![]() ![]() ![]() However, spirituality 2 is a contested and complex term, and the complexity and controversy are only increased when it is brought into relationship with voice hearing and related phenomena.įor some voice hearers, all voices are spiritual: Research suggests that voice hearers interpret their experiences of voice hearing from a variety of perspectives, at least one of which may be the positively spiritual or religious ( Jones et al., 2003, 2016). So important is this to many of those who hear such voices that qualities of form, such as location in external space, or of being heard “out loud”, may seem irrelevant and not be mentioned at all, or else be difficult to clarify. It is their autonomy, their manifesting the character of being another self that is their defining feature. It would seem that the voice of Philemon was not hallucinatory – being described here as a figure of fantasy – but, in general terms, voices with this quality of producing themselves, of having their own life, may or may not be hallucinatory. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. For example, Carl Jung, reflecting on what he describes as his own “confrontation with the unconscious”, refers to an archetype which he called Philemon: This quality has been identified and described by writers, artists, children, those who are suffering from mental illness, and by other reflective adults who are not mentally ill, as well as by those who describe religious, mystical, or other spiritual experiences. Rather, there is a quality of seeming autonomy about some voices, whether experienced as thoughts or perceptions (or perception-like), which characterises them as being other than aspects of the self ( Watkins, 2000), and in some cases even as seeming to be external agents. Whilst the primary consideration here is with voices which might be understood as AVHs, 1 it is not necessarily the perceptual quality of the voice, or its location in external space, which invites spiritual or religious reflection. Significant amongst these are concepts of mental disorder, but groups such as the Hearing Voices Network have ensured that there are also forums within which a plurality of views is acknowledged, alongside a recognition that the experience can be normalised. This pluralism is contributed to not only by traditional and non-traditional forms of spirituality and religion, but also by popular, professional, and scientific bases for forming possible alternative explanations. We inhabit a pluralistic environment, insofar as the spiritual and religious interpretation of voice hearing is concerned. Some voices might be perceived as more spiritual than others, or be interpreted differently (and thus more or less religiously) according to context, form, or content. And, for still others, there will be an element of critical discrimination. For others, any voice not emanating from a human or electronic source will inevitably be interpreted in spiritual terms. And when such good reasons for inferring spiritual/religious significance do pertain, they may be understood within any of a diverse variety of traditional, new and emerging, cultural or individual frameworks of meaning.įor some people, in particular those who would identify themselves as atheists, the framework of belief within which voices are interpreted will inevitably exclude any spiritual or religious explanation. ![]() Such good reasons may include the context of use, as for example in the use of peyote in Native American religion, or the explicitly spiritual/religious content of what is heard. Those attributable to drugs, illness, or otherwise disturbed physiological states may worry or intrigue us, but they will not necessarily be thought to have any spiritual or religious implications, and, when they do, there will usually be good reasons for this. Voices emanating from electronic sources (phones, computers, public address systems, etc.) no longer surprise us. ![]() In the contemporary context, in contrast, a variety of alternative scientific explanations are potentially available, including notably those of a technological or medical nature. The hearing of voices in the absence of a human speaker must once have had inevitably supernatural implications. ![]()
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