Psychiatry

RV85-02

World Views

For example, if we are walking down the street, on the sidewalk, and we meet an animal, our world view immediately comes into play for us to decide whether that animal is a lion or a friendly dog. Then on the basis of what we know in our world of the character of lions, and of friendly dogs, we act accordingly. So, our world view is enormously important in how we respond to various life situations. The world view, of course, is our mental frame of reference for guiding us to respond to the information that we receive through the five senses. Spiritual matters also are interpreted as per one's world view.

The Bible gives us one world view, while Eastern mysticism, as expressed in Hinduism, gives another. On the one hand, reality consists of a personal, transcendent Creator God. Remember the word "transcendent" means He is separate from the creation. On the other hand, reality is an impersonal God – a force which is made up of everything. The Bible's revelation may be distorted by interpreting it by a false world view. So, even if you have the Bible to read, and even if you study the Scriptures, if you view the Bible through a false world view, you will interpret the Word of God in a wrong way. That is commonly done. Thus, you have these differing interpretations of the same text. It's very important that you understand why there are differing interpretations of the same text. You need to understand why two men, who have both gone to theological school; who both understand something about the original language; and, who both are students of the Word, come up and say just exactly the opposite about a particular pattern (a particular text) of Scripture (a particular doctrinal teaching). It is because of the viewpoint with which they are approaching that.

Premillennialism

Postmillennialism

Amillennialism

Dispensationalism

A premillennialist knows that, and he approaches the Lord's Prayer that way. Therefore, he is offended when he is in a church service (a liturgical, ritual service), and the preacher comes to a point in his own prayer where he says, "And to your son who taught us to pray, 'Our Father,'" and everybody joins in. And everybody says, "Isn't that wonderful for us to reaffirm our faith that way?"

So, your frame of reference in terms of the millennial issue will very dramatically guide you in the interpretation of Scripture, such as the Sermon on the Mount; the Lord's Prayer; certainly on where humanity is going; certainly in terms of the difference between Israel and the church; and, so on. So, the revelation of the Bible can be distorted by a wrong millennial frame of reference. And it can be distorted by a wrong world view frame of reference. So, if the Bible is not interpreted by its own world view, its meaning can actually be reversed.

For example, in Acts 14:8-18, you have an example of people who viewed an event that took place in their midst by their world view, and they completely misinterpreted what was happening to them. You have Paul and his Associate Barnabas on their missionary ministry in the cities of Lystra and Derbe.

Beginning at verse 8, in the city of Lystra: "And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from birth, who never had walked. The same heard Paul speak, who steadfastly holding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, 'Stand upright on your feet.' And he leaped and walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of the Lycaonia, the gods are come down to us in the likeness of men, and they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.

"Then the priest of Jupiter, whose temple was before their city, brought oxen and garlands onto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people, which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they tore their clothes, and ran in among the people crying out and saying, 'Sirs, why do you do these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities, and turn to the living God who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, who in times past allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.' And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people that they had not done sacrifice onto them."

Here is a perfect example of misinterpreting a situation that is taking place because of a wrong world view. Here are these two missionaries, Paul and Barnabas. They perform a healing miracle while preaching here in Lystra. The Pagans, by their world view, conclude, very consistently, that Paul and Barnabas are the gods Hermes and Zeus. The local priest of Zeus proceeded to prepare a sacrifice to worship Paul and Barnabas, which was an appropriate response according to their world view. Paul and Barnabas, however, from their biblical world view, hastened to correct the pagans' false view by seeking to correct what? Their world view.

Notice: What did Paul do? He went back and said, "Hey, wait a minute. The reason you're trying to do this is because you don't have a right perspective on the world. Then they proceeded to describe a God who is separate from creation, who made everything that there is (all life forms), and who is the God, and the only God, who is legitimately to be worshiped – a God who, in times past, did not have as clear a witness as He does now, such as was given by Paul and Barnabas. He was a God who, in the past, witnessed through creation. He was a God, who in the past, witnessed through what we call common grace. The rain falls on the evil as well as the good. The evil are able to raise food for themselves as well as the good, as the result of cycles in nature," and so on, and so forth. So, Paul immediately said, "Let me straighten out your world view. Then you will know how to look upon us, and interpret what you have seen us do."

