Emanuel Swedenborg, Prophet or Paranoid?
Thomas W. Keiser, Ph.D., J.D.*
Introduction
It was nearly a century ago that William James delivered the famous
Gifford lectures at Edinburgh. These lectures gave birth to one of
the world's most penetrating studies of psychology and religion.
The Varieties of Religious Experience became an instant classic. Early in the
lectures, James identifies a common reductionistic fallacy. This fallacy
frequently creeps into discussions of outstanding individuals who have
contributed to their culture by virtue of superior abilities. James was well aware
that individuals who experience unusual mental states, even when
productive of socially desirable results are often tagged with a "diagnosis." A
physician himself as well as a psychologist, James was well aware of
the propensity of the medical profession to pathologize superior
endowments as well as those that are the proper subject matter of psychiatry. He
quotes a sample of authorities.
"Genius," said Dr. Moreau, "is but one of the many branches of
the neuropathic tree." "Genius," says Dr. Lombroso, "is a symptom of
hereditary degeneration of the epileptoid variety, and is allied to
moral insanity." "Whenever a man's life," writes Mr. Nisbet, "is at once
sufficiently illustrious and recorded with sufficient fullness to be a subject
of profitable study, he inevitably falls into the morbid category—And it
is worthy of remark that, as a rule, the greater the genius, the greater
the unsoundness."1
*Dr. Keiser is a clinical psychologist and attorney.
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