Schismatic

“ But as for any brands fixed on schismaticks for several years past, they have been all made with cold iron; like thieves, who by the benefit of the clergy are condemned to be only burned in the hand; but escape the pain and the mark by being in fee with the jailor. Which advantage the schismatical teachers will never want, who, as we are assured, and of which there is a very fresh, instance, have the souls, and bodies, and purses of their people, a hundred times more at their mercy, than the catholick priests could ever pretend to. ”

“ Oxon. 1682.“ They (schismatics) may burn in the flames, and lay down their lives by fire, or wild beasts; their death will not be the crown of their faith, but the punishment of their perfidy. They may be killed, they cannot be crowned.” De Unit. Eccles. p.114. Ibid.
ST. DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, [37] G. C.-Writing to Novatian, the schismatic, he says: “You ought rather to have suffered all things, than have raised a schism in the Church. To die in defence of its Unity would be as glorious, as laying down one's life rather than sacrifice to idols ”

“ This naturally led to an animosity against the m greater than that visited on the worst of criminals. No matter how trivial may have been the original cause of schism, nor how pure and fervent might be the faith of the schismatics, the fact that they had refused to bend to authority, and had thus sought to divide the seamless garment of Christ, became an offence in comparison with which all other sins dwindled into insignificance, neutralizing all the virtues and all the devotion which men could possess. ”

“ Whence it is necessary for you with all speed to inform our most pious Emperors of these things, to the end that they may be aware how that in their times, through the succour of Almighty God and your exertions, schismatics are hastening to return of their own accord. ”

“ They don't annihilate the evil: they avoid it. Now, we are here to seek and to save that which was lost: and our churches must be more free to the lost than to the saved—if any be saved. Experience proves that your pious fears have no sure warranty. Wesleyan schismatics have performed Watch-night services for more than a century. Anglican schismatics have done the same: and, in later years, they have celebrated their mysteries at midnight on Christmas Eve. We Ourself have assisted at these functions. ”

“ But do not occupy yourself with other questions than the one which I have stated, for this is the leading point of a well-ordered discussion of the origin of the schism.
7. The civil powers defend their conduct in persecuting schismatics by the rule which the apostle laid down: “Whoso resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? ”

“ So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong: So schismatics the plain believers quit, And are but damn'd for having too much wit. ”

“ They say it is Polish! But these fusileers, sappers, grenadiers, and cannoneers! You hear, in that crowd, more German than native titles!219 Who can understand them! And then you must certainly have with you Turks or Tatars or Schismatics, or men of God knows what faith: I have seen it myself; they are assaulting the peasant women in the villages, plundering the passers-by, pillaging the churches! The Emperor is bound for Moscow! That is a long road if he has set out without the blessing of God. ”

“ Streams of aching, intolerable anguish running up his arms brought the grim reality home. The pain gripped the very fibers of his being, turning him weak and sick, A deadly fear, the first real fear he had ever known, clutched at his heart. ”

“ As soon as one departs from the strict observance of dogma and absolute respect for tradition one sinks into the most frightful precipices.... Ah! schism, schism, my son, is a crime beyond forgiveness, an assassination of the true God, a device of the loathsome Beast of Temptation which Hell sends into the world to work the ruin of the faithful! If your book contained nothing beyond those words ‘a new religion,’ it would be necessary to destroy and burn it like so much poison fatal in its effects upon the human soul. ”

“ That is a schizoid tendency; the flight from reality into a dream-world peopled by creatures of the imagination. You understand, there is usually a mixture of psychotic conditions, in cases like this. ”

“ It's not a simple case of schizophrenia that our men get. It's a schizophrenic dream. The system blocks all sensory contacts and speeds up the mind. You know how a person dreams only a few seconds before he wakes up and that dream seems days or weeks long? Can you imagine how much a dream can be speeded up and clarified by drugs, how much a dream can be controlled by hypnotic suggestion, how much experience can be—"
Murphy saw that they were on a street, the tall, angular shadows of strange buildings all around them. He heard a shuffling noise and turned to see Antarians crawling toward them. ”

“ The schizophrenic splitting of the psyche which prevents any final summing up of the conflicting and corresponding psychisms, so that the unsuitable impulse can be realised just as much as the right one, and the negative thought substituted for the right one. ”

“ But when such effects are produced in physical matters, what will not the consequence be in those that are purely mental and imaginative? Go to the lunatic asylum or the madhouse, and there it may be seen in all its unreal delusion and positive terror. ”

“ Formerly it was the custom to speak of the “fixed ideas” of the sufferers from the peculiar form of insanity which physicians call “paranoia,” the mental disease which the laiety knows better and understands less than any other psychosis. A delusion was regarded as a fixed idea which neither experience nor logic could shake. To-day we have penetrated deeper into the problems of delusions. We know that ideas differ from one another tremendously. Some are anemic and colourless, come like pale shadows and so depart. Others have flesh and blood and scintillate in brilliant colours. ”

“ To-day we can say that the pathological images dominate the interests of the patient so completely, because they are simply derivatives of the most important questions that used to occupy the person when normal—what in insanity is now an incomprehensible maze of symptoms, used to be fields of vital interest to the former personality. I will cite as an example a patient who was twenty years in the asylum. She was always a puzzle to the physicians, for the absurdity of her delusions exceeded anything that the boldest imagination could create. ”

“ Professor,” I began, “can you paint a false shadow for one, who in the most luckless way in the world has lost his own?” “You mean a reflected shadow?”—“To be sure.” “But,” he added, “through what awkwardness, or what negligence, could he lose his own shadow?”—“How it happened,” replied I, “that does not matter, but—” I impudently began again with a lie,—“last winter, when he was travelling in Russia, it froze so severely, during the extraordinary cold, that his shadow was frozen to the ground, and it was impossible for him to get it free.” ”

