In the years past the enlightenment we have seen the shift from the approach to the man take a dualistic approach of spirit and body, to just that of body. This has permeated all aspects of culture and society — from medicine (as talked about in my previous post) religion, and more. One may herald this shift as something to be proud of! Oh, how great are we, to not be enamored with the soothsaying and superstition of witch doctors and tribalists of eras past, for we are men of science! We have replaced God with science! How akin to the folly of the Babylonians constructing their pillar of pride into the heavens does this feel? And the Babylonians of today, much like those of centuries past, will once again suffer the consequences of their dangerous and foolish mistake.
Psychiatry has replaced religion. Throughout all of human history, men and women have dealt with sublime anxieties rooted deep within their egos. They have always dealt with guilt, grief, feelings of lust, and feelings of anger. For better or for worse, in the absence of a concise understanding of the human condition brought to us by psychoanalytical thinkers and philosophers of the future, man had to turn towards the Gods for penance. This can be seen outlined quite well in the book of Job within the Bible. It serves as a perfect allegory for a man who was stricken by God for his sins and foolishness, and forced to reflect inwards and meditate on his shortcomings, before praying for forgiveness.
In the Kemetic, that is — ancient Egyptian tradition, once a man has passed away, he went to the Duat to receive his trial by Anibus, the God of the dead. Anibus would weigh his heart to find how well he stood in his life. Did he lie? Did he steal? Was he unjustifiably angry? All throughout history we see examples of man having these anxieties over their morality. In the slow erosion of this spiritual externalization, what are we left with?
We are left with psychiatry. As Foucault puts nicely in his first volume on the history of human sexuality, the confessional has been replaced with the psychiatrist’s office. Instead of confessing your sins to the priest or to god directly, you are left with confessing your sins to the psychiatrist, or therapist. And that is precisely what neuroticism is seen to be — a sin. Or perhaps to put it in other terms, a dark blemish that needs to be erased from your being in order to be a “normal” or “productive” human. An error to be corrected.
This is not an entirely baseless view point. Often times, things labeled as mental illness and neuroticism can be incredibly debilitating to the patient’s life, and sometimes even harmful to their loved ones around them. But is the current approach to understanding and treating these conditions as effective as the religion of science pretends they are to be? Doctor Peter Kramer, the author of “Listening to Prozac” and one of the first psychiatrists in America to prescribe Prozac (Fluoxetine), a very powerful and popular SSRI anti-depressant drug came across a very astute observation: Many of his patients who began the Prozac regiment he started them on had very alarming results. Yes, their depression was cured, but their entire personalities were being re-written. They no longer acted how they used to long before this “depression” took hold. They no longer liked the same things, and perhaps liked different things. They were entirely new. This is very dangerous. Are we maybe not treating these neuroses themselves — but hiding them in the ruins of the temple we destroyed?
However, a skeptic may ask “But that was at the infancy of the drug. What of it now?” In 2017, the BMC Psychiatry organization put out an article. It showed in 131 randomized control trials that the benefits from SSRIs were mild, and the side-affects and risks outweighed the benefits in most cases. It did state that they was mild improvement for mild cases, however. So perhaps there is hope for the priests of science after all! However, In older studies SSRIs have even been shown to INCREASE suicidal idealization in certain patients.
If you live in America, you have most likely met someone on anti-depressant medications. Next time you see someone, ask them about the symptoms they experience. Sometimes, it’s having no energy to do anything productive at all. (Isn’t that one of the criteria for diagnosing someone as depressed to begin with?) Other times, it can be no sex drive. I wonder where one’s orgone energy is shuffled into in such a case as a paralysis of one’s desire to reproduce, or simply live and create by these medications. Could it perhaps be shuffled right back into the anxieties creating this root condition to begin with, creating an ever present death dive into oblivion?
But what now? Has our science failed us? As stated in the first blog post, the ideal physician and the ideal mental healthcare provider needs to walk the line of material, and mystic. Some psychiatric conditions do have biological causes. I personally have written about the use of CT scanning to possibly determine pre-disposition to autism and other illnesses through brain matter organization. Certain other illnesses are created through physical trauma, causing neurological damage. It would be foolish to ignore physical treatment for physical illness in these situations.
But perhaps instead of ignoring the philosophers and psychoanalysts of the past, we need to look at what it means to be a human. A psychiatrist needs to help their patient approach the state of man through pointing them in the direction of philosophy to guide. A psychiatrist needs to help the patient approach the root of their trauma by returning to Freud, and returning to Jung. Even cognitive behavioral therapy may not be enough. Why put a bandaid on a gunshot? No, you need to dive straight into the root of the issue if you hope to correct it. A good place for us to start once society starts their second enlightenment would be to fund clinical trials into long term psychoanalysis use in those suffering from major depressive disorder, OCD, and anger management issues. We shall see what the consensus will be then.
But that leaves one question wide open: Why is western society so depressed, why are suicide rates so high? Especially among men, and teenagers? Why are so many Americans on anti-depressants, despite modern medicine even stating most on them are not in need? (source in the first link)
This ties into the title of the article, the death of man. We are spiritually dead. We live between two very large boulders, coming at us at the same time. On one side, you have science telling you that you are nothing more than stardust. “from dust you came, and to dust you shall return” seems to have taken on a new meaning, hasn’t it? You have no soul, and the world you see in front of you is all there ever has been, and will be. And on the other side, you have our culture. This is not an organic culture, but one that has been carefully created and artificially constructed by capitalism to make you both a consumer, and commodity yourself. The *you* does not matter anymore, your hopes and dreams don’t matter. You are a soulless bag of flesh, and you will work a 9 to 5 job for most of your life in a job you don’t like, to consume products you been told you need, to hopefully live a peaceful 20 years in retirement to just shrivel up and die. This is supposed to be normal? Does it surprise anyone else we feel alienated and isolated in a culture constructed to be consumed, and not LIVED? More about culture and consumerism in further posts.
A very interesting note is the sudden increase in youth being diagnosed with ADHD. I’m sure there is mild physiological grounding for this condition. Research has shown that. But what has changed from 20, 30 years ago to now? The creation of smart technology. Children’s television has also been radically altered from how it was once produced. Can we expect a kid to have the attention span of a child 3 generations before them in school when they were barraged with on-demand entertainment, instant Pavlovian gratification through videogames, and quick fast paced animation? Surely not. This is not an illness on the child’s end, but an illness in culture. Many of us can notice this in real time within their own lives. Think about what you could do before you got a smart phone. Before you started playing video games. Do you still have the same attention span? I doubt you do, friend. On average, we have the attention span of 8 seconds. This is horrific.
But there is hope. For better or for worse, this way of life is unsustainable. And the future will come. Let us hope we’ll be ready for it.
Stay well.
