<center>... we are beginning to realize that we cannot fix on the outside what is broken deep within the human heart and psyche.

- John O'Dea</center>

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Visionary Experience in Myth and Culture:

The initial disordered state that I am describing contains two distinct elements. The first is an experience of dying or of having already died, which symbolizes a dissolution of the accustomed self. The second element, closely related to the first, is a vision of the death of the world. In an acute psychosis individuals undergo a profound reorganization of the self, effected by a thoroughgoing reintegration through utter disintegration. Life cannot be repaired, it can only be re-created by returning to the sources. And the 'source of sources' is the prodigious outpouring of energy, life and the fecundity that occured at the Creation of the World.

Since the acute episode of visionary turmoil can have, along with its tormenting aspect, some ecstatic features, I will enlarge on the basic Dionysian principle that the exuberance of vital aliveness is born out of the realm of death. This is the miraculous revelation at the heart of the famous Dionysian rites, the Eleusinian mysteries.

Now this disturbing information is, in our culture, very unwelcome news. Here ecstasy is desirable as long as it is easy to attain. Yet, in truth, to have access to this state the price of admission is to take full account of the role of death. This is a difficult point, for we seem to find ourselves firmly biased against suffering and death as the ultimate enemy, dark and sinister, to whom we give no quarter and show no tolerance. You might say suffering and death are on an equal footing with madness in this respect.

We have seen that the growth process of the psyche, on the other hand, sees all this quite differently. According to the psyche's purposes, in order to break out of the security of solid consensus and convention, one must encounter the experience of the death process in psychic depth, and also at the same time the dissolution of the familiar, accustomed worldview. Though all this demand might seem at first glance overly drastic, it consists actually of the death of the familiar self-image and the destruction of the world image to make room for the self regeneration of each. These two images move together in the process, each an aspect of the other, and both assume the form of the mandala images.

Source: Trials of the Visionary Mind - John Weir Perry

See also: [*] The Relevance of Visionary Experience to Culture
[*] Strange Days ~ Beautiful Midnight

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