by Frank Tallis
Rachel put her arm around Sabina and pulled her close before addressing me. ‘Thank you. I’m really sorry. We didn’t know what to do.’ She took a deep breath and tried to explain. ‘It was so frightening—I’ve never been so scared in my life.’
‘That’s his blood—on the door?’
Rachel nodded. ‘He’d been here for a couple of hours and we were just—you know—talking—like we normally do—but he wasn’t right. He wasn’t making any sense and he kept on stopping to say prayers. And then he said that maybe we didn’t have to wait—to be married, to be together—that there was another way… and that Sabina and Sean could be with us too… in heaven.’ Rachel stroked Sabina’s hair and began to cry. ‘I got really scared and asked him to leave, but he wouldn’t go. He started to get angry—told me that I shouldn’t have any doubts—that it was wrong to doubt—and that I should be strong and trust him. I said I needed a few minutes on my own to think it over and asked him to go outside. When he heard me locking the door he went crazy. It was horrible. He tried to break the door down. He just tried to punch his way through.’
Luke had eventually given up and walked away, presumably in order to commune with God and receive instruction.
‘Where’s Warren?’
‘With my dad—they’ve gone out tonight.’
They were attending a big social event being held in the next village. This was another reason why so many of the cottages were dark.
I wasn’t sure what I was expected to do. If Luke succeeded in breaking the door down I might be able to buy Rachel and Sonia a little time. But it would probably be only a few seconds, particularly if God had advised Luke to find himself an axe.
‘Oh God,’ said Rachel. ‘What have I done?’ She threw a guilty glance at her baby son.
My mouth was dry and my legs were shaking. I felt hopelessly inadequate and I was so anxious by this time that my head had emptied of thoughts and I was experiencing a kind of numb detachment. It was as though my mind was shutting down.
And then, suddenly, everyone was screaming. Sean started to wail too.
Rachel, Sonia and Sabina were all looking in the same direction. A pale oval was hovering in the darkness framed by the window. I could taste fear again—a mineral toxicity that caught at the back of my throat. Features clarified as the face pressed up against the glass. I heard Rachel exclaiming: ‘No—it’s all right—it’s all right—it’s Warren.’
Sonia laid a hand on her chest and said, ‘I can’t take much more of this.’
Rachel signed to her brother and went to open the door. I heard Bill’s voice: ‘Jesus—what’s all this?’
‘Did you see Luke?’ Rachel asked.
‘We passed him in the car…’
Bill and Warren entered the room and I felt hugely relieved. Everyone was talking but I wasn’t really listening. The situation was no longer my responsibility. I just wanted to go home.
Outside, a car was parked in the road and a few young men were inspecting the blood and broken glass. I guessed they were Warren’s mates. I had taken only a few steps before I came to an abrupt halt. Luke was standing at the garden gate. I sensed a general withdrawal—people stepping back—as Luke came forward. We met each other halfway along the garden path.
‘Hello, Luke.’
He looked down at me. His expression showed a hint of recognition but he seemed distracted. His head rocked back and he gazed upwards, his eyes locking on the highest stars. He started whispering very fast. All that I could hear at first was sibilance, but as I listened, his accelerated speech became interpretable. ‘Father, Father, Father—Your house has many rooms, Your room has many houses. Did You not tell us so? Father, receive us into Your love. For the day is coming—give us this day… this day of days… For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory. Deliver us from evil. Surely—surely—He has borne our grief—and carried away our sorrows.’
His shirt sleeves were in tatters, black with blood, and deep cuts covered his forearms. Something, I couldn’t see what it was exactly—a shred of muscle or an artery—was actually protruding out of a long, open wound.
‘Purify us from all unrighteousness. And I shall be Your faithful witness—now and forever—Amen. Thank you, Father—thank you, thank you.’
‘Luke,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should sit down. You’ve lost a lot of blood.’
He rotated his arms in the light spilling out from the hallway. His hands were completely red. ‘By these marks,’ he said with solemn confidence, ‘you shall know me.’
‘All the same, you really should sit down.’
I was surprised by his reaction. He fell to his knees.
‘Maybe you should keep your arms high too,’ I suggested. ‘You’re still bleeding.’ Again, he did exactly as I’d asked. ‘How are you feeling, Luke?’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Good. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.’
For a few seconds, his teeth chattered.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No… I’m not cold.’
I hoped that someone was calling the police while I kept him occupied.
Luke continued muttering Biblical quotations and fragments of prayer. Occasionally, however, he would fall silent and give me a curious, probing look. It made me uncomfortable. But if I asked him a solicitous question, the words would soon start flowing again, and he’d quickly revert to addressing the sky. As another episode of chaotic prayer petered out, his head lolled sideways and his eyes became inquisitive. Before I could give him a prompt he said, ‘So, tell me something.’ His voice sounded quite normal and conversational. ‘Because I’ve been wondering… is your wife an obedient woman?’
‘Obedience isn’t something we talk about.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. It isn’t something I’d expect.’
‘How come?’ I shrugged. ‘Is that the truth?’ His voice—now a preacher’s voice—was sincere and sympathetic. ‘Honestly? It doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter that you don’t wear the pants in your house? A thing like that! It doesn’t matter?’
