Why is it that religious leaders seem to be people who go into the desert for 30 or 40 days and have contact with supernatural creatures? Both Jesus & Mohammad seem to exhibit schizophrenic tendencies. Or is it just me?
That's what happens when you go into the desert in mushroom season.
No, it isn't just you. A month of the searing dessert heat along with malnutrition will lead to altered states of consciousness. Some African, Australian, north and South American trives used such an ordeal as a right of passage into adulthood to meet their "spirit guide".
I suspect the practice or at least stories of the practice were alswo a part of Middle East early cultures too.
I don't think of it as "spiritual" so much as it is creating a situation where you go a little crazy for a while. If you think about it, teh crazy peopel of the ancient world were said to be "touched by the gods", and the is the experience such persons are seeking to have... only not as a permanent life condition.
I always have a hard time containing my laughter when that sort of stuff gets brought up as some sort of positive light to claims of faith. Clearly those men were of sound mind during their whole ordeal, being starved and dehydrated did NOTHING to their mental state lol.
God needs to get you properly fucked up and alone before he has the courage to talk to you. He's got social anxiety or something, doesn't like to be around a lot of people at any given time.
....Look where they were....plenty of poppies catching fire...makes sense no?
trust me go without water for over 72 hours and you get delusional, 40 days I'm surprised they survived.
Moses and burning bush and 40 years? of wandering in a stupor?
I think the religious people have schizophrenic delusions.
I often wonder what would happen if these stories were written in different land. Would the ascetic sage go off to mediate in the woods, or travel to a lonely island in the middle of a vast sea? How about a mountaintop hidden in the clouds? It sounds like the idea is to be completely removed from all other people, and a desert comes in handy as long as there's one nearby. Then again, the heat and lack of water and solitude lends itself well to hallucinations, strange visions, and other surreal cognitive frolics.
No it's not you, it's Them. To behave the way they did they were certainly full of issues mentally!!