Anti-psychiatry references in Scientology

Contained in this section are a collection of anti-psychiatry references that are to be found in Scientology and Dianetics materials. These are intended to give a flavour of the anti-psychiatry message that is widespread throughout the Scientology and Dianetics doctrines. Often these references include categorising psychiatry as solely lobotomies or the application of electric shock.

This list is by no means exhaustive. Full sourcing information is given and, where necessary, we have provided relevant scans/audio of the materials in question.

References from the ‘Basics’

In Scientology the ‘Basics’ refers to the set of 18 books (with associated lectures) that comprise the basic training received in Scientology. As these are the introductory books Scientologists first encounter we feel it important to reference them before proceeding to the more extreme anti-psychiatry sentiments contained in Scientology policy letters and/or advanced materials.

Dianetics: Evolution of a Science

“So there is no "Unconscious mind." And there is no "unconsciousness." This made modern psychology look like Tarawa after the Marines had landed. For this is about as easy to prove as the statement that when an apple is held three feet in the air and let fall, it drops, conditions being normal.” (2007 edition, page 42)

“There is no inaccuracy in the banks. Inaccuracy can, of course, be caused by surgery or injury involving actually removed portions. Electric shock and other psychiatric efforts are equivocal. Prefrontal lobotomy is such certain and complete mind-murder that one cannot be certain thereafter of anything in the patient except zombyism.”(2007 edition, page 61)

Science of Survival

“As for other psychiatric classifications these are famous even to psychiatry for their looseness and disorganized state. One institution for instance handles schizophrenics only and so any patient who comes there is simply classified as a schizophrenic. Psychology has long laughed at psychiatry because psychiatric terminology described some manifestation and led to no cure. This was because psychiatry did not know the cause of any manifestation and could not cure either the cause or the manifestation.” (2007 edition, page 30)

“And it is probable that if the normal person were placed in such an institution, in such an atmosphere he would become psychotic. Indeed the incidence of psychosis overtaking attendants and psychiatrists in attendance in such institutions is alarmingly high - a sign which one would have thought would have meant something some time since. This is second only to psychosurgery and shock treatment in the worsening of psychotics in a psychotic state. Rather than give psychotics such treatment and sanitariums, it would be far kinder to kill them immediately and completely - and not partially as does psychosurgery and electric shock.” (2007 edition, footnote on page 222)

Handbook for Preclears

“They'll stand up to electric shock, prefrontal lobotomies, psychiatry and any brand of torture before they will surrender the facsimiles they are holding for others - and even then they don't give them up!” (2007 edition, page 137)

The Creation of Human Ability

“Yet Dianetics is more of an exact science than many which have before borne that name. And Dianetics is an intimate part of Scientology, for it is through its special communication processes that the data was won which has become Scientology. Also under the heading of Para-Scientology, one would place such things as past lives, mysterious influences, astrology, mysticism, religion, psychology, psychiatry, nuclear physics and any other science based on theory.” (2007 edition, page 285)

Dianetics 55

“This, of course, could not include the extant mental charlatan (spelled "psychiatrist"), nor the professional dabbler in abilities (the "psychologist"). As one had learned these two could not be trained (and if they could have been, wouldn't have been interested in the proposed goals), it was necessary that a new breed of feline come into being-the auditor-and the auditor did.”(2007 edition, page 6)

“There isn't even any point in trying to categorize Dianetics or say that it "compares" to psychology or mathematics or engineering or any other activity, because it is obviously senior to all these activities and doesn't have to take any of these activities into account to work.” (2007 edition, page 53)

“It is a peculiar thing that there is no argument about exteriorization. Any argument which has been in existence was born out of the psychiatrist's observation of "compulsive exteriorization" by an individual who so detested his body that he stayed outside of it. Psychiatrists have been known to give people electric shocks and other "treatments" to get them to get back inside their body. This level of punishment, trying to get a person to accept something under duress, does not work. But then, nothing in psychiatry ever worked (except bank accounts).”(2007 edition, page 221)

Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought

“Neither Dianetics nor Scientology should be confused with "modern" psychology. More acceptable and normal psychology, such as that begun by Saint Thomas Aquinas and extended by many later authors, was (in 1879) interrupted severely by one Professor Wundt, a Marxist at Leipzig University in Germany. This man conceived that Man was an animal without soul and based all of his work on the principle that there was no psyche (a Greek word meaning "spirit"). Psychology, "the study of the spirit," then came into the peculiar position of being "a study of the spirit which denied the spirit." For the subsequent decades, Wundtian "psychology" was taught broadly throughout the world. It taught that Man was an animal. It taught that Man could not be bettered. It taught that intelligence never changed. This subject, Wundtian psychology, became standard mainly because of the indifference or lack of knowledge of people in charge of universities.” (2007 edition, pages 5-6)

A New Slant on Life

“The reason people started to confuse children with dogs and to start training children with force lies in the field of psychology. The psychologist worked on “principles” as follows:
"Man is evil."
''Man must be trained into being asocial animal."
"Man must adapt to his environment."
As these postulates aren't true, psychology doesn't work. And if you ever saw a wreck, it's the child of a professional psychologist.”(2007 edition, page 160)

Introduction to Scientology Ethics

“The modern mental hospital with its brutality and suppressive treatments is not the way to give a psychotic quiet and rest.” (2007 edition, page 193)

“Efforts to involve philosophy with medical imperialism, psychiatric sadism, the bigoted churchman, bring about a slowing of our progress. These people are sick spiritually because of their own continuous harmful actions against patients and the society and are beyond our normal means to help.” (2007 edition, page 221)

“We even investigate social areas of down statistic. Psychiatry's cures are zero. The negative statistic of more insane is all that is "up." So investigate and "hang."” (2007 edition, page 242)

“There are people who suppress. They are few. They often rise up to being in charge and then all things decay. They are essentially psychopathic personalities. Such want position in order to kill. Such as Genghis Khan, Hitler, psychiatrists, psychopathic criminals, want power only to destroy. Covertly or overtly they pay only with death. They arrived where they arrived, in charge of things, because nobody when they were on their way up said "No."Theyare monuments to the cowards, the reasonable people who didn't put period to them while they were still only small bullies and still vulnerable.” (2007 edition, page 251)

“The tech fact is the data we have about SPs. There are very few of these in proportion to decent people. That one fact is something this society's police don't know. According to extant social tech, all people are basically bad and are only made "good" through punishment. So everyone everywhere has to be threatened. That's extant wog tech. It doesn't work. The crime rate soars, so obviously the know-how isn't to be found out "there." People are all animals, "they" say, and must be herded. Well that's the "modern social scientist's" nutty idea. Society does not know that all they'd have to do is round up their few SPs and they'd have no crime. Instead, whenever they arrest criminals they prove to these that society is brutal and crime justified and just let them loose again. They don't straighten SPs up because the "social scientists," the psychologist and psychiatrist, are at this writing at least mainly
SPs themselves and haven't any tech but the club.” (2007 edition, page 255)

“Ethics could clean up a whole nation and make it boom, using its tech correctly.
As Ethics is a powerful tech, an uninformed E/O who thinks he is a sort of Local Cop-KGB-FBI-Scotland Yard sure has missed the point. They are (or are at this writing) total failures, as witness the condemnation of crime stats in their areas. They are simply oppressive terror symbols. They take psychiatric advice and get psychiatric results. The end product is mutiny and revolution by the population.” (2007 edition, page 256)

“Psychiatrists, for instance, have two major types in their ranks, both psychopathic. One is a theetie-weetie who thinks all criminals are poor abused things and the other is himself a criminal psychopath who turns criminals loose on the society just to get even with people for his own fancied wrongs. Tracing several major crimes, it can be found that the violent criminal was in the hands of a psychiatrist earlier and told him his intentions, yet was let loose on society.”(2007 edition, page 256)

