The Visionary, Psychiatry and Society
Vaughan Bell

Visionary Mode Symposium
Cardiff, 16th / 17th September 2003

Participants were asked to produce an 800 word 'statement of interest' on
which to base an introductory talk to introduce a session of the symposium.
This is an abstracted version.

The definitions of belief and delusion are by no means built on solid
foundations, with serious problems of definitions in each. Religious beliefs
and experiences are one area which is particularly troublesome for
psychiatry. The DSM diagnostic criteria for a belief to be diagnosed as a
delusion has a particular exemption for religious beliefs, although no
rationale is given. Presumably an expedient measure to prevent the majority
of the world from being diagnosed as psychotic. However, we have almost a
reverse problem for the question of how society should value the beliefs and
experiences from people already diagnosed as delusional or mentally ill.
During or after mental illness some people may come to believe that they are
an important religious figure (for example, Jesus Christ). Yet society
regards their views as worthless because they are marginalised, despite the
fact they often communicate a message of goodwill to others and have many
sensible things to say about how we should relate to the world. Similarly,
any hint of a scientific explanation for spiritual experience (particularly
of key religious figures) has followers up in arms, with the implicit
assumption that such an explanation automatically devalues the experience
and the teachings therein. Recently, our research group has been working
with people who do not become marginalised, despite having intense or
frequent anomalous experiences. Many of the new or re-emerging religious
movements attract individuals whose personal experiences cannot be
comfortably included within mainstream religion and yet who are rarely
distressed by their experiences. These various examples beg questions about
the validity of our taxonomy (both medical and religious) of anomalous
experience and how society values the visionary person.