A LITERARY INTERLUDE: The Grand Inquisitor in the Twenty-First Century- The Dramatic Conclusion

The landscape changed little from a year ago.  A rising full moon silhouetted the trees that remained twisting in odd angles by the driving wind. 

In a year, Osterreich had never once thought of himself as having done evil.  He never dwelled on his having committed violence or having kept a hostage.  The only thing that troubled him throughout his ordeal was that, in all this time, he never once felt at ease to open the door to release his guest because he had never felt ready to conduct the interview that he had planned from the beginning, the last step that would draw his experiment to a close.

Having visited him several times a day for what was now a year, he could see Jesus’ handsome face everywhere without having to look at him.  Osterreich saw in that face a serenity that he hadn’t anticipated.  But the placidity, the endless curiosity, the constant request for more and more books served to accuse more than console him.  His imperturbable calm pointed out the flaws that existed in his own nature.  Jesus’ large, liquid blue eyes never accused, but always felt accusing.  Still worse, after the first weeks, he never asked to leave. 

Despite any trepidation, Osterreich knew he would finally have to let the young man go.  Calming his aching heart, he made his way back down the stairs to call an end to what had been a grand adventure.  Osterreich bit his lip, then threw open the door.

Jesus, who had been standing in the middle of the room reading Shakespeare, held one arm extended, his face filled with anguish.

“‘Alas, poor Yorick,’ you’re supposed to say,” the doctor said glibly, the trace of a tear in his eye.

“I wasn’t reading aloud.  I was blocking the play as I might present it.  Why?  Is it finally time for the interview we were going to have?”

Dr. Osterreich was speechless.

“How did I know?”  Jesus raised an eyebrow.  After a moment, he continued solicitously.  “But, wouldn’t it be better if we could do this upstairs?  It would be much more comfortable and, besides, I haven’t seen the common area for…one year, isn’t it?  Don’t worry.  I won’t leave, not until you are satisfied that your research is complete.”

Upstairs, Jesus slowly examined the room.  “Where’s the dining room set that was here?”

“In the dining room where it belongs, now that all the file boxes are in storage.  I replaced it with the set of divans and I decided to put in a tea table as you see,” Osterreich replied.

Jesus paced the room musing aloud.  “Which one shall I sit in?  The one that is facing the door or the one that is nearest it?” 

“Whichever one you like,” Osterreich replied with forced indifference.  “I’m letting you go.”

Jesus settled himself on one of the couches, then folded his hands in his lap.  “Where would you like to start?”

Osterreich lowered himself into a seat, mum.

“Well, perhaps I should begin without you.  If I miss anything, you may ask me questions.”  Jesus paused for a breath.  “It is rude to treat people the way you treated me.  When you first locked me up, I was pounding on the door because I wanted to get out.  Yours was a violent act, an act that must anticipate a violent response.  You would want to know if I would be capable of violence now, after the treatment.  Yes, I could kill you now. But I was never one to hold grudges, even before the treatment.  You might also wish to know why I didn’t free myself?  In truth, I really didn’t want to.  I am not sure that it was your intention, but at a certain point you stopped treating me like an animal.  Perhaps it was a mistake on your part, but you actually started treating me well.  I like a good cut of meat from time to time and you supplied it without me having to ask.  You started to talk to me civilly and that was nice, but certainly not necessary.  Then, you were supplying me with a warm bed and at least passably comfortable quarters.  And finally you began giving me the books of my choosing.  The television, by the way, was a bit of humor.  I am sure you don’t recall me ever having watched the noxious thing. 

“And when you found out that I liked to read and discovered that I read the same books you did, your ability to relate to me as a person only increased and my situation improved, so that finally I didn’t want to leave.  That’s why it’s unnecessary for you to guard the door now… And then there is the question of me feeling that I had been here before.  But, I’ll get to that later… In sum, I would say that your precious remedy had more use for you than for me.  It permitted you to treat me better and I responded by treating you better.

“Do I enjoy being able to think and feel more clearly?  Yes, it’s useful to understand my motives before I commit an action.  With this knowledge, I am more likely to reach my intended goal rather than do something that is destructive and irrational.  That’s probably the only thing that keeps me from killing you now.”

