Shizophrenia, psychic defense and "A BeautifulMind

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Jacara

On a related note, I'd be interested in seeing if someone who claims to hear voices from "above" (would that be a "medium"?  I'm not good w/ the terminology) would lose that "ability" when put on anti-psychotic drugs.  :shrug:
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus" - Mark Twain

Mobius

G,day Daniel, this is one of those things that is definately debatable.From my past an present experience with schizophrenia,from
visiting a mate who is nearly always in mental wards & getting to
know a lot of regulars in there I really wonder if they have things
under control (doctors/psychiatrists).
A lot of them in there are really gone, but at the same time a lot
of them show special abilities,I have talked to some that have told
me what I,m about to say!(telepathic?)& one day I was playing piano
to some of the patients when a guy who had never talked to anyone &
I thought of as if in a vegetative state, came up & played the
harmony of the song I was playing,& then proceeded to teach Mozart.
Another when I asked " what are you doing " she said
" playing snakes & ladders & their cheating!" who I said your by
yourself, these two & pointed to the air.I immediately became aware
of a presence & looked at her in shock!
None of the doctors/nurses & counsellors believe in anything
metaphysical & seem to be happy to just give them pills & lock them
up.
I really feel an untapped resource is being wasted, as these people
are non functional in the society we have created, but in the field
of metaphysics they could be a genius.
I,m waiting to see the movie & I saw that interview with the real
John Nash, where they put like a virtual reality headset on & he
freaked out.Maybe they are just picking up peoples subconcious
reaction to them?
Totally agree with you here Daniel.

All the best on your journeys

Mobius



Kristen

Hi All,

Schizophrenia runs in my family - I have relatives who've lived successfully in society for their entire lives who hear voices that tell them what to do or not do, and one who has been institutionalized for over thirty years.  

Here's some dated diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia:  

A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech (incoherent, frequent derailment), grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, flat or inappropriate affect.  There are subtypes -

Paranoid type - preoccupation with one or more delusions or frequent auditory hallucinations without prominent disorganized speech or disorganized catatonic behavior, or flat or inappropriate affect.

Disorganized type - all of the following are prominent:  disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, flat or inappropriate affect, and no catatonic criteria.

Catatonic type - at least two of the following - motoric immobility as evidenced by cataplepsy or stupor; excessive motor activity without purpose and is not influenced by environment or external stimuli; extreme negativism (apparently motiveless resistance to all instructions or maintenance of a rigid posture against attempts to be moved: or mutism; peculiarities of voluntary movement as evidenced by posturing (voluntary assumption of inappropriate or bizarre postures), stereotyped movements, prominent mannerisms, or predominent grimacing; echolalia or echopraxia.

So, that's what schizoprenia looks like, but that's no explanation as to why it happens (I don't think the medical and psychiatric community knows the cause.  Schizophrenic brains do operate differently than "normal" brains).  If John Nash can manage to not "indulge certain appetites of the mind;" then sounds to me  he's an extremely high functioning (good reality testing), i.e. symptoms are not continuous/chronic - he's likely on meds... *and then, he's a genious....

Kristen


Rob

Hey
Schizophrenia is quite a umbrella for a wide range of disorders. Personally I see the mind as having a semi-permeable membrane seperating the conscious and the subconscious. In schizophrenia this memebrane seems to become much more permeable, in that the conscious mind picks up lots of psychic and sub-conscious impressions, but cannot particularly comprehend them or relate them into the real world. I have a friend (old pot smoking buddy...) who went schizo about a year or so ago, he carried on trying to balance a pint against the edge of a 2 pence coin when I saw him last, ended up quite wet..... Very confused, he realised at a background level that something was very, very wrong but he could not really comprehend or understand it, only bustle along with little control. This is why people who go that way are told to focus on the physical world, their job and life etc because this pulls them back down to the normal everyday person way of living, ignoring the states which they really connot handle. It is very sad to see though, still.

(!!!Formerly known as Inguma!!!)
You are the Alpha and the Omega. You are vaster than the universe and more powerful than a flaring supernova. You are truly incredible!!

