When a message receiver can identify the fact that some of their messages are tricksters it can go a long way towards improving efforts to fit in, heal trauma and reduce consensus reality confusion. A supporter who is trusted may be able to articulate the concept, spot it when it’s happening, and teach spiritual skills that can help the message receiver mitigate damages.

According to Wikipedia, the concept of a trickster is a cultural archetype. In other words, a trickster is a cultural reality of the collective unconscious that Carl Jung identified. Accordingly, all cultures feature tricksters in their mythology. In Navajo culture, the trickster is a coyote. In Greek mythology, Hermes, patron of thieves, was a trickster character. In the Bible, Jacob was. The trickster as an archetype is a revered spiritual character that cheats or cons people for their own material gain or just to cause mischief. In effect, a trickster is a very real part of reality that must be negotiated.

The idea that special messages veer into the spiritual realm of the collective unconscious may become appealing to many message receivers. Indeed, for me, message crisis or “psychosis” used to be real government and mafia surveillance; now that I know how to navigate, the surveillance reality mixes with the spiritual emergency narrative Stanislav and Stephanie Grof helped articulate. Let us not forget that other causal strategies can be operant. Thus, not only are political and spiritual causation at play. It is also important to consider the interplay between psychology, science, and trauma as we have explored elsewhere.

But without support or resources, trickster messages deceive people into either or causal realities. Often, people become too spiritual or too focused on the fact that they are politically controlled. They may fail to incorporate other causal potentials. As a result, they come into conflict with consensus reality, get burdened by the illness narrative myth, get ineffective treatment, and find that social decline results.

Thus, to navigate through a spiritual emergence effectively in the modern world it becomes important to realize that a significant number of messages function as tricksters. In crisis or emergency, trickster messages get believed very literally when they ought not to be. As examples of negative and positive trickster phenomena will reveal, believing trickster messages reinforce the power that message receiver to give to their message experiences. The more power given to messages, the less the message receiver cares or knows about the ideas that govern consensus reality.

Examples of the Negative Trickster Phenomenon:

 The classic example of a negative trickster that a message receiver may experience is that the message receiver believes they are being followed collecting messages that tell them so. Then, because they believe they are being followed, they act as though they are being followed until the police and psychiatric establishment do follow them and put them in an observation unit. Then, they really are followed and monitored.

The result of such a trickster phenomenon is that all messages that were signs of being followed are believed to be accurate and important when some were, and some may not have been. The message receiver learns to trust all those messages more than mainstream consensus reality concepts.

An associated example of a negative trickster is an intuition based on body language that a person doesn’t like the message receiver.  The result is the message receiver is hurt and angry and behaves as if the message is accurate and the person picks up on social energy and behaviour and then really doesn’t like them. What comes first will never be known but the fact of the matter now becomes accurate.

So, a voice gives a message receiver a command that they must follow to avoid being tortured and the message receiver becomes fearful and vulnerable and when they don’t listen the torture comes. Then, they become victimized by tactile torture and fail to get out of bed for a day and do not seek support because no one will believe them.

Another example of a negative trickster is the blacklisted political refugee who resists the host countries effort to control them.  They may defiantly send out resumes for good jobs, each from a different mailbox. Then, this willful behaviour makes the host country increase surveillance and control.

Ineffective Reality-Test Treatment:

 Often, the reality of the negative trickster foils a supporter’s efforts to reality test. Picture the message receiver who gets told not to trust their messages by a supporter. The well-intended supporter considers the evidence and tells them it’s not true that they are being followed. Then, the message receiver finds out they really were getting followed. Now the reality test turns into betrayal and the value of and trust for the message reality is amplified while trust in supporters and consensus reality decreases. I advocate for trying to teach the trickster phenomena before making a reality test. Then, a supporter can isolate the special message that leads to the divergent view and suggests that maybe it’s a trickster. This becomes much less offensive to a message receiver.

