MM038-day2-1230-McCallneurosciencecme.com/PDF/MM038-day2-1230-McCall.pdf · Dianetics: The Modern...

10/19/12

1

What Does Scientology Say About Psychiatry and Psychology?

W. Vaughn McCall, MD, MS Georgia Health Sciences University Augusta, GA

W. Vaughn McCall, MD, MS

● Dr. McCall has no disclosures to report.

Disclosures

10/19/12

2

Learning Objective

Describe Scientology beliefs about current mental health practices

Remarks from Tom Cruise

● Remarks shared with Matt Lauer on the NBC Today show, June 25, 2005

I talk out against drugs and psychiatric abuses of electric

shocking people.

I never agreed with psychiatry.

You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.

History of Scientology

● Founder: L. Ron Hubbard (1911  –  1986) ● He was a moderately

successful science-fiction writer in the middle of the 20th Century (Battlefield Earth)

Hubbard LR. What Is Scientology? 1993.

Hubbard LR. The Scientology Handbook. 1994.

10/19/12

3

Who Are the Antecedents of Scientology?

Anaxagoras ~ Thomas Paine ~ Aristotle Thomas Jefferson ~ Socrates ~ Descartes !Plato ~ James Maxwell ~ Euclid ~ Charcot

Lucretius ~ Herbert Spenser ~ Roger Bacon William James ~ Sigmund Freud

Isaac Newton ~ van Leeuwenhoek Cmdr. Joseph Thompson (MC) USN William White ~ Voltaire ~ Will Durant

Count Alfred Korzbyski

Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health ● The result of a

manuscript circulated among friends in the late 1940s and published in 1951

● Coming from the Greek words dia meaning “through” and nous, meaning “soul”

Hubbard LR. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. 2007.

What Is Dianetics?

● A “spiritual healing technology”

● An “organized science of thought”

● It is not equivalent to Scientology


10/19/12

4

Topography of the Mind in Dianetics

● The Somatic Mind ● Unthinking ● Reflexive

● The Reactive Mind ● Impressionable ● Literal ● Most active when the analytic mind is incapacitated

● The Analytic Mind ● Logical ● Incapable of error


How Is Dianetics Different From Scientology? (Part I)

●  Scientology includes Dianetics and is bigger than Dianetics. ●  Scientology is described as a religion and was founded by

L. Ron Hubbard in Los Angeles in 1954. ●  Scientology can be practiced with or without reference to a

higher power. ●  Scientology comes from the Latin scio meaning knowing and

the Greek logos meaning study of .... Scientology means literally knowing how to know.

●  Scientology is the studying of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes, and other life. It is used to increase spiritual freedom, intelligence and ability and to enable a person to realize his own immortality.

Hubbard LR. Principal Differences Between Dianetics and Scientology. CD-ROM.

How Is Dianetics Different From Scientology? (Part II)

Dianetics asserts that the primary motivating force in human life was to SURVIVE; this was codified into four dynamics: ●  First dynamic

●  Urge to existence as oneself

●  Second dynamic ●  Urge to existence in procreation and family

●  Third dynamic ●  Urge to existence for the group (nations, races)

●  Fourth dynamic ●  Urge to existence for mankind


SELF

FAMILY

GROUP

MANKIND

10/19/12

5

How Is Dianetics Different From Scientology? (Part III)

● Scientology accepts the four dynamics of Dianetics and adds three more urges to existence ● Animal kingdom ● Physical universe ● Spirits


What Does Scientology Say Is the Basic Problem in Human Existence? ● Scientologists reject the Judeo-Christian

concept of sin ● Scientologists say that the effect of

traumatic experiences on the unconscious, reactive mind create physical imprints on cellular structure (engrams), leading to faulty processing and responding to future situations


Engrams

●  Begin accumulating in utero, absorbed by the reactive mind and may accumulate before the mother knows she is pregnant

●  More than the metaphysical construct of memory; it is a physical representation of a sensed event on the cells

●  In utero, engrams may form in response to paternal arguing, violence, sex, and conversation

●  Two hundred engrams may be in place by birth ●  Engrams can be linked in a chain through re-stimulation ●  The first engram in the chain is called basic-basic

Church of Scientology International Website. 2012. http://www.scientology.org/what-is-dianetics/basic-principles-of-scientology/engrams.html.


