Can meditation be dangerous (demons)?!

[neilhytholt]

c) Since people who seem to believe in these things exhibit bad behavior, maybe you should deal with the problem before they get worse.

Basically the reason I think demons don't exist is because:

a) I've never seen one.
b) People I've talked to who claimed that they saw them eventually wound up exhibiting maladaptive behavior (craziness), and wound up disfunctional.
c) People I've talked to who claimed a lot of weird stuff (like demons, Satan, etc.) eventually wound up exhibiting bad behavior (craziness) and did bad things (like lighting their car on fire and getting inside, or trying to commit suicide, or canceling their insurances and not going to the doctor, or wound up completely disfunctional in a mental hospital).

Therefore, I think these people have very low credibility.

[dwid]

Basically the reason I think demons don't exist is because:

a) I've never seen one.
b) People I've talked to who claimed that they saw them eventually wound up exhibiting maladaptive behavior (craziness), and wound up disfunctional.
c) People I've talked to who claimed a lot of weird stuff (like demons, Satan, etc.) eventually wound up exhibiting bad behavior (craziness) and did bad things (like lighting their car on fire and getting inside, or trying to commit suicide, or canceling their insurances and not going to the doctor, or wound up completely disfunctional in a mental hospital).

Therefore, I think these people have very low credibility.

d) All the alleged demons I've encountered have generally responded well to anti-psychotic meds. Perhaps Risperdal is as kryptonite to the dark lord.

[Crushing Fist]

What seems to have been overlooked...




Perhaps contact with demonic entities has a tendency to drive people into madness.






Ever read any Lovecraft?

[dwid]

That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die


Awesome. I love H.P. Lovecraft. I have a caricature of him tattooed on my leg.

[neilhytholt]

What seems to have been overlooked...

Perhaps contact with demonic entities has a tendency to drive people into madness.

Ever read any Lovecraft?

No, I'm not ignoring the claims.

I also did a lot of research into surrealistic art when I was in Art History. Surrealist art is where you find the pictures of demons, etc.

Turns out there was a common phenomena in the middle ages where entire villages would go nuts and claim to see demons and all that. There was even an order of monks of St. Anthony who went out to help these people. It was called 'St. Anthony's fire.'

Turns out that a common fungus grows on rye bread, and the bakers in these villages would sometimes bake the rye spoiled by this fungus into bread, and when the villagers ate this bread, they all went nuts for a while.

What is that fungus? Ergot. What is the active substance in the fungus? Lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD.

Most of the artists or authors who did this art seem to either have been inspired by these outbreaks, or did some drugs themselves (such as absinthe).

[dwid]

dw3041:
Psychotropic Drugs 4th Ed. by Keltner & Folks - a definitive reference guide to drugs used to treat mental illness, their chemistry, pharmacokinetics, relevant neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.

Get this book (or similar), read it, then you will be ready to intelligently discuss antipsychotic meds and the like.

[neilhytholt]

Psychotropic Drugs 4th Ed. by Keltner & Folks - a definitive reference guide to drugs used to treat mental illness, their chemistry, pharmacokinetics, relevant neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.

Get this book (or similar), read it, then you will be ready to intelligently discuss antipsychotic meds and the like.

And DSM-IV, or whatever the current # is now.

Anyways, the common accepted truth, if you will, by society, is that there are no demons, and people who think there are, are insane.

IMHO judging by the behavior of people who claim to believe in demons, society is correct. That's just an opinion, backed up by evidence and experience.

I mean, I've had friends on drugs claim to see ants crawling all over their body. Or snakes. Or that they were king of the world, and anything they did was correct.

Obviously, they were delusional, get it? But if you look at the pharmacology of drugs and their effects on the brain, you can get these same effects from other factors, such as stress, problems with the body, nutritional imbalances or shortcomings, etc.

So occam's razor ... what's more likely true? The phantom ants? The phantom snakes. The king of the world? The demons? Or that these people's brains are messed up?

Edit: Anyways, whatever. As a person who has to deal with mental illness in my family, no choice, I can honestly say that I don't want to deal with a discussion that these people who exhibit such maladaptive behavior are actually sane. Because they ARE NOT sane. That's the bottom line.

[dwid]

Nobody knows nearly enough about the brain to be able to predict what any psychotropic drugs will do. It's just propaganda.

Well, having clearly not read any legitimate research in neuroscience, your assertion has no merit.

By your logic, all medical science is propaganda.

[neilhytholt]

Nobody knows nearly enough about the brain to be able to predict what any psychotropic drugs will do. It's just propaganda.

Actually, I was really heavy into this in college, neuroscience and psychobiology and drugs. The brain chemistry of many of these drugs is well known, and the effects typically show a pattern.

There are of course complications and not everybody reacts exactly the same way, but you usually can predict that somebody on PCP won't react the same way as somebody on coffee (yes, coffee contains 13 pharmacologically active substances besides caffeine), and won't react the same way as somebody on coke, or marijuana, or ritalin, or valium, etc. Maybe some of the newer drugs are not as well known, though.

Anyways you seem pretty convinced, obviously we don't agree, so there's not much more to talk about.

: Shakes head and walks away. :

[neilhytholt]

How many different ways do I have to tell you people?! I AM NOT SAYING THAT SEEING DEMONS CAN NOT BE SEEN AS EVIDENCE OF INSANITY!!!!!!!! I am only saying that it can't be used as proof of insanity.

IMHO it is proof of insanity. But then again, IMHO seeing Satan is also proof of insanity, therefore a lot of 'religious' people would be considered insane as well.

