite the blackness, I could still see what was happening in front of me. Here were the details of my hands, with the movements of each finger, every twitch of every narrow knuckle, made plain; I could see the cards, which were not clear enough to distinguish completely, but showed their blurry, colorful faces in broad strokes. I decided to further test this ability by holding colored pens, randomly chosen from a pouch, before my shut eyes. The pen test indicated that I could also \u201csee\u201d the colors behind my lids\u2014imperfectly, yes, but well enough to grasp whether I was looking at a light color or a dark one, and I called out the hot-pink one immediately.<\/p>\n

Journaling and drawing divinatory cards had both become routine parts of my life earlier that year, when I was fighting psychosis and struggling to make the world cohere; I\u2019d found that tarot and oracle cards offered a decent framework for structuring a fractured existence. Tarot cards vary from deck to deck, depending on the artist and\/or creator, but typically follow a seventy-eight-card structure of Major Arcana, consisting of twenty-two archetypes, from The Fool to The World, and Minor Arcana, consisting of four suits of fourteen cards each (Wands, Pentacles, Swords, Cups), from Aces to Kings. Oracle cards offer more variety; their content and theme depend entirely upon the creator. The one I primarily used that winter had watercolor illustrations: \u201cRedefine Boundaries,\u201d read one card; \u201cHigher Self,\u201d read another. Whichever card I drew served a double purpose, foreshadowing how the day might take shape and also giving me a shape with which to understand the events of the day. And on that day in 2013, I could see with what some call clairvoyance.<\/p>\n

But the day went on, and the strange ability left me incrementally, as though a heavy curtain were dropping, until when I closed my eyes there was only darkness. If I close my eyes right now, I still see only this ordinary darkness.<\/p>\n

At first I mentioned this only to C., and then to one or two of my closest friends. I joked with them that as far as superhuman abilities go, being able to see what\u2019s in front of me with my eyes closed is a rather pathetic one. I certainly couldn\u2019t take that show on the road. And my \u201csight without sight\u201d happened only one other time, on September 29, 2014, when I was not psychotic: again, I realized that I could see the world with my eyes closed. Again, I tested myself with colored pens and found myself to be accurate. I asked a new friend, a mystic, for advice, and she told me to contemplate whatever seemed unclear to me at the time.<\/p>\n

My response:<\/p>\n

So after a bunch of fleeting images\u2014a girl clutching a book to her chest and plummeting into the ocean\u2014sinking for a really long time, hair floating\u2014hits the bottom and then ricochets back up to the surface, gasping, still clutching the book, in the middle of nowhere\u2014looking around\u2014a buoy appears and she struggles to climb onto it\u2014she climbs onto it, drops the book, grabs it\u2014sits on the buoy for a long time\u2014the buoy eventually crashes against an island & she climbs onto the island, which is basically a large, pointy mound\u2014when she reaches the top, the book explodes out of her arms as a white bird and flies upward\u2014the bird goes up for a really long time (at this point I wasn\u2019t sure how it was going to go, because it felt like the bird was just going to keep going up forever)\u2014eventually it explodes into a white light that spreads over the entire sky, enveloping the universe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The curtain dropped again a few hours later. I haven\u2019t experienced the ability since.\u00a0<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re curious about whether your unusual experiences are signs of mental illness or psychic ability, the internet is happy to offer an opinion. Forums dedicated to mental health in general, and schizophrenia in particular, are full of threads with headings such as \u201cHave you noticed psychic ability since you became schizophrenic?,\u201d \u201cSchizophrenia or a medium?,\u201d \u201cAm I psychic or am I a crazy schizophrenic?,\u201d and \u201cPsychosis and psychic powers?\u201d Some assume that psychosis and psychic ability are mutually exclusive, while others assume that they are indeed suffering from a psychotic disorder but might also be gifted with supernatural ability. Both are potential ways to look at the silver lining of a disorder that few would see as having benefits at all.<\/p>\n