10/19/12

6

Pre-Conception Engrams

●  Sometimes it is revealed that engrams accumulated from prior lives

●  Although a recollection of prior lives is not considered necessary for a successful audit, they are accepted at face value

●  Today in Scientology, many people have certainty that they have lived lives before their current one ●  These are referred to as past lives, not reincarnation ●  Individuals are free to believe this or not; past lives are not a

dogma in Scientology


Pre-Conception Engrams (cont’d)

● Prior lives are accepted as occurring up to a trillion years ago and include lives on other planets, in other galaxies

● Themes of other-life engrams include: ● Torture by aliens ● Alien abduction on spaceships ● Gender identity confusion ● Sexual orientation issues ● Occupying animal bodies


What Predisposes One to Developing Engrams?

● Engrams are more likely to form when the person is literally or figuratively unconscious ● Anesthesia ● Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)


10/19/12

7

Auditing to Get Rid of Engrams

● Before you enter Scientology and apply Dianetic principles, you are aberrated and under the influence of engrams

● When you decide to explore Scientology and improve yourself, you are a pre-clear

● The process of treatment in Scientology is called auditing and may be conducted by a lay person within the Church or a minister

● When all your engrams have been addressed and removed, you are clear


The Auditing Experience

●  Auditing takes dozens to hundreds of hours, over weeks ●  A single session can take 5 hours ●  The sessions are facilitated with finger-snapping and the

E-meter (see next slide) ●  This device is a variation of Wheatstone bridge, which measures

electrical resistance and skin conductance

●  The auditor encourages the pre-clear person to “confront” the sources of their engrams to “resolve the case” ●  “She remarked it was like being questioned by the police and she did not

like it” ●  “This all seemed make believe to the PC, but with use of the meter one

incident was disentangled and worked on for a further two and one half hours with increasing reality and increasing ability to face up to what was going on”


Beyond Clear

●  Scientology added a higher level of existence that goes beyond clear and that is the condition of Operating Thetan or spirit.

●  The three parts of man are body, mind, and thetan, with the thetan being the senior part that has an existence apart from either the body or the mind.

●  The mind is a communication and control system between the thetan and the environment. The thetan is you. The thetan has an electrical field and maintains continuity between lives.

●  Achieving the level of Operating Thetan means you can operate without dependency on things

●  The Operating Thetan is able to control matter, energy, space, and time

●  Operating Thetan materials are confidential

10/19/12

8

What Can Dianetics Do for the Individual?

●  It contains a therapeutic technique with which can be treated all inorganic mental ills and all organic psychosomatic ills, with assurance of complete cure in unselected cases.

● The problem of psychosomatic illness is entirely embraced by Dianetics, and by Dianetic technique such illness has been eradicated entirely in every case. About 70% of the physician’s current roster of diseases falls into the category of psychosomatic illness.


What Can Scientology Do for the World?

● Clear the planet ● Scientologists want to clear the planet of

insanity, war, and crime ● The use or neglect of this material

[Scientology] may well determine the use or neglect of the atomic bomb by man …. Which force wins depends in a large measure of your use of Scientology


Why Should We Have Confidence in Scientology Teachings? ● It is the only thoroughly tested system of

improving human relations, intelligence, and character, and is the only one which does ● There are no tenets in Scientology which

can not be demonstrated with entirely scientific procedures


10/19/12

9

Does Scientology Have an Official Position Regarding Psychiatry and Psychology?

● The Code of a Scientologist ● To expose and abolish any and all physically

damaging practices in the field of mental health ● To help clean up and keep clean the field of

mental health ● To bring about an atmosphere of safety and

security in the field of mental health by eradicating its abuses and brutality


Why Are Psychiatrists and Psychologists So Wrong? (Part I) ● Only those who believe, as do

psychiatrists and psychologists, that man is a soulless animal or who wish for their own reasons to keep man unhappy and oppressed are in conflict with Scientology. ● Scientology is a religion. Psychiatry is

strongly opposed to all religions as it does not recognize that man is a spiritual being.


What Did Psychiatry Say About Religion in the 1950s? ● Religion is “the universal obsessional

neurosis of humanity” ● The Future of an Illusion (1927)

10/19/12

10

How Is Freud’s Position on Religion Relevant to World Politics? ● Religion is the sigh of the oppressed

creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. -Karl Marx

Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

Why Are Psychiatrists and Psychologists So Wrong? (Part II) ● As the stepchildren of German dictator Bismark

[sic] and later Hitler and the Nazis, psychiatry and psychology formed the philosophical basis for the wholesale slaughter of human beings in World Wars I and II.

● No thinking doctor … would touch … electroconvulsive therapy … unless that doctor … is himself so thoroughly aberrated that the act springs not from any desire to heal, but from the most utter and craven sadism to which engrams can bring a man.