Kristen

Hi Inguma;

Symptomology for psychotic/developmental/organic disorders exist on a continuum and often overlap because any cause(disorder/disease) has multiple consequences within an integrated system (in this case the system is biological and human), - echolalia is a diagnostic critiria for autism for example, and OCD features stereotyped repetitive behaviors which also are a criteria for autism.  Schizophrenia is confused with multiple personality and can look like bipolar.  Depression can involve flat affect which is a criteria of schizophrenia. Depression co-occures with many disorders.

Yikes!

Also, what are the contents of the subconscious?  That which we find unacceptable and cannot consciously face?  That which we cannot sense with our physical senses?  Both and more?  

Kristen  


PeacefulWarrior

You know it's really sad...I work with "sick" people (ranging from mental disability to extreme mental AND physical disablity.

I have come to conclude that while many individuals simple "hallucinate" and live in a world in which their mind creates a lot of what they see, there are others who truly see the other side.

I have also come to comprehend that many people born with disablities are here to teach us...and within they are magnificient spiritual giants, some who need do no more than be examples of what it means to love and be loved.  They can frustrating at times, believe me, but I have learned more patient from these friends than all of my other friends combined.

I am interested to hear what more of you have to say in regards to schizophrenia and John Nash (and "A Beautiful Mind")

I just saw Dragonfly tonight and I ended up really liking it quite a lot...the whole film relies on the final scene of the film, which truly ressurects what I thought was a mediocre film up to that point.  Don't let the preview scare you away...although it is a VERY hollywoodish film, it definetly has a lot to say.  It sparked good conversation for us this evening.



We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
---------------
fides quaerens intellectum

Winged_Wolf

Schizophrenia in its extreme manifestations is truly terrible to witness.  These people truly DO suffer, and it is FAR beyond merely hearing voices or seeing things.  They are coming closer and closer now to understand what is going wrong in the brain of a schizophrenic, and some of the new drugs are far better at controlling the symptoms without leaving the person walking around in a state of "barely there".  It has to do with the way neurons transmit information.  Too much of the chemicals that allow neurons to fire will cause them to fire and pass on information that they shouldn't be passing on.  This occurs in the areas of the brain that control the senses, among other places, and this is why schizophrenics hallucinate.  As a double-whammy, it also happens in the part of the brain responsible for emotional responses--this means that not only does the person hear a voice, but that voice causes an overwhealming emotional response in them, making it far harder to disbelieve it.  They simply MUST listen, and take what they hear VERY deeply to heart.
This is not like having a spirit entity talk to you--when that happens, your emotional responses are your own (or should be!  Another good reason for shielding...).  They are not exaggerated.

What's more, chemical and electrical activity in the part of the brain that allows a person to question their perceptions is reduced below that of a normal person, making it doubley difficult for them to do a reality check.

I'm sure that there are a fair number of schizophrenics who have psi ability, and among the imaginary beings they see, there may be some real ones.  
All things considered, though...I don't think that really matters.  The vast majority of the time, drugs which control schizophrenia also suppress psi ability.  And just as well, for how could they ever know if it was a real ghost, or a hallucination?
Psychic schizophrenics see both.....


--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."
--Winged Wolf
http://www.lulu.com/wingedwolfpsion
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

PeacefulWarrior

I've got to get to bed...but I had to check in one more time... and I just wanted to say that what you (winged wolf) say hits home.  I have had an experience in my life that I am sure was somewhat similar to what a schizophrenic experiences...and it is hell.  I feel SO bad for those who suffer from the illness to the extent they can no longer control their own world.  I can only imagine how it would be...but I have faith that they will, one day, be rid of this disease that affects their physical brain chemistry.

We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
---------------
fides quaerens intellectum

travrai blue robes

best information on this would be from the schizophrenics themselves. John Nash seems like he has some insights into his own condition, he ought to elaborate...


