BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

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Friday, February 13, 2015

Model of Mind in The New Testament: Possession (Multiple Personality), Not only by demons, but by the Spirit of God

In the last post—after noting that what psychiatry refers to as multiple personality is considered possession in some cultures—I discussed a case of demon possession found in three gospels.

But demon possession puts possession in a bad light. To be fair, I must emphasize that possession (multiple personality) is just a model of how the mind works. Whether it is good or bad depends on what the mind is possessed by: Demons bad. God good.

Good possession is discussed in The Letter of Paul to the Romans (7:22-8:9). It is the solution to this problem: One of a person’s selves may “delight in the law of God,” but that self may be at war with another self who serves “the law of sin.” The way to shift the balance of power and win the war is to become possessed by the “Spirit of God” (1).

Note: I am not referencing The New Testament for any religious reasons, but only to indicate that multiple personality has been a model of the mind for literally thousands of years.

1. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (Editors). The Oxford Annotated Bible: Revised Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments. New York, Oxford University Press, 1962.
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