Trials of the Visionary Mind: Spiritual Emergency and the Renewal Process

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.

Author: John Weir Perry
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 11/05/1998
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 8.95h x 5.90w x 0.49d
ISBN: 9780791439883

About the Author
John Weir Perry is Former Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of The Heart of History: Individuality in Evolution, published by SUNY Press; The Self in Psychotic Process: Its Symbolization in Schizophrenia; Lord of the Four Quarters: Myths of the Royal Father; The Far Side of Madness; and Roots of Renewal in Myth and Madness.

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