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Sep. 18th, 2021 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavbook review: muses, madmen, & prophets (archive.org, free)
hoooooooo boy this one was a fun one.
i freely admit going into this one with an agenda(tm) of Muse research expecting to wade through the familiar canyon of "super academic papers from observation" to "new agey self help woo that even I squint a bit at", but it's delivered way, way beyond that in a shockingly humanistic way.
the dude's father and grandfather apparently had a phenomenon where they were "voice-hearers". The grandfather was a writer and hearing voices was a totally benign (and pleasant!) sort of rare occurrence linked to creativity; he didn't really think much of it, like a lot of authors treat it as a natural and almost expected manifestation of their art. (Unfortunately it manifested itself in a lot more negative way in his son with the son ultimately choosing to go on meds to keep them quiet; i find the author remarkably nuanced on addressing the medical linkage between hearing voices + schizophrenia while always being careful to note there is an unexpectedly large majority of people that don't have that linkage... and still remain respectful to the spectrum of those experiences.) nuance!!! we love to see it.
dude then goes into chapter tangents on voice-hearing in religion with tons and tons of excerpts, how voice-hearing is super different than subvocalization as 100% capital-D Deaf folks have reported on "hearing voices", him actively going to voice-hearing symposiums where both psychiatrists and self-diagnosed anti-psychiatric sat together and talked about their experiences ... just lots of really cool, interesting, kind shit, with science thrown in.
(having my own hearing issues/having a CI, i was surprised at how tight his research was - like i had to know what a cochlea was at age five to describe an itty bitty part of my meatbag issues lmao, this isn't new to me, but he even had some SUPER neat science about splitting hairs (har har pun) between tinnitus and true 'the-brain-just-makes-up-shit-man, we still don't know much about this' studies. There was also other bits ranging from people "hearing" music played in front of them on a recorder* (the scientists faked turning the recorder on), to like, dissecting 1700's texts on where the hell the definition 'auditory hallucination' came from and how it impactedthe discourse er, how people perceived "voices" as "sketchy sick people" in later years versus being respected religious prophets / authors / creators.
which, to the last part, since i'm mostly here for "vague concept of (positive) muse for creative folks in modern times", this absolutely touched there with pages and pages of examples with quoted text (William Blake!) of creatives straight up swearing that their creations came from Elsewhere in a very real, spiritual sort of way (and rarely linked to the dominant religion of their life!).
and lmoe, yes, "the origins of consciousness" (infamous book discussing a radical theory on consciousness where ancient folks straight up "heard" the voice of the gods from the other side of their mind) was mentioned - i vaguely knew about that book from a SSC post, but felt like this book was a much easier introduction to the topic.
some reviews found the overall organization of the book a little scattershot, like the author never committed to a "story"", but I actually feel like that would've hurt the sheer depth and breadth, and the whole idea of being incredibly validating to voice-hears (in one fashion or another - not all experiences are the same!) being the main ... point, if you will. one of those i'm def buying for the personal library!
hoooooooo boy this one was a fun one.
i freely admit going into this one with an agenda(tm) of Muse research expecting to wade through the familiar canyon of "super academic papers from observation" to "new agey self help woo that even I squint a bit at", but it's delivered way, way beyond that in a shockingly humanistic way.
the dude's father and grandfather apparently had a phenomenon where they were "voice-hearers". The grandfather was a writer and hearing voices was a totally benign (and pleasant!) sort of rare occurrence linked to creativity; he didn't really think much of it, like a lot of authors treat it as a natural and almost expected manifestation of their art. (Unfortunately it manifested itself in a lot more negative way in his son with the son ultimately choosing to go on meds to keep them quiet; i find the author remarkably nuanced on addressing the medical linkage between hearing voices + schizophrenia while always being careful to note there is an unexpectedly large majority of people that don't have that linkage... and still remain respectful to the spectrum of those experiences.) nuance!!! we love to see it.
dude then goes into chapter tangents on voice-hearing in religion with tons and tons of excerpts, how voice-hearing is super different than subvocalization as 100% capital-D Deaf folks have reported on "hearing voices", him actively going to voice-hearing symposiums where both psychiatrists and self-diagnosed anti-psychiatric sat together and talked about their experiences ... just lots of really cool, interesting, kind shit, with science thrown in.
(having my own hearing issues/having a CI, i was surprised at how tight his research was - like i had to know what a cochlea was at age five to describe an itty bitty part of my meatbag issues lmao, this isn't new to me, but he even had some SUPER neat science about splitting hairs (har har pun) between tinnitus and true 'the-brain-just-makes-up-shit-man, we still don't know much about this' studies. There was also other bits ranging from people "hearing" music played in front of them on a recorder* (the scientists faked turning the recorder on), to like, dissecting 1700's texts on where the hell the definition 'auditory hallucination' came from and how it impacted
which, to the last part, since i'm mostly here for "vague concept of (positive) muse for creative folks in modern times", this absolutely touched there with pages and pages of examples with quoted text (William Blake!) of creatives straight up swearing that their creations came from Elsewhere in a very real, spiritual sort of way (and rarely linked to the dominant religion of their life!).
and lmoe, yes, "the origins of consciousness" (infamous book discussing a radical theory on consciousness where ancient folks straight up "heard" the voice of the gods from the other side of their mind) was mentioned - i vaguely knew about that book from a SSC post, but felt like this book was a much easier introduction to the topic.
some reviews found the overall organization of the book a little scattershot, like the author never committed to a "story"", but I actually feel like that would've hurt the sheer depth and breadth, and the whole idea of being incredibly validating to voice-hears (in one fashion or another - not all experiences are the same!) being the main ... point, if you will. one of those i'm def buying for the personal library!
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Date: 2021-09-19 01:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-09-20 12:30 am (UTC)