Osterreich pulled on his collar uncomfortably.

“But getting back to my point, having this awareness has done little to change my life’s circumstance.  I am still homeless, still without a job, and otherwise useless… I no longer have manic episodes.  Yes, I was manic-depressive.  I knew it when you found me.  But I didn’t give a shit.”  Jesus sat silent for a moment.  “Please pardon my use of language.  I didn’t mean to be so out of control… 

“I will now inform you of my identity.  I was born Jerry Waller, but believe I am Jesus Christ.  My parents threw me out of the house when I was a young man because they thought me spoiled, a description that might have applied equally to them.  But I won’t begrudge them that.  It does not fit in with my idea of who I am, after all I do believe I am Jesus, and, unless I am off the mark, your intention when developing your medication was to create a being that is Christ-like.  Eh?”

Osterreich reluctantly nodded.

“I thought so.  So, you should be happy.  Your medication works!  You accomplished your end and I mine.  Thank you!”  Jesus paused again.  “Have you gotten all this down?  I don’t see you writing?”

“I am listening,” Osterreich said.

“Finally, let me discuss my nature and the nature of, well, people, all people.  I also will address that nagging feeling that I have been here before.  You see, we have been here before, having this same conversation, both of us, you and I.

“As a youth, I was quite impressionable.”  He paused for a long moment.  “Anyway,” he continued distractedly, having some difficulty regaining the thread of his thought.  “As a youth,” he repeated, “I read Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.  I reread it several times since I’ve been here…  Anyway, when I read it for the first time, I could not help thinking that the story somehow was about me.  I have always felt adored, but misunderstood…”  There was a long pause as he began studying Osterreich’s face.  “And you look just the way I had always imagined.  The Grand Inquisitor!  Without the beard, of course.  Why don’t your grow your beard back and cover that twisted face?”  Jesus squinted at Osterreich, trying to imagine him with a beard.

“Anyway… whether you were the source of Dostoevsky’s story or not… we discussed man’s nature– people-nature– during the past year just as we did before.  Last time we met you said that people cannot live with freewill, but can only survive in packs, following a charismatic leader who dispenses bread.  Having crossed paths again, your new goal was to repair people chemically.  If only you could!  When you last forced your ideas down my throat, we were in a time when people were starving.  When food is scarce, when death is in the air, people rally around a leader.  But, circumstances have changed since we last met.  Now you don’t want to fix people’s bellies, but fix their minds, but always with the goal of leading them.” 

Osterreich was terrified.  He could not fathom that anyone, especially someone as evolved as this man, could perceive his efforts in any way similar to that of the Grand Inquisitor.

“Now, here it is the Twenty-First Century… You locked me up in the Land of Freedom, while you in the spirit of scientific inquiry roamed free.  I don’t begrudge you that.  Your medicine was to set me free.  It did and I thank you.  Now, this is what I have learned in order to be able to respond to your learned arguments of a hundred years ago.  Today, people don’t roam in packs.  They wander aimlessly alone, as individuals.  They don’t benefit from each other’s experience, but, like you, see themselves as the source of all knowledge.  They are complete unto themselves without any awareness that there is anything to be learned outside themselves!  What little insight they have, they get from machines that are made with the purpose of catering to them, holding up a mirror for their amusement. 

“Not even God would be capable of guiding their steps. How can you expect to?  The result, my friend, is that at this moment you would be incapable of leading anyone as you have in the past.  How can you lead people who cannot see past their noses, past the mechanism that made and nurtures them?  These are people who would destroy anyone as quickly as they would discard a food they don’t like the taste of or a computer game that fails to catch their interest, but they will not destroy the factory that produces the toys.

“Which leads me to my final point, we are both antiquated.  Without culture or hardship, we have nothing to bring to the people.  You cannot bring them to survival from your point of view and I cannot bring them to redemption from mine.  That is the real reason that I didn’t escape.  I woke up one morning in the little room that you set aside for me and I realized that I had nothing to do and nowhere to go.  The only thing left was to develop and redeem myself.”

The two men sat facing each other for a long time and, for once, neither thought that there was anymore to be said.  Jesus accepted a small glass of cognac for all his talking and, when he had finished it, he asked to go back to his room.

