Has the book of Revelation caused problems for anyone else?

My son can become so obsessed with Revelation and trying to apply it to himself and the here and now. Of course, with a thought disorder his perceptions can become very twisted by something so confusing and kind of scary. I wish he just wouldn’t read it. Does anyone have any ideas?

Maybe he can read the book of Matthew first. A meal is about balanced diet, so is spiritual food, the Bible is made up of 66 books, a reading schedule will include the whole Bible, do it slowly, may be in 2 to 3 years time. :sunny:

I am happy that your son is interested in studying the God’s Word. :+1:

Don’t let him start reading about hellish near death experiences on the internet. They can prey on your mind. When they first started publishing near death experiences there were not nearly so many hellish ones put out for the public. Ninety per cent of near death experiences were euphoric, and in the near death experiences that were hellish the experiencer either got rescued or got a second chance. Fundamentalist Christians have flooded the internet with hellish near death experiences because they need the fear of hell fire and damnation to promote their beliefs.

He sounds delusional. I would make sure he is taking his meds.

I made a similar suggestion, but was ignored. He is not in a very receptive mood right now

yup many of the books in the bible. was disastrous for me…

It has caused vast intellectual difficulties for myself. I stay away from it. But… if you are going to let him study it, might I recommend him reading books by Mircea Eliade first?

Just a suggestion: Maybe you can read it to your son. It means you and your son (as well as any other family members) can study together. --a family worship.

No, it’s not caused problems for me.

It’s frustrating though because it’s nothing but symbols, ancient obscure symbols written by a hallucinating person in a cave he was exiled to thousands of years ago.

I have been fairly lucky in the fact that my son doesn’t delve too much into religion. I have my own faith, not religion, and I try my best to talk to my son in more generic terms when it comes to religion. Honestly if he was going to pick a religion I tell him to read Buddha… But yes religious idealization can be a problem as you may currently find if you read the Unusual Beliefs category.

I don’t know how to stop him as I’m guessing that if it’s something he is determined to do then he will find a way.

I don’t know if trying to rationalize with your son that this book was written along time ago and trying to apply it to today may not work out so well as a lot of it is probably not meant to be taken literally. I do my best to discuss my faith with my son in terms of love, compassion, empathy and non-judgmental… We are all loved and equal.

Probably reading any part of the bible will be a trigger to someone who is struggling with psychosis. I think this is a very bad idea. When I was psychotic, anything to do with aliens (particularly the X-Files TV show) made me worse. Much worse. If you can get rid of the bible for now, it would help.

You need a lot of insight and stability before you can effectively deal with content that triggers symptoms.

10-96

Yeah when I was in psychosis it could have been religion , aliens , or conspiracies they would all trigger me and get mixed into one big melting pot

Yeah, it caused major problems for Charles Manson…

For myself, no…never caused any problems.

Manson’s Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (chapter 9)

  1. Manson saw himself as “the fifth angel” (Verse 1) who would be given “the key to the pit of the abyss.”

  2. Verse 11 refers the fifth angel as “king,” whose “name in Hebrew is Abaddon.” The Catholic Douay Version contains also a Latin name, inadvertantly omitted from other versions: “Exterminans.”

  3. Verse 3 says that “out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them.” Manson believed that the “locusts” were in fact “beetles”–the English musical group, “The Beatles.”

  4. Manson found confirmation for the Beatles being the “locusts” of Revelation in verses 7 through 9. Verse 7 refers to the locusts having “faces as were men’s faces,” but verse 8 says “they had hair as the hair of women”–which Manson took to be a reference to the Beatles’ long hair. Also, verse 9 refers to the locusts as having “breastplates of iron.” In Manson’s interpretation the Beatles’ breastplates were their electric guitars. The “horses” that they rode (verse 7) were dune buggies. Finally, Manson saw the “fire and smoke and brimstone” that came out of their mouths (verse 17) as being the powerful lyrics to their songs–especially those in the White Album. Manson also at times saw the Beatles as “the four angels” of verse 15.

  5. The 200,000,000 persons comprising “the armies of the horsemen” (verse 16) who would spread destruction around the earth were, in Manson’s interpretation, motorcyclists…
    Charles Manson's Interpretation of the Book of Revelation

That’s how my son has been exactly. Like everything in his brain is being stirred together. He was not like this before he started ECT. Now he has had 8 treatments and I don’t know how long he will be like this. Also his moods are no longer stable. I am so worried.