The pagan world view had a pantheon of many gods, so it was no problem for them to look on Paul and Barnabas, and to view them as just another two of all those gods that they had in their pantheon of many gods. The Bible world view has only one living Creator God who rules the universe, and so one does not think in terms of multiple gods. So, whatever else you would have thought about what you saw in Paul and Barnabas doing that miracle, you would not, from a biblical world, have to consider them to be gods. You knew because of your understanding of the one God doctrine, and of the world view of the Scriptures, that they could not have been additional gods. So, whatever these two men were, you would not have concluded that they were deity.

People today view the Bible actually from the frame of reference of Satan's pantheistic world view, or the Bible's world view of one sovereign, personal God. Everybody views life from one of those two viewpoints. Everybody views all events in their personal lives; all intellectual matters; and, all matters in society – everything is viewed from the frame of reference of an impersonal God or the frame of reference of a personal God who is the Supreme Creator.

We have another example in Matthew 5:8. Your world view will cause you, if it's wrong, to misinterpret the Scriptures. Jesus, in speaking the Sermon on the Mount says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Those who are the devotees of Hinduism and of Eastern mysticism use this verse to prove that man can see deity in himself. If he will only purify his own consciousness, he will see his own godhood: "Blessed are the pure in their heart; in their inner being; in their invisible qualities; and, in the invisible portion of their being." "Blessed are the pure in their viewpoint, for they shall see God in themselves." If your mind (your consciousness) is cleared, you will look at yourself and discover deity in yourself.

The reason you can come to that kind of interpretation is because of a wrong world view. From a Christian world view, you would realize that Jesus here is actually teaching a strong distinction between God and man. The frame of reference of Eastern mysticism does not distinguish between God and man, so they are viewed as both being part of deity. The difference between pantheism and theism makes the difference in the interpretation of this Scripture. Because we do not hold to pantheism, we know that this cannot be talking about seeing God in ourselves. Because we hold to biblical theism, we realize that this is talking about someone who is separate and different from man, and that man, who comes to a certain spiritual condition described as pure in heart (that is, oriented to doctrinal concepts), will be the one who will see God. From the doctrine of salvation through the doctrine of rewards, that is the person who will see God, and who will come to a personal experience of God.

Another example of your world view distorting Scripture is Matthew 22:39, where we read, "And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Again, the Hindu world of Eastern mysticism explains this verse from their frame of reference as teaching that loving your neighbor is to love yourself because God is in us all. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If you love your neighbor, you are loving yourself because you and your neighbor are one; because God is everywhere; and, because God is everything. If pantheism is true, then whatever you love is also part of you, and therefore you are, in effect, loving yourself.

The Christian world view, however, sees the neighbor, indeed, as made in God's image, and for that reason, he is worthy of our love. We both are made in God's image, and therefore, we love each other, and we love other people accordingly. The Hindu view makes love egocentric (self-love). The Christian view makes love exocentric (outside of yourself). So, when you love someone else, you're not loving yourself. You are loving outside of yourself. The world view will make the difference as to how you interpret that passage.

Let's look at one more in John 14:25-26: "These things (Jesus says) I have spoken unto you, being present with you. But the Comforter (who is the Holy Spirit) whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you." Eastern mysticism likes to take this verse of Scripture, and from its world view, it sees this passage as teaching reincarnation, and the promise of being able to recall the facets of your past life.

What the Lord Jesus was referring to here is the Bible doctrine information which He had taught the disciples over his three-and-a-half year ministry with them, and which they were now going to be responsible for putting in a written form in order to form the New Testament Scriptures. The Lord Jesus says, "I know that I've taught you a lot. There has been a lot of information. You may be uncomfortable and uneasy that you may have forgotten something important, but I want to reassure you that God the Holy Spirit is going to trigger your subconscious, and bring up to your conscious memory all of the things I've told you. Furthermore, He will direct you in your writing so that your expression (your recording of it) will be precisely, accurately true without error." What Jesus is promising here is this remembering of what He has taught them – to refresh it in their minds at the point of their recording it in Scripture. This is certainly no reference to remembering one's past life, but to recalling divine viewpoint truth.