Osterreich thanked Jesus for sharing His thoughts and gave Him a smart, military slap on the back.

As He headed toward the stairs unescorted, Jesus paused. “The only thing I ask besides this sanctuary is the opportunity to leave and come back.  I would like to get some air from time to time.”

 

 

A LITERARY INTERLUDE: The Grand Inquisitor in the Twenty-First Century- Part 2

Following is a summary of Dr. Osterreich’s research notes.  A sample entry explains the doctor’s difficulty at that moment.

“If I hear him say even one more time the word ‘motherfucker’ or ask after Mary Magdalene, ‘How has Mary been doing?’ or ‘What does she look like?’ I am sure that I will vomit.”

     But it was only by answering Jesus’ questions that Osterreich was finally able to lure him into the house.  “Yes, she is doing very well.  She is in good spirits and she wants very much to see you.”

It was even more difficult to convince Jesus to enter the Human Subjects Laboratory in his basement.  First, he offered him some dessert wine and, when he was drunk, Dr. Osterreich described Mary for him.  “Yes, she is very beautiful.  She is large on top, very well endowed.  She has a petite waist and long, shapely legs.  But, why ask me about her?  Go and see her for yourself!  She is right downstairs waiting for you.”

     The doctor notes that Jesus was particularly interested in the color and texture of Mary’s hair and the size of her nose.  “He is obsessed with her nose, evidently out of fear that it might be too large and her face Semitic as her genetic heritage would dictate rather than Aryan like his.”  For this reason, the doctor thought that Jesus might be racist.

     Drunk on wine and filled with anticipation, Jesus flew to the basement.  Osterreich digresses at this point in his writings to describe the room that Jesus would occupy, with a detailed explanation of the purpose for every item therein.  He writes at length of his foresight at having left the door ajar so that the room might be ready for “speedy occupation by the subject.”  Then, he writes:

…Jesus accompanied me down the stairs.  As we descended, he appeared to be sniffing like a dog.  When we got to the landing, he said the most curious thing, “I feel as if I have been here before.”  I pretended to laugh it off, but he surprised me so!  Moreover, I was challenged to find a way to get him into a room where there was no female.  Then I realized there was no slot in the door for his food. I could well imagine that he would take every opportunity to escape, especially when he was being fed.  Despite my concerns, I opened the door as he watched me from a distance. Then, sticking my head inside, I spoke as if to a woman.  When I turned back to Jesus, he was reluctant to even approach the door, until I resorted to describing the imagined creature this time in greater detail.  If not for the wine, I scarcely believe that I should have prevailed in my efforts.  I described not only the ample size of her breasts, but also the color and shape of her nipples, until he at last charged the door, not with lust, but with anger, shouting, “You whore, slut, bitch”.  He appeared to recognize his predicament, when, having stopped in the doorway, he saw no one.  And I shoved him inside, quickly securing the bolt behind him.

     Dr. Osterreich tells of the banging and yelling “like a banshee” that ensued during the first few hours of Jesus’ confinement.  He describes the loud snoring that filled the room, nay, the whole house, which served as a signal that his subject could safely be fed without fear of him escaping but that produced such a din as to keep the doctor awake throughout that night and the following day.

“I kept thinking as I lay overwhelmed with stress and fatigue that I would do well to kill Jesus myself,” the doctor remarks, “but chose not to.  Not that anyone would find him, but I was anxious for the experiment.  Besides, what if, after the treatment, he should prove to be the real Jesus?  Look what I would have lost by killing him!”

     The next entries describe his efforts to get Jesus to take his medicine.  “I started out by cajoling him again,” the doctor writes.  “Then, I begged and pleaded, despite knowing this would not be effective.  I promised him an extra helping of gruel.  Then, I promised him a steak.  I offered to bring him Mary Magdalene, planning instead to bring him a prostitute. He rejected all my offers, calling me a liar!”

The doctor describes how he braved opening the door to show Jesus what to do with the pill, pretending to take it himself, while secreting it in his palm, then in his cheek after Jesus managed to catch him at the first subterfuge.  He notes his concern about having accidentally ingested some of the medicine and violating the protocol.

