Depression and Memory and So Forth

Yahweh, how about best two out of three?

A good friend writes me about his depression.

My fundamental starting point in all this sort of thing is simply this: forget everything you have heard or read from either psychology or psychiatry. Really, they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about, and never will. Do I need to explain why, or how we know this? Suffice to say that the notion of “mental illness” is a metaphor mistaken for a fact. And, as a metaphor, it does not fit. Not to mention that the idea of a “science of the soul” is at least as absurd as asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. (Forty-two, by the way).

This being so, I am of course fascinated with the question of what depression really is. I'm always half-listening for clues. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of everything we currently call “mental illness.”

Alzheimer's, for example. I believe that, in Alzheimer's, nothing is gone. This is proven by the fact that those who are senile can have periods of perfect lucidity. This could not be so if it were a matter of something missing from the mind. My best guess is that senility is just a movement of the attention from this world to the next, in preparation for death.

Now on to depression and memory. There is a link. Those I know who commonly suffer from clinical depression also seem to have significantly stronger memories than those who do not. They tend to remember many details from their own childhood, for example.

But if so, what does it mean? There are many possibilities.

One is that depression comes from a vivid memory of childhood trauma, that it requires having been abused as well as having a clear memory of it. Indeed, traumatic experiences, Freud to the contrary, tend to improve the memory, so the two may go together. Could well be. This is what psychiatry and psychology currently believe, apparently—that depression is related to childhood trauma.

I think it is also possible that the association of depression with childhood abuse is secondary to the association of depression with a family history of alcoholism. Alcoholism is often a form of self-treatment for depression, I believe. So, if whatever causes depression runs in families, alcoholism is likely to run in the same family. And alcoholics are in turn very likely to get abusive when drunk.

I incline, though, to a different explanation. Medieval thinkers saw memory as the essential mental faculty: memory built soul. (So does suffering). Hence, it may be, simply, that those with stronger memories have stronger souls, and vice versa. Put in religious terms, they are more commonly in contact with, more aware of, the spiritual world. This seems to fit with two other observations I have of the clinically depressed: that they are invariably unusually sincere types, even naive about the ways of the world; and that they invariably have a genuine interest in religion, albeit they are rarely practising. It also fits with another observation commonly made by others: that depression comes with intelligence and creativity. Both are also expressions of soul. Studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of working artists and writers are depressives.

The amusing corollary to this, which I believe, is that those who are not depressive are simply not aware of what is really going on. Depressives are smarter than non-depressives. This is why it is so hard to get rid of it through a “talking therapy”: the doctor probably cannot teach the patient anything he does not already know better than the doctor.

But why would a bigger soul lead to depression? Simple: because this material, social world is not what it should be. The more one is aware of the spiritual world, the more one is aware of the contrast, of how far this present world falls short.

How can this not be so? How are we ever aware of evil without an awareness of good? Of sadness without an awareness of joy? Indeed, as evil is simply a deprivation of the good, so sadness is perhaps only a deprivation of joy. So, if we are of a mind to see nothing of value in this world, as in depression, that has to imply another world somewhere of which we are somehow aware—and a far better world.

What Jesus consistently called the Kingdom of Heaven—and spoke of not only as an afterlife, but as something that is “within you” now, like leaven in a loaf, at least for the “poor in spirit.”

This implies, of course, that all depression is incipiently “manic depression.”

If so, the best cure for depression is to turn away from this dull social world and towards the bright light of the spirit. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what psychiatry and psychology seek to do. Instead, their every effort is strained towards turning the “sufferer” away from any spiritual interests, and towards a more complete commitment to the mundane desert of daily life. The idea is to stop this evil, destructive “rumination” and get them more friends.

So depression is caused by an unusual awareness of the other world, of heaven. But I also suspect that memory specifically is in some way a key to this, that it is a doorway from this world into the spirit. What exists now is what is physically present to our senses; what is physically present to our senses is always and only what exists now. As these things slip into memory, they are also, necessarily, slipping into the spirit, becoming spiritualized. Hence, the memory is, par excellance, the doorway into the spirit. From our memories, we also conjure whatever perception we have of the future. From the future, whatever intimations we have of an afterlife. Not to mention the objects of all thought.

