I have bi polar disorder and I would like to share my story. I went through a severe trauma and a severe personal crisis. I prayed and I prayed to God and looked up in the sky. Then strange synchronicities happened and my mood swinged from bottom to the top in an extreme way. And also due to childhood trauma I have had hard figuring out who I am. So this was surely a spiritual crisis for me. I didn't even believe I had a soul by then. Went to a doctor and was diagnosed with bi polar disorder. I got medicine and felt great. And I stopped praying. Then I went through an even more severe trauma (with the same people involved). I was devastated wanted to die all the time. Paranoia and all these synchronicites made me mad. And no medicine in the world could change that. So my path to spiritual understanding continued. It took me years and then I found the teachings of Abraham. I started to raise my vibrations. Realizing that my childhood trauma was disturbing my reality by sending out unconscious low vibrations causing me lots of pain and attracting more trauma. Well, I begun clean up my vibration and added love. What happened? I had the exact same feeling in my head and body as when I was introduced to my medicine!!!! But even better! How I interpret this? My moodswings happened because my vibration was double. All low vibrations from trauma mixed with high vibrations, i.e. love from the Universe/God. This is so cool! I promise you. I am in heaven now. Hugs and love to all of you! //Johanna

First of all, people affected with Bipolar disease do NOT hallucinate as a rule. Perhaps if they are under the influence or very sleep deprived during a manic phase.

Ergot poisoning from a toxin in rye was determined to be the cause of the Salem witch trials.

There are many causes of Schizophrenia including a deficiency in B vitamins. Many patients were released from sanitariums after doctors made this discovery. I'm sure many people have been misdiagnosed over the years due to numerous causes. Even a parasite in cat feces is believed to be a probably cause.

I highly doubt any of the people you specifically named in your question were suffering from schizophrenia.

You did make a good point. Caroline Myss, medical intuitive , teacher & healer states "there is a fine line between a spiritual crisis & schizophrenia" & why she wants her students to take classes in anatomy as well as classical mysticism.

Everything is dual, is polarized, has it's pair of opposites including spirituality. A psychiatrist who has been taught that a certain group of symptoms correspond to schizophrenia, for example seeing things that do not exist in normal reality would diagnose the person as suffering from schizophrenia. On the other hand a spiritualist who sees images of dead people and can communicate with them, would be considered as an enlightened person. These two phenomena are opposite poles of the same type of energy, they are really only extremes of the same thing, they only vary in degree, they only exist relative to each other just as black/White, hot/cold, high/low, good/evil ...for example think of a thermometer, it gives a relative value of hot and cold, where does hot begin and cold end? This is the principle of polarity one of the seven hermetic principles.

So to answer your question ... your view depends where you are situated on the spiritual scale relative to other people, somewhere between the negative pole that the person is mentally ill and the positive pole that the person is going through a spiritual awakening

My mother used to have severe bouts of what the doctors labeled schizophrenia, many years ago I experienced a short period of it too, an impression that the physical world is made up of assembled pieces like a jigsaw and sometimes those pieces won't fit correctly together. For example I saw an aircraft in the sky and it seemed to me to be flying backwards. I saw a train going past could here the sound of it rumbling along, but the sound and vision of the train were disassociated I couldn't link the sound that I was hearing with the vision swirling past. It's a bit like being at the point where physical energy splits into fragments.

An impressive, frightening, weird experience but it was well worth it, as @RudiRichardson points out it's a gift :)

I do believe all cases of schizophrenic and bi polar are spiritual transitions occurring. But because we more or less insist on quantifying the conditions and treating with external medicine, then faith gets placed in 'protecting' the condition, rather than healing the one experiencing dis-ease.

I do not think the conditions are misdiagnosed given the parameters of behavioral sciences. But I do think a behavioral practitioner that manages to downplay the spiritual aspect is misguided, and very likely not concerned with healing. Instead focusses on treatment to a condition that may become a crutch / lifelong predicament for the individual.

I truly believe they are spiritual awakenings. Here is my story and how my bipolar has served as a gift. The Day Without Evening: http://rudikingrichardson.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/a-day-without-evening-ushering-in-the-kingdom/

Cheers, Rudi

if you want the truth, I will tell it to you. yes it is possible everyone makes error in this world and nothing is impossible. when you are dreaming and your body is offline. do you not visit someplace see people and many other things that you call dream? is it hallucination? when in the dream someone talk to you is it Auditory hallucinations or are you really experiencing it? when you see someone is it visual hallucinations? is it because someone does not see it or is not able to reach that place that it must be a perceived symptoms? what if one never dreams he would say people are nuts they see strange stuff at night they all must be crazy or suffer from some illness. well it is the same for someone meditating and getting to know him self when he as the dark night of the soul and clean the inside of the cup to solve is division he is tormented inside all the sufferance that he experienced and that are not solved in him come back to the surface in is awareness he need to solve it by learning the truth about it then it is put to rest. even if one would be with out sin inside the simple fact that he as suffer from things from the outside produce some darkness inside of him that he needs to clean up. man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. if Jesus sat at Dr Jones's desk 40 days into the temptations. he would not see anything happening on the outside except a man siting there looking in front of him like in the moon state. if he ran some test or asked some question to him it would blow is mind. you already have seen some scientist run some test on people meditating. low heart beat resistance to cold or pain. etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-wuOYlxMSY&list=PL61F0D0455BF7A322

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjtKy1jWXKw&list=PLCC9174D699AAD107

the simple fact is that they see a man siting there doing nothing and they get reading they never have seen before. if that blow there mind imagine how it would blow there mind that someone might not be in that body any more and have enter the narrow gate went out of the flesh in the wind as a light to the kingdom above. they might even think that he is dead and it would blow their mind even more to see that person come back as a son of man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbBmpaDBizA

if I talk to you about things from this world and you believe me not how will you ever believe me if I talk to you about things from heaven.

also it could be i.s.p. for people hearing or seeing thing not in a meditative state that they could not ear or see in the real world, look at dogs they are aware of some sound and smell that human are not aware about. if one get in tune with is own inner potential and know things that many are not aware about could he not also have more develop perception?

example: I could say to you that you are not able to see something if you believe what I say and do not seek to see it then what I say to you will become true for you and you will agree with me. but what if you decide to seek and test it your self. maybe that you can see that something, if you see that something then you would say that what I said was not true or that I must not be seeing it but you are able to see it. simple example: would be someone that does not see colors saying to someone it is not possible to see colors all is white and black. yet some see colors. each person is similar but not quite the same. some are seeker and some seek not. seek and you will find.

Let there be light, be the light that you can be, experience and enjoy.