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Prophets, Sages and Epilepsy?

SeekerOnThePath

On a mountain between Nietzsche and Islam
Did all of the Prophets and Sages, of both the Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, have epilepsy?

I see the claim towards specific figures thrown around towards different figures all the time and it'd be interesting to not explore specific cases inasmuch as the collective likelihood.
Whilst on one end we have the mythicists (raise your hand?), then there are also the neurological-reductionists (raise your hand?) sometimes coupled with the psychologizers.

Who had epilepsy? Zoroaster? the Vedic Brahmins? (maybe even Buddha?) Abraham? Moses? Isaiah? Ezekiel? Jesus? Paul? Muhammad? Joseph Smith? Baha'u'llah?

Is it that likely that religious/spiritual phenomena can be solely reduced to such a restriction, even in spite of the content they are said to have produced?

Are you epileptic? are you a literary genius? have you won awards for your epileptic literary achievements? do you like disco?
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Did all of the Prophets and Sages, of both the Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, have epilepsy?

I see the claim towards specific figures thrown around towards different figures all the time and it'd be interesting to not explore specific cases inasmuch as the collective likelihood.
Whilst on one end we have the mythicists (raise your hand?), then there are also the neurological-reductionists (raise your hand?) sometimes coupled with the psychologizers.

Who had epilepsy? Zoroaster? the Vedic Brahmins? (maybe even Buddha?) Abraham? Moses? Isaiah? Ezekiel? Jesus? Paul? Muhammad? Joseph Smith? Baha'u'llah?

Is it that likely that religious/spiritual phenomena can be solely reduced to such a restriction, even in spite of the content they are said to have produced?

Are you epileptic? are you a literary genius? have you won awards for your epileptic literary achievements? do you like disco?

I am epileptic and have right temporal lobe seizures. It used to be the big ones not the small ones.

I read awhile back that the temporal lobe (so it depends on where those religious had their seizures) has a lot to do with spiritual experiences.

Here is some insight (https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/defa...nd-dostoyevsky-seizures.pdf?sfvrsn=bf258b2f_2 -funny, my seizures were especially like dostokevsky-aka he describes them in his book The Idiot). Epilepsy Linked to Intense Religious and Spiritual Experiences, Like Seeing God

I haven't had an spiritual awakening. I did found this out about myself, though.

Does Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Influence Personality?

In 1975 neurologists Stephen Waxman and Norman Geschwind, both then at Harvard University, published an analysis based on observations of their patients with temporal lobe epilepsy in which they reported that many patients had a tendency toward religiosity, intense emotions, detailed thoughts, and a compulsion to write or draw. This cluster of characteristics became known as the epileptic personality. Over the next decade other researchers added hostility, aggression, lack of humor and obsessiveness to the list of personality traits supposedly associated with the condition.

-
I wouldn't be surprised that the saints of old have had seizures. They thought putting a spoon in my mouth in the mid 1980s in school would stop my seizures so I couldn't imagine what people believed back then when saints went through an awakening.
 
Some interesting articles I've found:
Genius.

Old Testament prophet showed epileptic symptoms

Epileptic Symptoms In The Biblical Prophets?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_mental_health

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...l-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_epilepsy

In this wikipedia article above, skipping a little down it mentions the retrospective speculative diagnosis and then the religious figures suspected or mentioned.

https://factdr.com/health-condition... epileptics are sensitive to flickering light.
Rude seeming picture making epileptics look scary or something when people with it might be looking it up for their health or loved ones of people with it or whatever, in that article but it says something interesting:
"The first book on epilepsy was written in 400 BC by Hippocrates, in which epilepsy was described as brain disorder among people who didn’t possess the power of prophecy."

So it was specifically about people who "didn't possess the power of prophecy". So this showed that they differentiated between the sort of things that coincided with "prophecy" and what they considered a medical condition, epilepsy.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Did all of the Prophets and Sages, of both the Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, have epilepsy?

I see the claim towards specific figures thrown around towards different figures all the time and it'd be interesting to not explore specific cases inasmuch as the collective likelihood.
Whilst on one end we have the mythicists (raise your hand?), then there are also the neurological-reductionists (raise your hand?) sometimes coupled with the psychologizers.

