Moses stuttered. His disability remained and that is why his brother Aaron had to act as his spokesperson. Moses never recovered. If we are "ill," then this illness must have an objective marker. Diabetes, for example, is identified by a blood test that reveals a deficiency of insulin. AIDS is identified by a virus in the bloodstream. Cancer is identified by a tumorous growth visible in X-rays.
But mental illness has as yet no objective marker. There is no laboratory test that will reveal the biochemical nature of our illness, or even whether or not we are ill at all. The truth is that the current state of the art for psychiatric diagnosis is based solely on the subjective observation of external behavior -- not a very objective marker for a process that is internal.
We now know that mental illness appears in a very high proportion of creative artists and world leaders. Some persons who achieved greatness in spite of -- or even because of -- mental affliction are the artist Vincent Van Gogh, poet Robert Lowell, and President Abraham Lincoln. Is this a fluke, or is there actually an indispensable link between madness and creativity? For centuries, ever since human beings emerged distinct from apes in the chain of evolution, people have experienced extreme mental states. In most societies, altered states of mind have held a place of respect, and have served to give spiritual meaning to the culture. In indigenous cultures, for example, the shamanistic tradition involves an individual's journey through his or her own mind. This journey is typically painful and even turbulent, but because the people who experience it are guided through it by spiritual elders and the community itself, they emerge from their ordeal with newfound wisdom and the power to heal. Even the Judeo-Christian religions are founded upon the inner experience of the heart. When Moses went up to the mountain, he experienced an altered state of mind. He had a vision -- you might say hallucination -- of a burning bush, and a face to face encounter with something for which he had no name, and which terrified him. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight -- why the bush does not burn up." When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am."
[Yahweh told Moses that he was being sent to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.]
Moses said to Yahweh, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' Than what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am that I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you." (Exodus 3:2-14) It was this experience that made Moses a prophet. Later, of course, he received the ten commandments and brought the stone tablets to his people. But that was later. The experience that enabled Moses to lead his people to the promised land was an altered state of consciousness. And many of us who have been labeled mentally ill know first hand what that altered state is like.