‘I guess not.’
He considered my answer and nodded. After a few seconds he said, very quietly, ‘I know who you are.’
I bent down to hear him better. ‘I’m sorry?’
Our faces were close. I was aware that he had started to smile. The corners of his mouth had curled upwards but his eyes remained narrowed and suspicious. He lunged at me and shouted: ‘Fuck you—Satan!’
I jumped back, shocked. His hands raked the air. He made a few more efforts to grab me and then the fight seemed to go out of him. He sat back on his heels and bowed his head. ‘Father,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’
The mist pulsed with blue light. A police car arrived and two officers leapt out. I had briefly heard the crackle of their radio. ‘I’m just a neighbour,’ I said, pointing at the house. ‘The family are inside.’ I gave Luke a wide berth and hurried down the road.
When I got to my cottage I paused to survey the scene. The light suspended between the poles flickered. I thought of the hill behind me, its dark invisible mass, and the earth—saturated with ancient, sacrificial blood.
I heard my wife say: ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me.’
She opened the door and I stepped into the kitchen, where I immediately collapsed on a chair. I was emotionally and physically exhausted.
‘What happened?’ my wife asked.
‘Can you make me a cup of tea?’ I asked, hoping, on this occasion, for obedience.
Catastrophic breakdowns are the result of stressful life events interacting with vulnerabilities, which may vary from person to person and can be psychological, biological or both. It seems highly likely that Luke was predisposed to psychosis. That he had chosen to bring his disciples to an obscure English market town raises serious questions about his prior mental health. This sleepy backwater was no Gomorrah and the ordinary people who lived there had no obvious
need for spiritual salvation.
Luke’s mission was redundant and oddly random. His Messianic affectations were grandiose and although he only spoke of Jesus giving him guidance, the clear implication was that some kind of dialogue was taking place long before he left America. Auditory hallucinations do not necessarily predict the development of serious psychiatric illness. Some people are able to correctly identify them as internally generated phenomena and live regular lives; however, when voices are attributed to God, the context is almost always delusional.
There is a considerable overlap between religious experience and psychosis. If you are a devout Christian and one day Jesus tells you to travel to another country and do his bidding, why wouldn’t you? And if he also told you to kill in his name, why wouldn’t you do that too? The Bible is full of Godly violence. How is it possible to discriminate between the authentic voice of God and an auditory hallucination? Ultimately, if you are a believer, you probably can’t. On the other hand, if—as Freud suggested—all of religion can be understood as an infantile defence against the harsh realities of existence, there is no dilemma. When God speaks to you, it is always an auditory hallucination, because He doesn’t exist.
I have always exercised caution when talking to patients with deeply held religious beliefs—particularly if they have a different heritage. What passes for normal in one culture can be mistakenly classed as abnormal in another. I was once working at a drop-in centre for a mental health charity. I was asked to assess a middle-aged Indian woman whose English wasn’t very good. She seemed to be suggesting that she could hear the voices of Hindu deities: Lord Shiva, Hanuman the monkey god. I spent several hours with her, being careful not to ask leading questions and doing my best to clarify the nature of her experience. I was mindful of my Western, secular biases, and at the end of the interview I was undecided. Consequently I spoke with her husband—who was also Indian and Hindu. I explained how I didn’t want to make any mistakes because of cultural differences. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he said impatiently. ‘She’s bloody mad.’
Falling in love can destabilise individuals who exhibit none of the risk factors associated with psychiatric illness. Even the most grounded, well-balanced and rational people become love sick. Luke—who was already prone to delusional thinking and hallucination—was simply unable to cope with the intensity of love. Falling in love was the life event that interacted with his vulnerabilities and caused his breakdown.
Luke, being an evangelical Christian, could not countenance sex before marriage and he was morally obliged to postpone intercourse indefinitely. Rachel had initiated divorce proceedings, but there was a strong possibility that her husband would be uncooperative and cause delays. I doubt that Luke had had many experiences of falling in love. He was unprepared for the upheaval, the longing and the yearning—the sleepless nights. And most of all, he was unprepared for the onset of desire—restive urges—lust.
Wilhelm Reich, perhaps the most colourful figure in the history of psychiatry, believed that mental illnesses are caused by various forms of sexual frustration. Sexual energies can be blocked or find insufficient release. Orgasms can be unsatisfactory. This viewpoint has much in common with Freud’s early proposal that a build-up of libido in the body causes anxiety. Freud assumed an underlying biological mechanism that resembled the conversion of wine into vinegar. In the decades that followed, his understanding of mental illness became more refined and he abandoned this position. Reich, however, remained faithful to Freud’s original hypothesis and became convinced that sexual blockages could also cause physical problems. When he was visited by an elderly woman who suffered from a diaphragmatic tic, he taught her to masturbate and the tic disappeared.
Reich was a very modern thinker in that the approach he advocated was holistic. He recognised, for example, that psychological defences are sometimes embodied. When we repress, we become tense. It is as though our muscles harden to become a kind of armour. This observation led him to develop innovative treatments involving massage. He discovered that inhibitions and blockages could be released by manipulating the body. These innovations were not welcomed by the majority of psychoanalysts, for whom touching patients was strictly taboo.