Combatting Negative Tricksters with Positive Self-Fulfilling Prophesies, Mantras or Prayers:

Meanwhile, isolated message receivers get put on an observation unit in the hospital. They must choose to ignore it all the blatant ways they are being followed and pretend that they are not being followed. If the message receiver ignores and exudes confidence in front of all the messages (real and unreal,) the police and psychiatric establishment will either not become involved or eventually will give up and stop the following behaviour. But to interrupt the process, the message receiver needs to put prayerful energy out in the universe that tells everyone they are not being followed repeatedly. When they do get followed, they need to ignore it and move forward.

In the case of feeling followed, the message receiver may not ever know which messages were real and which were tricksters. Perhaps time and investigation will show which ones were true and which weren’t. But ultimately, focusing on overcoming tricksters will slow down the messages. If, for example, a message receiver ignores a message that is intended to torment them, it is very discouraging to the tormenter. Then, the message receiver gets fewer messages that they are being followed and it becomes easier and easier.

With a message receiver intuiting that a person doesn’t like them, the message receiver needs to ignore this negative forecast and approach the person in a friendly way. Thus, the message receiver acts opposite to the way they feel, and they put out energy into the world that may change the person mind. Perhaps they change the observers’ mind and the person who dislikes the message receiver is forced to change their mind via social pressure.

In the case of the commanding voice, the message receiver puts magnets in their shoes, doesn’t listen to the command and takes himself to an HVN meeting and tells his supports that the magnet deactivates the chip in his body that enables him to be tortured and he never does get tortured.

In the case of the political refugee, the message receiver accepts the host countries control and the hierarchy that is abusing him and stops fighting the power.  Instead, the message receiver offers prayers and mantras that he will be employed before he runs out of money and gets hired in the nick of time and continues to behave on the job.

In all these examples prayers, mantras and faith are needed to endure and reduce the negative effects of messages.

Examples of Positive Tricksters:    

 Some message receivers may find that they believe a trickster because it is what they want to hear. Then, later, they find they get socially punished for the belief. This usually involves the message receiver acting out in ways that sabotage their cultural capital or that results in real social sanctions. Numerous message receivers experience special messages that are a positive support and there is nothing wrong with that. However, even people who argue that the world is mostly positive can be dogged by tricksters when they interpret an ominous warning sign in a positive direction.

They may, for example, believe God and country is supporting them with special messages when those messages are not true. If they embark on a creating a business with “grandiose” notions that their government is supporting them and has their back, they may give away money or not fill their water bottle walking down the highway on their way to the post office figuring that the government is good and will have their back. The result is they end up down the road with no money and very thirsty. Instead of arriving at the post office as they had planned to pick up boxes for their business, they find themselves followed by the police, ambulance drivers and eventually by psychiatrists instead of supportive government agents. They may end up in a hospital getting rehydrated and then in an institution that seeks to sustain itself by keeping them incarcerated and the outcome can be negative to their efforts to start up a business.

In the above situation, still, much of the experience can be godly and positive. However, to be successful the positive person still must be on the lookout for tricksters that are, in fact, negative guidance.  Let’s say a friend sets a boundary that the message receiver misinterprets as an invitation to be chummy. The message receiver may be correct about their skills and abilities behind their grand plans, but misinterpreting the few messages that are tricksters can set up major roadblocks. The friend may get upset and call for a mental health consult.

Likewise, a message receiver who believes everyone likes them when others are in fact mocking them collects objects and hands them to people that bear odd meanings. Instead of receiving the object and recognizing the funny or beautiful message of the gesture, a friend mocks and gossips about the message receiver and eventually, someone calls for a mental health consult. The message receiver may then be put on an observation unit while they persist using their skills until they are forcibly shown they have no skills and deserve an impoverished lifestyle.

Though these examples are admittedly random, the result is that positive tricksters get in the way of monumental success.

A Balanced Strategy for Managing Positive Tricksters:

 The all-or-nothing tendency to view all messages as positive may need to be broken. The upbeat message receiver must view the constant energy of their messages with humility. If they don’t, the result can be oppression and institutionalization. Negative alternatives need to be considered as plausible otherwise all the positive energy and ability will be labelled a waste. Ultimately, it always is important to find ways to put positive or negative messages on the back burner and investigate them or let time reveal the truth as the message receiver continues their work towards success.

