Divine Madness

“That would have been a fine thing to say if madness were bad pure and simple; but in fact the best things we have come from madness, when it is given as a gift of the god” (Plato, Phaedrus).

The sections concerning madness and the irrational in the Phaedrus have been some of the most interesting pieces of writing I’ve read in a while. They are so intriguing because Platonism is a philosophy pre-occupied with bringing oneself in accordance with reason, subjecting the passions and in general living in a way conducive to contemplation. It is not obvious (at least to a beginner such as me) that irrationality and madness would have a place in Platonic philosophy and life, and yet Plato has Socrates describe madness as an inherent part of love, and the vehicle by which true art is produced. This leads to questions of what it means to live as a human being and a philosopher: is it possible that being taken outside of ourselves by means of ecstatic experience makes us more into ourselves?

Underneath the shade of a plane tree, Socrates and Phaedrus discourse, and while they talk we are continually reminded of the presence of the divine, for by stepping outside of the city walls they have entered more explicitly into the domain of the spirits who haunt this world. It is heavily implied that during this dialogue (and especially during his lengthy speech on love) that Socrates is himself possessed – or at least moved by – the gods that dwell near the river that the dialogue takes place. There is a link between the location of the dialogue and the content within.

The madness identified by Plato is firstly best described as a gift, it is given to us by the gods. Something within us must be set alight by the gods, this is not a state that we ourselves can produce. This process is later described as the soul’s recollection of the forms which in its previous heavenly life had contact with (in various degrees). “A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god” (Plato, Phaedrus). No doubt that Plotinus’ famous treatise on beauty in the Enneads draws from these passages from the Phaedrus, for Plato then says that the beauty of this world can be the catalyst for the remembrance of the eternal forms: “when he sees the beauty we have down here and is reminded of the true beauty; then he takes wings and flutters in his eagerness to rise up.”

This naturally leads to a discussion on art and its production. One may very well say that the production of art is an entirely reasoned activity, this is an entirely plausible suggestion, as the various types of art all require a great deal of technical and theoretical knowledge: the connection between music and mathematics has been advanced by many authors. Think also of the technicality of grammar, the measure and proportion of colour in painting and so on. Without having mastered these there will be no basis for the artist to produce his product. However, Plato dismisses the idea that it is the controlled mastery of these forms alone which lead to the production of great art: “if anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses’ madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds” (Plato, Phaedrus). In every great art then there is a prevailing element of the irrational.

Even a machine can be designed to reproduce the notes of a piece of music, but only the Lover is an artist. For only when he is enthralled by the remembrance of his divine origin and wounded by the love of what is beyond can he truly begin to sing.

Not all souls partake in this activity equally, concerning this experience Plotinus says “this is the spirit that beauty must ever induce, wonderment and a delicious trouble, longing and love and trembling that is all delight … and this the Souls feel for it, every soul in some degree, but those the more deeply that are the more truly apt to this higher love – just as all take delight in the beauty of the body but all are not stung as sharply, and those only that feel the keener wound are known as Lovers” (Plotinus, Enneads, I.6). The reason for this is given by Plato who says that the soul’s aptitude for love is determined by how high it ascended towards the forms in its previous life (Phaedrus). Whether or not we accept Plato’s reasoning for this, I think that the conclusion is self-evident just from experience. How can some people be insensate to the things which seem to bring others into another realm entirely? Ultimately, I think that it is unfathomable why some people are more prone to this experience than others.

However, this is not to say that discipline and self-control falls away and becomes irrelevant in light of this teaching. When speaking about the ideal love between a Lover and a boy, Plato emphasises the fact that true philosophical love surpasses sexuality. (As an aside, even though Plato is here speaking about love in terms of the relationship between a man and boy, it is by no means exclusive to this, and has been applied to all love allegorically; certainly this is how Plotinus viewed these passages of the Phaedrus). A philosophical love rises through stages tempered by discipline, and without this self-control, love will become sexual and therefore lower, stained by bodily pleasure and selfishness.

What I conclude from this is that Plato is suggesting that irrational and ecstatic experience are integral parts of being led to the good through love, and therefore are an indispensable part of becoming fully human. While I am not very well read, I could not imagine this point being made by any of the stoic authors I have engaged with, so it is very interesting that Plato treats this kind of madness as something that can be used (and in a way must be used) rather than banishing it for not being in accordance with reason. There is a natural tendency to identify man with his reason, as this is what separates us from the rest of creation, but perhaps we are more accurately identified with the part of ourselves which is above reason, ever striving back towards the heavens?

This leads to a question: is there is a tension between the sobriety and dispassion advocated elsewhere by the Platonists, and the Socratic discussion of love and madness? Is it that watchfulness culminates in an experience in which one is taken up outside of themselves? There is a good argument to be made for this: the practice of virtue and philosophy lead one to be disposed to mystical experience, the culmination of which will appear to men as a kind of madness.  This madness in turn leads to greater self-realization even if it cannot be described in words. This interplay between two seemingly opposing experiences is what allowed St. Paul to advocate austere sobriety as well as describe (as far as words are able) the heights of mystical experience: “I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven … he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter” (II Corinthians 12:2,4).