Abnormal mental phenomena in the prophets
Tóm tắt
Abnormal mental phenomena of varying emotional depth are found frequently among the earlier, nonliterary, and literary prophets. Three levels are discerned: inspiration, i.e., a state of excitement with well-preserved reality controls; ecestasy, as a state in which reality control has been lost temporarily; and eidetic imagery characterized by dreams and visions. It is argued that the prophets were psychotics, or mystics, or poets, or endowed with psychic gifts. I have attempted to consider some of these phenomena from the psychiatric viewpoint, keeping in mind that such interpretations many centuries later must remain speculative.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Maimonides, M.,The Guide for the Perplexed. New York, Dover Publications, 1956.
Lindblom, J.,Prophecy in Ancient Israel. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1965.
The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible: Ecstasy. Vol. E-J, p. 21. New York, Abingdon Press, 1962.
Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, rev. edition: Prophecy. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963, pp. 800 ff.
Jacobi, W.,Die Ekstase der alttestamentlichen Propheten: Grenzfragen des Nervenund Seelenlebens, Munich, 1920.
Arlow, J., “The Consecration of the Prophet,”Psychoanalytic Quart., 1951,20, 374–397.
Lewin, B., “Analysis and Structure of Transient Hypomania,”Psychoanalytic Quart., 1932,1, 43.
Heschel, A. J.,The Prophets. New York, Harper and Row, 1962.