The Great Shift

by James L. Kugel

  But not all people who hear voices can be described as mentally ill. Some early studies concluded that between 2 and 4 percent of the general population report hearing voices; most of these subjects did not present any other symptoms associated with mental disorders. Other researchers have put the figure considerably higher. One study of 150 male students in England found that more than 15 percent of the subjects surveyed endorsed the statement, “In the past I have had the experience of hearing a person’s voice and then found that no one was there.” The same study added that “no less than 17.5% of the [subjects] were prepared to score the item ‘I often hear a voice speaking my thoughts aloud’ as ‘Certainly applies.’”24 Another, more recent study of 103 “healthy individuals with auditory verbal hallucinations”—that is, ordinary voice hearers—suggests the same overall assessment: “Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) occur in approximately 10%–15% of the general population, of whom only a small proportion has a clinically relevant psychotic disorder.”25 Indeed, a 2011 review of recent scholarly literature dealing with voice hearing in the general population likewise proposed the overall figure of 15 percent.26

  Starting in the 1980s, the Dutch social psychiatrist Marius Romme and colleagues created the Hearing Voices Movement, which has sought to bring together researchers and people who report hearing voices in order to better understand the phenomenon. This movement’s point of departure has been the belief that treating voice hearing as a disability is often counterproductive, and that such auditory experiences might sometimes be better approached as a potentially helpful, and even meaningful, phenomenon. The Hearing Voices Movement has spread rapidly over the last three decades in Europe and elsewhere; apart from inspiring the creation of a number of local and national organizations, it sponsors an annual world congress attended by hundreds of delegates.27

  The existence of apparently sane people nowadays reporting that they hear voices (when all we know about the brain asserts that such hearing must be impossible) is certainly striking in the present context. The question that it raises is this: obviously, most of these sane, Western voice hearers are not operating with a “sense of self” that is different from ours. They apparently think of their minds as self-enclosed entities, just as most people do: “If there is a God, well, He’s out there and I’m in here.” So the fact that they nonetheless hear voices is a paradox: most of them can only conclude that they suffer from some abnormality of the brain (albeit a harmless one)—they don’t really think that someone “outside” is talking to them. But what if they lived in a world with a different, enabling sense of self, one in which people’s minds in general were conceived to be semipermeable, open to the outside? Would not such an environment cause them to view themselves, and the voices that they hear, rather differently?

  An investigation bearing on this question was undertaken in a recent study28 that focused not on otherwise normal voice hearers, but on three sample groups of twenty adults each, all of whom “met the inclusion criteria of schizophrenia” and all of whom reported hearing voices. The three groups came from three very different locales and cultures: San Mateo, California, USA; Accra, Ghana; and Chennai, India.

  In each group, interviewees were asked about a range of subjects, including their own impressions of voice hearing. “We asked people what they found most distressing about the voices, whether they had any positive experiences of voices and whether the voice spoke about sex or God. We asked what caused the voices and what caused their illness.” The results were quite interesting.

  Broadly speaking the voice-hearing experience was similar in all three settings. Many of those interviewed reported good and bad voices; many reported conversations with their voices, and many reported whispering, hissing or voices they could not quite hear. In all settings there were people who reported that God had spoken to them and in all settings there were people who hated their voices and experienced them as an assault.

  Nevertheless, there were striking differences in the quality of the voice-hearing experience, and particularly in the quality of relationship with the speaker of the voice. Many participants in the Chennai and Accra samples insisted that their predominant or even only experience of the voices was positive—a report supported by chart review and clinical observation. Not one American did so. Many in the Chennai and Accra samples seemed to experience their voices as people: the voice was that of a human the participant knew, such as a brother or a neighbor, or a human-like spirit whom the participant also knew. These respondents seemed to have real human relationships with the voices—sometimes even when they did not like them. This was less typical of the San Mateo sample, whose reported experiences were markedly more violent, harsher and more hated.

  Certainly these results would suggest that a society’s “givens” have a lot to do with how voice hearing is interpreted, and even the extent to which a voice hearer is likely to identify himself/herself as the recipient of a divine communication.29 A lot depends on the society in which the voice hearer lives. And this was as likely to be true in Jeremiah’s time as in modern-day Chennai and Accra.30 In other words, hearing voices in itself is probably not enough to make someone a prophet. In ancient Israel, there may have been dozens, or hundreds, of people who regularly heard voices—but this in itself probably did not mean that they were prophets; it all depended on what the voices were saying.

