This is a book about the Mad Pride movement. I had various goals in mind in writing and editing this book; these goals are all complementary. First, I wanted to publicize the new Mad Pride movement—to make both the public at large and those who have been psychiatrically labeled as “mentally ill” and/or “psychotic” aware of its existence, what it has done, and what it is doing. I want readers to be aware that it provides an alternative to the “mental health” system. Second, and most important, I wanted to help “mental patients” or “psychiatric survivors” (to use the current term) free themselves from the psychiatric net in which they may have become entangled.
To do this I present the stories of several persons—considered “seriously mentally ill” by Psychiatry—who proved the system wrong: they overcame their problems and now live extraordinary lives, far exceeding the low expectations about what they could achieve conveyed to them by psychiatrists. They are role models: reading their stories may instill in patients the conviction that they too can break away from psychiatry, can transcend the identity of the chronic “mental patient” and lead creative lives—often as “creatively maladjusted” persons (to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King Jr.) devoted to changing the world.
Third, I wanted to present and update the argument I have been making for twenty years against the mental health system. In accord with this I included a discussion of the theories of psychiatrists and social critics R. D. Laing and John Weir Perry. It is an unfortunate fact that despite Laing’s status as a countercultural icon and intellectual celebrity in the 1960s and 1970s, his work has been neglected by the psychiatric survivors’ movement—formerly the “mental patients’ liberation movement”—and he is virtually unknown by Mad Pride.
Finally, I wanted to provide a rationale for the existence of the Mad Pride movement—as distinct from (albeit not in conflict with) the psychiatric survivors’ movement. While I was working on this book, new developments took place in the Mad Pride movement; I thus became aware of conflicting tendencies within it. I explain what I believe are the sources of these tensions and argue that in order for Mad Pride to fulfill its potential, it must make a choice; it must abjure the secular postmodern pluralist zeitgeist and affirm instead a fully spiritual messianic vision of madness and social change. This would be a courageous move in an age when even the term messianic is equated with anachronistic superstitious religious views (e.g., premillennialism)—or with psychopathology, that is, “psychosis”!
On the other hand, for neomessianic forces (e.g., New Age) to associate themselves with the mad would be for them to risk being discredited by virtue of association with the most stigmatized group in society—“schizophrenics.” However, the conditions for this coalescence are more propitious than in the past. Due to the arguments of mavericks like Laing, Perry, and Ken Kesey, and as a result of the psychedelics and cultural revolution in the 1960s, “psychosis” has assumed a more romantic status among influential subcultures, particularly bohemian writers and artists. Thus the association of madness and messianism appears in a more favorable light than in the past—from both sides.
In order to make the argument that mad persons have a distinctive contribution to make to the salvation of the planet, I attempt in the final section of this book to rehabilitate the reputation of the messianic or “utopian” vision. I do this by reexamining the two most messianic periods of cultural revitalization in American history—the Second Awakening of the early nineteenth century and the 1960s’ period of countercultural ferment and New Left activism. The examination of these two disparate periods of profound cultural revitalization demonstrate the socially progressive (to use a modern term) nature and spiritual depth of messianism. I briefly discuss the cultural change theories of John Perry, William McLoughlin, and H. Richard Niebuhr, which support my argument for a messianic-redemptive model of madness and social change. I also briefly discuss the social perspective of (in my view) the most important and neglected seer of the modern age, the neo-Hindu philosopher and yogi Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950).
Fortunately, while writing this book I discovered the writings of Paul Levy, who—as a mad person (a former mental patient who had spiritual visions) and a spiritual educator strongly influenced by the writings of Carl Jung—also takes, as I do, an unabashedly messianic view of human potential. Following Jung, Levy writes of the “Christification” of humanity: all of us are called on to act as “messiahs.” I cite Levy on a number of occasions (besides the interview) as his views are further confirmation of my own.
With the increasingly murderous and brutal policies of corporate capitalism fueled by spiritual emptiness and greed and the assault on the Earth, we now face the prospect of permanent war and the threat of the ecological destruction of the conditions necessary for life on Earth. Or rather some of us face it; most look the other way. The American ruling political elite has abdicated its democratic responsibilities and is now enacting policies in the service of the corporate Leviathan that, unless reversed, may lead within this century to the extinction of the human species. The communal mind is in a state of acute distress and confusion.
The emergence of Mad Pride and the foundation of The Icarus Project (TIP) was an auspicious development; it was initially an “evolutionary bid” to change the consciousness of humanity. At this point, it is uncertain if Mad Pride will decide to forsake its more messianic aspirations and accommodate itself to the postmodern ethos.
I hope that the argument I make in this book and particularly in the concluding chapter will prompt a serious reexamination—by Mad Pride and by all persons interested in social change—of the much maligned redemptive-messianic vision, which I believe is the only solution to the current spiritual crisis of humanity.