Who had epilepsy? Zoroaster? the Vedic Brahmins? (maybe even Buddha?) Abraham? Moses? Isaiah? Ezekiel? Jesus? Paul? Muhammad? Joseph Smith? Baha'u'llah?

Is it that likely that religious/spiritual phenomena can be solely reduced to such a restriction, even in spite of the content they are said to have produced?

Are you epileptic? are you a literary genius? have you won awards for your epileptic literary achievements? do you like disco?
"Are you epileptic? are you a literary genius?"

Please don't mind. Is one epileptic oneself, please?
Has one been told as such by a qualified physician/surgeon, please?

Regards
 
Very few people have actually witnessed these first hand. I saw one guy in the Vancouver transit fall down having a seizure.


I then sat with him and got him to describe it to me, the inside experience, and he never knew he had ever had a seizure or anything, but I explained to him what happened, and he told me that from his perspective, his mind just froze on a thought, and the next thing he knew he was sitting next to me talking to me.
 

SeekerOnThePath

On a mountain between Nietzsche and Islam
Very few people have actually witnessed these first hand. I saw one guy in the Vancouver transit fall down having a seizure.


I then sat with him and got him to describe it to me, the inside experience, and he never knew he had ever had a seizure or anything, but I explained to him what happened, and he told me that from his perspective, his mind just froze on a thought, and the next thing he knew he was sitting next to me talking to me.

It's a pretty intense thing. I've known a few people who experienced seizures (though never in my company), my mother has babysat a young girl in recent times, who experiences seizures during the night and calls out making all kinds of noises. Pretty sad thing to have to live through, on a serious note.
 
Totally, and I really don't think any of these big shots suffered from these mainly, and if they did, in their times, they would have not as easily made it to the ages they might have, or they might have been noted for these things and called epileptics, and I also don't think they might necessarily be enhanced or can really go too far or succeed much without good medical care while dealing with a problem like this, I think the people who suffered from such things back then probably had short seeming lifespans or were prone to dying or even being killed, and otherwise couldn't overall amount to much.

Also, as far as I'm aware, none of these guys actually were known to necessarily write or write tons (or at all), and many of them didn't even seem to be to be exceedingly religious. For example, if one looks at the letters attributed to Paul, he is dealing with matters in a sort of business-like way as well, policies, priorities, reasoning, it just doesn't really seem quite the same even as a person who might have a mental illness and is going on a frenzy of writing, and its possible he was also using scribes for those writings, and overall there aren't really that many or anything (at least that are considered his and were saved) as compared to some philosophers and other thinkers and writers.

So it doesn't really fit the supposed symptoms even that I mentioned, and I don't think he was an epileptic, and I think also his story may have been true possibly, and that he saw a vision or something, which isn't all too uncommon, and the fact that he was such and influence and success, I think that he was basically destined for all of it as well, and he may not have even intended some of the things people say he said or how they take it, for all we know, he could've been a good guy, he could've been a bad guy, or he could've been no guy at all, there is no way to tell really, but I have more often seemingly used his words and writings more than those attributed to Jesus, and I chop them or edit them as I can to try to make them compatible with my framework and try to use them for those who believe in them to encourage them towards what I think is best and basically Islam. So my version of Paul is Muslim Paul when I'm using Paul and following Paul.

Likewise, Muhammed seems too much of a success overall to have been someone suffering from some kind of disease like this, that would be a miracle really in its own right, but he didn't write anything, and didn't seem to end up saying or doing lots of stuff, the Qur'an isn't even that big and it certainly isn't rambling religious writings (like some people), but rather its expert "poetry" if one wants to call it that, and I don't think a disease could produce results like that at all, and he managed or was part of an entire successful campaign to conquer an entire nation which led to World Conquering activities and the administration of huge populations? All with a popular book? That is basically one of the wildest stories in all human history, a totally amazing anomaly. Plus, the only thing people said about him in the stories about him is that he started out as some kind of businessman, and then basically became a wildly successful religious poet and King, one of the greatest American success stories one could ever muster up, and nowhere in the stories does he seem to really have epilepsy, so that even if he did seem to show all the signs and was wiggling on the ground or whatever, it would be more believable to think that he might be faking it or something, than that it was real and somehow contributing to his success as well.