What Is Wrong With Psychotropics?

● Both prescribed and illegal psychotropics are stored for years in body fat and can have a delayed release ● Drug residues produce a woodenness of

personality and a noticeable difficulty in the ability to absorb and comprehend or retain and apply new data ● This includes aspirin (ASA)


10/19/12

11

What Is Wrong With ECT? (Part I)

● ECT can add additional engrams or move engrams around the body ● Engrams can be added during ECT because ECT

involves a period of unconsciousness during which the primitive reactive mind has dominance over the completely logical, analytic mind

● Dominance of the reactive mind allows the formation of new engrams, and allows existing engrams to go unchecked, or be moved around to new locations or to new configurations

Hubbard LR. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. 2007

What Is Wrong With ECT? (Part II)

● ECT can damage the brain ● ECT sears the brain with 110 volts, producing irreversible

brain damage that may make a Scientology recovery of the person difficult if not impossible

● A fixed electrical field exists, surrounding a human mind…. The balance structure of the body … can be changed by changing this electrical field which exists at a distance from, or within, the body

● The use of electric shocks upon a body for any purpose is therefore considered very dangerous …. Electric shocks deranges the electronic field in the vicinity of the body and is always succeeded by bad health ….


What is Wrong with ECT? - II

●  Sears the brain with 110 volts, producing irreversible brain damage that may make a Scientology recovery of the person difficult if not impossible.

●  States a fixed electrical field existed surrounding a human mind….. The balance structure of the body ….. can be changed by changing this electrical field which exists at a distance from, or within, the body……The use of electric shocks upon a body for any purpose is therefore considered very dangerous….Electric shocks deranges the electronic field in the vicinity of the body and is always succeeded by bad health….


10/19/12

12

What Is the Solution to Drug Residues?

The “Purification program” ● 18  –  20 days at 5 hours per day, including ● 30 minutes of running to break loose toxins ● 4.5 hours of sauna

● 2 tablespoons to ½ cup per day of polyunsaturated oil

● 1  –  3 glasses daily of calcium-magnesium drink ● Fresh vegetables and multivitamins


How Did Scientology Arrive at This Position?

“Scientology … was born in the same crucible as the atomic bomb.”

L. Ron Hubbard


The World: 1900  –  1950

Psychiatry ● Freud ● Religion is

neurosis ● ECT and leucotomy ● Loss of freedom

Politics ● End of fascism ● Rise of communism ● “godless” ● Loss of freedoms

● Proliferation of atomic weapons


10/19/12

13

A Train of Logic

Fascist loss of individuality and rise of German nationalism

Communistic loss of individuality and freedom

Godless communism

Godless psychiatry (Psychiatry took root in fascism and is intent on stripping

freedoms and individuality through ECT and drugs)

Loss of freedom of thought is caused by or leads to aberration, and leads to irrational, destructive choices,

placing the world at risk of nuclear accident

Am I a Suppressive Person? Are You?

● A suppressive … a person who seeks to suppress, or squash, any betterment activity or group ….

●  They have antisocial personality disorder. ●  The suppressive person seeks to upset,

continuously undermine, spread bad news and denigrate Scientology …. […] For the good of the church … such a person is officially labeled a suppressive person so that others will know not to associate with him.


Potential Consequences of Being Officially Labeled a Suppressive Person

● Why has Scientology been to court a lot of times?

● Harassment


10/19/12

14

Advertisement Soliciting People Damaged by ECT

Ad appearing in The Independent— a newspaper in the Triangle region of North Carolina— in August 2005

Clinical Connections

● Scientology is a religion of radical individualism that prizes personal freedom and “self-actualization” above all other values

●  It opposes psychiatry on the basis of the 1950s belief that psychiatry was both anti-religious and a damper on personal freedom

● Scientology is a product, in part, of the Cold War, and was spawned in a particular place and time in history

● Scientology is not relevant to modern psychiatry and psychology

Co-sponsored by

10/19/12

15

Save the Date!

6th Annual Chair Summit September 26-28, 2013 Westin Tampa Harbour Island Tampa, Florida Check out www.cmeoutfitters.com for the most recent information on Chair Summit 2013. Registration will be open soon. See you in Tampa!

MM038-day2-1230-McCallneurosciencecme.com/PDF/MM038-day2-1230-McCall.pdf · Dianetics: The Modern...

Documents

Transcript of MM038-day2-1230-McCallneurosciencecme.com/PDF/MM038-day2-1230-McCall.pdf · Dianetics: The Modern...