title: Alexander Nikolaevich Scriabin (1872-1915): Enlightenment or illness?
abstract: The similarity between psychotic symptoms and aspects of mystical experiences is well known. It has long been recognized that there are similarities between mystical and spiritual and psychotic experiences. The content of an experience alone usually does not determine whether an individual is psychotic. The Russian composer Scriabin (1872-1915) was among the most famous artists of his time. Scriabin infused his music with mysticism, evolving a modernistic idiom through which he created a musical counterpart to the Symbolist literature of that period. In this paper, we discuss the question that arises from perusing Scriabin's life is whether the composer was a mystic genius or whether he suffered from affective psychopathology with psychotic features.
authors.affiliation: Be'er-Sheva Mental Health Center, Be'er-Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Eliezer
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Witztum
authors.affiliation: Be'er-Sheva Mental Health Center, Be'er-Sheva, Israel lernervld@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lerner
mesh_terms: D000341:Affective Disorders, Psychotic / Q000266:history*; D005197:Famous Persons; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D009146:Music / Q000266:history*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000266:history; D012426:Russia; D000080311:Synesthesia
keywords: Scriabin; affective disorders; colour music; creativity; synaesthesia