PeacefulWarrior

After having watched the interview (and the film- for whatever that's worth) it seems like these people are afraid to share what they truly feel is happening because either 1) they have been told so many times that it's just a physiological malfunction (which it sometimes is) that they no longer consider that it could be something "real" and 2) they are afraid of being denied a "normal" life (would they allow Nash to teach at the university if they suspected that he believed that some of the voices he heard were truly from external entities?



We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
---------------
fides quaerens intellectum

Rob

Hey Kristen,

quote:

Also, what are the contents of the subconscious? That which we find unacceptable and cannot consciously face? That which we cannot sense with our physical senses? Both and more?


OOooh big question, one I have thought about a lot - I love trying to figure out how the mind works. The way I see it is that the subconscious does contain all the things you talked about, eg repressed emotions. But I also think that it works kinda at right-angles to the conscious mind - which thinks mostly with logic, cause and effect. The unconscious, well, it just does not make sense to the conscious, it thinks....sideways. I was reading Franz Bardons the other day and he was talking about how everything in the universe displays its opposite, and so the mind has the conscious and its opposite, the subconscious, which therefore must work in a very different way.
As an example, schizophrenics often draw conclusions from things which seem utterly irrational to normal people, eg "I got up this morning and mrs jones said that she is getting a new car tomorrow so I just knew I was going to have a really good day", or my friend elwyn trying to balance his pint, or managing to come to the conclusion that a bloke he met in the nut house was his dad (the logic...just didn't work). This is the sort of anti-logic which I think is used by the subconscious mind, but it impinges way too much upon the conscious mind of shizophrenics, confusing them no end.
You can experience this "type" of "thinking" when in deep trance meditation. I believe at this time the conscious mind takes a more backseat role and the subconscious does most the work, or the two meld closer together, allowing direct experience. When I come out of trance, the things I was thinking are just so bizzarre and strange! Very abstract, but there is another component too - RB says that in this state it is the deep mind which is operating. But anyway this just seems all too similar to the examples above. I dunno, it all seems to fit right!


(!!!Formerly known as Inguma!!!)
You are the Alpha and the Omega. You are vaster than the universe and more powerful than a flaring supernova. You are truly incredible!!

McArthur

Studies in Sabbatian Kabbalah: On "Manic-Depression"
Yakov Leib haKohain

Time and again, the issue of Sabbatai Zevi's alleged "manic-depression" is raised by his modern critics and anyone else looking for a way to dismiss or minimize him. In what follows, I propose to discuss this
problem. But first, by way of background, I think it appropriate to describe my credentials for doing so. To begin with, I took my doctorate in Jungian Psychology and Comparative Religion under my mentor, James Kirsch, M.D. -- at the time, the last surviving member of C.G. Jung's original inner circle and a founder, by Jung's personal mandate, of the first Jungian Center (Los Angeles) in the United States, where I did post-doctoral work for three years. I've also published several papers on religion and psychology, particularly Kabbalah, in several journals and anthologies. For example, my paper "For The Sake of God: An Answer to Jung" was published in the Library Journal of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco; and I contributed the chapter, "Kabbalah and the (Jungian) Interpretation of Dreams" in the Jungian anthology, MODERN JEW IN SEARCH OF A SOUL, published by Falcon Press and still available, I believe, through Amazon.com.

Having laid bare my "credentials," so to speak, in my characteristically immodest and self-serving manner, I'd like to discuss briefly the question of Sabbatai Zevi's so-called "mannic-depression." Ever since Gershom Scholem borrowed this phrase from modern clinical psychiatry it has been used repeatedly by scholars and historians to describe the cause of Sabbatai's "strange actions," as they were called at the time -- his swings between religious exaltation and inert despair -- and the
antinomian behaviors attendant on them. As Scholem points out, "His [hostile] contemporaries speak of him as a madman, a lunatic or a fool, and even his followers admitted that his behavior, at least from puberty onward, provided ample reasons for these appelations." (SS: TMM p. 125)

