FEET OF CLAY
Anthony Storr

Many painters, writers, and composers are narcissistic in that they value their own creative pursuits more than human relationships, and are often predominantly solitary. But, although they may spend much of their time alone, most creative artists want to communicate with others through their work and gain self-esteem from those who appreciate it.

Manic-depressives sometimes claim that their experiences of the depths of despair and the heights of elation have so intensified their lives that, if offered the choice, they would choose to have their illness rather than suffer the tedium of conventional normality.

There is a well-known psychiatric phenomenon called "folie a deux". If two people live together and one is mad, the other may become convinced by at least some of the delusions expressed by the psychotic partner. If the psychotic partner is removed to hospital, the other partner usually recovers his or her sanity.


Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams
Sigmund Freud paper: On Narcissism: An Introduction
Stanley Milgram: Obedience to Authority


If the world had possessed a detailed biographical account of Jesus, an authentic picture of what he was like as a man, it is quite possible that Christianity would not have been established as a world religion. I am not suggesting that Jesus would have been shown up as dishonest or inauthentic; but simply indicating that a person is more easily made into a mythical figure if the outlines of his personality are blurred.

If we were perfectly adapted to the environment and the environment remained constant we might live in a state of blissful ignorance, unaware of any problems, but we should not be inventive because there would be no incentive to be so.

One man's faith is another man's delusion.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh:
There are fictions when the society supports you, there are fictions when nobody supports you. That is the difference between a sane and an insane person; a sane person is one whose fiction is supported by the society. He has manipulated the society to support his fiction. An insane man is one whose fiction is supported by nobody; he is alone so you have to put him in the madhouse.

Aldous Huxley records the case of the Swiss Anabaptist Thomas Schucker, who claimed that he was divinely guided to cut off his brother's head, and did so in the sight of a large audience which included his father and mother.

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