[NoraSpinnor]

In traditional cultures, when a young person starts hearing voices, having visions, or going through overwhelming emotions, it isn’t immediately pathologized. It’s often seen as a sign of calling, a spiritual emergence. Elders recognize the signs. Instead of suppressing the experience, they guide the person through it. They stay close and explain what’s happening. They show how to navigate the unseen realms and how to bring back insight, not fear.

In contrast, our modern culture tends to isolate and medicate. Experiences that might be the early signs of healing gifts are treated like broken circuitry. The result? Many gifted individuals lose their path under the weight of diagnosis, shame, and chemical suppression. People fear mental divergence and spiritual insight is often questioned and suppressed before it can be fully actualized.

Netism teaches that initiatory awakenings can be trying; we are often taken down to our lowest points before we can truly rise. How we treat these low points, though, can make all the difference. We can treat them as the darkness that must come before light, a necessary journey through the underworld, or we can medicate it as if something were wrong with us. The former brings growth, the latter brings stagnation.

This isn’t to say that no medication for mental illness is necessary, just that in many cases, we aren’t meant to take a pill to end our pain; we’re meant to transmute it and grow past it.

Sometimes madness is genius unrecognized.

What kind of support system, mentor, or teaching helped you through a spiritual crisis or awakening?
Have you ever wished someone had helped you understand what was happening?
Share your story.

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