For our beloved friends working in the field of psychiatry and psychology. Wisdom of today.

The visionary experience, book about the experiences undergone by prophets and social reformers in various ages and parts of the world.

"At Diabasis we gave a realistically favorable but not idealized picture of what our clients were going through and hence we had a community of clients who needed NO MEDICATION to feel sane again within two to five days, and who enjoyed their stay; the atmosphere was spirited even jovial often; conversations were lively; people were fond of eachother; and most were at work on their inner process." 

“When we (the Diabasis community) were sometimes referred to as a “Laingian blow-out center”, I balked, because there was some idealization of craziness in Laing’s writings. At Diabasis we could nt romanticize the process in this way, inasmuch as it represents a task of hard inner work and painstaking effort on the part of both staff and client. It would feel like a falsification to pretty up this picture and make it look light and easy, or somehow, automatic. We were, however on the basis of some years’ experience with ‘severely psychotic’ clients, optimistic about the process; after all, 85 percent of the clients in Diabasis I not only improved, with NO MEDICATION, but went on growing after leaving us.” - 

Professor Doctor John Weir Perry

“Acute psychosis is a state in which, As Jung has suggested, the dream takes the place of the reality. That is, the sense of reality shifts from the outer to the inner world or stage experience. This is brought about by the circumstance that the ego-consciousness has become overwhelmed by the archetypal effect-images of the unconscious; in the case of depression, by the effects, in the case of schizophrenia, by the images. I cannot see this condition as arising out of a defense against reality, or any other defense maneuver. It seems rather that the whole syndrome represents instead a shift of the energy so activating the unconscious psyche that it deprives the ego-consciousness of its usual charge. To me it appears that the more acute the psychotic states the more are the defences overriden altogether.

I see that acute “schizophrenic” episode, after working with it for over twenty years as a high arousal state in which the lower centers and functions are activated at the cost of the higher. It is more realistically viewed as an altered state of consciousness than as a play of psychopathology. A comparison of its phenomenology with parallels in the altered states that are culturally accepted in various societies leads me to call it a “visionary state”.”

Dr John Weir Perry, former Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Trials of a Visionary Mind, Spiritual Emergency and the Renewal Process.

Dr John Perry is seen by his followers as the leading edge of psychology and psychiatry.

A comprehensive summary of the author's revolutionary approach to psychosis. "This is an excellent and comprehensive summary of John Weir Perry's ground-breaking work in the area of alternative approaches to psychosis that represents a theoretical and practical breakthrough. John Weir Perry is a true pioneer in this very important area. His ideas, when accepted, could revolutionize the approach to psychosis. The book is a very useful guide for therapists, clients, and lay persons in the lives of psychotic patients." -- Stanislav Grof, author of The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness Stress may cause highly activated mythic images to erupt from the psyche's deepest levels in the form of turbulent visionary experience. Depending on whether the interactions between the individual and the immediate surroundings lean toward affirmation or invalidation, comprehension of these visions can turn the visionary experience into a step in growth or into a disorder, as an acute psychosis. Based on his clinical and scholarly investigations, John Weir Perry has found and formulated a mental syndrome which, though customarily regarded as acute psychosis, is in actuality a more natural effort of the psyche to mend its imbalances. If the upset is received in the spirit of empathy and understanding, and allowed to run its course, an acute episode can be found to reveal a self-organizing process that has self-healing potential. This book examines what the acute "psychotic" experience stirs up in the psyche and how to empathetically respond. Understanding the function of mythic themes is reached through the author's investigation into myth and ritual of antiquity and also the visionary experience undergone by prophets and social reformers in various ages and parts of the world. The prophet's visions are intended to heal the society; 'the patients' are to heal the self, regardless of whatever might occur afterwards from any creative work emanating from them. The suggestion I propose, then, is that in cases of acute episode of visionary experience we must be open to any of several possibilities: The person might be capable of leadership in religion, social reform, or the arts or sciences and their potential contribution to society is making its first appearance "psychotic" turmoil, the rich potentials of which are being seen at first only as expressions of symbolic imagery. The person might be caught up in an inner process of self-reorganisation, activated with the intent of releasing hidden potentials for living a increasingly fruitful life of caring relationships and creative work. The person might be in the throes of a disintegrative process that will lead gradually into the downhill course and chronicity of true "schizoprenia" after six months. These alternatives deserve quite different handling from the start, ideally, if we could but devise a set of criteria to judge their differential diagnosis directly. The first group needs to be left alone by psychiatry and consigned to other forms of retreat where the visions can be tolerated, accepted, and appreciated for their actual value, and thus allowed to do their own work in nature's way. The second group needs to be handled sensititively without the negative impact of "labelling", and without their identifying with the status of "patienthood" in a hospital setting but rather with a stay in a nonhospital setting where the psychic process can be encourage by an openly receptive attitude to the inner process and where medication would be unnecessary or held at bare minimum. The third group, because of the impoverished state of our knowledge at present, needs medication early to prevent damage to brain functioning and undue chronicity, as well as early referral to a half-way-house or board-and-care housing." Professor Doctor John Weir Perry The author Kristof Gabriel van Hooymissen experienced many altered states during his life and can function within them without any problem at this moment in time. It brought him to initiations into shamanism, yoga, the study of transpersonal and integral psychology as he serves as a yogi-mysic independently with the Spiritual Emergency Network of psychiatrist doctor Stanislav Grof. He is a still a student of Swami Nardanand of the Siddha Maha Yoga tradition and a blissful and joyous theosophist and Rosicrusian. In the future he intends to visit Tibet with his best friend Michael Keuppens. At home he composes music and he writes (spiritual) books in order to help others understand these experiences better. Recommended links : http://www.spiritualemergencenetwork.org/ https://www.spiritualcompetency.com/ <= Dr David Lukoff