I have been chosen by God (EN)

(Lee este artículo en español)


I always believed I was somewhat special. Ever since I can remember I could hear other people’s thoughts in my head. I absolutely knew that I was telepathically connected to every other person on earth. I have always had this sense of purpose, knowing that my special gift must be use for good. I knew of my ability to influence people at my will.

The discovery of my powers was triggered by an episode in which I encountered some guy exiting a store I was going into. He had one of his arms around his girlfriend and waved directly into my face with his other hand, as if waving into a television camera, while saying “Hi, Mom!” I realized then that I could project my thoughts into other people and they could respond and act upon them.

Since that day I started gradually reinforcing and expanding my new mental ability: telepathy. I have become so powerful that I can even communicate with people appearing on television. Sometimes when I was watching a show, I felt a very strong connection with someone there and I knew I was able to communicate my message to him, so they would say or do what I was thinking at that moment.

At first I did not understand why I was blessed with this amazing ability to not only connect with others but also instill my thoughts into them. I further rationalized that I either already was, or could be used as, a messenger from God; to spread his word that we could all get along and live peacefully together as a globally co-operative world.

Now I know I have been chosen to broadcast my thoughts into the world to serve as guidance and inspiration to every human on Earth. The telepathic thought that I will introduce into people’s minds will simply consist of the admonition to always, in every case, without fail, "Treat other people as fairly as you would like them to treat you.” I, then, will add the plea for everyone to always first truthfully test all of their decisions, and actions, with the very important question, "Will this decision, or action I am about to take, cause harm to anyone else in any kind of way?" If this question can possibly be answered with a "Yes", your duty then becomes to always find an alternative to that path of action.

It seems obvious to me that if these two very easy to understand, basic rules of behavior, were consistently followed by everyone on Earth, it would quickly become a much better place to live for all of us.

. . .

If you have read so far and you liked the previous story that means that I have brought you a bit closer to comprehending schizophrenia.

It is true that delusions originate from other causes besides schizophrenia. However the history of mental disorders has been unavoidably linked to the history of schizophrenia. Delusion takes the place of honor among all displays of madness.

When we think of a crazy or a mad person, we probably think of someone who believes to be “Napoleon”, or who assures he is being abducted by aliens. For centuries, being crazy meant being delusional and vice versa.

A delusion is a fixed belief that is either false or fanciful, and is held despite evidence to the contrary, or what almost everybody else believes.

There is controversy over this definition, as 'despite what almost everybody else believes' implies that a person who believes something most others do not is a candidate for delusional thought. The delusion may be assumed to be false by a doctor or psychiatrist assessing the belief, because it seems to be unlikely, bizarre or held with excessive conviction.

A delusional person is absolutely certain about their delusion. To better understand this, imagine you go one day to work and when you enter and go to your desk, you see you have been replaced. There is someone else working in your place. When you turn to talk to your colleagues and demand an explanation, nobody knows you. They tell you they have never seen you and that you have never worked there. When you continue with the discussion trying to make any sense out of it, they call security and you are thrown out to the street. You have been thrown out of the place you have been working at almost all your life! Your colleagues do not even know who you are! How could all of that not have been real?

Why do delusions occur?

There are a number of explanations, but none of them are completely satisfactory. Von Domarus (1944) suggested that delusions originated due to a failure of our logical reasoning. People would apply deducting reasoning in the wrong way. Here is an example:

Virgin Mary was a virgin.

I am a virgin.

Therefore I am Virgin Mary.

For some time psychiatrists thought delusional people would process their thinking in the wrong way. This has been proven false already. It appears that normal people also do not apply the logical principles very well either.

In all of the studies about logical thinking and probability reasoning, psychologists found out that people with delusions actually reasoned better than normal people, and to top it all, they also came to the right solution sooner.

There are numerous experiments that prove how normal people can get to the wrong conclusions and even irrational beliefs when facing strange conditions. For example some people were made to believe they traveled through time and space in a paranormal way. In this experiment, some students were traveling by car in the middle of Spain when they went through a strange smoke cloud intentionally put in the middle of the road. Some lighting effects were added to the environment to make it look more “paranormal”. Out of the four people in the car, three acted as moles and knew what was going on and only one was the experimental subject. Right after passing through the cloud they stopped at the first gas station to fill in the tank and buy something to eat. The gas station had been completely modified to make it look like a German gas station 20 years before. The products of the shelves had been labeled accordingly. The newspapers at the counter also had the corresponding date. The workers at the stations were all German actors.

The experimental subjects concluded on their own that they somehow must have travelled through time and space when passing through the cloud. Even when they were confronted by their peers with their nonsense, they firmly held on to their beliefs trying to prove them wrong using the newspaper, the banners and labels of the products of the shop as evidence.

Other experiments have shown that most people have a common preference for a magical or mysterious explanation, rather than a scientific one.

There are some modern psychological theories that explain delusion in a very different way. For example, The Attribution Theory considers paranoids like the rest of us, people who simply try to make sense of their experiences. There is an innate tendency in humans to look for a cause-effect explanation to everything that happens to them. Maher says that a delusion is the result of normal reasoning like any other belief. The problem is that the person is trying to make sense of an unusual experience, for example, the voices in the head of a schizophrenic. What would you think if you would hear people talking into your head? Imagine you could actually hear those voices or if you would have a strange feeling that you can predict whatever is going to happen next, as if you had a constant déjà vu?

Where do you draw the line that separates the visions of Saint Teresa of Jesus from the visions of a schizophrenic?

Did you know that many great artists have schizophrenia?

I hope this post will make you change your view about madness and make you think twice the next time you call someone “crazy” for should you be in the shoes of that person, maybe the crazy one would be you.