Hearing Voices

Can recreational drugs be an opening to genuine spiritual awakening? Brian Hartnett's passion for rave dance music -- as well as alcohol and ecstasy -- cost him his career. Doctors labeled his paranoia, telepathy, and voices symptoms of schizophrenia. But Brian went on to become one of the founders of Hearing Voices Ireland, and discover a new, heightened spirituality. www.voicesireland.com

Does modern art, such as Artaud, Beckett, and Duchamp, parallel the mad frames of mind that get labeled "schizophrenia?" Is extreme sensitivity and inner self-consciousness behind artistic innovation and breaks with reality? Rutgers University psychologist Louis Sass, author of Madness And Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought, discusses art as an insight into the subjective inner world of madness. lsass@rci.rutgers.edu

UK clinical psychologist Rufus May descended into madness -- convinced he was on a spy mission and that animals were robots, he even walked into a family gathering naked. How did Rufus find meaning in these experiences, learn to live without medication, and become a successful psychologist and mental health advocate? Rufus was recently featured in the Channel 4 feature film The Doctor Who Hears Voices. www.rufusmay.com

UK video activist and writer Mel Gunasena on her mystical experiences and forced psychiatric hospitalization. Mel is the director of Evolving Minds, a documentary film about spiritual experiences and what gets labeled "psychosis" by the mental health system. She also discusses the art therapy project in Sri Lanka she helped found to assist traumatized tsunami-affected children. See a trailer for the film at www.undercurrents.org/minds and check out the Sri Lanka project at www.art-2-art.org/.