The Doctrine of Demons

At this point, I probably should say that I hope you will be just as relaxed as possible. Have a good, relaxed mental attitude. And if you don't like what I say, or you don't agree with it, don't sit there and start vibrating, and having your eyeballs twirling in opposite directions. I have found from experience that when you say such a thing as to label common, accepted viewpoints in our society as doctrines of demons, that the troops come charging after me someplace along the line after the service. So, whether you agree or not, listen to me in my ignorance, at least. The doctrines of Eastern mysticism constitute the doctrines of demons. They are not haphazard. They are carefully conceived by Satan in order to give people a world view that even if they read the Bible, they'll come out with distorted interpretations.

The Doctrine of Demons: God is an Impersonal Force

The Doctrine of Demons: Man is Destined for Godhood

"Self-realization" means coming to the realization that you are deity. "God-consciousness" means becoming aware that you are God. "Universal love;" "God realization;" and, "being in tune" are all phrases (and there are many others) that connote the mystical concept of finding out your own status of deity. All gods are viewed as people who simply have achieved a higher state of spiritual development. This is certainly true in Mormonism, without any apology. Mormonism teaches this about God the Father and God the Son, very specifically. The objective of the Mormon life is that they too will become gods when they have developed to a sufficiently high spiritual state. So, there's a cosmic humanism which declares the autonomy; the power; and, the inherent divinity of man so that man actually makes his own rules.

Again, Eastern mysticism comes to the Bible in order to defend this concept that people are all destined for godhood. Luke 17:20-21 are referred to in this respect: "And when He was demanded of the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, 'The Kingdom of God comes not with observation. Neither shall they say. 'Lo, here,' or 'Lo, there,' for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.'" Eastern mystics quote this verse to show that men are gods; that the Kingdom of God is within them; and, consequently, that they possess personal divinity.

In Luke 17:21, this word "within," as it's translated in our King James Bible, is the Greek word "entos." This word, as you look at it in the English, gives the impression that Jesus is telling these godless, unbelieving Pharisees (these negative volition Pharisees) who are standing before Him, that the Kingdom of God is actually inside their souls or their hearts. Eastern mysticism interprets the word "within" as referring to the inherent value of man. But the word "entos" in the Greek does not mean "within" in the sense of "inside." What it does mean is "in the midst of;" that is, it refers to an external condition relative to the Pharisees. He is describing something that is external to these men standing around. He is not telling of something that is within their souls internally.

One of the reasons we know this to be the case is because the Greek language has a way of saying "on the inside of a person." And if Jesus had meant that the kingdom of God was internal with the Pharisees, God the Holy Spirit would have moved the writer to use the word "eso." This is also an adverb, and it means "inside" specifically. That's what the word means. It would have been the fitting word to use at that point.

So, what Jesus was saying to the Pharisees, who were looking for the kingdom of God, was that that kingdom was already present among them externally in the form of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who stood before them, and in His disciples who were the ground work (the foundation) of this kingdom being prepared. This kingdom was promised to David. They were looking for it. They understood it, and they were right in looking for that. Jesus says, "It's here. It's in your presence." Jesus could hardly have meant that the Kingdom of God, which implies personal regeneration, was within the hearts of these self-righteous, Christ-rejecting Pharisees.

In John 3:3, we have indicated that participation in the Kingdom of God is contingent upon a spiritual birth through Jesus Christ: "Jesus answered and said to him, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." So, entering into the Kingdom of God is indeed contingent upon a new birth. But that kingdom is a kingdom which is external. It is not within our hearts, and certainly was not within the souls of those Pharisees. This is particularly the expression "Kingdom of God," which has a little broader context in Scripture than "Kingdom of Heaven." Matthew uses the term "Kingdom of Heaven," and that's restricted to the Davidic kingdom. But here you have the concept of "Kingdom of God," which includes only born-again people. The term "Kingdom of Heaven" has wheat and tares in it. There's an overlap between the two, and part of it is unsaved in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the Kingdom of God is entirely born-again.

So, to enter that kingdom requires trust in Jesus Christ as personal Savior. The Eastern mystics completely misinterpret that verse by suggesting that the Kingdom of God, which connotes the presence and power of God functioning, is inside the human being, and all he has to do is look there for it.

