A Quiet Mind

by Sean Blackwell

A Quiet Mind tells the story of advertising executive, Sean Blackwell, who in 1996 entered a state of ecstasy so intense that he thought he had died and was going to Heaven. The episode ended with Sean being handcuffed by two police officers and taken to a psychiatric emergency ward for refusing to put his clothes back on in a Toronto hotel ballroom. At the hospital, he accurately perceived that the psychiatrists completely misunderstood what was happening to him, as he was certain that he was undergoing a profound spiritual awakening. Leaving the hospital unmedicated, Sean was sure that his experience was not a "mental illness". Only with the recent diagnosis of his two nieces was he shocked to learn that people labeled as having "bipolar disorder" often have experiences very similar to his own, yet are medicated for their entire lives.

A Quiet Mind describes Sean's "manic" spiritual awakening; his subsequent struggle to create a meaningful life for himself which could serve the call of his awakened soul; and finally, how he began to work diligently to rescue members of his own family and others from the jaws of psychiatry and their stigmatizing label, "bipolar disorder." He tells his story in stark contrast to Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison's, "An Unquiet Mind" - a bestselling book whose theoretical ideas he believes to be unproven and without hope.

175 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2008