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1.4
The dangers to be faced on a journey of self
 
  For all the benefits espoused by self discovery, the journey is also considered highly dangerous. Even today, psychologists and professional medical practitioners consider self discovery and self reflection without proper guidance a dangerous pursuit. The trouble is the fragility with reality and the ability of the mind to conceive.  
1.4.1 Many of the greatest have tried and failed  
  Adding weight to the dangers of self discovery is that many have tried and failed. The greatest minds have sought to unlock the mysteries of the mind and the soul and come up wanting.  
  Contemplating the divine is a dangerous thing when considering the fate so so many thinkers throughout history The real problem is the focus towards arguments and circular seemingly unresolved paradox. Because paradox is considered the enemy of logic, its existence in any traditional "western philosophical" model is considered a sign of weakness.  
  Thus, the pursuit of logic has fueled the pursuit of ultimate knowledge through the model of logic. Again and again, some of the greatest thinkers have come to a point and gone no further because of these tools.  
1.4.2 Manic depression and 'greatness'  
  For some reason, the greatest thinkers, writers, artists of humanity have all shared a similar and sad trait- the trait of mania, of manic depression or in its modern "clinical" term bi-polar disease. This little known fact is often ignored of deliberately not spoken about when reviewing the history of the greatest minds of humanity.  
  Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Descartes, Einstein, on and on through almost the entire list of the greatest minds humanity has ever produced have all shared this common affliction of periods of great elation followed by prolonged periods of depression. For some, these episodes of depression lasted for years. For others, the mania even blew out into schizophrenia (split personalities).  
  While in our clinical world today the concept of bi-polar disease can be diagnosed and treated (to some extent) with drugs, it is hard to distinguish whether the mania of the greatest minds of humanity was due in part to their pursuit of the unknown, or exaggerated because of it.  
  Whatever the correlation, deep contemplation on thoughts of the inner self has always had an element of danger, that unchecked in days gone by would have been called the risk of "madness".  
1.4.3 The messiah complex  
  Another strange feature of the journey of self discovery is the prevalence of religious euphoria that is sometimes encountered. Put in another way, the "messiah complex".  
  In the world today, there are literally thousands of people who believe themselves to be The Messiah, the One, the One who has come to save the world.  
  In a clinical sense it is easy today simply class these people as suffering acute delusion, a kind or religious zeal a "messiah complex" if you like. Sadly, a great many of these people find themselves placed into mental institutions. Some find a way of avoiding these kinds of places and a few even manage to harness this "messiah complex" and go on to found religions and religious cults.  
  But is it enough simply to write off this phenomena as nothing more than a psychological condition? What if one of the dangers of inner reflection is the triggering of reactions that lead to these kind of feelings? We will explore this further in later chapters.  
     
 
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