ABSTRACT
Anecdotes such as the above, although they are hardly convincing to scientists, none the less jolt and jog every researcher who has a lot of daily contact with schizophrenic patients over the years. Sometimes one really wonders whether or not this loosely connected family of illnesses involves processes which are maybe quite beyond that which current science could possibly explain. Perhaps only a more advanced system of knowledge will truly be able to encompass all the phenomena that come to our attention. But stressing the magical and mysterious sides of schizophrenia, for example via conducting ESP experiments, can produce problems for recovering patients (Greyson 1977, p. 198; Chadwick 1992, p. 136), possibly because it makes sufferers feel that they are permeable to forces beyond their control. Many patients may refuse to be tested for this reason and one of Greyson’s subjects found the negative outcome of his experiment therapeutic. Strange phenomena such as that reported by Rogo do occur, and as we will see in Chapters 6 to 8 they can be productively utilised by less disturbed people-but this is much less the case in people who have actually been through an outright psychotic episode, where ‘paranormalising ’ their illness, except in minor ways, is not usually helpful.