     After several days of pounding, shouted entreaties, along with threats and promises of a reward for freeing him, Jesus took to feigning illness.  After a week, with no response from the doctor, his efforts were reduced to a periodic scratching on the door.  Finally, after a month, Jesus uttered his first words without deprecation or hostility.  He said, “May I at least be allowed to have a television?”

     The doctor repaired at once to the basement and, unmindful of caution, swung the door open wide.  Jesus greeted him by driving his head into the doctor’s solar plexus, a greeting which the doctor received with alacrity, according to his notes.  After a brief scuffle, Jesus was subdued with neither antagonist injured.  The doctor then describes Jesus’ physical appearance, the first such notation since the initial entry.

     “He has become quite emaciated,” the doctor writes, “but, despite this, he appears well rested and in good spirits.  Food litters the floors and the walls… but there is neither smearing of fecal matter nor a smell of urine.  Perhaps, this fellow is more civilized than I at first thought.”

     With the doctor guarding the doorway, they converse.  The doctor records the subject saying something unexpected.

“I feel as if I’ve been here before,” he said and I became uneasy.  “I have the feeling that I was confined to this very room more than a hundred years ago and you,” he pointed at me, “were trying to convince me that it was the 1500s.”  The subject gazed at me, then held up his open hand, covering my chin, while I reflexively raised my fist to defend myself.  “You had a long, scraggily-looking beard.  Yes, you look exactly the same.  Boy, were you ugly!”  If he had only shut his mouth then, if he could only refrain from using the word, “Motherfucker!”  Then, I almost did strike him. I was about to slam the door, when he said, “I don’t like these Readers Digests.  Get me some real books or get me a television…”  I was aghast.  “And then I’ll take your damned pills.”  I almost fell down to kiss his feet.  I was so excited.  I started to thank him, but I caught myself.  “Take the pill first and I’ll get you books and a television.  What kind of books would you like?”  “Dostoevsky,” he replied, “Mishima, Jane’s Military Histories… and a Garfield calendar.”  His choice of reading made me wonder whether he was really mentally ill at all.  “What is the Garfield calendar for?” I asked despite myself.  “I need to know the date,” he yelled, “Don’t I, motherfucker?”  I was about to strike him, when he winked at me. Then, he snatched the pill right out of my hand and swallowed it.  I wanted to kiss his lips.  “Thank you!  Thank you!” I said.  “Don’t forget the television and the books,” he chided.  I could still hear him calling his instructions as I retreated down the hall, “I’ll need cable for the TV.  Reception is poor otherwise.”

     The doctor notes that he no longer had any trouble with Jesus after that.  Jesus took his bright blue pill happily three times per day.  Except for his wild shrieks about once a fortnight, Jesus seemed unusually well occupied and did not offer the appearance of wanting to leave.  As a reward for his much desired silence, willingly taking his medications, and undergoing psychological tests, the doctor spent increasing amounts of time with Jesus.

     After taking the last dose of the medication that would rid Jesus of every mental disease and of the least flaw in his thinking, Dr. Osterreich’s notes abruptly end.

 NEXT: The Grand Inquisitor in the Twenty-First Century- Conclusion

 

A LITERARY INTERLUDE: The Grand Inquisitor in the Twenty-First Century- Part 1

It was a miracle by any standard.  Having analyzed the brain on every level– chemical, electrochemical, structural– and its products– the organ’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors– there was a breakthrough, a way to make the machine work properly, efficiently, and consistently.  This discovery would streamline human thought, making it elegant, even spiritual, permitting a leap forward in human evolution. 

“It is time for us all to ascend,” Dr. Osterreich declaimed, his voice tense with excitement.

Biting his lip, he regarded a pile of blue powder on a bit of wax paper before him, then took it all in his hairy hand. The particles seemed to glow!  He felt an urge to press the powder to him, to feel it on his skin.  But he dared not do this.  Such an act would violate the protocol!

Osterreich wanted to swallow the drug himself.  He yearned to eliminate all the contradictions in his life, to quell his inconsistent and raging impulses.  But his own protocol forbad it!  He needed a subject, someone whom he could question and analyze objectively to assess the drug’s effects.