To begin with, such seemingly bizzare behavior is rather typical of religious figures. According to the Gospels (John 10:20) Jesus's own contemporaries said, "He is possessed . . . raving," and his relatives
worried over his sanity. There is a Sutra (I forget which at the moment) in which Buddha's followers discuss whether or not he is "insane." Sri Ramakrishna's family, according to THE GOSPEL OF RAMAKRISHNA, also worried for his sanity and came to fetch him home from the temple where
he was dressing and living as a woman. Meher Baba went through a prolonged period of what contemporary psychiatrists would call "psychosis." And St. Paul complained, "I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me." (2 Corinthians 12:7)

The Prophet Jeremiah best describes such "manic-depressive" religious episodes, and the perceptions of them by others, when he exclaimed, "You have seduced me, Yawheh, and I have let myself be seduced; you have overpowered me: you were the stronger. I am a laughingstock, the butt of
everybody's derisionn. Each time I speak the Word, I have to howl and proclaim: 'Violence! Ruin!'   . . . I used to say, 'I will not think about him, I will not speak in his name any more.' Then there seemed to
be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. The effort to restrain it wearied me, I could not bear it . . . 'Denounce him! Let us denounce him! all those who used to be my friends [would say]."
(Jeremiah 20:7-13)

Clearly, modern psychiatry would describe the Prophet Jeremiah (and others, such as Elijah) as "manic-depressive" or, at least, suffering from some form or another of "psychosis." The problem with the science of modern psychyiatry, however, is that it mistakes LABELING a particular behavior for an EXPLANATION of it. Describing Sabbatai Zevi's religious states as "manic-depression" tells us no more about them, or their causes, than calling them "uppsey-downies" or "innie-outies." All it does is provides us with a scientific "explanation" of a non-scientific event which sciences hesitates to explain in religious terms. Even the arguement that manic-depression is "caused" by an imbalance in brain chemistry (treatable by the use of the medication Lithium) is no explanation at all: is the biochemical imbalance a "cause" or a SYMPTOM of the seemingly erratic behavior? The fact that Lithium stabalizes the brain's biochemistry in "manic-depression" no more proves that the imbalance is a cause, rather than an effect, of the condition than aspirin treatment of a muscle-ache proves that it was
"caused" by sore muscles.

I'm not arguing here against the use of medication in the treatment of psychological conditions. I'm simply arguing that finding a "cure" for something, or giving it a psychiatric label, does not explain its cause. For example, Victorian medical science would have described Sabbatai's condition as the "vapours," along with giving an elaborate explanation of their "causes" which modern psychiatry now lables as "pseudo-scientific." I submit that such labels are not really created to "explain" or "describe" religious phenomena, but to dismiss them. Yet today's "science" is tomorrow's "hokum" -- ad infinitum in proportion to the capacity of the human ego to expand.

Another explanation for Sabbatai's condition can be found in Jung's statement, "The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the third Divine Person, in man, brings about a Christification of many." (Answer to Job, par. 758) Here, Jung uses religious rather than medical metaphors to "explain" the non-medical, transpersonal condition of "God possession," as complained about by Jeremiah and experienced by Jesus, Buddha, Sabbatai Zevi, Ramakrishna Meher Baba and other great Avatars and Tzaddikim. To attribute their religious ecstasies to an "imbalanced brain chemistry" is no more accurate or useful than attributing them to "the indwelling of the Holy Ghost." it's only more comforting to those who don't understand them.
http://www.kheper.auz.com/topics/Kabbalah/manic-depression.htm

Pax

McArthur
------------
"God is mad. If you are ready to be a little mad, only then is there any posibility of any contact between you and the infinite. It had to be so. When the whole Ocean drops into a drop, the drop is going to get crazy. When the infinite descends into the finite, how can the finite remain sane? It has to go mad. The olf Mystics have always called it "The Divine Madness". All meditation is an approach towards divine madness. Stake all human sanity. It is better to be mad in a divine way than to be sane in a human way. i am crazy." - Osho Rajneesh





Kristen

Hi McArthur,

That's a compelling essay - I think that there is some room made in societies across cultures (more room in some and, in some less than in others) for religious delirium or whatever you want to call the experience ... Holy Rollers in America and Kundalini psychosis where-ever are two examples that I can think of right now...  in America it seems that there is much less respect for divine crazyness.