What makes psychosis a condition that seems open to interpretation as an ability rather than an illness? For one, many psychiatric diagnoses hinge on \u201cdistress\u201d as a criterion\u2014it\u2019s possible to show up at a clinician\u2019s office with the hallmark symptoms of depression, but if you\u2019re not distressed, your condition won\u2019t meet the criteria for major depressive disorder. Schizophrenia is one diagnosis that doesn\u2019t require the presence of distress in addition to other symptoms, which leaves room for interpretation; without distress, a symptom might be a welcome attribute, and therefore an ability.<\/p>\n

In Legion<\/em>, a 2017 show based on a Marvel comic, David Haller is a man with schizophrenia, though the advertisements tantalizingly suggest he \u201cmay be more than human.\u201d The show posits that though David is institutionalized in the Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital, his symptoms are not signs of pathology but rather of supernatural gifts. The one-line description of the first episode on the FX website reads, \u201cDavid considers whether the voices he hears might be real.\u201d Because this is a story set in the Marvel universe, we can assume without watching that the answer to this question is \u201cyes.\u201d As with A Beautiful Mind<\/em>, the viewer is forced to experience reality as bewilderingly as David does. The New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s Emily Nussbaum reports on the show\u2019s surreal visuals, adding that \u201cthis gemstone surreality turns everything into theatre; it also forces us, like David, to absorb what we see without knowing if we can trust our perceptions.\u201d Later in the article she indicates that Legion<\/em> is \u201cone of those shows that treat mental illness \u2026 as a metaphor for being special, so if you have a problem with that approach it will not be your jam.\u201d In Twitter conversations about the show, viewers wondered if the lunacy-as-superpower narrative is, in fact, harmful to the cause of mental health advocacy, causing deluded individuals to eschew help for the sake of believing in their own magical capabilities\u2014but such beliefs can handily thrive without the help of an FX television show.<\/p>\n

When I began to hallucinate, in 2005\u2014first hearing a voice, and then seeing what wasn\u2019t there\u2014my mother suggested that these symptoms might not be pathologies but rather spiritual gifts. According to Chinese superstition, initial hallucinatory experiences may be indications that one is meant to become a \u201csoul reader,\u201d a skill akin to a fortune-teller or medium. \u201cPeople use it as a career,\u201d she told me, \u201cso don\u2019t be scared.\u201d No one else had tried to give me a perspective on my symptoms beyond that of mental illness.<\/p>\n

Over the next decade, I would occasionally consider the utility of seeing psychosis as an ability: I could improve my mental health by thinking of schizoaffective disorder as a tool for accessing something useful, as opposed to a terrifying pathology. As Viktor Frankl says in Man\u2019s Search for Meaning<\/em>, we want our suffering, if it must be endured, to mean something. Yet I had no idea what this belief would look like in practice.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

My friend Paige and I first met in 2014 through a mutual friend. She is a gregarious introvert, and in possession of a magnificent, snorting laugh. Her waist-length hair is often in Pippi Longstocking braids. She unironically describes herself as a pizza-loving witch, and provides mystical services ranging from tarot card reading to mediumship to shamanic journeying. For years she would come over every Tuesday to cowork with me. More than once she\u2019d delay our intended work with a story, say, about helping a murdered little girl\u2014whose spirit was unhappily attached to Paige\u2019s Tenderloin apartment\u2014cross over. I remain open to such stories because I don\u2019t believe that she would invent them. She aligns her beliefs with the Picasso quote \u201cEverything you can imagine is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was also introduced to J., an artist with occultist tendencies and a weakness for Chanel. I have yet to meet her in person, but we speak on the phone at times; I turn up the volume to catch her wispy voice through my earbuds. She once described the experience of going to Italy for the first time. She was overwhelmed, she told me, by the sounds she heard from centuries of Italian life, including a cacophony of ancient voices in fluent Italian.<\/p>\n

