Schizophrenia is often wrongly associated with having multiple personalities, but that is actually not what characterizes the disorder at all. the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia according to the widely used diagnostics and statistical manual IV (DSM-IV) include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behaviour, poverty of speech, decreased emotional expressiveness and a lack of desire, drive and motivation. it is very typical to have paranoid illusions, such as believing people can listen in your thoughts. another common feature is auditory hallucinations, particularly voices running a commentary on what you are doing or encouraging you to do certain things. in a first person account by Aaron Reina, an architecture student who developed schizophrenia, he describes how his thoughts became increasingly bizarre from believing strongly that he could determine a persons feelings and thoughts by the colour combination of their clothes to believing he had out of control magic powers and his life had been filmed in similarity to what happened in the movie ‘The Truman Show’ (1).

The first time I learned about the symptoms of schizophrenia it occurred to me that this could actually explain a lot of what is in the bible. the book of exodus describes how Moses allegedly saw a burning bush on Mount Horeb. the prophet Ezekiel heard God speak to extraordinarily often (a whopping 93 times) and was the only prophet to experience command hallucinations such as ‘He said to me; mortal eat this scroll that I give to you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.’ it was not really common practice to eat the scroll so they came up with the cover story that he was ‘ingesting the wisdom of the Torah (law)’ (2). Ezekiel was also allegedly commanded by God to shave his head. This was a bit odd too as it went against the priestly prohibition to shave.

I recently stumbled across the term ‘schizotypal shaman’. This refers to a person that has certain tendencies toward schizophrenia, but these symptoms only occur in ‘appropriate settings’. by appropriate settings I mean that the person would for example have a vision of a God or hear his voice during a religious ceremony, but not experience any hallucinations outside of this setting. these people often become religious leaders due to their perceived ability to see and hear God. To quote Robert Sapolsky, a biologist and professor at Stanford University ‘Western religions, all the leading religions, have this schizotypalism shot through them from top to bottom. It’s that same exact principle: it’s great having one of these guys, but we sure wouldn’t want to have three of them in our tribe. Overdo it, and our schizotypalism in the Western religious setting is what we call a “cult,” and there you are in the realm of a Charles Manson or a David Koresh or a Jim Jones. You can only do post-hoc forensic psychiatry on Koresh and Jones, but Charles Manson is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. But get it just right, and people are gonna get the day off from work on your birthday for millennia to come.’(from a lecture by Sapolsky you can watch on youtube(3)).

Studies have also shown that here is a high prevalence of spirituality and religiousness in patients suffering from Schizophrenia(4). Religion has been proposed to be part of the psychopathology, but also to have a positive affect on some of the symptoms such as poverty of speech, decreased emotional expressiveness and a lack of desire, drive and motivation(5). it has also been suggested that religious rituals and expectations of the family play a major role in the genesis and maintenance of delusions(6).

This raises the question; if Jesus were around today would he be residing in a mental institution?

1. Aaron Reina, the Spectrum of Sanity and Insanity, Schizophr Bull. 2010 January; 36(1): 3–8.2. George Stein, the voices that Ezekiel hears – Psychiatry in the Old Testament, the Brittish Journal of Psychiatry, 2010 196: 101. Click to read article3. Robert Sapolsky lecture: Click to see video4. Mohr S, Perroud N, Gillieron C, Brandt PY, Rieben I, Borras L, Huguelet P, Spirituality and religiousness as predictive factors of outcome in schizophrenia and schizo-affective disorders, Psychiatry Res. 2010 Sep 24.5. Aukst-Margeti? B, Jakovljevi? M, Religiosity and Schizophrenia, Psychiatr Danub, 2008 Sep; 20(3): 437-86. Bhavsar V, Bhugra D., Religious delusions: finding meaning in psychosis, Psychopathology, 2008;41(3): 165-72