title: The imitation of madness: the influence of psychopathology upon culture.
abstract: Psychiatry and ethnography have been reluctant to consider the possibility that psychosis may provide a model for social organisation and belief. The situations in which this may occur are considered and two examples discussed: the historical leader of a Jewish messianic movement and the contemporary founder of a Trinidadian sect. Individual delusions may be converted into a shared public culture by the manipulation of previously accepted symbolism and a simple inversion of the traditional values in some area may enable the whole community to attain a more sophisticated conceptualisation. In particular, antinomian acts rooted in psychopathology may generate more universal dispensations out of systems of dual classification.
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D003469:Culture; D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007585:Jews / Q000523:psychology; D007599:Judaism; D007857:Leadership; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D014300:Trinidad and Tobago