Overview

Science has not been able to fully explain the phenomenon of auditory hallucination. It is a condition that has existed perhaps as long as we have - there is evidence of it in literature and even pre-literate oral histories from across all times and cultures. Daniel Smith presents the sophisticated and radical argument that a negative side effect of living as we do in this great age of medical science is that we have come to limit this phenomenon to nothing more than a biochemical glitch for which the only proper response is medical, pharmaceutical treatment. This pathological assumption can inflict great harm on the people who hear voices by ignoring the meaning and reality of the experience for them. But it also obscures from the rest of us a rich wellspring of knowledge about the essential source of faith and inspiration. Smith examines famous incidences of hearing voices throughout history - Moses, Mohammed, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, Rilke, William Blake, Socrates, and others - and considers the experience of auditory hallucination in light of its relationship to the nature of pure faith and as the key to the source of artistic inspiration. In the ancient past, he says, God was the hub of unusual sensory experiences, and piety the standard by which those experiences were measured. Somewhere along the way, however, God and piety were replaced by Science and sanity. But there are people, even today, who feel the voice they hear is the voice of God. As one of them describes it: The universe we live in screens it out, like a prism refracts light. So what I hear is almost like prophesy itself. At the heart of Smith's exploration into the many extraordinary, strange, sometimes frightening and sometimes almost supernatural aspects of auditory hallucination is his driving personal need to comprehend an experience that, when considered in good faith, is as profound and complex as human consciousness itself.

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9780413776457

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Reviews

* 'An appealing introduction to a mysterious phenomenon.' Kirkus Reviews * 'Smith's depth of research, sparkling intelligence and knack for collapsing fixed borders between diagnosis and drugs on one hand and vision and inspiration on the other makes this book a thrilling read. This book could revolutionise psychiatric diagnosis.' James Hillman, author of The Soul's Code

Author Information

Daniel Smith is a New York-based journalist and writer on science and medicine, whose interest in the phenomenon of auditory hallucination was sparked by his father's own life-long torment. He has written for Granta magazine amongst many others

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