Forty-nine years ago, an eighteen-year-old Harvard undergraduate asked Paul Tillich whether his recent vision was religious ecstasy, a conversion experience, or an enlightenment. The student had handed his essay, "The Phenomenological Proof of God," to Tillich. Two days later the young man was hospitalized as a schizophrenic. Ever since, the author has attempted to understand the relationships between religious revelation, mystical ecstasy and psychosis. If his beatific vision was a hallucin…
Read moreForty-nine years ago, an eighteen-year-old Harvard undergraduate asked Paul Tillich whether his recent vision was religious ecstasy, a conversion experience, or an enlightenment. The student had handed his essay, "The Phenomenological Proof of God," to Tillich. Two days later the young man was hospitalized as a schizophrenic. Ever since, the author has attempted to understand the relationships between religious revelation, mystical ecstasy and psychosis. If his beatific vision was a hallucination, then should not all similar experiences also be diagnosed as psychopathological? His meeting with Tillich will always remain "the still point of the turning world," since it confirms the healing power of religious faith, "the Son of Man in our presence," and kairos as defining concepts of Tillich's theology.