Being Jewish, Reich chose to leave Europe for America in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution.
The interventions that Reich developed—collectively and unappealingly named ‘vegetotherapy’—have not gained widespread acceptance. This is largely because his ideas became increasingly outlandish and he lost all scientific credibility. He reconceptualised libido as a cosmic life-force and claimed that it could be collected in ‘accumulators’ and used to cure cancer. He constructed massive energy-cannons that he aimed at the sky in order to produce rain. He also used them to destroy UFOs and protect the earth from alien invasion. In the final years of his life he attracted the attention of the US authorities. His accumulators were destroyed, his books and journals burned and in 1957 he died in jail.
I don’t believe—as Reich would have—that sexual frustration provides a full explanation for Luke’s breakdown; however, I think it played an important part. He was at war with himself. His rigid beliefs about the impropriety of pre-marital sex were preventing the satisfaction of his instinctual needs. Frustration was intolerable, but so was the alternative—sin. This kind of dilemma, which requires an individual to make a choice between two punishing outcomes, is known as a ‘double bind’. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, many psychiatrists and psychotherapists were convinced that double binds (usually created by dysfunctional communication within families) were a cause of schizophrenia. What was Luke to do? The solution to his predicament was transcendence. He would become one with Rachel in the kingdom of heaven. And I suspect that the voice in Luke’s head—the voice of God—was approving. Sex is a pale imitation of that great romantic ideal—the union of souls—a state that can be accomplished only by escaping corporeal limitations.
If Rachel had failed to get Luke out of the house, things might have turned out very differently. He might have locked the door, removed a knife from a kitchen drawer, and killed Rachel, Sabina and Sean. He might also have killed Sonia. And after sending them all to heaven, he would, of course, have followed. Love has unforeseen consequences. We should always take it seriously.
Luke was hospitalised and I never saw him again. His parents were contacted and, when Luke was fit to travel, they took him home. His disciples—bereft of purpose and direction—also returned to America.
Ever since my arrival in the village, I had been disturbed by a gnawing sense of unease. I had attributed it to my fascination with the local folklore. I had been reading far too much about haunted ruins and travellers seized by demons. I had been spending far too much time alone. Now, I felt relieved. The boil had been lanced—the poison drawn. The bad thing had happened.
But I was wrong. The bad thing hadn’t happened.
A few days passed. Then my wife told me that she wanted a divorce.
Freud once famously posed the question, ‘What does woman want?’ He was dissatisfied with his understanding of female psychology. For thirty years he had studied the ‘feminine soul’ and he was baffled. This quote appears frequently in books, books mostly written by men. I think we find it consoling. If Freud didn’t know what women want—what chance the rest of us? Although in reality, of course, his ignorance exonerates no one.
Life does not progress in an orderly fashion. Periods of stability are interrupted by critical events that precipitate change. Joseph Campbell—who wrote extensively on the subject of comparative mythology—pointed out that most stories reach a point where a crisis or blunder alters the direction of the protagonist’s life. The critical event, the turning point, often involves entering a dark forest and encountering a figure—sometimes magical, sometimes sinister and dangerous—who is effectively the herald of change: ‘The familiar life horizon has been outgrown; the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for the passing of a thresho
ld is at hand.’ The crisis, according to Campbell, is also a ‘call to adventure’.
There is tremendous wisdom to be found in the symbolism of folklore and myth. Indeed, one could argue that many of the discoveries of psychotherapy are not discoveries at all, but the transliteration of helpful principles encoded in stories: I had entered the dark forest of a failing marriage—lost my way—and encountered the herald of change in the form of a psychotic American evangelist. At the time, it seemed to me that my life had completely unravelled. I was unhappy, uncertain and ill-prepared for the emotional demands and legal wrangling that lay ahead. I wasn’t in great shape. Luke was still lumbering through my dreams—emerging from wreaths of mist, drenched in blood—a sibilant malevolence.
But crises are catalysts. They move us on—break us up—so we can be recast in new forms. The herald of change does not appear at any point in a story. He or she appears when the old ‘emotional patterns no longer fit’. If I had been familiar with Joseph Campbell back then, I might have found solace—rather than supernatural dread—in all of the folktales I’d been reading.
Two months later, I was sitting in a lecture theatre, pen in hand, a note pad balanced on my knees, in a very ready state to learn about the human mind and relationships.
Chapter 7
The Stocking Game
Dr B and Fräulein O—a cautionary tale
Cassandra always dressed in the same combination of clothes: T-shirt, tight black jeans and trainers. She rarely wore make-up, and when she did it was only just noticeable—hints of pastel around her eyes, a subtle gloss on her thin lips. She moved with an easy, loose-limbed grace, and would often raise one heel onto the edge of her seat and hug her knee. Her hair, a shade of brown, was long and straight and always flopping in front of her eyes. She parted her fringe with an equine shake of the head. When she entered the consulting room, she would narrow her shoulders and allow her fawn-coloured raincoat to drop to the floor. Its descent was usually assisted by a weighty paperback curled into one of the pockets.
