VI. Spiritual Insight Offering Greatest Liberation II: The Mission of the Spiritual Science Movement

One thing modern alienists are sure of is that such conditions cannot be influenced by reasoning with people. You'll see what I mean in a minute. For a time it was thought that if someone suffered from a particular form of mania that came to expression in abnormal religious ideas, it would be possible to correct this by talking sense to them, presenting sensible arguments to them. Mania sometimes takes quite a specific form. Someone imagines he is being persecuted, for example. The alienist considers this to be a symptom.[^10] Persecution mania is just a symptom to him, with an abnormality of the brain the true problem. You cannot overcome someone’s delusions by explaining that he is not being persecuted at all, for you cannot change the way the brain is organized Up to this point, the alienist is in fact right The spiritual scientist does not intend to judge someone else from an amateur point of view. You may present sensible ideas to the person concerned, but you'll not cure his mania. At the most it will then take another form.