“ Then, too, his idea of a schism made him blush. He again beheld himself at Rome, dreaming of writing a book by which he would violently sever himself from Catholicism to preach the new religion of the democracies, the purified, human and living Gospel. But what ridiculous folly! A schism? He had known in Paris an abbé of great heart and mind who had attempted to bring about that famous, predicted, awaited schism. Ah! the poor man, the sad, the ludicrous labour in the midst of universal incredulity, the icy indifference of some, the mockery and the reviling of others! ”

“ Nevertheless, this fixed erroneous idea, being made the center of all other thoughts and of the whole consciousness, produces that confusion and that disorganization of the mind which characterizes this form of a disordered intellect. But in true madness, or frenzy, the seat of the disease is in the soul, which, having broken loose from all the ties and restraints of reason and rational habit, appears to have fallen a prey to some hostile, wild, and raging force of nature. ”

“ For some length of time I entertained the idea that paranoia also—or the group of cases belonging to paranoia—is a defense psychosis that is, like hysteria and obsessions it originates from the repression of painful reminiscences, and that the form of its symptoms is determined by the content of the repression. ”

“ The ancients of the 20th Century actually looked upon schizophrenia as a disease! Everyone felt it was very shameful to have a schizophrenic person in the family, and, since children lived right with the same parents who had borne them, it was very bad. If you were a schizophrenic child in the 20th Century, you would be locked up behind bars and people would call you—"
Mary blushed and stumbled over the daring word—"crazy." "The ancients locked up strong ego groups right along with weak ones. Today we would lock up those ancient people." ”

“ In the first place, we must remember that the mental disorder, if it belongs to the group we are discussing here, is the result of a criminal act, and following in its wake, and that therefore the plea of insanity as an excuse for the deed must manifestly be excluded. But may not this type of reaction furnish us an index to the original personality of the culprit? In other words, should we consider an individual absolutely normal, if, in reaction to some stressful situation, he breaks down mentally and develops a psychosis? ”

“ Some people believe that schizophrenia and other psychoses are associated with violence, a perception that is often reinforced by news reports and that contributes to the stigma associated with mental illness. ”

“ The unobstructed windows, the unbroken silence, the confident proceeding of the man himself—all would seem to strengthen the damning idea which now possessed his mind; and when his perpetually recurring thought brought to him the picture of the old hag, her hellish glare upon him, and her mysterious threat—a threat which now seemed no longer mysterious—the dreadful apprehensions almost grew into certainty. ”

“ I believe none ever charged me with being wild and incoherent in my expressions, and though it is proverbial in the institution, among the patients and attendants, that if a man says he is not insane it is a sure sign that he is, so in consequence of this saying, I was careful to say nothing about my own mental condition, only to ask the attendants and doctors, at times, whether they observed marks of insanity in me. ”

“ Schizophrenia literally means splitting of the mind. It is a group of conditions in which the usual harmonious blending of emotions, intellect, and drive are disorganized into a seeming inactivity and resultant apathy. In the simple type the patient becomes uninterested in his environment and responsibilities. ”

“ By perception, I understand, with Mr. Locke, the apprehension of sensations; and after a very diligent enquiry of patients who have recovered from the disease, and from an attentive observation of those labouring under it, I have not frequently found, that insane people perceive falsely, the objects which have been presented to them. It is true, that they all have false ideas, but this by no means infers, a defect of the power by which sensations are apprehended in the mind. ”

“ Each psychosis repeats in itself, in tendency form at least, the essential stages in the evolution of consciousness. Every psychosis rises from the pure pleasure-pain as the lowest level of mentality like a wave, and like a wave falls back into it again. Every wave of consciousness, whether it rises slowly or rapidly, whether it subsides gradually or violently, rises from pure subjectivity and comes back to it again. ”

“ We have seen the mental disorder affecting modern society manifesting itself chiefly in the following forms: Mysticism, which is the expression of the inaptitude for attention, for clear thought and control of the emotions, and has for its cause the weakness of the higher cerebral centres; Ego-mania, which is an effect of faulty transmission by the sensory nerves, of obtuseness in the centres of perception, of aberration of instincts from a craving for sufficiently strong impressions, and of the great predominance of organic sensations over representative consciousness ”

“ The difference I conceive to be that, in cases of insanity, the mind of the patient is principally affected, while the senses, or organic system, offer in vain to the lunatic their decided testimony against the fantasy of a deranged imagination. Perhaps the nature of this collision—between a disturbed imagination and organs of sense possessed of their usual accuracy—cannot be better described than in the embarrassment expressed by an insane patient confined in the Infirmary of Edinburgh. The poor man’s malady had taken a gay turn. ”

“ The mummeries, strange gesticulations, and barbarous jargon of witches and sorcerers, which frightened credulous and nervous women, brought on all those symptoms of hysteria and other similar diseases, so well understood now, but which were then supposed to be the work of the devil, not only by the victims and the public in general, but by the operators themselves.
In the age when alchymy began to fall into some disrepute, and learning to lift up its voice against it, a new delusion, based upon this power of imagination, suddenly arose, and found apostles among all the alchymists. ”

“ Those who have accumulated the largest sum of experience in disorders of the intellect, have viewed the various forms under which they are manifested, as equally conducing to render an individual incapable of conducting himself and managing his affairs, whether the mental affection be termed madness, melancholy, insanity, mental derangement, non compos mentis, idiotcy, or lunacy ”