There perhaps isn't a better way to kick off my website than creative coding. This piece is about spiritual psychosis and is intended to make one question where is the line between spiritual experience and spiritual psychosis and raise awareness of this phenomena. People with psychosis often believe that it is their hightened intuition or some special spiritual abilities, when from a psychiatric point of view, they may fit the criteria for psychosis. It is difficult to intervene as spiritual beliefs are a deeply personal and sensitive topic for most. In these cases in particular, expressed concern comes off as incredibly disrespectful and possibly infantalizing. It is usually further complicated by the simple fact that algorythms will throw these users into a downward spiral of content that conditions them into thinking that they are recieving some sort of secret information and therefore know better than anyone else. This is gradually re-enforced as they descend down this rabbit hole. Of course, these delusions can range from just being convinced that an evil entity is following you and wants to hurt you, to believing that you are a reincarnation of a diety or, in the worst cases, killing yourself and your entire family in the belief that the world is about to end.
Please note that I don't want this to come off as "being spiritual/religious is dangerous nonsense", I don't really know what to make of this myself. There was a period in my life when I firmly believed all of that new age stuff and looking back I can definitely see the advantages and shortcomings of this. Over the years however, I had the time to make some observations and one of them is that the relationship people have with entities and divine beings seems to be a direct projection of their relationship with themselves, their family and their general internal struggle. Of course, the image of the diety is heavily influenced by the archetypes people have been assigning to them for centuries, but the way individuals experience them appears to be almost purely a reflection of their subconscious beliefs about relationships.
Idk where I am going with this, since I am no expert, but it certainly is something to think about. There is nothing wrong with being spiritual, there are a lot of potential benefits and who am I to tell people how they should percieve the world. Nevertheless it is important to be careful, not believe everything someone says and think critically of what your head is telling you, as this is how people end up in cults.
