METAREALITY
The mental health
field is gradually
changing to allow
more consideration of
spiritual or mystical
phenomena, or sacred
experience.
that I was psychotic. Their solution was to try to
get me to see a psychiatrist to take medication. It
made little difference that I felt that my admittedly unusual strategies were already leading to an
uncommonly favourable resolution of my wicked
problems. Fortunately, at my request, my friends
gave me a couple of days to show that all could be
back to normal before I see a psychiatrist. In those
two days everything did return to normal, including my sleep. This occurred without drugs, and
without seeing a psychiatrist. According to mainstream psychiatry, this should not happen.
This is my personal tale of psychosis versus satori, a term referring to transcendent states of mind
whereby people have a sense of being part of unified consciousness. In this state the usual “rational” sense of boundaries between ourselves and
the world around us may dissolve. Ironically, this
perspective conforms more accurately to what
quantum physics tells us about the true nature of
reality: ultimately everything is reducible to an undivided consciousness where seemingly disparate
objects are related in nonrandom ways.
The mental health field is gradually changing to allow more consideration of spiritual or mystical phenomena, or sacred experience. I think it needs to
change much further. This has emboldened me to
write about my own satori experience in Synchronicity: Empower your life with the gift of coincidence. As a
mainstream clinical psychologist, I’ve attempted to
relate the marked advantages of going beyond the
rational to further appreciate our intuitive awareness of a fuller reality – one that incorporates tran-
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spersonal experience. It is a contemporary view that
follows in the tradition of William James, Abraham
Maslow and especially Carl Jung in acknowledging
numinous forces that help shape our life experience
and personal destiny. I believe that acknowledging
such experience helps us to be more whole, more
alive, and more well.
In particular, my book also describes some practical ways to help differentiate between psychosis
and satori that are rarely considered in mainstream
mental-health settings. It is an important distinction. One circumstance represents a person being
at risk of harm to themselves or others, whereas
the other alternative may involve experiencing
an enlightened state with uplifting attributes and
positive outcomes.
I am struck by the greater extent and ease with
which my clients report their own transpersonal
experience, including synchronicity, now that they
know I have written a book on the subject. Previously they generally kept such stories to themselves,
lest they be judged mad. My own experience shows
that their fears were not baseless. I have included
many of their stories in Synchronicity. Apart from
anything else, when we can acknowledge those
meaningful aspects of life that go beyond the rational, life is more energized, rich and fascinating.
Chris Mackey is a
Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and
is the principal
psychologist
at
Chris Mackey and
Associates, with
35 years’ experience in public and
private mental health services in Geelong. He
has presented at numerous national and international scientific conferences over the past 20
years on the assessment and treatment of psychological trauma, anxiety and depression. He
is the author of Synchronicity: Empower your
life with the gift of coincidence (see www.synchronicityunwrapped.com.au for additional articles).