Schizophrenia, a diagnosis nobody wants to have and nobody even dares to wish someone to have. To this day, no one really understands what it is and to this day, the healing is a long and tedious process which takes a lot of energy and nerves. At least the methods of therapy have improved a lot. Just 60 years ago, schizophrenia patients had to undergo electroshock “therapy” or they were directly sent to lobotomy.
Even in the modern age, they were dumped into institutes/ asylums, where they suffered among themselves under terrible conditions. They were often put into display like wild animals and earlier in the middle ages, they were accused of witchcraft and burnt.
But can you believe that there was a time, in which schizophrenia was accepted among the common society, yes even recognized and respected. In many pagan cultures, like in the pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and South America, Southeast Asia, Oceania and similar places, schizophrenic people weren’t outcasts but shamans and priests. They represented the direct connection between the earth and the spiritual world and they talked to the gods. All too often, there’s a brilliant mind hidden in the head of a schizophrenic and so they’re captured because the condition doesn’t give it the opportunity to express its genius.
You would be surprised how many great souls of the 20th century were actually schizophrenic. The big shift came with the rise of the catholic church which reserved the direct connection to god only to their anointed priests or they made it a sin altogether. Time after time, schizophrenic were known as the madmen or heretics and not the beings that they are: prisoners in their own mind.
Today, there are still groups in the USA which demand castration of patients. Furthermore, the geniuses are prone to mental disorders, making them abnormal ones among the common society. It seems that intelligence is a monster of human nature.
During my research I have found an interesting source which names great people who were allegedly schizophrenic: http://home.arcor.de/pahaschi/genies.htm