In my friendships with these women, I have tried to imagine whether a psychiatrist would be comfortable venturing a diagnosis based on their seemingly logical sensory experiences\u2014particularly sensory experiences that sound like magic. J.\u2019s Italian recollections reminded me of lucid dreams I\u2019ve had in which I moved through crowds and could distinctly see every individual face. While inside the dream, I marveled at my brain\u2019s ability to hold so many faces, all of them strange, and wondered if they were invented or dredged up from memory. Although both of them struggle with recurrent depression, neither Paige nor J. has ever been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, including anything in the realm of the schizophrenias.<\/p>\n

It was Paige who introduced me to their shared spiritual mentor, Briana (Bri) Saussy, who runs a thriving online business under her own name with the tagline \u201cSacred arts for the soulful seeker.\u201d Education in what might be called witchcraft or occultism\u2014what Bri dubs the sacred arts\u2014frequently lacks rigor. This is not so with Bri, who graduated with both a B.A. and an M.A. in classics, the history of mathematics and science, and philosophy from St. John\u2019s College, and who cares about maintaining the strength of pedagogy alongside a life of prayer and blessing. Bri became, and still is, my spiritual mentor as well\u2014one with whom I have had monthly calls and exchanged regular emails. In seeking her out, I was intrigued by the idea of finding a way to make sense of my idiosyncrasies and anxieties. When I mentioned this to Bri, she laughed and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry to tell you this, but belief does not simplify life.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

My first phone conversation with Bri was a paid consultation. I told her about being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and my later diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease. After she prodded me about my dream life, I went on to tell her about my history of lucid dreaming, current issues with nightmares and PTSD, seemingly psychic experiences, hallucinations, and delusions.<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cIt\u2019s very interesting to me that you started feeling like you were dead\u2014and, if I understood the timing of that correctly, that sensation was happening around the onset of your Lyme disease. When I hear that, [it sounds like] it could be part of a paranoid delusion, but you did<\/em> have a chronic illness in your body, and it was one you weren\u2019t aware of. I see that as maybe a really dramatic way of your ensouled part telling the rest of you, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s a problem here.\u2019\u2009\u201d Bri pointed to my unusual experiences as indications of being \u201cnecessarily liminal.\u201d A term she frequently uses is thin-skinned<\/em>. As she explains it, people who are thin-skinned have perceptions that are wide open; they perceive what is happening in the other realm. Thin-skinned, or skinless, individuals will start to think they\u2019re crazy because they see, sense, and feel things outside of the regular scope of experience.<\/p>\n

This perception of otherworldly experience is echoed in the book Living in the Borderland: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma<\/em>, by the Jungian analyst Jerome S. Bernstein. Bernstein posits the idea of \u201cBorderland personalities\u201d\u2014people whose sensitivities and unusual perceptions are \u201cnothing short of sacred.\u201d \u201cProblems result,\u201d he writes, \u201cfrom the fact that most often Borderland personalities themselves do not register their own experiences as real. They have been conditioned, like the rest of us with a [W]estern ego, to identify with the negative bias against the nonrational realm of phenomenology. Thus they see their own Borderland experiences as \u2018crazy\u2019\u2014as pathological. And because they do, they become even more neurotic than would otherwise be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

During my first call with Bri, she recommended that I try her three-day, self-paced audio-and-workbook course about working with liminality. There was nothing about her matter-of-fact, gentle way of speaking that alarmed me, though I knew the course would cost more money than I\u2019d already paid for the consultation. I didn\u2019t feel as though I were speaking to a charlatan\u2014if she were, she would be the sort who truly believed in her own trickery.<\/p>\n

