Extracted from:
The Oxford English Dictionary and The Oxford Companion to the Mind.

Psyche:    The soul or spirit, breath, life, mind, love; represented as having butterfly wings. A butterfly.

Psychic:    One who is particularly susceptible to psychic or spiritual influence.

Psychiatry:    The medical treatment of diseases of the mind; hence psychiatry.

Psychosis:    The misapprehension and misinterpretation of the nature of reality.

 Alchemy

Please put aside any preconceptions you may have concerning schizophrenia and prepare to enter the inner reality of One labled psychotic. My refererence to the terms schizophrenia and psychotic are not meant to convey accordance with current psychiatric orthodoxy; I use thse terms for expedience rather than agreement with clinical diagnosis. A more appropriate description that defines what is presently known as schizophrenia would be Psyche-sensitivity.



The Butterfly Collector

Born into the world, a butterfly, exquisitely sensitive, vulnerable, beautiful, fragile.

She takes to the air to celebrate creation, the gift of her life, and to express and experience the birthright of freedom.

The collector (Prof: mg, od, ect, xyz, cert, psych, etc) interested in, fascinated by, ignorant of, the way of the butterfly, nets her and takes her from the natural environment back to his laboratory.

In captivity, she is disorientated and fearful. She struggles to be free.

He observes her, recording the 'peculiarities of her behaviour', important for his research.

He administers a measured chemical solution, hydrochloric acid.

Heavily sedated, she ceases to struggle.

He examines her psychedelic wings, 'intriguing'.

He inserts a sterilised needle into and through her thorax and pins her to a
one-dimensional surface…. her spirit breaks.

He attaches a label to her.

He is satisfied. She is categorised.

She is placed within a case and displayed behind glass.

He has his prize…another one to add to his collection.

How clever he is.

What an extraordinary specimen.