Method:
The 27 members of the class were divided into eight groups of three or four members to analyze the diary from six different perspectives (General Qualitative, Qualitative/Spiritual, Jungian, Freudian, General Theoretical, and Quantitative). Although the students knew that I had "met" Father X in my role as editor of Lucidity Letter they had no access to these articles. In addition to the diary which did not include his letters and thus most of his commentary, they were given a letter I received from Father X in Sept. of 1994 after notifying him of my intent to use the diary in a class project. This letter was not given to the class until they had read the diary at least once.
In it Father X informed me that, "Lucid dreams and out-of-body-experiences have just about disappeared from my life." He went on to detail some of the events of his life in the four years since I had last heard from him. Most of the letter was about his two year absence from the monastery when he underwent treatment for alcohol addiction. He liberally excerpted from the reports of the professionals he had been seeing. In addition to a neurological impairment which may have accounted for his paralysis and vibrations which always proceeded his OBE's these doctors wrote:
The formal personality testing yielded a variety of information quite consistent with Father X's developmental history and current symptoms. His MMPI profile was valid with elevations of several clinical scales, the highest of which were the psychopathic deviant, the schizophrenic and the depression scales. An individual with this pattern of scores is likely to be feeling a great deal of distress. They are apt to be depressed, tense and moody with a tendency to blame others. The acting out of anger and sexual problems is likely. They are prone to feelings of hopelessness and condemnation. His current level of distress probably makes it difficult to manage day to day life. There is an internal sense that punishment is deserved and they are apt to withdraw from social interaction.
Father X's letter went on to further detail his diagnosis. About it this monk commented, "Well, I guess you get the point they were trying to make. When they finally finished I wouldn't have been surprised to see a bunch of people wearing white coats and carrying a net come barging through the door to cart me off to the nearest mental asylum."
My students felt that reading the letter brought home to them that Father X is really a human being. They also felt that the clinical diagnosis was cold and mechanistic in its evaluation of Father X. At the end of the semester they handed in their analysis of his diary and made in-class presentations in order to get a sense of the whole.