The Madman's Clarity
The Madman’s Clarity
David Russell Mosley
What if we could see the world through the eyes of a madman? What devils might haunt our vision? What voices might whisper to us in the night? What spectral sounds might call to us?
To a broad society, it is often assumed that madmen see and hear only horrors, but I wonder through the eyes of literature and prophets whether there might there be beauty to be seen in madness too. Might even those of us, like myself, with some form of mental illness find that we have a unique and valuable way of viewing the world? Might my own depression be, in some way, helpful and beautiful?
Some might balk at my use of the term “mad”—it is an archaic word. And it was often so flung about that people who could have received help were written off as simply beyond care. We understand better now. We know more about mental illness and neurodivergence. But there’s something about this image of the madman that calls to me. Might there be a kind of madness or lunacy or foolishness that, whatever detriments it may also cause, gives a kind of clarity?
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Fools and madmen and lunatics were once, if not quite revered, believed to be important. Plato describes poets as going into a kind of ecstasy when visited by the muses. This is why Socrates in the Apology says wisdom cannot be found in the poets themselves because they are recipients of their work, and thus not always the best interpreters of their work. The prophet Jeremiah describes the prophecies given to him as “burning fire shut up in my bones,” when he tries to keep it to himself. Many mystics describe their visions as ecstatic events that bring on a kind of trance. Characters that were considered Madmen, often served a holy role in their communities. Their words would often need sifting, interpretation, but it was believed they could see and experience things of value that others could not.
In her two novels, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Piranesi, author Susanna Clarke plays with this notion of the holy fool. Focusing on her second book, Piranesi, Clarke takes a deep look at madness. In this story, a man has been shanghaied into a world, in fact a large house containing oceans, birds, giant statues, and many, many halls. The man who sends him there knows the world causes madness, and only sends him in order to gain information without having to stay there too long himself. His goal is to recover an ancient magic that will allow him to control lesser minds, levitate, and control aspects of nature. He thinks some special ritual done in the right place and at the right time will give him this ability. The main character, referred to at first as Piranesi, is not the first man sent into this world in order to learn about it—but he is the most successful. Something about this character allows him, not to retain his mind or memories, not really, but to live and thrive in these halls. In fact, while he never levitates or controls people’s minds, he embodies exactly the kind of outlook, the Other, a man named Dr. Ketterly, is desperate for.
When Piranesi learns about his life before the House, and is offered a chance to return to our world, he hesitates. While the House has its dangers, not least the tides that have taken over many of the lower halls, it has been his home, his world, his entire reality. And when he does go back he no longer sees himself as Piranesi, the man who lived in the House and was so wrong about a great many things, nor does he see himself as Matthew Rose Sorenson, the man he was before the House. Now he is something else. And back in our world, he sees people and places that remind him of the statues. The House is a kind of collector of images, of forms. It shows the deeper truths, and the man who is neither Piranesi nor Matthew, is able to bring that vision with him into the world. Yet he cannot always do good with it and still contemplates returning to the House and staying there some day. His vision and knowledge do not leave him wholly fit for life in either our world or the House. And yet…
Clarke has said that she was influenced in Piranesi by Owen Barfield’s notion of original participation. In Barfield’s view, early humanity lacked a fuller understanding of the individual, but because of this was able to be and participate in the world in such a way that might look even like magic to modern eyes. They were not cut off from the world as discreet individuals, but very much bound up in it. He also believed the autonomy we have now reached as a society was a necessary development, but that the goal for us is not to stop here, but to somehow regain that participation without the loss of ourselves. What Clarke shows us is that those people who have made forays into this realm struggle to remain in this world as it is currently perceived.
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Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart, in an essay which first appeared in First Things and has since been republished in a collection of his essays entitled, A Splendid Wickedness, writes about a man he once knew when he was living in the north of England. The man’s name was Reuben. Reuben was studying for a Master’s degree in Religious Studies at the University of Lancaster, focusing his attention on William Blake. Blake was of particular interest to him because like the poet, Reuben believed he frequently saw angels at the entrances of churches, fairies in the garden, heard the voice of God, and was attuned to the spiritual needs of those around him. Hart describes him as a kind and joyful man. A man incapable of malice. Years later, Reuben ended up on medication of some sort, perhaps an antipsychotic, and lost his perceived ability to see and hear the numinous realities around him.
This is not to say the medication for mental illness is bad. I do not for one moment believe that. And we do not know what happened in Reuben’s life that caused the need for this medication. After all, it is rarely prescribed unless a person is danger to themselves or others. But we must also admit that our desire to medicate everything may also have negative spiritual effects if we only consider the mind as a product of the chemical processes of the brain.
I have experienced this concerning dichotomy in my own life. As someone diagnosed with and prescribed medicine for depression, I have been concerned. What if the drugs alter me to such an extent that, despite the side-effects of my illness, I lose some ability my illness gave me to see the world around me more clearly, or at least in a way that others cannot but would benefit from? Of course, as many of my friends and family reminded, medicine for depression does not cure it, does not take it away, it just makes it more bearable. So, I may not have lost anything at all, or only slightly. I still bear the burden, and whatever insights it may give me. Of course, I wish this weren’t necessary, I wish no one needed the mad and the holy to see the world more clearly. And yet it is.
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In nearly every age, humanity has needed to be reminded to see rightly. The prophets reminded the Israelites to cease chasing after lesser gods, created beings like themselves, and to return to the true God, the ground of all being. Even pagan poets and philosophers sought to show people deeper truths that are not always immediately evident to the senses. Medieval mystics, like Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, and others were often concerned to remind themselves and others that Christ and his angels were at constant work in the world, even in mundane things like the movements of the winds. In the modern age, people like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Owen Barfield, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others used poetry and fantasy to show that world cannot be reduced to its natural parts. We need these reminders always, for we are fallen and live in a fallen world. We need to be awakened.
But we also must remember that it is not always easy, in fact it is very difficult to live in and with these deeper truths. And we must also remember that the spiritual realities around us are not always good, some mean to harm us. This is the cost of seeing things more clearly. It is perilous. It may ruin us for life in this world, as it did for Frodo who saved the Shire, but not for himself. And often it comes with pain and suffering. My depression may help me see and may allow me to help others as well, and yet it hurts and I wish sometimes it were otherwise. But some of us are called to this life, and all of us would do well to attend to those who are. We cannot make Christ return, we cannot force his Kingdom to come on Earth as it is Heaven. He will do that in his own time. What we can do, however, is to seek to live more fully in the world. And this will require at least a little madness.
David Russell Mosley
Poet & Theologian
David has been published in The Christian Century & The Imaginative Conservative and author of The Green Man & Being Deified
Photography by Andreas Dress