John 10:20 Meaning Many of Them Said

The charge of madness is what the ordinary mind always throws at the one who lives by his imagination instead of by the facts in front of him. To insist that you already are what your eyes and reason flatly deny looks like a man possessed, and the crowd asks why anyone would listen to him. That reaction is not a warning; it is the expected cost of standing on the awareness of being rather than on appearances.

The one being accused is Christ, and Christ here means the buried power in every person, the anointed self that speaks from the end as though it were already so. When that self begins to talk, the senses call it disturbed. The world only sounds sane because it agrees with what already exists. The imagination that speaks from the wish fulfilled will always be called mad by those who trust their eyes.