The amillennialists, in the same way, interpret this very verse as teaching that the Kingdom of God is not an earthly entity, but is a spiritual entity within the hearts of people. This is how the amillennialists interpret this force – exactly the way the people under Eastern mysticism do. Why do the animals do it? Because they have a wrong millennial viewpoint. That's what I meant earlier. Because they approach the Scripture from a false concept of where the millennium fits into God's program (they say that there isn't any millennium), the only way they can handle this verse is to say that it does refer to something inside these Pharisees – not external to them, in the form of a kingdom that Jesus Christ is going to set up. So, the doctrine that man is destined for Godhead is a doctrine of demons.

The Doctrine of Demons: Man is not Inherently Evil

Psychiatry

So, psychiatry is amazingly similar to Eastern mysticism's view of man as deity and as inherently good. The self-realization of the yogis is very parallel to psychiatry's faith in the magic of psychotherapy, and in the various self-help techniques. Many Christian groups play with this concept of possibility thinking and of positive thinking – these self-help approaches. The karma concept is reflected in psychiatry's belief that the present behavior of a person is determined by his past experiences. Many psychiatrists actually are trying to probe back into the lives of people to find what they did in some past life, in order to cure their present neuroses. So, psychiatry is, in effect, a religion. It's a religion which is not based on scientific fact, and a religion which is not based on logical conclusions, but on assumptions. These assumptions are treated as religious dogma.

Sigmund Freud fell into the delusion of the inherent perfection of man which is identical to that which is held by Eastern religions. However, he expressed these as psychological norms rather than as human godhood. Freud didn't say that people were gods, but what he described about people was identical to what the Eastern mystic says about people in terms of being gods. Freud hated religion, and he wanted a scientific substitute for what he considered humanity's neurotic dependence on God and on the Bible. He declared, therefore, that anybody who pursued religion was mentally ill. To Freud, anybody who pursued a religious system was mentally ill.

That is just as in the communist world today. Anybody who wants to pursue private ownership of property; who wants to pursue the enjoyment of the fruits of his own labor; and, the one who wants to pursue privacy – all the things that constitute free enterprise, in a communist system, that person is viewed as mentally ill. He is snatched up by his hair roots and put into a mental institution. That is an identical concept of psychiatry, and that's where they, in effect, really got it – from Freud's thinking.

Sigmund Freud centered on the unconscious, and taught that this higher state of the mind determined everything that a person does. So, Freud says that a child's perfect, unconscious mind has been perverted in time (and is perverted in time) by the environment, and that causes the child to become dominated by sexually motivated feelings of lust, homicide, and incest. Freud invented his brand of Eastern mysticism in the form of psychoanalysis to delve into the subconscious in order to rid it of its imposed abnormality. That, for him, was salvation. So, psychiatry is a religion.

I'll remind you again. Just lean back. Be relaxed. If you don't like that, and if you don't think there's a correlation here, then just keep going; move ahead; and, enjoy yourself on whatever view you want to hold. But I think there's a very direct correlation between Eastern mysticism and psychiatry as a religion which centers on self-worship, and is destructive to the individuals and to various communities of life.

I want to read an article to you by a man who himself is a psychiatrist, who is not liked at all in the community of psychiatrists, because he is so experienced; he is so knowledgeable; he has been through all the same schools; and, he has had an extensive big practice, such that he knows what is involved in dealing with people who have emotional problems. He has come into conclusions that are totally against the psychiatric community, and he completely condemns it as a fraud. The article is from "The Review of the News." The psychiatrist is Thomas S. Szasz. The article is by John Reese:

"'When patients lie, we call their lies delusions. When psychiatrists lie, we call their lies psychiatric theories,' says Dr. Thomas Szasz, who has been a thorn in the side of the psychiatric establishment for more than a quarter of a century. Since 1956, Dr. Szasz has been a teacher and a practitioner of psychiatry at the Upstate Medical Center of the state University of New York in Syracuse. He is the author of 17 books and countless articles and essays that amount to a seemingly irrefutable indictment of psychiatry as a pseudoscience and religious cult. Doctor Szasz has achieved considerable renowned for his opposition to forced psychiatric treatment. He has said, 'In a free society, no one should be deprived of his liberty on any ground other than an accusation, trial, and being found guilty of a criminal charge. Doctor Szasz has asserted that if the psychiatric profession had not attached itself so intimately to government coercion; mental hospitals; and, court ordered referrals, its practitioners would be on the breadline.'

