Mental Health for Extreme Fundies

"The God Experience is an artifact of transient changes in the temporal lobe”

M. Persinger, in 'The Neuro-pscyhological Bases of God -Belief', p. 136

With that single declarative sentence by Michael Persinger in his grand book, the origin and source of all God-talk and ideation was at once set forth: it resides in the brain's temporal lobes and is generated there, via temporal lobe transients, a kind of mini-seizure. For the first time, the source of all religious insanity and wars, extremist acts was traced to its source: the BRAIN!

Persinger himself places TLT experiences along a hypothetical continuum. Extreme symptoms would include circumstantiality, a sense of the personal (e.g. egocentric references, divine guidance), perseveration, hypergraphia, altered affect, and most importantly an overwhelming sense of religiosity. Carried to extremes, this sense translates into a meme (mind virus) that effectively asserts: "I am RIGHT! YOU are wrong, and since you are wrong- and we cannot both be right- you are gonna burn forever!"


And so the insidious nature of religious insanity sows its first seeds in a fertile brain which already is hamstrung by dysfunctions it cannot even see (just look at some of the comments on this blog from the irrepressible Preacher Man and his sidekick, Rene)

In a way this is very analogous to the approach (in physical models) to solar flare triggers. They are placed in a continuum that ranges from “mild” disturbance effects like a low grade coronal mass ejection (CME) or erupting prominence, to a full blown type X-9 solar flare with all the collateral damage that entails. But whatever the place on the spectrum, the trigger ultimately gives rise to all of the above. And so it may well be with brain TLTs as well, and to suppose or hypothesize such is, imho, not to abuse Persinger’s work.

In a 'WIRED' interview with Persinger, Jack Hitt notes:

“Persinger is not the first to theorize that the Creator exists only in the complex landscape of the human noggin. In his controversial 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, a Princeton psychologist, argued that the brain activity of ancient people - those living roughly 3,500 years ago, prior to early evidence of consciousness such as logic, reason, and ethics - would have resembled that of modern schizophrenics"

Schizophrenia, as we know, is among the most pernicious of mental diseases. Generally, it strikes in the early to mid-teens and gets progressively worse over time. Why it strikes is a mystery but there could be genetic factors, and it could be the brain is most ripe for any mental illness immediately after the so-called "brain pruning" in which billions of neurons are shucked off so new ones, of a more mature being, can take their place.

We simply don't know the final answer.

In the same (1987) work 'The Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs', Persinger noted that the God Experience "promotes passivity, and because of the random emotional associations will lead to unreasoned decisions". He gives an example of a horrible scenario in which a pivotal world leader undergoing one of these religious, brain micro-seizure states irrationally decides to trigger a nuclear disaster. Why wait for Armageddon, when you have the little red buttons to induce it yourself? (If you can also coerce your higher staff to comply with your insanity, as depicted in the movie, 'The Dead Zone')

Right now, with the polity so contaminated by extremist religious drivel and refuse, we are not far from such a drastic phase. Just add:

(religiously besotted populace infecting political stage) + (presumed 'god-man' in the WH who believes he has a personal line to his real 'Father')

Anyone who disputes such a creature could exist ought to visit Pastor Mike's ("All Souls I-Net Church") site and read some of his aberrant screeds. It is clear from those that my bro suffers from a form of self-righteous neurosis and megalomania that beggars the human imagination. His castigation of all manner of faiths from Catholicism to Mormonism to Islam, reads like a hate tract scribbled by Josef Goebbels of Nazi fame. The difference is that while Goebbels' screeds were designed to send Jews into the gas chambers and ovens at Auschwitz, Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen etc., Pastor Mike's are designed to justify dispatching Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Hindus, Atheists, Muslims etc. to the perpetual ovens of "Hell".

Never mind now that no such place as Hell could ever exist, other than in a disturbed mind. It is the thought that counts. The intent to have masses of billions dispatched there!

What one has here is not an abiding reality but rather a viral, infectious, malignant meme. A mind virus masquerading as a valid thought or concept. The point is that such malignant memes are based on BELIEF systems - NOT on knowledge!

Memes in the more general sense are basically beliefs transmitted from the recipients to others (not yet affected). Religions can do this via conversions, foisting their bibles down various populations' throats and threatening them with hellfire(in the case of promoting or embedding malignant memes).

Knowledge doesn't fall under this rubric nor is it 'self refuting'. The litmus test of that, as I've uttered til blue in the face - is that actual scientific devices, technological systems and devices (like MRI machines, telephones, planes, linear accelerators etc.) WORK! And they do so in the real world! These are all based on scientific knowledge and principles that have been transmuted into practical applications. If the knowledge underlying these were simply 'self refuting' none of these devices or sophisticated machines,instruments would be worth a damn. Their results would be spurious. But - as we know from their use - they are not.

Moon rockets really do reach the Moon and return. Satellites really do transmit pictures - other information from one place to another. Computers really do store information and allow its retrieval as well as speeding calculations. MRI machines really do provide medical diagnostics that otherwise wouldn't be available. In other words, the very existence of these devices, systems shows that the knowledge on which they're based CANNOT be self refuting. These are the realized PRODUCTS of science and scientific KNOWLEDGE!

OTOH, the 'products' of (malignant) religious memes and their belief systems include: the hair shirt, the rack, the "Virgin" (a hollow box in the shape of a woman with 8" spikes fitted to its interior so when it is closed they impale the poor wretch inside....usually an atheist or heretic) chastity belts, rosaries, mosques, cathedrals- not to mention plenty of statues that are venerated by the 'faithful'. Oh, and the loopy, mistranslated King James Bible. None of these have any efficacy - other than to reinforce and feed the already existing memes.

But let us return to the matter of religious insanity. How do we treat it? How do we rescue the hijacked brains of those like my brother and Rene? History does not provide a very optimistic giude.

For example, in the 70s thousands of kids had to be rescued from cults such as the "Moonies" and deprogrammed. Deprogramming usually lasted a month to a year and entailed the most traumatic methods to drive to regain autonomy for a brain that had lost it. As one can ascertain by reading the vile and vicious crap posted on Pastor Mike's blog - compliments of himself and Rene, the same malignant mind virus is at work there.

In my own experience, a young student I knew while in the Peace Corps, serving in Barbados, suddenly went over the edge with Hell and demon obsession. What began as simple occasional bible reading transmuted into a pathology of the first order. Whereas she originally read much of the bible in context, this soon changed to merely ferreting out all demonic and Hell references.

By the time she was found one evening, she was drooling at a church door, pounding on it and begging someone to rescue her from demons. In her mind, she literally saw and perceived demons coming after her, in much the same way my brother ("pastor Mike") insinuated I was an "agent of Satan" because I had posted a full bodied defense of atheism on his site.

The girl required being taken to the island's lone institution for housing the psychotic and mentally unbalanced, being put on a strict diet high in B-vitamins, with combined electro-convulsive therapy, and being given an anti-psychotic drug known as "largatyl".

Sadly, I am not even the least bit sure that any of the above could salvage the brains of either Pastor Mike or Rene.

But, one can always hope!