McMurphy’s loving healing of the patients has wonderful results (this process can be observed in the real world outside of this “fiction”).  But Big Nurse is threatened by his success.  Eventually the evil in her personality starts to attack.  She puts a stop to the activities which are making the patients well, as it is outside of her control.  The patients are crushed by her ego, and they start reverting to their previous ailments.  In a group therapy session towards the end of the film, Big Nurse systematically goes around the group crushing each individual in her path.  When she attacks the neurotic man, her victim starts again to turn in on himself.  McMurphy can see the undercurrents of what is going on.  He sees her hurting his friends, and McMurphy’s aggression is sparked.  He leaps out of his chair and lunges for Big Nurse’s throat.  But he is stopped and restrained.  Soon after, the powers that be give the go ahead for McMurphy to receive electro-convulsive therapy.  He is reduced to little more than a vegetable, and when the Indian Chief sees what has happened to his friend, he suffocates him.
This is exactly how love is persecuted in real life.

Loving individuals threaten the egos of those unhealthy people who do not give enough love.  And so the un-loving people attack the love, they attack the truth, to hide their own evil.  It is a very common phenomenon.  When this stupidly wrong dynamic is understood it is easy to see love and truth being persecuted in everyday life, amongst friends and family, in the media; it is an illness on an epidemic scale.

McMurphy’s attack on the nurse was a distorted act of love.  It appeared to be aggression on the surface, but in reality he was attacking evil, and so his violence was motivated  by love.  But violence is not justified by love.  Violence may feel like a natural reaction motivated by love, but violence in any situation is an act of evil.  Although McMurphy was indeed the loving individual in the story, his violence was nevertheless an illness, and did need to be cured.  The temptation to resort to cave-man acts of violence must be fought, and that is the great spiritual challenge for every one of us.   To fight evil with love.  Gandhi showed that non-violence can provide the required result, so long as each individual has the spiritual strength to suppress their violent thoughts.

In many senses McMurphy was mentally and spiritually healthier than the doctors and nurses in the hospital.  As with many other loving individuals in real life, he paid the price for giving love – he was persecuted to death.  This phenomenon was experienced by Gandhi – a preacher of love and truth who was assassinated.  And also by John Lennon, one of history’s leading peace campaigners, again persecuted to death.  When John considered Gandhi’s assassination – the murder of a loving man, he said “I can never understand that.”  The explanation of persecution has been clearly presented here.  Christ also paid the ultimate price for campaigning for love.  His love and truth made everyday people feel inadequate by comparison, they didn’t like it, and rather than them growing to be more loving, they took the easier option and crucified him.  Try