Take care,

Kristen


jo

I was very interested to read all you had to say re manic depression/schizophrenia/mental illness. Without going into the subject too deeply, the aspect re mental illness that worries me is that there are some "New Age Healers" out there, practising in the community, who actually tell clients who suffer schizophrenia, that they are not mad at all. That they are geniuses or something like that....and advise them to stop taking their medication.To tell a sufferer of schizophrenia to cease his medication is all too easy to do because usually a schizophrenic doesn't believe there is anything wrong with him/her anyway. It's the rest of the world that's mad. Not him/her.
 The truth of the matter, as I see it,  is that nobody really knows  the answers to the complexities and imbalances of the mind. The psychiatrists don't, otherwise there would be a cure for schizophrenia.The "New Age Healers" don't have the answers either. In fact, IMO they play a dangerous role in telling sufferers to stop medicating. In my opinion, many, many sufferers of mental illness ARE geniuses...incredible, sensitive creative beings. If they cease their medication, they also often cease to channel their unique talents into creative expression. But if they remain on it, they are capable of producing awesome paintings, writings, sculptures, music etc.In too many cases, the cessation of medication goes hand in hand with suicide. Unfortunately in many cases the voices they hear are telling them they are not worthy enough to live and urge them to kill themselves. I am not a trained psychiatrist so I don't have the medical authority to say too much. But I have been overwhelmed with "Life Experience" on this subject. My sister suffered schizophrenia, as did my nephew. Because my sister (who was a very talented artist by the way)was often unwell, I reared her son for most of his  life along with my own 3 children. I loved him as much as I loved my own kids. He kept refusing to take his medication and I was forever in the same dilemna I experienced around my sister. The medication in the 1970s caused acute muscle stiffening, wooden movements, numbing of thought and emotion etc. and I so often preferred to see my nephew run wild along the beach chasing the seagulls than to be quiet and unresponsive.(Thankfully, medication has continued to improve incredibly throughout the 1980s, 1990s and  in the 2000s.) Anyway, the "voices" won out in the end with Joel. When he was 19 he obeyed the "voices", lay down on a railway track and was decapitated.I feel it is important to take every theory into consideration but to always err on the side of caution.Do you have any comments on what I've just mentioned Mc Arthur? I'd be interested to hear. Thanks. Jo.

jo

PeacefulWarrior

McArthur,
Thank you for contributing to this topic, I too found your essay interesting, to say the least.  

You wrote:
"I'm not arguing here against the use of medication in the treatment of psychological conditions. I'm simply arguing that finding a "cure" for something, or giving it a psychiatric label, does not explain its cause."

I think it was this thought that was lingering in my mind after I saw the film "A Beautiful Mind".  Just because so called science and medicine finds a treatment, or a way to "normalize" something doesn't mean they have found the answers to the why's and how's of a certain problem or state of being.  

Thanks again.

Dan

We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
---------------
fides quaerens intellectum

McArthur

Hi folks,
         just to be clear (i should have been in the original post), the essay is not by me. I gave the link for those wanting more info.

pax

McArthur


Kristen

Hi Inguma,

Interesting thoughts re what the subconscious is...  I've often thought that they're both talking about the same subject matter (the subconscious and the conscious that is), but with different language, different inferences/emphasies...  so I like your right angles thought - there's a component of connection, symmetry and balance in a "shared vertice."

take care,

Kristen

P.S. Sometimes if I listen just right I can understand what my schizophrenic relatives mean.... the meaning is in there and it can deciphered like a dream.


travrai blue robes

When Rabbit Howls is another interesting tale along the mind/spirit connection questions. It's about a women who suffered such severe sexual abuse as a child that she split into something like 90 personalities.

As always I find interesting that most of the doctors/therapists in the story are aware of the odd spiritual/energy connections (such as how her excessive energy because of the multiples effected electronics) but could do little more then acknowledge it privately, those sorts of effects.