So the need to develop and strengthen the memory is a spiritual necessity.

Related to this: I have always thought that the story of Adam and Eve is not primarily history, but psychology. For example, in the beginning, according to Genesis, there were giants on the earth, and people lived for a much longer time than they do today. Exactly so—is that not just how the world appears in early childhood? Adults are giants to us—if we return later to the scene of our early childhood, we are amazed at how everything has shrunk while we were away; where once those buildings were as tall as the Tower of Babel. And for our elders, time seems frozen—old people were always, or almost always, old, and seem almost eternal. It is only when we get old ourselves that we understand old age not as a permanent state of being, but as a threshold we cross for only a few moments on our way elsewhere.

Noah's flood, in turn, is the flood of time and of the external sensory world, causing for most of us and for most of our perceptions a general forgetting. Noah's ark is precisely the ark of memory, which retains an essence of all the things worth preserving in our sense perceptions, and carries them along past death into the spiritual world.

Building the ark.

The original sin, accordingly, is in some real sense something we all do, soon after the point of first consciousness. This is why we are all tainted by it. When we first attain self-consciousness, our first instinct is to see ourselves as all-important, as like gods, little centres of our own universes, and, when slighted, our first impulse is to murder our brother. Growing up, when it happens, is growing past these original impulses. Loading the ark of memory is the first, essential, step.

Let's fast forward in our history of salvation to the Beatitudes. Are they not, frankly and plainly, God's DSM, a precise definition of the phenomenon formerly, falsely, known as “depression”?

3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The DSM of psychiatry and psychology gets hung up on the mourning part, because that is what makes it seem most like a “disease,” and that is what they are looking for. That's where the money comes from. But really, the thing itself is much more complex. For example, studies show, not only that depression runs in families, but that it runs in families by marriage. Depressives are extremely likely to marry fellow depressives.

This implies, among other things, that depression, if it is an illness, is in fact a contagious illness. I believe this is quite true, and so it is hard to fault people for being afraid of and trying to shun people who are depressed. Instinctively, at least, they know that depressives are dangerous to them. Depression is contagious precisely because it is the truth. It is a bit difficult to unlearn the truth once one has discovered it. Kind of like the knowledge of good and evil, in that regard.

Worse, depressives are called on to evangelize that truth: to let their light shine, like a city on the hill. This is profoundly socially subversive, and always will be.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit."

Here, then, is how to spot a depressive, or a real Christian—they being the same thing—at a cocktail party:

1. They are “poor in spirit”--that is, un-self-centred. They do not seek physical possessions, and they do not seek attention to themselves. They are not troubled when the spotlight is on others.

2. They are meek—without pretensions. “Low self-esteem” is the unfortunately negative way this is portrayed by psychology.

3. They hunger and thirst for righteousness—they have a strong sense of right and wrong, a strong conscience. They will commonly place this above self-interest.

4. They are merciful—in general, empathic towards others. They're the ones who are still there when you hurt, or who will gravitate to others needing help.

5. They are pure in heart—without guile. They do not “play games.” They do not particularly care what others think of them, and they do not try to create a false impression.

6. They are peacemakers—in general, they do not like to compete, and are not driven by competition with their neighbours.

They commonly have experiences of being persecuted—here the abuse indeed comes in. According to Jesus, though, it is not just the fact of being abused, but of being abused for one's righteousness. Commonly, they have been abused by parents, superiors, therapists, or peers precisely for being especially conscientious as a child, then as an adult. This is the way of the world. Those who have things to conceal fear and despise the light.

These “depressives” are exactly the people Jesus was speaking to. They are also exactly the people the Buddha was speaking to—there are similar passages in the Buddhist canon. To be “depressive” is to be spiritual.

Hence, the troublesome symptoms of “depression” are no more and no less than St. John of the Cross's “Dark Night of the Soul.” They are the call to the spiritual pilgrimage. When they persist, they are the experience of being caught in the doorway, not sure which way to move. Tragically, this is the situation more or less forced on sufferers by modern psychiatry/psychology, and by the social world in general, so that what was once a temporary disorientation on the threshold of something unspeakably wonderful has become for most a permanent “disability.”