Obviously, there, society does not entirely agree with me. LOL

[dwid]

But I've seen enough doctors and psychologist who have been completely wrong about the effects of certain medications to know that I can't just trust any source that you tell me to look at as reliable.

How many exactly? 10, 20, let's say for the sake of argument, you've seen 100 psych professionals at one point or another. How many had prescriptive priveleges? Psychologists, by the way, cannot prescribe.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say you've had encounters with 100 psych professionals with prescriptive privileges. What does that mean? It's a drop in the bucket and it would be impossible to extrapolate to the entire community of professionals from such a small sample. Further, it says nothing of the validity of research in psychotropic meds or in neuroscience, as the people doing this research are scientists with perhaps similar, but quite different knowledge and training from those working in applied psych (Psychologists and Psychiatrists). For you to say that this research is propaganda without any direct knowledge of it removes any credibility from your assertion. You simply lack the relevant knowledge to debate this topic.

[neilhytholt]

How many exactly? 10, 20, let's say for the sake of argument, you've seen 100 psych professionals at one point or another. How many had prescriptive priveleges? Psychologists, by the way, cannot prescribe.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say you've had encounters with 100 psych professionals with prescriptive privileges. What does that mean? It's a drop in the bucket and it would be impossible to extrapolate to the entire community of professionals from such a small sample. Further, it says nothing of the validity of research in psychotropic meds or in neuroscience, as the people doing this research are scientists with perhaps similar, but quite different knowledge and training. For you to say that this research is propaganda without any direct knowledge of it removes any credibility from your assertion. You simply lack the relevant knowledge to debate this topic.

: walks back :

I do agree with his point, though, about the psychologists and psychiatrists. Psychology is a soft science, and the ones I've met were just clueless. But they can sometimes talk you down off of your weird ideas. Sometimes people just need to get it out to hear for themselves how weird it sounds.

But psychiatry is different -- is a science. Of course, they don't know exactly how everything works, but it's more of a scientific method. But using any psychotropic medications can cause trouble, and anti-psychotics are of course psychotropic medications.

They treat the symptoms, rather than treating the problem. They might attach to your dopamine receptors or stimulate certain other receptors, etc., but they don't HEAL you. The just TREAT your symptoms.

IMHO a lot of people getting better from this stuff, takes time and getting off the problem (drugs, stress, etc.) and eating better.

[dwid]

: But using any psychotropic medications can cause trouble, and anti-psychotics are of course psychotropic medications.

They treat the symptoms, rather than treating the problem. They might attach to your dopamine receptors or stimulate certain other receptors, etc., but they don't HEAL you. The just TREAT your symptoms.

IMHO a lot of people getting better from this stuff, takes time and getting off the problem (drugs, stress, etc.) and eating better.

Well, by that definition, no drug actually heals you of any condition. Anti-hypertensives, for example, may reduce the circulating volume of blood in the body or dilate peripheral vessels, and therefore reduce blood pressure, but they don't treat the underlying cause of the disease. Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen, may stop the inflammatory cascade, reducing pain and swelling, but they don't repair tissues.

The point is that, no, of course psychotropic meds are not the be all end all magic bean to cure psychiatric illness. But, for people who cannot otherwise function, meds can restore some degree of functionality. For people who are too anxious to participate in other less extreme forms of treatment, ativan may reduce their anxiety to a level where they can tolerate and benefit from other forms of therapy, etc... I don't want you for a minute to think that I support throwing drugs at every problem right away (I think my position on this issue is clear from the early part of this very thread). However, meds have their place in the treatment of psychiatric illness, and there are people out there doing really solid scientific research on many of these meds.

[neilhytholt]

Well, by that definition, no drug actually heals you of any condition. Anti-hypertensives, for example, may reduce the circulating volume of blood in the body or dilate peripheral vessels, and therefore reduce blood pressure, but they don't treat the underlying cause of the disease. Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen, may stop the inflammatory cascade, reducing pain and swelling, but they don't repair tissues.

Right ... western medicine treats the symptom, not usually the problem. The doctor can tell you to eat less saturated fat, but you don't, so they give you a pill that tries to help, but causes 10 other nasty side effects. LOL

The point is that, no, of course psychotropic meds are not the be all end all magic bean to cure psychiatric illness. But, for people who cannot otherwise function, meds can restore some degree of functionality. For people who are too anxious to participate in other less extreme forms of treatment, ativan may reduce their anxiety to a level where they can tolerate and benefit from other forms of therapy, etc... I don't want you for a minute to think that I support throwing drugs at every problem right away (I think my position on this issue is clear from the early part of this very thread). However, meds have their place in the treatment of psychiatric illness, and there are people out there doing really solid scientific research on many of these meds.

Right. This is what I was trying to say. When my uncle really lost it and was shooting into the night at CIA agents that weren't really there (nearly hitting the neighbors house), the first thing we did was explain to him that if he didn't get help, he'd wind up in jail or the mental hospital.

So he saw a psychologist, and a psychiatrist, talked about his problem, got some anti-psychotics that helped somewhat, started to realize that he was indeed insane, that the computer can't listen to him when it's not on, that the CIA indeed wasn't out to get him, that his ex-wife indeed was not a witch, etc.

So now when he thinks the computer is spying on him when it's not on, he goes (he actually said this). "Okay, I'm thinking the computer is spying on me even thoug it's not on. But I'm kindof nuts, so it must not be."

It allows him to function in society so he doesn't hurt people, and mess people up. He's still sick, nothing's 'cured' his condition, but he manages his condition.

Does that make sense? Obviously medicine has a long way to go before it could cure somebody like him.

[dwid]

It makes perfect sense. Yeah, medicine still has a long way to go in this area. Sounds like your uncle has developed a good perspective on his situation.