The relationship between schizophrenia and social change is examined through a review of recent medical research in genetics, biology, and epidemiology. Those mental traits that today in our society characterize the schizoprenic, in a previous era or in another society may have provided a mechanism for cultural change during the periods of stress when traditional methods of coping with the environment proved unadaptive. In many cases, prophets, shamens, and seers experience the same estrangement and disorganization of the self as does the schizophrenic in our society. This perspective views schizophrenia in our society as an evolutionary anachronism which in a previous society may have been organized early in youth and shaped into a socially useful form. Cultural change has in recent human history become a dominating ethos and is accordingly valued for its own sake. The particular psychological functions of these sensitive individuals are therefore no longer used to transcend traditional points of view. (Author/DE)