  Prophets Outside the Bible

  For some time, biblical scholars have turned to studies of prophecy in various non-Western societies for help in understanding prophecy in ancient Israel. One thing that these non-Western studies demonstrated was the utter commonness of prophets, shamans, miracle workers, and other sorts of divine intermediaries in African, Pacific Islander, Indian, Native American, and other societies; indeed, in many places, such divine intermediaries continue to exist and thrive (sometimes in tandem with modern medicine, modern technology, and modern terminology, all of which are otherwise identified with the modern West). In the light of these studies, it would seem that to remark on the existence of prophecy and related phenomena in these societies is, in the broad perspective, as trivial as remarking on the existence in them of marriage or burial rites, or ceremonies marking initiation into adulthood, or customs surrounding hunting and fishing. Prophet-like figures have always existed, and some continue to exist in numerous places around the globe. The acceptance of such intermediaries seems to have a lot to do with, first of all, the sense of self prevalent in a given society and, related to this, the society’s own predisposition to legitimize prophecy as an institution.

  Among biblical scholars, one pioneering study using these data was Robert R. Wilson’s Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (1980), in which the author reviewed the anthropological evidence for various sorts of intermediaries across a broad range of modern societies along with what scholars know of prophecy in the ancient Near East outside of Israel; he then compared this material to what we know of prophecy from various biblical texts.31 His work led to a number of further studies by Thomas Overholt, in particular the 1986 book, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, and Channels of Prophecy (1989). Starting with the fieldwork of such early scholars as E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Franz Boas, Overholt followed Wilson in tracking numerous subsequent anthropological studies in a varied range of locales. Both scholars sought to highlight connections between biblical prophets and these nonbiblical figures.

  An important subject for both Wilson and Overholt was the one evoked above, the crucial importance of the prophet’s potential audience in his surrounding society in confirming and shaping his role as a prophet. As Wilson put it:

  Throughout our discussion of the creation of intermediaries [in African societies], we have referred to the role that society plays in the process . . . In addition to supplying the general social matrix that allows intermediaries to exist, societies also validate incipient intermediaries, provide guidance to aid their development, and ultimately support their vocation by believing in their powers.32r />
  Overholt similarly asserted that prophecy always involves a “set of three actors—a supernatural entity, a prophet, and an audience—and a pattern of interrelationship among them.”33 This pattern, he argued, is more multidirectional than might first appear:

  The focus on interrelationships . . . calls for some enlargement of traditional notions concerning a prophet’s authority. Because prophets, generally speaking, function as messengers of a god, viewing their revelatory experiences as the primary source of their authority seems justifiable. In all instances of which I am aware, a person who is actually functioning as a prophet is assumed to have been the recipient of some such communication. [While] these essentially private experiences form the theological justification for prophetic activity, inevitably, they are also culturally conditioned, because both the perception and later articulation of these experiences are affected by the prophets’ social and historical context.

  In other words, prophecy may start with a private revelation, but the role of its audience is crucial from the beginning: both the prophet’s self-understanding as such, as well as his articulation of his “private” revelation to a public audience, depend on the society’s own receptivity to prophets and the conventions surrounding the prophets’ function. Moreover:

  Because the act of prophecy must necessarily take place in a social context, [the] reactions [of listeners] are critically important. Prophets seek to move their audiences to action, and audiences may be said to attribute authority to prophets, insofar as they acknowledge and are prepared to act upon the “truth” of their message. In their response, audiences in effect judge the acceptability of prophets . . .34

  At this point, one might well ask why, given the important role of the prophet’s audience in the whole process, Jeremiah was ever accepted as a true prophet. According to his book’s portrait of him, Jeremiah’s speeches were often met with great hostility. He was physically attacked by his fellow Judeans at various points in his life, put in the stocks (Jer 20:2), thrown into prison (32:2, 37:15), charged with treason (37:13), beaten (37:15), at one time dropped into a cistern and left to die (38:6), and otherwise generally mistreated. His listeners certainly did not seem to be “validating” what Jeremiah said or providing him with guidance of any kind.

  But in a larger perspective, Wilson’s and Overholt’s descriptions of society’s validating the prophet’s role seem altogether accurate. Not only had Jeremiah apparently been recognized as a true prophet early on, but even those who eventually tried to silence him were, in the clearest terms, accepting his standing as a true divine spokesman—otherwise, why not dismiss him as a madman lacking any connection to Israel’s God? This fact was dramatically illustrated in one famous incident, Jeremiah’s speech at the gates of the Jerusalem temple (Jeremiah 7). There he told his listeners that, far from being a guarantee that God would not allow any enemy to enter Jerusalem, the temple itself could and would be destroyed, just as the old temple at Shiloh was, if they did not reform their ways. The reaction of the people was immediate:

  The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the temple of the LORD, and when Jeremiah had finished saying all the things that the LORD had told him to say to all the people, then the priests and prophets and all the people seized him and said, “You will die for this! Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying ‘This temple will be like Shiloh, and this city will be destroyed, with no one living here’?” And all the people gathered around Jeremiah in the LORD’s temple. (Jer 26:7–9)35

  If they did not think that Jeremiah was indeed a true prophet, saying what he claimed God had told him to say would be of no weight.36 Surely nowadays someone who claimed to have received a message from God might easily be dismissed as some sort of crank or the victim of mental illness; and just as surely, ancient Israel had its share of psychotic and schizophrenic voice hearers. Yet apparently, dismissing Jeremiah as one such person did not occur to anyone at the Jerusalem temple that day, nor in the days that followed. Why not? Clearly, people believed he was a true prophet, whether what came out of his mouth was a verbatim quote of God’s speech or a poetic elaboration.