The class description for Beyond the Hedge: Foundational Techniques for Embracing the Liminal explains the titular phrase as follows: \u201cIn older times one way of talking about someone who could travel into the liminal realms was to say that they went \u2018beyond the hedge,\u2019 an old idiom meaning that they could travel beyond what was safe and known into territory that held mystery, magic, and great promise.\u201d The course covers three foundational techniques: using the body\u2019s intuition, working with talismanic cords, and building relationships with allies and spirit guides.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Exploring the possibilities of the sacred arts brought up the question of medication. Even as I considered that I might be thin-skinned, and therefore privy to otherworldly experiences, at no point was I inclined to quit talk therapy or my regimen of psychopharmacological drugs. Perhaps this seems contradictory, or indicative of skepticism, but I knew that I\u2019d suffered greatly during psychosis and was not interested in turning face-first, again, into the storm of bleak and blustering insanity. By learning about the liminal, I was not trying to prolong my psychotic experiences, but attempting to make sense of them. I wanted to create a container for what had happened to me and shove the nastiness into it.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Francesco Botticini, The Three Archangels and Tobias<\/em>, 1470, tempera on panel, 53.1″ \u00d7 60.6″. Public domain.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second-century Gnostics claimed that among ordinary Christians lived the pneumatikoi<\/em>, elite believers who possessed spiritual wisdom beyond that of their peers. The pneumatikoi<\/em> could speak in tongues\u2014a phenomenon called glossolalia\u2014as evidence of being possessed by the Spirit; though occasionally intelligible, glossolalia \u201cfor the most part \u2026 consisted of frenzied, inarticulate, incoherent, ecstatic speech.\u201d The psychiatric term for inarticulate, babbling speech is schizophasia<\/em>, or word salad<\/em>, and it is one of the more visible symptoms of schizophrenia. Incoherent speech may indicate truths too profound to be understood by the lowly; it may also indicate a deterioration of the mind.<\/p>\n

Language was central to Jacques Lacan\u2019s distinction between illness and mysticism. He compared the writings of Daniel Schreber, a judge and famous sufferer of what was then called \u201cdementia praecox,\u201d to those of John of the Cross, stating that, as John Gale writes, \u201cwhile John of the Cross wrote in a poetic way, Schreber did not.\u201d The former\u2019s poeticism opens spiritual dimensions for the reader, where the latter\u2019s babbling shuts them down.<\/p>\n

The line between insanity and mysticism is thin; the line between reality and unreality is thin. Liminality as a spiritual concept is all about the porousness of boundaries. Liminal<\/em>\u00a0and medial<\/em>\u2014the latter a term most associated with \u201cthe Medial Woman,\u201d as conceived of by the Swiss Jungian analyst Toni Wolff\u2014are often used interchangeably, and refer to the gray area between here and the otherworld. In Beyond the Hedge, Bri describes the otherworld in metaphors: \u201cthe realms above\u201d and \u201cthe realms below\u201d Earth, \u201cmiddle Earth,\u201d \u201cfairyland,\u201d or \u201cimaginal realms.\u201d Death is the only manifestation of the otherworld that I can understand; birth and death are obvious manifestations of the liminal. To a lesser extent, I\u2019ve considered the otherworld through major illness, trauma, and marriage, which are also liminal conditions, and, unlike dying, have marked and scarred the timeline of my life.<\/p>\n

The metaphor-laden otherworld is accompanied by a metaphor-laden liminal space. Clarissa Pinkola Este\u0301s, Ph.D., a scholar, poet, and the author of Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype<\/em>, describes a mythological old woman who \u201cstands between the worlds of rationality and mythos \u2026 This\u00a0land between the worlds is that inexplicable place we all recognize once we experience it, but its nuances slip away and shape-change if one tries to pin them down.\u201d The liminal can also be described in psychoanalytic lingo; Este\u0301s refers to \u201cthe locus betwixt the worlds,\u201d referring to Jung\u2019s concept of \u201cthe collective unconscious, the [objective] psyche, and the psychoid unconscious.\u201d Este\u0301s goes on to say that this locus, \u201cthe crack between the worlds\u2014is the place where visitations, miracles, imaginations, inspirations, and healings of all natures occur.\u201d Fairyland may seem quite different from the collective unconscious, but this is Bri\u2019s point in coining the phrase sacred arts<\/em>: she aims to credit the variety of faiths and traditions that feed her practice. In Beyond the Hedge, she explains that liminal work crosses different faiths and religions, and those faiths and religions have, in turn, developed into individual ways to journey into the otherworld, and individuals often return bearing gifts for the community.<\/p>\n