"Question: Doctor Szasz: In most areas of medicine, physicians can determine the cause of the symptom in a reasonably short time. For example, if a patient comes in with jaundice, doctors can run tests to determine whether the cause is a hepatitis virus; chemical damage to the liver; an infection; or, a tumor, etc. How is it that psychiatrists testing mental symptoms in the same individual come up with such divergent views?

"Answer: The question goes to the heart of what psychiatrists are now testing and testifying about in law courts. In the case of jaundice, liver disease is an objective fact. The cause can be determined with chemical tests. A treatment can be prescribed with the expectation of a successful cure. But that is not the case with mental symptoms. Because of this, it has long been my view that psychiatry is not, in fact, a medical specialty. It is not a science.

"Question: How would you define it? Answer: It is at best some sort of pseudoscience, though I believe psychiatry is really a religion disguised as a science or a medical specialty. When a psychiatrist is in court, what he is testifying about is no more related to objective fact than when a religious person testifies that he believes God created the world in six days and rested (depending on which of the major religions he belongs to), on Sunday or Saturday or Friday. Religious experts will all testify differently, but they are testifying on matters of faith. This is what psychiatry is – a faith or a religion disguised as medical science.

"Question: You make it sound like a primitive shaman's art, where a witch doctor treats symptoms whose causes he does not understand, with incantations and powerful drugs, whose effects he does not comprehend. Answer: The problem is that no one in authority is willing to say so. Take the Hinckley trial. The commentators typically said, 'Well, the psychiatrists have done very well, and there is room for disagreement. The line between sanity and insanity is a very thin one. It's hard to determine who is sane and who is insane.' But all that misses the point. If psychiatry were not recognized as a medical specialty, then psychiatrists would not be allowed to testify as experts, just as a priest is not allowed to testify as an expert that someone was possessed by the devil. An expert is supposed, objectively, to report facts.

"Question: What is the role of psychiatrists in court? Answer: They are legally authorized confusers.

"Question: And when you have psychiatrists for both defense and prosecution squaring off against one another? Answer: Then it becomes a question of who has the better confusers.

"Question: Is it possible to define insanity? Answer: It is no more possible, scientifically, to define insanity than scientifically to affix on which day God rested after the creation. Sanity is entirely a social judgment. Obviously, the people who shot President Sadat were adjudged entirely sane in Egypt. Their membership in a fanatical Moslem religious sect was considered irrelevant to their sanity. Here in America, we are perfectly willing to punish marijuana smugglers, but we are not willing to punish presidential assassins.

"Question: How should insanity or eccentric (or nonstandard) behavior be dealt with? Answer: If you want to know what options there are, look at history. We can and have done everything from ignoring it to punishing it severely.

"Question: Would you say that our society has become more humane by no longer incarcerating those judged insane in the snake pit conditions of bedlam, but instead giving them Thorazine and other tranquilizers? Answer: The idea that we have become more humane with respect to the mentally ill is, in my opinion, a huge self-flattery and social delusion. We have become much less humane in that, in the first place, we diagnose and define so many more people as deviant or insane than in the old days. Very few people were found to be mad in Elizabethan England – only a few hundred people out of several million. But now we hear psychiatrists talking about 25% to 40% of the population being mentally ill.

"Question: Yes, and you said this was less humane. Answer: Certainly. Now there is endless societal discrimination where once there was tolerance for eccentricity. And, as far as treatment of the mentally ill is concerned, it was only very recently that lobotomy and electric shock were commonplace. Now strong chemicals are also in common use. The evidence is starting to show their destructive effects.

"Question: What should society do with abnormal people who commit crimes? Answer: Instead of answering you directly, I'd like to make a different point. Criminal law is the society's fingerprints. Just as people have fingerprints that uniquely identify them, criminal law uniquely identifies a society. Take, for instance, contemporary Russia, where to wish to leave the country is a crime. The way our system of criminal law has chosen to handle someone like John Hinckley, shows to me that our national religion is, I'm sorry to say, psychiatry – one of the stupidest and most horrible creeds invented by mankind.

