Home » Mind & Soul » Schizophrenia » Virtue is its Own Reward

Virtue is its Own Reward

© Ian Chovil

I get asked every once in awhile about whether there is any value in what you experience during in a psychotic episode. Did you have any revelations, did you have any insight that ordinary mortals couldn't see, stuff like that. Some people will tell you that schizophrenia is really a mystical transformation.

I haven't really changed my opinion in the last ten years. When asked whether there was any value to psychosis, I sarcastically reply "it builds character". Actually it would be more accurate to say it destroys character.

But when you have lost ten years to an untreated psychosis, it's hard to write off all that time as if it were a private prison. Because I was studying Tibetan Buddhism at the time, I thought I was being tortured as punishment for a crime I committed when I was child. My karma had to be cleansed.

I wonder if psychosis victims shouldn't be assessed to see if they are victims of torture. Torture gives humanity a bad name. I argued at the time that torture wasn't justified punishment for any crime, but Tashi Namjyal, the Tibetan who had ordered my punishment was quite sure it was. I have never been able to return to Tibetan Buddhism since. Was it real or did I imagine the whole thing?

And that is why I end up saying psychosis is a complete waste of time. You can't tell what was real and what wasn't. You can't determine when you jumped to conclusions that were absurd, or when you were brilliant. I still think World War Two was caused by the influenza epidemic of 1918. It was one of my quite brilliant observations. I wonder if that is why more and more people are getting flu shots each winter. The authorities know what is at stake and are trying to prevent another epidemic.

When I was psychotic the tantrics had tremendous respect for young girls because they could see the future. Human evolution to the tantrics was not about people getting smarter, it was about people becoming more sexual. That was what separated us from animals. Intelligence was only a byproduct of sexuality.Now I don't even know if that is true. Tantricism died out a long time ago and they didn't write much down.

In our JudeoChristian tradition God is almost always seen as a sort of wise old man. What if god was actually a young adolescent female, a kind of slut or a bimbo, a blonde. These are the sorts of conclusions you jump to in psychosis.

The copyright of the article Virtue is its Own Reward in Schizophrenia is owned by . Permission to republish Virtue is its Own Reward in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.