And yet liminal experiences, as Bri describes them, are not necessarily unusual or gifted to a special few. Dreams are the most common expression of liminality\u2014more common than, say, seeing or feeling the presence of saints, angels, or God, which are all liminal experiences. To work with the liminal is to probe the notion of what is real versus imaginary, or even psychotic. In the beginning of Bri\u2019s Beyond the Hedge workbook, she writes, \u201cAnyone who wishes to gain proficiency in liminal work is going to have to become comfortable with the unseen. One of the best expressions of this are the words of Jesus Christ to St. Thomas: \u2018Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.\u2019\u2009\u201d Working with the liminal involves working with faith. One article of faith is This suffering will be of use to you someday<\/em>.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Bri says it this way: \u201cI think that when we\u2019re talking about \u2026 schizophrenia, we really want to be clear about what is rational, two plus two equals four; what is irrational, two plus two equals spaghetti sauce; and what is nonrational \u2026 A lot of people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia that I have spoken with, that I have worked with \u2026 are not irrational at all.\u201d The divine is nonrational and indicates the limits of symbolic understanding; insanity is irrational and indicates a structural failure of reality.<\/p>\n

The nonrational psychotics, Bri tells me, have intact reasoning, \u201cbut it\u2019s coming, or it\u2019s partially informed, I would say is usually the case, from a different source than what we\u2019re used to. There\u2019s an internal logic, and often their insights are dead-on if you can peel back the code that those insights are often delivered in, and start to understand how that internal logic works.\u201d She judges psychosis by its utility: \u201cIf there\u2019s something of use there, then you take it. And so even if it\u2019s a scary vision, if there\u2019s something of use there that you can take and you can apply to your life, I wouldn\u2019t consider that schizophrenic. I would consider that liminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our world values what is rational, and fears what is irrational: the raving homeless man on the morning bus; the murderous, delusional \u201cpsychos\u201d we see on Law and Order<\/em>\u2014law and order being, after all, the ultimate institutions of rationality and reason. To understand the nonrational takes looking beyond the surface, and into the realm of the mystical.<\/p>\n

I experienced my first hallucination in my early twenties as a senior at Stanford, and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of eighteen. The voice in the dorm shower had said, quite clearly, \u201cI hate you.\u201d What amazes me about hallucinations is the efficacy with which they kidnap the senses. The voice that said it hated me was as real as any other sound in that room. I in fact wondered if I was subject to a phenomenon having to do with the drain and the pipe system\u2014perhaps I was hearing something said on another floor, and yet upon consideration, the voice didn\u2019t seem to be coming from the ground.<\/p>\n

I finished my shower, dried off, and returned to my dorm room wrapped in a towel. I told my roommate, who was aware, albeit abstractly, of my mental health issues, that I\u2019d heard a voice in the shower. I was stunned by what had happened, but was calm as I recounted the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re crazy<\/em>,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But what if the voice held some sort of function? I can reach for interpretations\u2014the most obvious one being that I did hate myself at the time, which had fed self-destructive behavior for years. Perhaps the voice was saying that if I didn\u2019t find a better therapist, my self-destructiveness would eventually put me in grave danger. This message strikes me as too basic to be worthy of a hallucination, but then again, who am I to judge?<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I listened to the three Beyond the Hedge MP3s in bed, one per day, flipping through the accompanying PDF on my iPad while I listened. Bri lectures by phone in the recordings; the class was initially taught over the phone with live participants, who then asked questions when the line was opened for questioning.<\/p>\n

