Divine madness, also known as theia mania and crazy wisdom, is unconventional, outrageous, unexpected, or unpredictable behavior linked to religious or spiritual pursuits. Examples of divine madness can be found in Buddhism, Christianity, Hellenism, Hinduism, Islam, and Shamanism.
It is usually explained as a manifestation of enlightened behavior by persons who have transcended societal norms, or as a means of spiritual practice or teaching among mendicants and teachers. These behaviors may seem to be symptoms of mental illness, but could also be manifestations of religious ecstasy or even be "strategic, purposeful activity" "by highly self-aware individuals making strategic use of the theme of madness in the construction of their public personas".
Cross-cultural parallels
According to June McDaniel and other scholars, divine madness is found in the history and practices of many cultures and may reflect religious ecstasy or expression of divine love. Plato in his Phaedrus and his ideas on theia mania, Eastern Orthodoxy, Western Christianity, Sufism along with Indian religions all bear witness to the phenomenon of divine madness. It is not the ordinary form of madness, but a behavior that is consistent with the premises of a spiritual path or a form of complete absorption in God.
DiValerio notes that comparable "mad saint" traditions exist in Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian cultures, but warns against "flights of fancy" that too easily draw comparisons between these various phenomena.
Georg Feuerstein lists Zen poet Hanshan (fl. 9th century) as having divine madness, explaining that when people would ask him about Zen, he would only laugh hysterically. The Zen master Ikkyu (15th century) used to run around his town with a human skeleton spreading the message of the impermanence of life and the grim certainty of death. According to Feuerstein, similar forms of abnormal social behavior and holy madness is found in the history of the Christian saint Isadora and the Sufi Islam storyteller Mulla Nasruddin. Divine madness has parallels in other religions, such as Hinduism.
Ancient Greece and Rome: theia mania Theia mania () is a term used by Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus to describe a condition of divine madness (unusual behavior attributed to the intervention of a God).Plato, Phaedrus 244-245; 265a–b. In this work, dating from around 370 BC, Socrates argues that madness is not necessarily an evil, claiming that "the greatest of blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods".
Socrates describes four types of divine madness:
the prophetic frenzy of the Oracle of Delphi and the priestesses of Dodona (the gift of Apollo) mystical revelations and initiations, which provide "a way of release for those in need" (the gift of Dionysus) poetic inspiration (the gift of the Muses) the madness of lovers (the gift of Aphrodite and Eros)
Plato expands on these ideas in another dialogue, Ion.
One well-known manifestation of divine madness in ancient Greece was in the cult of the Maenads, the female followers of Dionysus. However, little is known about their rituals; the famous depiction of the cult in Euripides' play The Bacchae cannot be considered historically accurate.
The Roman poet Virgil, in Book VI of his Aeneid, describes the Cumaean Sibyl as prophesying in a frenzied state:Virgil, Aeneid 6.45–51. While at the door they paused, the virgin cried: "Ask now thy doom!—the god! the god is nigh!" So saying, from her face its color flew, Her twisted locks flowed free, the heaving breast Swelled with her heart's wild blood; her stature seemed Vaster, her accent more than mortal man, As all th' oncoming god around her breathed...
Abrahamic religions Christianity
The 6th-century Saint Simeon, states Feuerstein, simulated insanity with skill. Simeon found a dead dog, tied a cord to the corpse's leg and dragged it through the town, outraging the people. To Simeon the dead dog represented a form of baggage people carry in their spiritual life. He would enter the local church and throw nuts at the congregation during the liturgy, which he later explained to his friend that he was denouncing the hypocrisy in worldly acts and prayers.
St. Nicholas of Trani was another saint considered to be insane due to his life of voluntary poverty and his habit of constantly shouting the phrase 'Kyrie Eleison'.
Michael Andrew Screech states that the interpretation of madness in Christianity is adopted from the Platonic belief that madness comes in two forms: bad and good, depending on the assumptions about "the normal" by the majority. Early Christians cherished madness, and being called "mad" by non-Christians. To them it was glossolalia or the "tongue of angels". Christ's behavior and teachings were blasphemous madness in his times, and according to Simon Podmore, "Christ's madness served to sanctify blasphemous madness".
Religious ecstasy-type madness was interpreted as good by early Christians, in the Platonic sense. Yet, as Greek philosophy went out of favor in Christian theology, so did these ideas. In the age of Renaissance, charismatic madness regained interest and popular imagination, as did the Platonic proposal of four types of "good madness". In a Christian theological context, these were interpreted in part as divine rapture, an escape from the restraint of society, a frenzy for freedom of the soul.
In the 20th-century, Pentecostalism – the charismatic movements within Protestant Christianity particularly in the United States, Latin America and Africa – has encouraged the practice of divine madness among its followers.John Gordon Melton, Pentecostalism, Encyclopaedia Britannica The wisdom and healing power in the possessed, in these movements, is believed to be from the Holy Spirit, a phenomenon called charism ("spiritual gifts"). According to Tanya Luhrmann, the associated "hearing of spiritual voices" may seem to be "mental illness" to many people, but to the followers who shout and dance together as a crowd it isn't. The followers believe that there is a long tradition in Christian spirituality, where saints such as Augustine are stated to have had similar experiences of deliberate hallucinations and madness.