Osterreich’s hand was damp.  Beads of sweat gathered on his brow.  He carefully slid the specimen back onto the stainless steel table.

“First, there was Thorazine, then Haldol.  They only treated Schizophrenia.  There were the Tricyclic antidepressants and the mood stabilizers like Lithium.  They each gave way to more modern drugs, the Prozacs and Zolofts, the Clozarils, then the Zyprexas, that targeted specific neuro-receptors.”  Osterreich laughed.  “Science was moving in the wrong direction.  You don’t target increasingly minute and specific parts of the brain.  No!  You look at the more global.  You have to look at the whole brain and change it.”

This cure was for all humanity.  Having cured mental illness, the same drug would move people along their evolutionary way.  But, first, he needed to test it on someone who had undergone such a change, who had reached this pinnacle of development. 

In his excitement, Osterreich continued his oration to the empty lab that doubled as his kitchen.  “The entire goal has been to bring the irrational under the direct control of the rational, to render the unconscious impulses conscious, to find the common link between our thoughts and urges and enlist them in the pursuit of higher, loftier aims.

“Why do people have a need for violence or even sex?” he demanded, jabbing his finger aloft.  “For ascendancy?  History shows that all dictators are miserable.  For procreation?  Almost anyone can tell you that orgasm provides more relief than pleasure…And then there are the offspring!  Children!”  His lips curled.  “The goal should be to have the animal impulses work in concert with our rational goals rather than overrun and dominate them.  Happiness can only result from that.  Put the two levels of thought together, the cerebral cortex and the reptilian brain, and you can have an end to disorders of thought, an end to irascible mood, an end to discomfort, dysphoria, and dissatisfaction.”

Looking up, Osterreich saw a full moon smiling at him through his laboratory window.  Looking down, he saw a sink full of dirty dishes, the counter filled with stained coffee cups.  He knew he would be unable to sleep.  He could no longer control himself.  He had to find his first subject!

Thrusting his furry arms into his coat, Osterreich caught a hair on the inner seam.  He winced, then, wrapped the coat around his short, twisted frame.  With his coat fastened, only a shock of straight, brown-gray hair, narrow eyes, and his bent nose were visible above the collar.

It would not be long until daybreak.  He had to hurry!  He had to find a suitable subject — a victim of society, someone bent by civilization, whom was unable to solve the problems of living.  This man (and his subject had to be a man) must be pure.  Moreover, to insure that this would be a real challenge for the medication’s efficacy, Osterreich wanted someone able-bodied with a mental illness, but it must be a pure mental illness, someone with delusions and an occasional hallucination, but without deep-rooted anger or resentments.

“And then, after the treatment, the subject will be cured of mental illness, but will still be pure.  My subject will become like Jesus.  He will see things in their essences.  Then, we will have our little talk.”

When Osterreich opened the door to leave, it blew in on him.  He had to pull with all his weight to get it closed.  The tails of his coat flapped wildly, his eyes watering as he turned into the wind.  Holding his collar in his fist and with head down, he proceeded toward the highway, where the homeless took shelter under the bridge.

He walked past houses, past vacant lots filled with weeds and refuse made visible by the full, grimacing moon.  As he approached a bridge, the wind died down, leaving the sounds of garbage trucks and semis rumbling on the highway overhead.

“I’m looking for… I’m looking for Jesus.” Osterreich was pleased with his choice of words.  “I am looking for Jesus, after all,” he thought.  He shouted his demand toward a dead scrub tree where a triumvirate of grizzled men was huddled.  One thrust out a flaccid arm, as if to usher Osterreich on his way.

Under the bridge, he found a gray-haired couple, the woman’s head sagging into her husband’s neck whose head flopped back onto hers.  A child, who apparently belonged to them, had his fist wrapped tightly in his mother’s shabby jacket.

“I’m looking for Jesus,” Osterreich said as he was hurrying past. 

To his surprise, the young boy’s eyes popped open.  He was fully awake.  “Jesus?  He’s over there!” the boy answered, stretching out his small arm.  “He’s in the park.  He lives on that bench.”

Osterreich peered in the direction indicated, but could see nothing in the darkness.  He walked down the street for several blocks before finding the park.  Mounting a hill, he saw the outline of a shaggy head near a bench.

