mental illness

Mental illness is described as demons in the New Testament. Unconscious psychic and spiritual forces continuously break into our conscious center and direct it just when we believe ourselves to be free. One of these manifestations is the stage that is called "possession" in which the personality "splits" or more exactly, the consciousness is conquered by a destructive structure originating in the dark ground of the personality - the unconscious. Under the name of demoniacs the possessed were well known in the New Testament and the early church. While a true Christian cannot have his soul possessed by any other than the God who it belongs to, our minds are a different story.

There is a book called "Client centered therapy" that was taught in psychology some years ago by Carl Rogers. It is the premise that if the counselor would get the client to look deep enough within, we can find the answers to many of the psychological problems that we face. This is different than the therapist coming up with his own clinical answers that would apply to everybody. We all have our unique personalities with strengths and weakness. The kingdom is within us. If we have the faith to know Jesus, then He may be found within us. As we become true Christians, we take on a new nature, we can do nothing without Christ but since He is in us, we may trust the God given faculties of our mind and heart if we are doing it in His spirit.

Throughout history, many people who experienced true psychic phenomena were judged insane and put behind locked doors simply because other people couldn't accept the truth of what had happened spiritually. Mental illness may be the price we pay for being human and having the power of choice and the capacity for growth. Certain forms of mental illness are themselves manifestations of healing power in overcoming trauma. Spiritual gifts are given to many who do not have the knowledge to understand them and are misunderstood by others causing a conflict in the mind and those around them do not have the wisdom to give them proper counsel.

Much of mental illness is just false religiosity posing as faith. Many with self righteous attitudes will do things over and over and over again in the wrong way thinking that the next time will produce a more positive result and the repetitive act then becomes a neurosis. The reason for this is that they think that God is acting through them, so what they do cannot possibly be wrong. It is a false religious system that prevents repentance and change for the better, a learning disability. Those brought up around Calvinists are especially prone to not understanding our responsibility in Christ or our free will to act in disobedience, thinking that everything that happens is God's will, even bad things. When a point finally comes where things start crashing down, the reality of the situation is gone and psychosis takes over.

We need to frankly acknowledge that spirituality is associated with mental illness. And we need to admit that organized religion and the social institutions have failed us. Experts are convinced that mental illness is vastly more prevalent than the statistics reveal, and that perhaps one person in ten suffers from some form of mental illness. Probably no more than ten to twenty percent of those needing treatment receive it and in many cases may be better off not receiving it. The ones not getting treatment are primarily poor because they can not afford it and because they are skeptical and even hostile toward government and social agencies. The church generally cannot help, because the problem is dealt with the same conservatism that has brought on the conflicts to begin with.

I have my opinions on things but I sure am no authority on the subject. I have been told that there are drugs that combat certain chemical imbalances in the brain. Do they work? That's a tough question and without the clinical verifications needed to prove it in Christian environments, it may in fact be risking the mental health of another not to at least try. At the same time, some methods have done untold damage to people and then again, there are Christians in deliverance ministries that have the ability to call out illnesses and lay hands on people with the power to cure. Doctors who offer the cures don't generally do it in the name of Jesus but if there is a medical solution, prayer is the right response from loved ones regardless. Our example is that there are types of illness that only come out through prayer and fasting.

What we should all agree on is that Jesus has a power that can cure all kinds of illness. Do all get healed? Unfortunately not. There are servants of God that have the power to lay on of hands and cure people. That makes me sound nuts to a doctor or psychiatrist but all things are possible to those that believe. We need the faith to know that God can restore a person to wholeness and we need to be led of God to make the right decisions as to treatment. Not an easy task.

Many of you that are hearing voices are not crazy but you must be careful, God is speaking to you and you can trust Him. What happens many times is that our enemy the devil also want you to listen to Him so discernment is need to separate the different voices. Pray for wisdom. Don't tell a doctor what you are hearing or they will try to pump you up with harmful drugs to suppress it. As to any true mental illness, we can pray for you and you can pray for yourself but if you are not healed, you can live with it and even praise the Lord that it was for a purpose, it is not good to love this present world system. If you had been completely healthy, you may not have found the Lord. So that's good, isn't it? You are in the prophetic now, cultivate the gift, exercise it and pray that God will speak loud and clear. Be careful what you say to others. The more you deny yourself, the more like Jesus you become. Cast out demons in the name of Jesus. You are about to enter into a new dimension of the spirit that many only wish to be. Praise the Lord for that. Find your calling, ask for the direction you seek. Open the door and enter in.

Contrary to the views of many Christians, there are true Christian psychologists. Most in the field however, deny the spiritual altogether and have done untold damage to those needing their help the most. To many families, any kind of psychologist is entrusted to take care of mentally ill loved ones. They feed them with harmful drugs and isolate them, removing them from society as unfit for any kind of work. They are not treated and healed, they are cast off as being worthless and they freely admit that they have no cure. Many more every day are exploited, traumatized and thrown out into the streets or back rooms or into care facilities where their social security checks are stolen from them. They are given money by the government that is barely enough to live on yet there are so many of them that it has become a drain upon society. The truth will set these people free but the church has generally rejected the truth of the power of the Holy Ghost and spiritual gifts, they deny things such as ESP and psychic phenomena and the inner voice within to be able to understand and they have denied the compassion or the wisdom necessary to effect change in our institutions. When a person accepts the divine, demons will come and attack the psyche to make the witness sterile, when they see the hypocrisy and the ineffectiveness of the Christian church, they crack.

The sickest segment of society are those in government and in the churches and in the hospitals who pretend to know how to treat the mentally ill. The reality that the mentally ill are accused of escaping from may not be real at all but false, demonic in itself and many are better off not being part of it.

Most of the mentally ill here in California are on the streets because of an ex-governor of ours that we had in the seventies called Ronald Reagan. He had a stupid platform called trickle down economics which assumed that if you gave enough money to rich people that it would trickle down to the poor. When it didn't work and the economy obviously suffered to the point of crisis, he threw out the mentally ill that were in the state hospitals into the streets to save money. They are still there, an estimated 50,000 out of over 350,000 homeless people are classifed as mentally ill in California as of May, 2002.

And people still wonder why our society is sick.
[95, 109, 197, 219]



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