„Jesus, are You my God or some kind of phantom?” On the Traces of Fear of Madness in the Diary of Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska

Natalia STENCEL

Abstract

This article attempts to describe the signs of fear of madness in the Diary of Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska. The author discusses the background against which fear of madness manifests itself in the mystical experience, the stage of the experience in question at which such fear may appear, as well as its causes. The question the author proceeds to answer is why the fear of madness a mystic experiences turns out so acute despite the grace of God he or she has apparently received.

The considerations are rooted to some extent in the achievements of the psychology of religion. However, a separate methodology is applied in the scrutiny of the matter of the text, the methodological framework being provided by selected ideas put forward by Steven T. Katz and Roland Barthes, particularly with reference to the ways in which subjectivity may be approached through textual analysis. Thus a mystic is considered primarily as the author of the text in which ‘traces’ and ‘remnants’ of the particular mystical experience have been left, barely mediating the experience itself.

Another issue discussed in the article is that of the mystic’s ‘inexpressibility’ and of his or her transgression of the language-based community.

The problem of fear of madness is additionally embedded in the Old and New Testament tradition which held that madness is a state of holiness.