From faith to fanatic delusion

With the arrest this week of a couple who allegedly believe God told them to abduct Elizabeth Smart, many Utahns are wondering again what moves people of seemingly deep religious faith into fanaticism.

Proclaiming himself a prophet chosen by God may not have been Brian David Mitchell's first act of delusion, but it was likely among those that set the stage for the increasingly bizarre behavior that would follow.

Such grandiose notions of "chosen-ness" — while not unique to Utah's own brand of religious fundamentalists — are symptomatic of the slide from deep religious devotion into delusion and even dementia, according to experts who deal with the aftermath.

Victor Cline, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Utah, said such people often have emotional disorders or mental illness that "may not be enough to hospitalize them but still enough for them to be out of contact with reality or create their own reality." The fanaticism is part of their illness, and when religious faith has been a part of their lives, they "use whatever (religious upbringing) they've had in previous experience to manifest the symptoms of their illness."

Marc Galanter, professor of psychiatry at New York University and author of "Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion," agrees.

"I think people go crazy relative to the subculture they're in," he said. So the fact that Mitchell and other infamous Utahns who have morphed their former membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into their fanaticism isn't necessarily unusual, he said. In other Christian contexts, they often "think they are in communication with Jesus." Because Mitchell was born and raised in Utah's LDS subculture, "his delusions just as likely pick up on that religious background."

While the state has its own laundry list of bizarre figures who base their actions in part on religious beliefs, "I don't think it represents an unusual phenomenon, but more the culture of which they are a part," Galanter said.

Notions and paranoia

Religious delusions usually take one of two forms, Galanter said. Either the person has grandiose notions of importance, like Mitchell, or takes on a "persecutory" persona, thinking that "people are trying to poison them with gas" or something equally paranoid.

Whatever their religious background, Cline said, such people "take elements of their faith and twist it in ways that don't represent the norm of their religion, often doing things that are terribly evil or out of contact with any kind of common sense or good judgment or values."