Divine madness
Divine madness, also known as theia mania and crazy wisdom, is unconventional, outrageous, unexpected, or unpredictable behavior linked to religious or spiritual pursuits.
[3] Plato in his Phaedrus and his ideas on theia mania, the Hasidic Jews, Eastern Orthodoxy, Western Christianity, Sufism along with Indian religions all bear witness to the phenomenon of divine madness.
[3][5] DiValerio notes that comparable "mad saint" traditions exist in Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian cultures, but warns against "flights of fancy" that too easily draw comparisons between these various phenomena.
The Zen master Ikkyu (15th century) used to run around his town with a human skeleton spreading the message of the impermanence of life and the grim certainty of death.
[7] According to Feuerstein, similar forms of abnormal social behavior and holy madness is found in the history of the Christian saint Isadora and the Sufi Islam storyteller Mulla Nasruddin.
[8][9] Theia mania (Ancient Greek: θεία μανία) is a term used by Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus to describe a condition of divine madness (unusual behavior attributed to the intervention of a God).
[13] The Roman poet Virgil, in Book VI of his Aeneid, describes the Cumaean Sibyl as prophesying in a frenzied state:[14] While at the door they paused, the virgin cried: "Ask now thy doom!—the god!
So saying, from her face its color flew, Her twisted locks flowed free, the heaving breast Swelled with her heart's wild blood; her stature seemed Vaster, her accent more than mortal man, As all th' oncoming god around her breathed...
[12] In the 20th-century, Pentecostalism – the charismatic movements within Protestant Christianity particularly in the United States, Latin America and Africa – has encouraged the practice of divine madness among its followers.
[19] The followers believe that there is a long tradition in Christian spirituality, where saints such as Augustine are stated to have had similar experiences of deliberate hallucinations and madness.
[22] In Somalia, according to Sheik Abdi, Moḥammed ʻAbdulle Hassan eccentric behavior and methods led some colonial era writers to call him "mad mullah", "crazy priest of Allah" and others.
[25] He writes, The similarities between the Sufi formulation of divine madness and the folk experience of psychosis are too clear and too frequent among the Turkish patients to be treated as coincidences.
[25]In West African version of Sufism, according to Lynda Chouiten, examples of insane saints are a part of Maraboutisme where the mad and idiotic behavior of a marabout was compared to a mental illness and considered a form of divine folly, of holiness.
[26] The theme of divine madness appears in all major traditions of Hinduism (Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism), both in its mythologies as well as its saints, accomplished mendicants and teachers.
His behavior may include being strangely dressed (or naked), sleeping in cremation grounds, acting like an animal, a "lunatic" storing his food in a skull, among others.
"[27] Feuerstein further states that in traditional Tibet and India, "the "holy fool" or "saintly madman" [and madwoman] has long been recognized as a legitimate figure in the compass of spiritual aspiration and realization.
[34] This discrepancy may lead to a mistaken identification of those experiences as "mad" or "possessed," and the application of exorcism and Ayurvedic treatments to fit those ecstatics into the mold.
[41] Their behavior may seem to be scandalous, according to conventional standards,[40] but the archetypal siddha is a defining characteristic of the nyingma-tradition, which differs significantly from the more scholarly orientated Gelugpa-tradition.
[44] According to DiValerio, the Tibetan term nyönpa refers to siddhas, yogins and lamas whose "mad" behavior is "symptomatic of high achievement in religious practice.
[49]In some Buddhist literature, the phrase "crazy wisdom" is associated with the teaching methods of Chögyam Trungpa,[50] himself a Nyingma and Kagyu master, who popularized the notion with his adepts Keith Dowman and Georg Feuerstein.
"[57] Dowman also suggests other explanations for Drukpa Künlé’s unconventional behavior, including criticising institutionalized religion, and acting as a catalysator for direct insight.
[59] DiValerio further notes that "Dowman’s presentation of Drukpa Künlé as roundly anti-institutional [had] great influence [...] in shaping (and distorting) the Euro-American world’s thinking on the subject.
"[60][note 5] According to Feuerstein, who was influenced by Chogyam Trungpa,[51] divine madness is unconventional, outrageous, unexpected, or unpredictable behavior that is considered to be a manifestation of spiritual accomplishment.
"[64] Although immediatism has its roots in European culture and history[63] as far back as Platonism,[65] and also includes Perennialism,[66] Versluis points to Ralph Waldo Emerson as its key ancestor,[63] who "emphasized the possibility of immediate, direct spiritual knowledge and power.
[71] According to Mircea Eliade, divine madness is a part of Shamanism, a state that a pathologist or psychologist is likely to diagnose as a mental disease or aberrant psychological condition.