He stopped and saw a thin male figure with long, light-brown hair, his face patched with bits of downy beard. Osterreich guessed him to be in his early twenties.  He watched the man sit, then place a little bundle next to him.  The man licked his fingers and gently unfolded one flap, then another of the metallic paper, pressing each corner flat against the wood bench.  Having exposed a hamburger, the man set it all back on his lap.  Osterreich discerned him licking his large, feminine lips as he tenderly lifted the bun.

“Are you Jesus?” Osterreich’s words were harsh amid the rustle of leaves and twitter of sparrows.

Poised to eat, Jesus responded.  “Yes.  What of it?” he did not want to be disturbed.

“I was looking to talk to Jesus,” Osterreich said.

The young man stood.

“I was wondering how you managed to obtain food at a time like this since I believe that most eating establishments are closed at this hour.”  Osterreich looked for the young man’s reaction.

The young man smiled affably.  “Well,” he said, “That’s why they call me Jesus.  Because I am able to get a hot meal even at such a late hour.  Now, if you’ll leave me in peace, I would like to enjoy it before it gets cold.”  He took a hearty bite of the sandwich.  His chewing slowed as he noticed Osterreich studying him.

“Where did you get a hot dinner in the coldest part of the night?” Osterreich persisted.

The young man scowled.

Osterreich abruptly reached up to touch the man’s sandwich.

“Your food isn’t hot at all,” Osterreich informed him.

“What’s it your damned business if my sandwich is hot, cold, or indifferent, motherfucker?  It’s my goddamned sandwich, isn’t it?”  Furious, the young man took another large bite under the watchful eye of Osterreich.

“So, you’re Jesus?  How do you know you’re Jesus?” Osterreich pestered, waiting eagerly for his reply.

“My parents were Mary and Joseph, right?  I trod the path of the innocent, right?  I preach sweet gentleness and freedom.  I’m anti-abortion and pro-life.  I’m against uncontrolled, frivolous spending and I hate taxes, particularly unfair ones.  And I’m against the stupid things that our taxes pay for, like the CIA and the FBI and the police and the militia…”

Osterreich listened to every word, smiling.  He had found a viable subject.

Jesus saw him smile and began to yell louder.  “And I’m against motherfuckers that I don’t know prying into my life, asking stupid questions, and interrupting my peace.”  He raised what remained of his sandwich over his head and looked like he was about to hurl it at Osterreich, who stood fast. 

“What?  Are you spying on me?”  Jesus said, his eyes smoldering.  “I’ll throw you out of the temple, you money lending, spying son of a bitch.”  Then, he raised his fists.

The doctor raised his arms above his head to surrender.  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” Osterreich said evenly, “but I had to be sure it was you.”

Surprised, Jesus arched an eyebrow, then slowly lowered his fists.

“I am a humble doctor on a quest.  I seek Jesus.”

With these words the moonlight shone on Jesus’ face.

Osterreich found himself staring into the young man’s large, blue eyes.  “He is beautiful, beautiful in an Aryan way,” Osterreich thought, “And how strange!  This might be the real Jesus come back to earth.”

“And now that you have found Jesus, what do you want of me?” the young man asked, more relaxed.

Osterreich struggled to find a suitable answer.  “I have…” he stammered, “…I have Mary Magdalene…and she begged me to find you.  I had to be sure it was you, that you weren’t an impostor.”

“I understand,” Jesus said with an eager smile.  “Now I understand why you needed to be careful.  How has Mary been doing?”

Osterreich watched as the young man wolfed down the rest of his sandwich, then waited expectantly for his answer.

“Well,” Osterreich said, “well.”

“Well?” Jesus inquired earnestly.

“Well, let me take you to her, then.”

     Without further delay the two men left for Osterreich’s laboratory just as the sun started rising.

NEXT: The Grand Inquisitor in the Twenty-First Century- Part 2

A LITERARY INTERLUDE: Psychology and Fiction

Long, long ago… before there was an Internet or movies, television or radio, Frodo and Gandalf (movie version), Star Wars or Star Trek… before there was ANYTHING… people read stories and poems, people went to plays and concerts.  People met in the streets and had conversations. 