Positive tricksters need to be managed by the message receiver maintaining a strong grasp of the contents of consensus reality. Playing consensus can be an important strategy. It is also important for those receiving positive tricksters to exude a humble, a nonjudgmental, and an emotionally intelligent mentality. There also needs to be a sceptical act-opposite-from-the-way-one-feels mentality that will slow down the frequency of the positive tricksters. Praying that the positive message is not a trickster is a viable strategy. Additionally, clearly, the message receiver needs to weigh the potential consequences of non-consensus reality behaviour. This will keep positive tricksters from spiralling out of control.

Assessing the Level of Trust or Recovery Before Discussing the Concept:

 Often, a supporter can count on discussing trickster process and having a message receiver acknowledge that this has happened with an, “oh, yeah,” kind of realization. Supporters may spot times this is happening and spell it out to the message receiver. Transforming out of a message crisis takes time and there are significant back and forth debates about consensus reality that may need to be had.

However, a supporter needs to use judgement before they try to educate a message receiver about this spiritual concept. Experienced message receivers who can function in consensus reality may have already figured out the concept and crediting them for their wisdom and reinforcing the practice is good form.

However, if a message receiver seems routinely expresses ideas that are very far away from consensus reality and continues to act on them, the chances are that they are taking information from tricksters very literally. Before a supporter simply educates the impacted message receiver about the trickster concept, they need to establish an ability to identify message phenomena and collaborate. If support can validate divergent views, and sleuth with the message receiver, it is a good sign that trust is building. It may even be necessary to be able to discuss different approaches to the issue of what is causing the message experiences.

 The Importance of Behavior and Fixing the Relationship with Consensus Reality:

 The result of tricksters being intermixed with accurate message material is that the accuracy of all special message phenomena is believed, and the message receiver’s relationship with consensus reality is likely to become progressively less trusting. Ironically, as the trust for consensus reality decreases, the message receiver is likely to get robbed of their power, identity, social roles and eventually their material possessions.

 Despite a lot of errors in consensus reality that often preoccupy the institutionalized message receiver, knowing consensus reality is an important strategy when it comes to managing both negative and positive tricksters.

In fact, we all know that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK and must act as if it were true in the right contexts. In this manner, message receivers need to learn to put on the façade of consensus reality, to avoid behaviour that will increase the reality of negative or positive tricksters. Message receivers need to let the messages go and let time tell. This is an act of faith.

This does not mean that message receivers can’t be free to live in their messages and share as they want when they are in good company in a group of supporters. Generally, people aren’t always right about reality anyway. But the understanding and acknowledging the trickster phenomenon can help decrease crisis and steer the message receiver toward success in the social rehabilitation realm.

Included in this learning, message receivers need to learn to trust people through their own intuitive communication as much or more than they trust special messages. This takes time and ongoing commitment as it is not an instant change. But knowing that messages have a significant degree of tricksters in them can really help. And communicating about tricksters and re-examining past traumatic occurrences with the associated spiritual skills can really help a message receiver trust the supporter.

The post Identifying the Trickster Phenomena During A Special Message Crisis or Extreme State appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

Psychosis is an antiquated word that leads to huge misunderstandings that play a large role oppressing a larger and larger portion of the population. For the past nine years I have run professional focus groups, going through the process of listening, exploring, reflecting, writing, seeking feedback and rewriting to get a better definition of psychosis.