“So look well at psychs and anti-religious campaigners. They are speaking from their own blackened souls, and they speak from terror. That people when they grow saner are less inclined to vengeance is an argument they cannot assimilate. They know if they had the power to torture and kill everyone, they would do so. Thus the psychs with their rantings and electric shocks wear their own brand clearly marked on them by their own conduct in life. Recognize them for what they are - psychotic criminals - and handle them accordingly.” (2007 edition, page 264)

“The First Dynamic "nothing to do with me" attitude is the product of drugs, TV and the psychiatrists and psychologists who have perverted education and produced a criminal society wherein the individual is supposed to be the effect of everything, incapable of handling his environment.”(2007 edition, page 267)

References from policy letters & lectures

These contain the more extreme anti-psychiatry references. It is these documents that guide any actions Scientology takes against psychiatry.

“ATTITUDE TOWARD PSYCHIATRY: “The medical profession, healing groups and ourselves are attempting to get psychiatry to accept on a pledge of no harmful treatment psychotics who now have to be withheld from psychiatrists and institutions because of the real danger that they will have their backs broken, their teeth knocked out or their brains damaged by shock, drugs or surgery. We and other committees are trying to get psychiatry to make such non-harmful facilities for the insane available in order to serve the medical and healing professions so that these can dispose of their insane patients without themselves being guilty of murder or mayhem upon them. It’s an international movement.” (Operational Bulletin No. 5, mid-November 1955)

“We are getting increasing numbers of people who have been messed up by psychiatry in institutions and some very very ugly stories, not a few, but many many many are coming through into our lines now to such a degree that its no exaggeration to say that they run psychiatric death camps. I know that sounds very rabel roused but the truth of the matter is there are death camps. They lure people in for instance as voluntary patients, they hurt them, they mess them up, they fill them full of drugs, they smash them down with 50,000 volts, they tear their brains up. They actually use an instrument which is an icepick to do this, and the people only live for a very short time and if they don't die at once, which many of them of course do, they won't let him out and they do other nasty things, they sterilize him, castrate him, mess him up .” (Ron’s Journal 68, audio extract available here 5 Mb mp3)

“We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one. This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them.”(Project Psychiatry, confidential 22nd February 1966)

“Policy is that we assign any case or upset in Scientology to past damage and interference with the person by medicine or psychiatry. They were sent to us after medicine or psychiatry had already destroyed them. We cannot be blamed for psychiatric or medical failures. By continually repeating this, make the AMA, Nats, etc very wary of using our name on these psychiatric and medical failures. Both subjects are guilty and the statement is demonstrably true. Use it often. Make it known to the enemy that this is our policy as a restraint on their fetid imaginations: "Every time you attack us we will disclose more records of your failures".” (HCOPL, confidential,  29th June 1971)

“Given enough repetition of the redefinition, public opinion can be altered by altering the meaning of a word. The technique is good or bad depending on the ultimate objective of the propagandist. "Psychiatry" and "psychiatrist" are easily redefined to mean "an antisocial enemy of the people." This takes the kill-crazy psychiatrist off the preferred list of professions. This is a good use of the technique as for a century the psychiatrist has been setting an all-time record for inhumanity to man. The redefinition of words is done by associating different emotions and symbols with the word than were intended.” (HCOPL, 5th October 1971, Propaganda by Redefinition of Words)

“The best one I know is to take a sheet of glass and put it in front of the preclear -- clear, very clear glass -- which is supercooled, preferably about a -100 centigrade. You got that? Supercooled, you know? And then put the preclear right in front of this supercooled sheet of glass and suddenly shove his face into the glass. Now, that's pretty good. I mean, that was developed about five billion years ago by a whole-track psychiatrist. And it's pretty thorough.” (Extract from the lecture ‘Aberration and the Sixth Dynamic’, 15th American Advanced Clinical Course. Audio in 850Kb mp3)

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