Islam Divine madness is a theme in some forms of Islamic mysticism. People that have attained "mad" mental states, according to Feuerstein, include the masts and the intoxicated Sufis associated with shath. In parts of Gilgit (Pakistan), the behavior of eccentric faqirs dedicated to mystical devotionalism is considered as "crazy holiness". In Somalia, according to Sheik Abdi, Moḥammed ʻAbdulle Hassan eccentric behavior and methods led some colonial era writers to call him "mad mullah", "crazy priest of Allah" and others.
According to Sadeq Rahimi, the Sufi description of divine madness in mystical union mirrors those associated with mental illness. He writes,
In West African version of Sufism, according to Lynda Chouiten, examples of insane saints are a part of Maraboutisme where the mad and idiotic behavior of a marabout was compared to a mental illness and considered a form of divine folly, of holiness. However, adds Chouiten, Sufism has been accommodating of such divine madness behavior unlike orthodox Islam.
Indian religions
Hinduism The theme of divine madness appears in all major traditions of Hinduism (Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism), both in its mythologies as well as its saints, accomplished mendicants and teachers. They are portrayed as if they are acting mad or crazy, challenging social assumptions and norms as a part of their spiritual pursuits or resulting thereof.
Avadhuta According to Feuerstein, the designation avadhūta (Sanskrit: अवधूत) came to be associated with the mad or eccentric holiness or "crazy wisdom" of some paramahamsa, liberated religious teachers, who reverted the social norms, as symbolized by their being "skyclad" or "naked" (Sanskrit: digambara). Avadhuta are described in the Sannyasa Upanishads of Hinduism, early mediaeval Sanskrit texts that discuss the monastic (sannyasa, literally "house-leaver") life of Hindu sadhus (monks) and sadhvis (nuns). The Avadhuta is one category of mendicants, and is described as antinomian. The term means "shaken off, one who has removed worldly feeling/attachments, someone who has cast off all mortal concerns". He is described as someone who is actually wise and normal, but appears to others who don't understand him as "mad, crazy". His behavior may include being strangely dressed (or naked), sleeping in cremation grounds, acting like an animal, a "lunatic" storing his food in a skull, among others. According to Feuerstein, "the avadhuta is one who, in their God-intoxication, has "cast off" all concerns and conventional standards." Feuerstein further states that in traditional Tibet and India, "the "holy fool" or "saintly madman" [and madwoman] has long been recognized as a legitimate figure in the compass of spiritual aspiration and realization."
Bhakti The bhakti tradition emerged in Hinduism in the medieval era. It is related to religious ecstasy, and its accompanying states of trance and intense emotions. According to McDaniel, devotional ecstasy is "a radical alteration of perception, emotion or personality which brings the person closer to what he regards as sacred." It may be compared to drsti, direct perception or spontaneous thought, as opposed to learned ideas. The bhakta establishes a reciprocal relationship with the divine. Though the participation in the divine is generally favoured in Vaishnava bhakti discourse throughout the sampradayas rather than imitation of the divine 'play' (Sanskrit: lila), there is the important anomaly of the Vaishnava-Sahajiya sect.
McDaniel notes that the actual behavior and experiences of ecstatics may violate the expected behavior as based on texts. While texts describe "stages of religious development and gradual growth of insight and emotion," real-life experiences may be "a chaos of states that must be forced into a religious mold," in which they often don't fit. This discrepancy may lead to a mistaken identification of those experiences as "mad" or "possessed," and the application of exorcism and Ayurvedic treatments to fit those ecstatics into the mold.
McDaniel refers to William James, who made a distinction between gradual and abrupt change, while Karl Potter makes a distinction between progress and leap philosophies. Progress philosophy is jativada, gradual development; leap philosophy is ajativada, "sudden knowledge or intuition." Both approaches can also be found in Bengal bhakti. In ritual ecstasy, yogic and tantric practices have been incorporated, together with the idea of a gradual development through spiritual practices. For spontaneous ecstatics, the reverse is true: union with the divine leads to bodily control and detachment. The same distinction is central in the classical Zen-rhetorics on sudden insight, which developed in 7th-century China.
The path of gradual progression is called sastriya dharma, "the path of scriptural injunctions." It is associated with order and control, and "loyalty to lineage and tradition, acceptance of hierarchy and authority, and ritual worship and practice." In contrast, the path of sudden breakthrough is asastriya, "not according to the scriptures." It is associated with "chaos and passion, and the divine is reached by unpredictable visions and revelations." The divine can be found in such unorthodox surroundings and items as burning grounds, blood and sexuality. Divine experience is not determined by loyalty to lineage and gurus, and various gurus may be followed. According to McDaniel, divine madness is a major aspect of this breakthrough approach.
Tibetan Buddhism: nyönpa, drubnyon, and "crazy wisdom"
Holy madmen