 

During this time, which surely must seem to be a time of boredom to some, the purpose of these forms of communication was not only to entertain, but to inform each other, not only about things happening in the world, but also about ourselves.  It was a way to explore our phenomenal world by imagining the reality of it.  A good story, a good piece of music or art could be tested out by seeing how it conformed to what we knew about the world and about ourselves.  Likewise, what we knew about the world could be used to enrich our creativity and appreciation of the art we joined with. This was not life imitating art or art life, but art extending what we knew about life and, for the artist and audience, about the intuitive understanding of life extending what is known about art.  The creation and the marriage of the two was a union between our inner and outer worlds.

 

Strange as it may seem, before there were research and statistics, before we split the atom and flew to the moon, knowledge about phenomena was passed through art that came from what people learned about the world through observation, inquiry, and imagination. Sometime in the past 50 years or so, electronics and computers took creative knowledge away. Knowledge became what you read after you pushed the button.  It was at the end of the ticker tape, after all the bells and whistles went off.  At this point, it ceased to be what you put into the machine to make it clank and belch at the appropriate time and how it got to the answer you were looking for.  The art stopped being what was in the machine so much as it was what came out of it.  Art was what people hurtled against stationary objects.  Music was what thumped out of the can next to you, rattling your bones, when you were stopped at a light.  Literature was drowned in a sea of entertainment that took far less effort.  Fiction was the stuff left to airports, the stuff that offered us an opportunity not to think, but that took up residence in our heads.  It told us the answer to a detective mystery, but not to the biggest mystery of all, the mystery of our selves and our lives. So much mind numbing, so little to wake us up.  Even less to think about!

 

The same stultifying of the creative beast can be seen in the evolution from the psychological novels of Dostoevsky, to the allegedly more scientific practice of psychoanalysis, to the scientific studying of observable behavior, to the “true” science of reducing behavior to numbers and crunching them in a computer to determine what, if anything, moved.  Somewhere in this progression and modernization from literature to science, I would argue that a deeper base of knowledge was sacrificed for a more empirical, but shallower one.  We lost a dimension.  Instead of discovering something about ourselves by exploring hypotheticals imaginatively, we rushed headlong through established scientific procedures, gathering data to enter in a computer so that we can hurriedly push a button to get our answer, then move on to the next research.

In contemplation of all this, some years ago, I gave myself an exercise, something to test my imagination.  I wondered what it would be like to rewrite Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor (not Zork).  For those who don’t know, the Grand Inquisitor is a story within the novel, The Brothers Karamazov (accent on the third syllable). The temptation is to introduce the story by describing it, but, in this age of computers and Internet, it is best introduced by presenting it directly.  You may find it at the following link:

 

http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/dostgi.html

 

For those who are unfamiliar with the work, it would be wise for you to have a block of uninterrupted time before you venture into this “little work”.  It is not easy reading!  But, if you can scratch beneath the surface, you will likely find that it has rewards.  It shouldn’t be hard to see that this work, which was written about 150 years ago, makes even more sense today.

 

NEXT: What I did with it.  “The Grand Inquisitor in the Twenty-First Century”, a short story about the perfect psychotropic medication.

 

Lecture 4 Part 3: In which we answer some age old questions– What does a psychologist do? What does a psychiatrist do? Why should I choose one over the other? What about a social worker? How do they differ from a (mental health, drug and alcohol, pastoral, sex, school or other) counselor?

At this point, I would like to interject a thought from the wonderful world of Survival Psych that may help clarify one aspect of this issue for those of you who are in a quandary or are otherwise confused about how to make the decision of the best treatment for you to pursue.  And I will caution, this is a theme that I will explore more fully later in this discussion.

Occasionally, the news tells of a whole new class of antipsychotic medications that is to be introduced.  For those of you who follow this sort of thing (and I don’t, really), you may realize that, every time a new medication is introduced to treat anything, the drug companies try to expand its use in order to increase income, therefore Thorazine as a treatment for hiccups.  The fact that they do this should inform us of one thing, at least.  When they are developing a drug, they may have a general idea of what the drug may be used for, but they have no specific idea of its uses until they experiment with it.  This is one reason why there are no silver bullets for any disorder because, if there were, the biochemists would have accurately identified the targeted disease at the primary step so that their medications would work on only that disease and no other.  This is somewhat like removing a ruptured spleen.  You go in, do the deed, and leave, hopefully cleaning up afterward.  The surgery targets a very specific, identifiable area and leaves everything else alone.  You don’t stumble upon a perfect cure by accident!