"Question: But the common sense reaction to Hinckley's acquittal has been strongly against broad insanity defenses. Answer: Yes, even as intelligent and conservative a president as Mr. Reagan was ready to say in his news conference that Hinckley is sick. If Mr. Carter had provided that comment, I wouldn't have been surprised. But for Mr. Reagan? To be serious, this question that everyone, liberals and conservatives alike, believes in mental illness – Who does not? Maybe just you and I.

"Question: What do you think lies behind the apparent desire to avoid labeling certain behavior as criminal? Answer: That's a very good point. But you are being kind of sneaky in the way you are approaching the issue. It's as if you ran into a religious group that believed very strongly in life in the hereafter, and were suggesting they only believed it because they were afraid of dying. That amounts to an analysis of the religion. It is important that it should come only after establishing that, in fact, these people believe in a set of propositions for which there is absolutely no rational scientific evidence. Plainly put, there is no rational scientific empirical evidence whatsoever to support psychiatry. That's terribly important. At the same time that there is no evidence for it, it clearly deals with very important matters of right and wrong. Hence we have the evidence that it is not a science but a religion. And what that religion means to people is a legitimate subject for analysis. Now we can go back to your analysis, which is quite right. The purpose of the religion of psychiatrist is to avoid vexing, troublesome, moral questions. Now we can move on to what you asked me about: what would I do?

"Question: Alright, taking my cue, what would you do with people who show deviant behavior patterns and commit crimes? Answer: I have no difficulty with this whole proposition because I am a psychiatric agnostic. I do not believe in any psychiatric mythology, and in particular, I do not believe in the existence or reality of mental illness or insanity. Therefore, to me, whether Hinckley is sane or insane is as irrelevant as whether he is rich or poor. It is not relevant to the law whether he is a Christian or Jewish; or, black or white. The argument over Hinckley's sanity is simply not relevant. It should not be relevant to the determination of his guilt or innocence.

"Question: Then you think that people should be judged on the facts of whether or not they committed a criminal act? Answer: Yes. And then, if the prisoner wants to have a psychiatrist visit him in jail, he should have one, just as a convict can have a priest, minister, or rabbi.

"Question: How then should we judge a retarded person who commits a criminal act? By retarded, I mean a child's mind in an adult body. Answer: If he is chronologically an adult, and is to enjoy the legal rights of an adult, then he must also bear the legal responsibilities of an adult. In my judgment, even such a person should be adjudged guilty or innocent, depending on whether he did or did not commit the act with which he has been charged. I would then leave it to the judge and the penal system, which, after all, could be humane and enlightened also to take into account whatever mitigating circumstances there might be.

"Question: Part of the trouble then, Dr. Szasz, is that psychiatry has attained such an exalted position in our society. Can you give a capsule sketch as to how this has come about? Answer: I've written several books on that subject, but it's extremely difficult to do in an interview. Very briefly, I think psychiatry is essentially a replacement for the preeminence of the Christian religion in Western Europe, which went into a steep decline starting in the 17th century, continuing through the Enlightenment, and into our own times. If you look at the development of ideas in philosophy, you can trace very clearly the onset, development, and growth of psychiatric ideas and policies from the late 17th century and 18th century onwards. The pace of development of these ideas accelerated about the time of the French Revolution.

"Question: And the idea of insanity and treatments for mental illness arose then? Answer: Essentially so, with the exception of bedlam. For all practical purposes, there were no such things as mental institutions until the 17th century. They did not exist in Asia, Egypt, or ancient Greece and Rome. Throughout history, people have done quite well without psychiatry.

"Question: Do you see much chance for challenging the authority of organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association? Answer: Mr. Reese, I alluded earlier to the statement of President Reagan, in which he accepted the idea that the man who tried to murder him was sick. I would also point out that this is Mrs. Reagan's favorite charitable (or philanthropic) work is drug abuse, which she seems to think is a mental illness. Even so-called liberals, or progressives, by and large, are zealous true believers in psychiatry. I don't see much chance in the United States for reform when almost everybody on both sides of the political spectrum is a fervent believer in psychiatry, mental illness, and insanity.

"Question: Do you see any area where reform might take root? Answer: Reform would have to come from a fundamental change to the pretensions of this fake science.

