However, unlike the madman, the mystic is forced to reconcile a lifetime of perceiving life as an individual with the idea of being a messenger for divinity.
Finally, mystics and madness are alike in that they are perceived as being irrational, in part because of their desires. Madmen are irrational because they lack reason and the ability to verbalize their own condition. In fact, madmen may be so labeled because of their inability to communicate their feelings. Madmen are characterized by discrepancies between their internal states and their external realities. However, according to Rumi, that perspective is one that is shared by almost every member of society when confronted with desire. The saying "love is blind" encapsulates the idea that desire can cause one to abandon rational thought.
If earthly love is enough to cause a person to abandon rational thought, it is no surprise that mystics are also perceived as irrational. According to De Certeau, the idea that a person is god is dangerous, because it deprives that person of the ability to name, and thereby work towards achieving their desires. Society is nothing but a group of individuals working to attain their desires. Therefore, mystics are perceived as irrational by society.
Another common element of both mysticism and madness is that neither can be truly verified by an outside source. In fact, both madmen and mystics truly believe that they are in touch with something other, something divine. How that is perceived by society is determined by the individual's role in society, along with societal expectations regarding people in that role. Therefore, the ability of an individual mystic to communicate his experience through the divine, whether through mantras or speech or intoxicants, helps determine whether he will be perceived as mystic or mad.
What is rational is determined by the experience of the individual and the experience of society. For example, tales of human-like bipeds...
Knowing of the existence of gorillas, one would not have had to see one before to be able to determine that it was rational to see one in the forest. The abject are those experiences that cannot be assimilated to reason, such as the reported Bigfoot sightings.
However, the loss of reasons is also a part of society's expectations. People are expected to become irrational when confronted with certain situations. What those situations are depends on the experiences of society. For example, Western society believes in the idea that love means a loss of reason, and is full of stories and examples of people who behaved in irrational ways because of love. Furthermore, the idea of Christianity is based upon an irrational belief. The difference is perspective. While people are encouraged to have faith in the existence of god without empirical evidence, society determines how strong that faith should be. To mainstream Christians, the rejection of modern medicine in the face of disease is irrational, but to Jehovah's Witnesses, it is a rational manifestation of faith. Once again, it is the perspective of the observer that determines whether someone is mystical or mad.
Mysticism and madness are both perceived as individuals losing themselves, losing control, and becoming irrational. The determination on whether or not an individual is mad is not based solely on an individual becoming irrational; on the contrary, mainstream religion is based, in part, on irrational beliefs. Instead, the determination of madman or mystic is based on the experiences and expectations of an individual's culture and society. In short, because neither madness nor mysticism can be verified, whether an individual should be "healed" or "hailed" is merely a function of the perspectives of the surrounding society and whether or not the individual conforms to the behavioral expectations of that society.