Further and much closer to my true topic, Survival Psych, if a perfect psychotropic medication were to be developed, what would be its likely effects?  Now, first please realize that once a drug for psychosis is developed everyone has a party, mostly to tout its benefits before they see how it will act on symptoms for a large number of people over time.  And the party will continue until the first real side effects appear accompanied by lawsuits.  I would suggest and have suggested in some of my discussions with patients and their families that no antipsychotic medication can ever eliminate all symptoms of mental illness, despite claims to the contrary.

This is true for some important reasons.  The first is that we don’t know exactly where we are trying to get to and we will not know where we have gotten to until we first get there.  What is the point, you might ask?  If such a perfect drug were to exist and we were to give it to a psychotic patient, by definition, we would be making that patient normal.  At this point I would encourage you to scan your environment to consider other people around you.  Now, I ask, “What is normal exactly?”  The answer, of course, is that nobody knows, not even your physician, not even the biochemist developing the drug.  I personally would argue that no drug should be considered successful until it has rendered a person fully functional and with no psychiatric symptoms.

Okay now, if we are looking for functionality and an elimination of symptoms, why would a medication not work?  Well, in the real world, at least, anyone with a major mental disorder, such as psychosis, has had years of life experience that tells him/her that there is something wrong with them.  For someone who has had psychotic symptoms for most of his/her life, what is the likelihood that the person will take this silver bullet of a drug and simply snap out of it?  What do you say to your family, your neighbors, and your friends, “It’s okay.  I’m better now.  We can start all over.  You can treat me just the way you treat everybody else.”  How do you make up for a lifetime of being treated like a leper? 

Conversely, how are other people supposed to treat you if they never have had any experience treating you in any other way, but nuts?  Which from the point of view of Survival Psych is the second point– you can’t erase memory.  The person restored to a state of mental health beyond all expectations will still respond in ways that are based on experience and years of history.  Some of these responses will be hardwired in the brain despite the wondrous medications used to treat people.

More than that, the brain is complex.  It has been said that there are more neural connections in the brain than there are stars in the sky.  While I can’t attest to the accuracy of this statement, it does dramatize how complex we are as human beings (although whales and dolphins may rival us for complexity).  More than that, brain functions are known to be diffuse, including crazy functions.  Only certain functions of the brain have any specificity in their location, while most are spread out and are located in different areas of the brain in different people.  Go target that!  In short, my schizophrenia may be different from yours, for its location in the brain, if for no other reason.  My paranoia will have different neural pathways because we each have different experiences coming out of different histories.

In summary, where psychiatric treatment meets Survival Psych 101, I say, if you want to try a drug to treat certain symptoms, go ahead!  Give it a fair trial and if it doesn’t work or if there are side effects, consult your physician.  Another medication may give you the results you are looking for, hopefully without side effects.  If medicine does not seem to work, you may want to talk to some sort of therapist, hopefully someone who understands your particular problem and who has some history of success in treating it.  But before you write off either medications or psychotherapy in favor of the other, be aware that these domains are not exclusive.  Psychiatrists and psychologists have been known to work well together, often with better results than either treatment on its own, as long as each treatment provider understands the limitations and strengths of the respective disciplines.  For the psychologist, it involves recognizing that certain illnesses require certain medications in order to create mental stability.  For the psychiatrist, it involves recognizing that mental stability cannot be maintained without solving real world problems that can de-stabilize a patient who has previously been stabilized and without the patient learning to recognize environmental stressors when they appear and how to manage them.  In my experience, medications alone are seldom sufficient to stabilize and maintain stability in a patient, but the patient needs to gain understanding about all the factors that contribute to illness.  This understanding is best achieved through instruction and reinforcement, by teaching a patient what is most needed to insure Survival when life stress is high and thinking is distorted by mental illness.