They mentioned a bunch of people, but I don't think any of them probably had it, not even the people who were shaking and muttering "prophecies" likely had actual epilepsy or epileptic fits, especially considering that people made a distinction between that sort and the sort that seems to do nothing for them and doesn't lead to "wise words" or anything. We see the "Voodoo types" or whatever doing their possession type stuff and going wild shaking, or the people in those Churches that go wild, none of them are likely having real epileptic fits at those times, they are just doing something else:

 

MNoBody

Well-Known Member
any experience of genuine spirituality will be looked upon as madness [sacred, holy madness, ecstasy, truly inspired genius] to those who have never experienced such insights
 
any experience of genuine spirituality will be looked upon as madness [sacred, holy madness, ecstasy, truly inspired genius] to those who have never experienced such insights

I've generally remained calm when amazing ideas seem to be coming to me, I think flipping out might be some sort of psychosis sometimes or manic state. I don't think there is any necessity to go "batshi*", and that the people who do might be suspect.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
any experience of genuine spirituality will be looked upon as madness [sacred, holy madness, ecstasy, truly inspired genius] to those who have never experienced such insights

Why is that so?

That sounds more like sacred experiences are "special" and those who are in the mundane world are missing out on something. Can someone who hasn't had the experience (which many people haven't) appreciate others who have without them thinking they are mad?

I would assume spiritual experiences would unite that division between the "sighted" and the "blind (if so one wants to call it)", assumingly?
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
It's a pretty intense thing. I've known a few people who experienced seizures (though never in my company), my mother has babysat a young girl in recent times, who experiences seizures during the night and calls out making all kinds of noises. Pretty sad thing to have to live through, on a serious note.


It is. I've had seizures (epilepsy) since 12 and still have them just not as bad because of brain surgery and VNS implant. I've only seen a hospital friend/room neighbor had a seizure. I think the nurses put us together to induce seizures since they were monitoring us and we talked a lot by phone. That's the first I've seen it and went into my own seizure. It hurts when you go into it and you can be out all day.

For majority of people medication does help. Others may have seizures once or twice in their life time and never have another. While some children grow out of it.
 
Why is that so?

That sounds more like sacred experiences are "special" and those who are in the mundane world are missing out on something. Can someone who hasn't had the experience (which many people haven't) appreciate others who have without them thinking they are mad?

I would assume spiritual experiences would unite that division between the "sighted" and the "blind (if so one wants to call it)", assumingly?

Yeah, I can describe special or magical things in a straightforward fashion, and those who believe me would be the ones who most likely don't think I'm mad but telling the truth and that weird things can exist and can happen. I also consider everything in the mundane world to be equal and produced by the same thing, so that makes everything out to be equally special and magical, but most people just don't look at things in such a way that they believe they are generated by some intelligent power that is communicating through all things in all ways.
 
It is. I've had seizures (epilepsy) since 12 and still have them just not as bad because of brain surgery and VNS implant. I've only seen a hospital friend/room neighbor had a seizure. I think the nurses put us together to induce seizures since they were monitoring us and we talked a lot by phone. That's the first I've seen it and went into my own seizure. It hurts when you go into it and you can be out all day.

For majority of people medication does help. Others may have seizures once or twice in their life time and never have another. While some children grow out of it.

What do they say the cause is or was in your case?
 

MNoBody

Well-Known Member
I've generally remained calm when amazing ideas seem to be coming to me, I think flipping out might be some sort of psychosis sometimes or manic state. I don't think there is any necessity to go "batshi*", and that the people who do might be suspect.
That wouldn't necessarily be the profile such would get categorized in..... strange, weird, different, embodying an "otherness"
let's look at it from an indigenous perspective briefly
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Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Yeah, I can describe special or magical things in a straightforward fashion, and those who believe me would be the ones who most likely don't think I'm mad but telling the truth and that weird things can exist and can happen. I also consider everything in the mundane world to be equal and produced by the same thing, so that makes everything out to be equally special and magical, but most people just don't look at things in such a way that they believe they are generated by some intelligent power that is communicating through all things in all ways.

Everything is equal (spiritual and mundane) even though some people see it separately? I don't understand.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
What do they say the cause is or was in your case?

I had a lesion in my brain, if I can remember. They said if I kept having seizures it would deform, for lack of better clinical words, my brain. It was probably cause I had fevers as a kid. Unfortunately, some seizures don't have acute causes. Neurons just want to go crazy on purpose.
 
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