On view are two public videos from Bethel House: an excerpt from the 2010 Grand Prix of Hallucinations, in which Mr. Semulin receives an award, and a short film made for the 40th anniversary of the organization. Since 1995, Bethel House has hosted the annual Grand Prix of Hallucinations, drawing thousands to Purukawa. Participants perform in flamboyant costumes, humorously presenting their hallucinatory experiences. The awards don’t focus on “overcoming illness,” but instead celebrate the courage to face symptoms and the capacity for mutual support—such as a hearing-voices participant who “designed a jammer to block alien signals,” turning personal distress into shared intelligence. This celebration of “abnormality” breaks from the stigmatizing narratives and clinical responses of psychiatry, offering a practice worth considering.

The philosophy of Bethel House:

Here, there are always problems. Today, tomorrow, the day after, and forever—there will be problems. Human conflict is an inherent part of organizational and business life, and it happens every day. Even if you only live one day, you’ll still face trouble and hardship—just like excrement.

But rather than escape by labeling it “illness,” why not recognize it as a “concrete problem in daily life,” making the problem real? If you share it with a friend and choose to face it together, life actually becomes easier. This is what Bethel has learned. In this way, we have cultivated a tradition of “everyone being the protagonist, taking responsibility for their troubles and difficulties.” So the more hardship we face, the more we say:

“Everything is going well!”