I noted that depressives I know tend to be sincerely interested in religion, but not practising. I think becoming fully practising is the key. This is not easy; it takes profound courage: it is rather like jumping off a cliff, off of all solid ground. There is a reason why it is called “the leap of faith.” The fundamental necessity is to once and for all accept and affirm that “this” world is a crock, and that only God matters. St. John puts it, “live as though there are only you and God in the world.” Nothing really makes any sense on the conventional understanding of the world. Totally bollocks. But everything makes sense if everything that happens to you is a direct dialogue with God, God trying to tell you something.

Now a word about other “mental illnesses”: I was struck while in Korea with how the symptoms of a vocation as a mudang—a spirit medium or shaman—are exactly those that cause a diagnosis as “schizophrenic” in the West. Consider that: in Canada, you are permanently disabled and put on drugs for life. In Korea, you simply have a new job. Surely the Korean interpretation is demonstrably better and more correct? It is psychiatry, again, that is creating the “illness.”

In Christian terms, of course, shamanism equates to demonic possession. Shamans themselves understand this, and are quite clear about it: one becomes a shaman because one is possessed by a spirit too powerful to be exorcised.

The preferable alternative, then, is exorcism.

Have you ever wondered how Christianity, a small, hated, persecuted cult, grew so rapidly to take over the Roman Empire? Have you ever wondered how Judaism, before it, gained such prestige, allowing it to survive when all other ancient religions have died away?

The matter, according to many accounts, was quite simple and empirical. The Jews were the experts at exorcism. They were able to drive out demons that no other known technique would. And the Christians seemed to inherit this ability. Monotheism was the antidote to demonic possession.

St. Benedict performing an exorcism.

It would be still today, if we tried it. It still is, in the Muslim world. It is interesting that, currently, and since the Second World War, rates of mental illness of all kinds have been skyrocketing in the developed world. Thirty years ago, I recall, the rates were already four times what they had been prewar. They have only been growing since. It is possible, of course, that this is due to more accurate reporting; but that is not the most obvious explanation. The most obvious explanation is that this phenomenon is simply inversely tracking the decline in religion, which has been equally remarkable over the same period; and the rise of psychiatry in its place.

There is a moral dimension to all this, of course. It is not that the insane, or the depressed, are less moral than most—just the reverse, actually. But guilt is often an important barrier to our healing. Most commonly, we resist a full conversation with God because we are afraid of him, because of something wrong that we remember we have done. Memory again.

To Shakespeare, who was after all one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, the matter was plain. I just finished rereading Shakespeare's MacBeth, which is largely a study in madness. Some demonic possessions, true, have nothing to do with personal guilt. But at least some forms of psychosis, like MacBeth's and Lady MacBeth's, are caused by remembering doing something that you now deeply regret. Having murdered Duncan, they descend progressively through the gates of memory into madness. They are hounded, through memory, with the realities of the spiritual world. They are obsessed, in the true literal sense, with the ghosts of Duncan and Banquo.

I have seen something like this in full schizophrenics I have known. Unlike depressives, they seem to have engaged in classically immoral behaviour at some point in their past. Usually sex, because otherwise they'd be in prison instead of a psychiatric facility.

I recall reading a book on the death penalty in Florida, which mentioned that just about everyone on death row was apparently clinically psychotic. Interesting. Were they insane when they committed their crimes? Unlikely—it would have been hard to premeditate and plan, and that's required for the death penalty. One of the men was a killer for the Mafia—that's business, and they're not going to leave it to a madman. Were they driven crazy by the thought of their impending death? Maybe—but that does not seem to match with so many accounts of other people facing death with hope and clarity. Is it not, logically, the notion of facing death specifically with a guilty conscience that has driven them mad? QED.

An absolutely classic fantasy of the psychotic, by the way, seems to be that God is out to get them. They imagine God devouring their innards, like Prometheus, or penetrating their minds with probes or eating their brains out of their bare skull. Paranoia is a more generic form of the same thing—some alien or American or UN or Jewish organization behind the universe is out to track them down and make them pay.

Obviously not a good place to be. Such people are already in hell. The solution, again, is to turn to religion and to God, and ask for forgiveness. Because their consciences are more damaged, it is harder for them. Psychiatry and psychology make it much harder still.

More to come.