Personally, evidence, common sense and experience points to me that releases and cures under psychoanalysis work within energy fields, and that the fields we consider psychology, energy, and spirituality are all rather close to the same thing.


jo

That book was amazing...it was made into a very moving film also. Of course it dealt with Multiple Personality, not Schizophrenia. (Just mentioned that because a lot of people still confuse the two, believing that schizophrenia means "a split personality" rather than a "fragmented mind".)
 Your comments at the end of your post are very interesting and I believe you're right. I have gone from one extreme to the other in my attempts to understand mental illness since the 1970s...from being involved in exorcisms... to understanding and accepting the benefits(in some cases) of modern day methods of administrating ECTs. But there is always a vital X factor missing. What you said in your last paragraph rings a chord of truth within me. Would you care to elaborate more re your beliefs along these lines? Thanks.

jo

PeacefulWarrior

I just wanted to add how sad it made me to see the shock treatments being administered in the film.  Does anyone know why they used them?  I could guess to how it affected the brain, but the details I don't know.

Anyway, I think this gives us a good idea of how a once believed in "cure" looks barabric to us only a few decades later.  Maybe in twenty years we will look back at today's popular psychiatric practices (medications, etc.) and wince...<--(did I spell "wince" correctly??)





Edited by - daniel on 29 March 2002  09:37:34
We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
---------------
fides quaerens intellectum

Winged_Wolf

They used to think that you could shock the brain into behaving normally again.
Actually, shock treatment is undergoing a revival.  It seems that in SOME cases, it can actually cure things like severe depression.  However, sometimes it causes permanent minor disability, and sometimes it does not work.
They still have a lot to learn.


--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."
--Winged Wolf
http://www.lulu.com/wingedwolfpsion
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

Jacara

Yes, they still shock people for major depression that doesn't respond to medication.  But it looks a lot prettier today (I didn't see the film but I've seen other depictions of how it was), in that they give you a muscle relaxant but keep it out of one foot, so they can monitor the seizure in just that foot and they don't have to strap you down.  You wake up groggy and eventually come-to (mostly).
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus" - Mark Twain

jo

The administration of shock treatment (ECT) is completely different from what it used to be. The patient is given not only a muscle relaxant but also a general anaesthetic and the procedure is over and done with in seconds. The patient wakes almost immediately and any slight grogginess is only due to the general anaesthetic, which is minimal. ECT works miracles for many people suffering clinical depression and for whom anti depressants have no effect.It can completely change their lives around. But I guess it will always maintain the stigma of what it used to involve and how it was administered.

jo

PeacefulWarrior

I am going to keep this short and simple:

Last night my finace and I saw "A Beautiful Mind" for the second time. The topic of debate, after the film, was this:  what is "Schizophrenia"?  We came to the conclusion that one who suffers from it could be A) seeing apparitions/hearing voices from their own sub-conscious without being able to distinguish from which source they come (I should re-write that sentence...) OR B) truly seeing "non-physical" beings on another plane/dimension which the individual can see due to enhanced psychic ability, etc.

I saw the interview with John Nash and he says the voices he heard (for unlike the film he only heard voices) are "real" to him.  He thought they were angels or aliens "or something like that"...but has concluded that they were actually voices from his own sub-conscious.  He said in the interview, just like his character in the film, that they are still there, but he has a "diet of the mind" and doesn't "indulge" certain appetites of the mind.

I feel this post belongs in this forum because if one begins to see entities or hear voices that he or she DOESN'T want to hear/see during  waking/"normal" consciousness, is there something they can do to stop them.  Example: would John Nash have benefited from the help of someone like Robert Bruce or was his problem to be solved with chemicals, etc.?  I think these are very interesting and debatable questions.  Ultimately someones consciousness is a very, if not the MOST subjective thing...so if anyone offers their opinion it is simply that, an opinion...but I think these questions are real and important in order to understand one another.

Wouldn't some people call me a schizo because I claim to see auras and recieve communications and intelligence from unseen beings?

We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
---------------
fides quaerens intellectum