Defining Psychosis, the Mainstream Way:

I remember using the mainstream definition as a young professional during the job I used to get me through my Master’s Program. Wondering how I was to connect with people who had delusions and voices that I clearly didn’t experience with my neurotic, highly-medicated self, I filled the white board with a list of labels and complicated words I was proud to be able to define. It was my college education that got me the job, and this was one way I could use it to be useful.

positive symptoms

Hallucinations:           reports of sounds (voices,) visuals, tactile sensations, tastes, and olfactory sensations that others do not experience

Delusions:                   “an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational . . .” In spite of the “preponderance of the evidence”

Disorganized Speech: Frequent derailment or incoherence): Word salad, tangential, or circumspect speech

negative symptoms

1. Andhedonia
2. Avolition
3. Amotivation
4. Alogia
5. Attention Problems
6. Catatonia
7. Posturing
8. Lethargy
9. Flat affect
10. Social Withdrawal
11. Sexual Problems

The Errors of These Ways:

Life has taught me that the mainstream definition, as such, does little to depict what it feels like to have a break from reality. Indeed, not understanding this can cause a supporter to make things worse even when they have the best of intentions. Indeed, miscommunication, pain, and strained relationships often result once a sufferer has a break.

I now contend that this mainstream definition offers little helpful direction toward the healing that can be inevitable when a person accepts their situation, moves through it, and is not subjugated to the gross negligence of institutionalization.

I still remember some of the ridiculous conclusions I drew as a young clinician: for hallucinations, the answer was simple: ignore them; for delusions: I would recommend that the sufferer just think like everyone else does; and for disorganized speech the answer likewise seemed simple: do not speak, otherwise people will think something is wrong with you. I likely went so far as to make these assertions.

Cultural Delusions:

With what I know now, I don’t even believe that psychotic delusions exist. Sure errors, happen, but they do little to define the experience. Indeed, according to my current definition, the concept that delusions are wrong “in spite of a preponderance of the evidence” is a huge misrepresentation of what is happening.

For example, for years I heard fellow sufferers suggest that there are cameras in all televisions through which the government can spy on people. While I expressed as genuine an open mind to this idea as I could muster, I really didn’t think so. Then, the Wiki Leaks story broke, and I found out that the “delusional” people I work with were right after all. Once again, mainstream, Eurocentric ideas suggested that the world was flat.

Indeed, when the problem is defined as observable behavior, it fails to acknowledge the intrinsic value of the experiences to people who have them. It also fails to account for so much of what people go through when they are in the thick of it. So many anomalous perceptions turn out to be accurate.

I recall only one client who was brave enough to stand up to my degree and tell me that she felt she had a gift and that her experiences were valuable. I listened, but if I had truly accepted her help, it would have saved me years of torment.

What Happened to Me:

It wasn’t until I was thirty that I went through a psychotic break from reality or what I prefer to define as a message crisis. I was working amidst drug war politics and taking huge risks to promote safety for vulnerable and traumatized people. My boss threatened to fire me for associating with renegade activists. In fact, residents were dealing with violence and conspiracies in a large section 8 complex that was widely reported on in the paper.

For two years after my lengthily incarceration in a State Hospital, I moved around and was unable to find employment. I knew I could still work even though I was being followed. The only thing I had learned in the hospital was how to endure abuse and be prepared for utter squalor.

My best explanation for what had happened to me was that the mafia was following me. In fact, I had developed the idea that it was my own family who was responsible for the constant threats I was experiencing. Finally, I decided to trust my aunt, who was the black sheep of my father’s side of the family. She was able to attain a job for me making sandwiches at an Italian Deli.

Underemployed and harassed in the most controlling of ways for ten months, it would be a decade later when I would learn that that famous celebrity-chef I met and at one point surmised to be the local kingpin really was the kingpin just as I had suspected. It’s true that throughout my tenure at the deli, I surmised many people to be the kingpin, but still . . . When I returned to taking medications, I finally was able to get a social services job away from the deli. Eventually, I returned to work in mental health.

My Learning Process:

Nine years ago, I grew tired of running standard groups. In many cases, everyone in the group had experiences with psychosis, yet we all sat suppressing those experiences and were communicating in the language of the oppressor. I had heard about Hearing Voices Network groups in Europe, and I decided to create a specialty group in which I used my lived experience to further explore the experiences that people go through during psychosis.

Since that time, I have been deconstructing the concept of schizophrenia and reconstructing a definition for psychosis into eight components that might better reflect what people go through. I feel that the following eight components give the reader, supporters, and even provider-folks a better definition of what people who experience psychosis go through.