"Question: Might a challenge come from people with religious views, that certain types of actions or conduct are just plain evil, and that, therefore, those who commit them should be held criminally liable under the law? Answer: That is something I was hoping for 30 years ago when I first got into the business, but I very quickly tempered my expectations as I realized that the clergy in this country, both Christian and Jewish, has been completely sold on psychiatry.

"Question: How was that accomplished? Through telling them they are being more humane or modern, or through changes in teaching philosophy and theology? Answer: I don't really know. But I can't think of a single clergyman who has written anything critical of psychiatry. It is not enough to object to a particular theory. The whole business is a fraud on science.

"Question: Yes, but I cannot recall any gloss on the Ten Commandments that says you shalt not commit murder unless your psychiatrist assures you that the murder will relieve you of irresistible urges and compulsions, and will make you feel better once the other person is dead. Answer: Indeed, but I recall that some 15 or 20 years ago (and I put this in one of my books), the Vatican added schizophrenia to the criteria which qualified a couple for an annulment of their marriage. This shows that a generation ago the Vatican had bought this non-existent disease. This is a very serious matter, because this means that the highest authority of the Roman Catholic Church has recognized and adopted psychiatry.

"Question: Haven't some physicians and psychiatrists been trying to show that schizophrenia is a medically measurable chemical imbalance? Answer: I say schizophrenia does not exist. Until the Vatican also says so, it has cut off its only line of attack on psychiatry's efforts to deny the existence of good and evil, That is why, from the beginning of my work on this, I have challenged this proposition. It is a most important one.

"Question: Have you had any marked success in gaining supporters in the medical field? Answer: I have considered it a success that I have survived in good health.

"Question: Indeed, you are not only challenging one of the most powerful branches of the medical establishment, but one which has tremendous influence over the entire criminal justice system. After all, we no longer have penal institutions. We have correctional institutions which, through therapy, are intended to rehabilitate individuals who commit certain actions. But your voice is heard, and your books are read. Answer: I appreciate that premise, but I feel rather modest. I do get a great deal of fan mail. A good many professional colleagues and individuals in law enforcement agree with me. But I believe that is because I have reasserted that right is right, and wrong is wrong; and, that two and two are four – not five. Of course, many people have suspected this, but the fake experts (the psychiatrists) told them that they were wrong. They like to hear someone like me say that they were right all along.

"Question: In any case, people are still going to look for excuses to avoid responsibility for their actions. Answer: And this is the crux of the problem. What a great excuse it is to say that you are not in control of your own mind, and that some irresistible compulsion made you steal a car; write bad checks; counterfeit money; or, commit armed robbery, assault, or murder. In the Middle Ages, people would say, 'The devil made me do it.'

"Question: Now instead of exorcists, we have psychiatrists? Answer: Exactly. You can't use the terminology of a belief you have rejected. So, you invent a new terminology. The old exorcists casting out devils have been replaced with psychiatrists casting out illness.

"Question: And so John Hinckley goes to be cured of a mental illness as if he had pneumonia and needed injections of antibiotics. Answer: Yes. Hinckley has been sent to St. Elizabeth's Hospital to be cured. Anybody who believes that people are cured in St. Elizabeth's Hospital will believe anything. I'm sorry to say that St. Elizabeth's Hospital is, in fact, one of the most odious places in the United States, as John Hinckley will find out soon enough.

"Question: Customarily, it has been the place to which people are automatically incarcerated for observation after committing the crime of trespassing at the White House. Answer: And everybody will recall that St. Elizabeth's was where Ezra Pound, one of America's most famous poets, was locked up despite having never been convicted of any wrongdoing. He was not adjudged criminal by any American court for his actions in Italy during World War II. Yet, he was locked away for 13 years. Now, of course, many years later, people say that this was wrong. Some call it 20/20 hindsight. I call it hypocrisy. Not one lawyer; not one legal scholar; and, not one politician said the incarceration of Ezra Pound in St. Elizabeth's was wrong.

"Question: Do you expect any real change without a general acceptance that there are such things as good and evil? Answer: Not without both the realization of good and evil, and the realization that man has the ability to make independent decisions. A decision is not somehow secreted by the brain the way a hormone is secreted by a gland or excreted the way a kidney produces urine.

"Question: Meanwhile, the courts, judges, juries, and lawyers will continue to seek opinions from psychiatrists as a way to avoid their own responsibilities? