All highly intelligent people do not have experiences of mania, but mania is associated statistically to high intelligence and to high creativity.
There are positive characteristics of mania that could include increased confidence, energy, creativity, and intelligence. These positive characteristics could be exhibited in geniuses and gurus due to mania. However, grandiose delusions and poor decision-making skill are huge negative aspects of mania.
The following links comment on the association of intelligence and creativity to mania:
“All of the characteristic “symptoms” that we see in mania, including seemingly high spirits, heightened sexual appetite, high arousal levels, high energy levels, sweating, pacing, sleeplessness and, at its severest, when the train has run off the rails, hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, suspiciousness, aggression and all sorts of wild, self-defeating plans and schemes, make perfect sense when viewed from the perspective that a powerful need has supercharged a brain inclined to generate thoughts.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rethinking-mental-health/201206/intelligence-creativity-and-mania
Mood disorders seem be the price of high intelligence and creativity. The author laments that the frequent use of prescribed drugs may be inhibiting benefits to society that might otherwise come from people who have mental illness. https://wakeup-world.com/2016/08/15/are-mood-disorders-bipolar-price-we-pay-high-intelligence-creativity-scientists-say-yes/
“Research has indicated that bipolar disorder may be up to four times more common in young people who were straight-A students.” https://psychcentral.com/lib/intelligence-linked-to-bipolar-disorder/
An article that contains anecdotal evidence that intelligence is higher during manic episodes. http://www.bphope.com/blog/is-bipolar-disorder-correlated-with-high-intelligence/
High intelligence and Guru Maniacs
The main symptoms of mania that I often cite are grandiose delusions, over-confidence, and abundant energy. These symptoms fit a “mad scientist” and a “crazy artist”. These symptoms also describe many people having a kundalini crisis and the spiritual gurus that I call Guru Maniacs.
It is no wonder that Guru Maniacs happen to be highly intelligent. They are delusional, but they are very capable of putting on an intellectual extravaganza to attract followers.
Guru maniacs are aware of their intellectual brilliance and creativity, but they are not able to recognize their own delusions and their over-confidence. They wholeheartedly trust that their understanding and experiences are valid.
Because Guru Maniacs are often highly intelligent and highly articulate, they are able to attract followers who don’t recognize grandiose delusions, over-confidence, and dubious intellectual assertions.
There is a mountain’s worth of intellectual spirituality that has accumulated over the centuries. Spiritual knowledge is abstract and unprovable.
There is no proof that a state of enlightenment exists. There is no proof that the spiritual explanations of deep expansive experiences are correct.
The brilliant analysis of gurus has enthralled the intellects of many people, but I think it is like a huge, elaborate building with the weakest of foundations. What good is magnificent elocution if there is no proof of the pudding in eating?!
Despite millions of aspiring meditators and yogis in our modern scientific age, there don’t seem to be any (or hardly any) people who have reached the state of enlightenment.
The Transcendental Meditation movement asserted that enlightenment was based on a physiological state; the TM movement prided itself on conducting research that would help to verify the state of enlightenment (and the benefits of TM), but in my opinion over 50 years of research has failed to verify a state of enlightenment.
Conclusion
High intelligence is not a safeguard to avoid the manic pitfall of grandiose delusions. Actually, people of high intelligence are more prone to mania than people of average intelligence.
Humans have an infinite ability to fool themselves. I have fooled myself countless times. Highly intelligent people fool themselves too.
My Enlightenment Delusion 