Psychosis Redefined in Eight Components:

1. Special Messages:

These are a collection of triggering experiences that give usspecial information that others may not be aware of.

• Uncanny intuitions,
• Hearing voices,
• ESP,
• Sensing the thoughts of another,
• Premonitions,
• Visions,
• Dreams,
• Tactile torture,
• Interpersonal feedback,
• Reading between the lines in media (TV, Movies, Newspapers,)
• Seeing clues in words,
• Seeing clues in numbers,
• Seeing clues in the world that surround you.

2. Divergent Views:            

Streams of thought about the way the world works that arise from special messages. These are thoughts that explain how the messages are possible. Often, only speculations, many divergent views we make aren’t wrong; in fact, many may be more correct than mainstream ideas (sometimes only in a sense though,) but most people will tell us they are wrong.

3. Sleuthing:

A state of mind in which we are straining to find the truth about special messages. This works with our powerful affect state and may seem like a way of surviving or exploring. Once we develop a divergent view we sleuth hard for more special message evidence to confirm correctness (a rational process.) As Special Messages build up we sleuth, and more divergent views get formed.

4. Theory:

A hypothesis or educated guess as to the ultimate cause of the message. Just when the message is received, the pre-conscious theory explains why the message happened, who sent it.  The theory is integral to our understanding of what the message means. Often the theory gets stuck on one causation modality (in sum I have developed five potential modalities that serve dozens and dozens of theories) and this drives us to sleuth intensely and make errors.

5. Tricksters:

Tricksters are potentially false, negative divergent views that we receive in the process of making meaning of special messages. Recall that, in fact, special messages lead to both accurate and inaccurate divergent views. In crisis, tricksters may really be false, but if we believe in them strongly enough, they work with a negative self-fulfilling prophesy to come true. Thus, we think we are followed and we end up in the hospital where we really are followed. We think we are in danger, put out fearful energy, and people are more likely to be antagonistic and try to harm us. When tricksters come true it convinces us that we are right to fervently believe in the truth of all our messages and not entertain mainstream views.

6. Retaliation Reactions:

Behaviors that exude strong emotional reaction to the whole divergent process:

• Glaring with angry or happy eyes
• Looking behind you for the possibility of tails
• Making gestures of prayer
• Talking with voices in public
• Coding our language as if we are talking to CIA agents.
• Talking in codes so that the people broadcasting our life on TV won’t be able to understand what we mean.
• Getting angry or entralled and treating someone in a way you wouldn’t otherwise.
• Walking backwards down the highway to make a statement.
• Barking at a passing bicycle because you are angry like a dog (which is god spelled backwards)

7. Social Sanctions:

These are punishments like: involuntary hospitalization, seclusion, restraint, incarceration, loss of housing, loss of employment, loss of social role, social rejection, public ridicule, loss of family financial support, anger and resentment, loss of respect and validation.

8. Stigma:

• In short, stigma is a real process that leads others to label us according to our reaction behavior.
• Stigma labels carries with them stereotypical assumptions that lead to social sanctions (external and internal,) and, ultimately, to real discrimination.
• Stigma often causes us, the recipients, to get defined as our illness. We may lose a sense of our outside strengths and interests and our sense of identity.

In Conclusion:

In effect, these eight definitions function as a road-map to the rabbit-hole of psychosis which can help those dealing with distress to find things like meaningful work, relationships, and social integration. With psychosis defined as such, there are numerous solution strategies I have been able to develop that can help move people out of crisis.

Indeed, I believe a new definition like the one I have sketched out is necessary for the public to internalize. I feel if the public had a better understanding and respect for what so many people with mental health challenges experience, not only those who carry the diagnosis of schizophrenia would benefit.

Indeed, such a definition places far less blame and belief in eugenics and brain damage. In fact, often brain damage may happen because of trauma we experience being invalidated and talked down to, dis-empowered and neglected. And still even the greatest traumas give us potential for glorious learning.

Indeed, special message experiences like intuitions, dreams, and interpersonal interactions are things that everyone can relate to and can benefit from navigating in meaningful manners.

The post A New Definition of Psychosis appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".