Jesus and mental illness

Excerpt

“Jesus Christ was a schizophrenic!” The renowned professor of medicine and department chairman appeared both proud of and bemused by his own “butade.” His closed associates and division chiefs competed to humor him with the decibels and duration of their laughter. Every Friday night, they congregated at his house to celebrate the end of the working week with a ritual that included booze, finger foods, and off-color jokes and comments. The celebration reached its climax when the old gentleman, loaded with scotch, his red eyes minimized to a porcine size, uttered a new egregious and desecrating statement. A few of the most promising resident physicians, such as myself and my spouse, were occasionally admitted as catechumens to this informal church proclaiming the death of all religions and all gods. To be initiated to a productive academic career, we needed to learn a total and unconditional devotion to university politics, disguised as devotion to the progression of science and to the service of the humanity. Hypocrisy was a critical requirement: Unless you were able to state with a straight face that “smoking does not cause lung cancer,” you would not have qualified for admission. At the meantime we needed to learn to avoid, disregard and disdain any distracting intrusion to this ascension, including the search for love and meaning, as well as the compassion for the suffering. I remember a senior faculty member honoring one of the research fellows because he proved to be “heartless” in dealing with an “experimental patient.” …