Sabbatai Zevi
Time and again, the issue of Sabbatai Zevi's alleged "manic-depression"
is raised by his modern critics and anyone else looking for a way to dismiss
or minimize him. In what follows, I propose to discuss this
problem. But first, by way of background, I think it appropriate to
describe my credentials for doing so. To begin with, I took my doctorate
in Jungian Psychology and Comparative Religion under my mentor, James Kirsch,
M.D. -- at the time, the last surviving member of C.G. Jung's original
inner circle and a founder, by Jung's personal mandate, of the first Jungian
Center (Los Angeles) in the United States, where I did post-doctoral work
for three years. I've also published several papers on religion and psychology,
particularly Kabbalah, in several journals and anthologies. For example,
my paper "For The Sake of God: An Answer to Jung" was published in the
Library Journal of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco; and I contributed
the chapter, "Kabbalah and the (Jungian) Interpretation of Dreams" in the
Jungian anthology, MODERN JEW IN SEARCH OF A SOUL, published by Falcon
Press and still available, I believe, through Amazon.com.
Having laid bare my "credentials," so to speak, in my characteristically
immodest and self-serving manner, I'd like to discuss briefly the question
of Sabbatai Zevi's so-called "mannic-depression." Ever since Gershom Scholem
borrowed this phrase from modern clinical psychiatry it has been used repeatedly
by scholars and historians to describe the cause of Sabbatai's "strange
actions," as they were called at the time -- his swings between religious
exaltation and inert despair -- and the
antinomian behaviors attendant on them. As Scholem points out, "His
[hostile] contemporaries speak of him as a madman, a lunatic or a fool,
and even his followers admitted that his behavior, at least from puberty
onward, provided ample reasons for these appelations." (SS: TMM p. 125)
To begin with, such seemingly bizzare behavior is rather typical of
religious figures. According to the Gospels (John 10:20) Jesus's own contemporaries
said, "He is possessed . . . raving," and his relatives
worried over his sanity. There is a Sutra (I forget which at the moment)
in which Buddha's followers discuss whether or not he is "insane." Sri
Ramakrishna's family, according to THE GOSPEL OF RAMAKRISHNA, also worried
for his sanity and came to fetch him home from the temple where
he was dressing and living as a woman. Meher Baba went through a prolonged
period of what contemporary psychiatrists would call "psychosis." And St.
Paul complained, "I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to
beat me." (2 Corinthians 12:7)
The Prophet Jeremiah best describes such "manic-depressive" religious
episodes, and the perceptions of them by others, when he exclaimed, "You
have seduced me, Yawheh, and I have let myself be seduced; you have overpowered
me: you were the stronger. I am a laughingstock, the butt of
everybody's derisionn. Each time I speak the Word, I have to howl and
proclaim: 'Violence! Ruin!' . . . I used to say, 'I will not
think about him, I will not speak in his name any more.' Then there seemed
to
be a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. The effort to
restrain it wearied me, I could not bear it . . . 'Denounce him! Let us
denounce him! all those who used to be my friends [would say]."
(Jeremiah 20:7-13)
Clearly, modern psychiatry would describe the Prophet Jeremiah (and
others, such as Elijah) as "manic-depressive" or, at least, suffering from
some form or another of "psychosis." The problem with the science of modern
psychyiatry, however, is that it mistakes LABELING a particular behavior
for an EXPLANATION of it. Describing Sabbatai Zevi's religious states as
"manic-depression" tells us no more about them, or their causes, than calling
them "uppsey-downies" or "innie-outies." All it does is provides us with
a scientific "explanation" of a non-scientific event which sciences hesitates
to explain in religious terms. Even the arguement that manic-depression
is "caused" by an imbalance in brain chemistry (treatable by the use of
the medication Lithium) is no explanation at all: is the biochemical imbalance
a "cause" or a SYMPTOM of the seemingly erratic behavior? The fact that
Lithium stabalizes the brain's biochemistry in "manic-depression" no more
proves that the imbalance is a cause, rather than an effect, of the condition
than aspirin treatment of a muscle-ache proves that it was
"caused" by sore muscles.
I'm not arguing here against the use of medication in the treatment of psychological conditions. I'm simply arguing that finding a "cure" for something, or giving it a psychiatric label, does not explain its cause. For example, Victorian medical science would have described Sabbatai's condition as the "vapours," along with giving an elaborate explanation of their "causes" which modern psychiatry now lables as "pseudo-scientific." I submit that such labels are not really created to "explain" or "describe" religious phenomena, but to dismiss them. Yet today's "science" is tomorrow's "hokum" -- ad infinitum in proportion to the capacity of the human ego to expand.
Another explanation for Sabbatai's condition can be found in Jung's
statement, "The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the third Divine Person,
in man, brings about a Christification of many." (Answer to Job, par. 758)
Here, Jung uses religious rather than medical metaphors to "explain" the
non-medical, transpersonal condition of "God possession," as complained
about by Jeremiah and experienced by Jesus, Buddha, Sabbatai Zevi, Ramakrishna
Meher Baba and other great Avatars and Tzaddikim. To attribute their religious
ecstasies to an "imbalanced brain chemistry" is no more accurate or useful
than attributing them to "the indwelling of the Holy Ghost." it's only
more comforting to those who don't understand them.
From the Donmeh Mail list
Tue, 20 Apr 1999
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Sabbatai Zevi |