What I have found most useful from Bri\u2019s teachings is the use of talismanic cords. Bri offers a few uses for such cords during liminal work. According to her, the cord offers protection depending on where it\u2019s tied: a cord around the stomach reins in desire, while one tied around the head prevents overthinking. I anointed a linen ribbon of unknown provenance with an oil Bri had mailed to me, labeled \u201cBalm of Gilead.\u201d I tie the ribbon around my ankle when I begin to feel as though I\u2019m slipping. I\u2019m not like Paige, who uses a cord before actively journeying into the otherworld. Though it seems antithetical to the point of the course, I don\u2019t want<\/em> to go into the liminal realms. I want to know how to control myself when frightening things happen to me, and if there\u2019s a chance that a ribbon around my ankle will keep me either tethered to this world or safer, somehow, when I do tumble out of it\u2014though it may need to be used in tandem with medication, and reported to my psychiatrist\u2014that\u2019s good enough for me.<\/p>\n

After all, the otherworld was not made to be visited too cavalierly by mere mortals. In Women Who Run with the Wolves<\/em>, Este\u0301s uses the story of Vasilisa and the Baba Yaga to caution against dithering in other realms. At one point in the story, the Baba Yaga tries to tempt Vasilisa into asking too many questions about the oddities of the Baba Yaga\u2019s world, but the wise doll in Vasilisa\u2019s pocket jumps up and down, warning her to stop. This, Este\u0301s says, is a caution against \u201ccalling upon too much of the numinosity of the underworld all at once \u2026 for though we visit there, we do not want to become enraptured and thereby trapped there.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo: Nheyob (CC BY-SA 4.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0)), from Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I met Bri in person at the caf\u00e9 Downtown Subscription in Santa Fe one winter, during my nine-day trip for Lyme-disease treatment. Porochista Khakpour and I had been shuttling from place to place, and my arms were bruised and dotted with marks from various IVs by the time I arrived. Bri was already there, waiting with tea; we greeted each other with hugs and exclamations. I sat on the tall chair across from her, concerned about how long my body would be able to hold itself up so far off the ground, and I was already exhausted\u2014the day had been a hard one, as Porochista had learned that morning of her longtime friend\u2019s suicide. Travis had been announced missing the day before. That morning, Porochista had said, \u201cI think he\u2019s alive. I think he just \u2026 went off somewhere.\u201d I looked over at her a few hours later. She was sitting on the bed, hunched over her phone and crying.<\/p>\n

For Bri and me to be meeting in person at all was something of a miracle\u2014when I settled in and asked her whether work had brought her to Santa Fe, she said that she\u2019d driven the thirteen hours from San Antonio with her husband and son just to see me. I smiled. Dear God, please help me, I thought, struggling to remain upright. I told her about what had happened to Porochista. I asked if there was anything we should do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I do when anyone dies,\u201d she said, \u201cis go and light a candle for them. I would go to the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine in town and I would light a candle for them. The other thing that I think is important to understand after death happens is that a lot of traditions say that there\u2019s a three-day period where the line is a little staticky as they\u2019re sort of adjusting. But blessing [Travis], and blessing his family, is a good thing to start doing now, as well as being open to signs and omens of him communicating with her directly. A song might come on that she associates with him, or words on a sign, words on a magazine.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she spoke, I noticed the abundance of milagro<\/em> heart charms, or folk amulets, in Bri\u2019s jewelry and about her person. Later that week, on a journey to Chimayo\u0301, I would see similar milagros<\/em> for sale in the gift shops; I bought a red wooden cross adorned with milagros<\/em> that now hangs above my altar. Bri\u2019s eyelids and rosy cheeks shimmered with gold dust. I told her about what had happened to Porochista, who had accompanied me to the cafe\u0301 and was sitting across the room. \u201cAgeless,\u201d Porochista called her, once we were back in our motel room.<\/p>\n