  An Unhappy Man

  Jeremiah was hardly indifferent to the hostility he encountered, and one of the unique things about the book of Jeremiah is its inclusion of passages in which the prophet reflects on his own frustrations:

  Is there anyone whom I can talk to—to warn them, so that they’ll heed?

  But everyone’s ears are stopped up, they’re unable to take in my words.

  The word of the LORD has become: an embarrassment, which they don’t need.

  But I’m full of the wrath of the LORD; I can’t hold it inside any more. (Jer 6:10–11)

  Particularly suggestive are those passages labeled as Jeremiah’s “confessions” or “laments” (Jer 11:18–12.6, 15:10–21, 17:14–18, 18:18–23, and 20:7–18), in which he addresses God and bemoans his fate as a prophet malgré lui. These passages are much studied by scholars,37 in part because they give us a glimpse (Jeremiah’s and/or a later writer’s) of what a prophet’s mind and his innermost feelings might be. In this respect as well, Jeremiah’s book is strikingly different from that of other prophets:

  You know me, O LORD, so remember; think of me, grant me revenge—

  on the people wishing me harm!

  Don’t lead me on with Your patience; look at the insults I’ve borne—

  because of You!

  When Your words first came I devoured them:38 Your words were a joy,

  a delight to my heart;

  Your name was joined to mine, “the LORD God of Hosts.”

  I avoided the revelers’ parties; my joy was Your hand placed upon me.

  So I sat by myself, all alone, brimming with Your righteous anger.

  Then why is it now I have unending pain, a wound that will never be healed?

  Will it turn out that what You have been is a fountain whose waters have failed? (Jer 15:15–18)39

  Some scholars have asked (quite rightly, to my mind) why such thoughts would have been recorded at all; they only seem to cast doubt on Jeremiah’s credentials as a true prophet. “I did everything You said,” Jeremiah keeps saying, “I held up my end of the bargain.” Yet God, apparently, has not. True, at first “Your hand was upon me” (apparently meaning: I was possessed by Your speaking to me), and this was a source of great joy, a living confirmation of his mission. But now, it seems that the voice has dried up, “a fountain whose waters have failed.” Does this describe a prophet whose words are not confirmed by events—or even a prophet who can no longer hear God’s voice? (And, on the positive side, does it not give us a glimpse of what it was like to be a prophet at his high point, when “Your words first came” and “Your hand [was] upon me”?)

  Look at how they are saying, “So, where’s the word of the LORD?

  Let’s see it come to pass!”

  I haven’t shied from [predicting] evil, an ill day I didn’t wish for.40

  You know the things that I said; they were spoken in Your very presence.

  Don’t now become my downfall! You’re my shelter in time of trouble. (Jer 17:15–18)

  Once again, what Jeremiah has said would happen hasn’t happened yet, and this has played right into his enemies’ hands: “Let’s see it come to pass!” they say mockingly. He protests that God knows exactly the words that Jeremiah spoke, adding, “I personally didn’t wish for an ill day to come—I was just saying the things that You told me.” Later, his tone becomes more accusing:

  You tricked me, O LORD, I was tricked; You led me on to defeat.

  Now I’m the butt of their jokes; all day long, everyone mocks me.

  Whenever I speak I get angry, “You thieves! You robbers!” I yell.

  Yes, “the word of the LORD came upon me”—for shame and dishonor all day.

  But if I say, “I’ll stop talking—I won’t speak His name anymore,”

  Then a
fire burns deep in my heart, it rages inside my bones,

  And I’m too tired to hold it inside; I just can’t. (Jer 20:7–9)

  Here is Jeremiah at war with something deep inside, which, however, he says came to him from the Outside: “the LORD’s wrath,” “the word of the LORD.” This capacity for something to pass from outside the prophet’s mind to inside is, apparently, just a given. In one of his most revealing sentences, Jeremiah himself reflects on this divine prerogative: “The mind,” he says, “is full of twists and very deep—who can know it? I, the LORD, probe the mind and inspect its inmost parts, to give each person his due, according to what he has done” (Jer 17:9–10).41

  “What Do You See?”

  One last facet of Jeremiah the prophet is worth mentioning, even in this brief survey. It was not always God’s voice alone that led to his prophesying: sometimes the divine message was introduced by a vision of some sort, accompanied by the question “What do you see?”