Bri and I chatted about magic and its utility during oppressive political times (Donald Trump was to be inaugurated later that month); the new Star Wars<\/em> movie, Rogue One<\/em>; the importance of work (\u201cWhatever your work is, that work matters. It\u2019s about touching the people that you\u2019re here to touch in the best possible way\u201d); her route from lawyer-to-be to teaching the sacred arts online; the origin of the sacred arts in her life. A terrific thing about conversing with a teacher, particularly when ill, is that there\u2019s no need to carry the conversation\u2014give a good prompt or question, and they\u2019ll happily expound. But I wrapped up the conversation after about an hour, feeling guilty for having brought her so far to chat with me for such a short time. Still, I felt no judgment from her. \u201cYou seem tired,\u201d she said. \u201cPlease, go rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Instead of going straight back to our motel, which we knew would lead to an unbreakable inertia, Porochista and I made our way to the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine. The sun had set, taking any wintry warmth with it. We moved slowly because Porochista was using a cane, and the ground was covered with hazardous patches of black ice. We had no candle to light, but there were clear boxes filled with petitions, and I told her that she could write a message to tuck into one of the boxes. I waited on an ice-cold bench and stared at the Lady\u2019s benevolent, smooth face. For the Guadalupe Feast Day the previous month, Bri had sent out a prayer that included these words: \u201cWherever there is loss, sadness, gaping holes full of the howling winds of grief and sorrow\u2014there She is.\u201d We\u2019d gone to the shrine for Porochista\u2019s friend, yes, but also, and perhaps mainly, for Porochista and her grief.<\/p>\n

I originally went to Bri because psychosis had made me fear my own mind. Since then, the sacred arts have given me some solace not so much through the beliefs they provide as through the actions they recommend. To say this prayer\u2014burn this candle\u2014perform this ritual\u2014create this salt or honey jar\u2014is to have something to do when it seems that nothing can be done.<\/p>\n

At the time of this writing, I haven\u2019t experienced a hallucination in years. A few visual blips will occur, or occasionally a loud clap in the room when no one\u2019s there, but my senses have otherwise been absent of maggot-ridden corpses or eerie voices. My last serious episode of delusional thinking is four years behind me. But there are the episodes that preclude psychosis, or even mild psychosis\u2014the episodes in which I must tread carefully to keep myself where I am. When a certain kind of psychic detachment occurs, I retrieve my ribbon; I tie it around my ankle. I tell myself that should delusion come to call, or hallucinations crowd my senses again, I might be able to wrangle sense out of the senseless. I tell myself that if I must live with a slippery mind, I want to know how to tether it, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Esm\u00e9 Weijun Wang is the author of the essay collection <\/em>The Collected Schizophrenias and the novel <\/em>The Border of Paradise. She received a 2018 Whiting Award, was named one of<\/em>\u00a0Granta\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Best of Young American Novelists in 2017, and was the recipient of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize in 2016. Born in the Midwest to Taiwanese parents, Esm\u00e9 lives in San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpted from<\/em>\u00a0The Collected Schizophrenias<\/a>,<\/em> by Esm\u00e9 Weijun Wang (Graywolf Press, February 5, 2019).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The line between insanity and mysticism is thin; the line between reality and unreality is thin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1444,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[47866,47881,21581,493,33456,47874,47875,331,47873,34191,47860,47877,47870,47865,8528,47878,47864,47863,47871,47879,26099,30315,47872,1786,47868,14193,3536,47861,47869,9291,47862,47867,33454,47876,7069,47880],"class_list":["post-133092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-a-beautiful-mind","tag-clarissa-pinkola-estes","tag-divinity","tag-dreams","tag-esme-weijun-wang","tag-hallucination","tag-imaginal-realms","tag-internet","tag-irrational","tag-jacques-lacan","tag-legion","tag-liminality","tag-living-in-the-borderland","tag-mans-search-for-meaning","tag-mental-illness","tag-milagro","tag-miracles","tag-mystical","tag-nonrational","tag-our-lady-of-guadalupe","tag-psychic","tag-psychosis","tag-rational","tag-religion","tag-ribbon","tag-schizophrenia","tag-superheroes","tag-superhuman","tag-talisman","tag-tarot","tag-tarot-cards","tag-tether","tag-the-collected-schizophrenias","tag-toni-wolff","tag-witches","tag-women-who-run-with-the-wolves"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSchizophrenia and the Supernatural by Esm\u00e9 Weijun Wang<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The line between insanity and mysticism is thin; 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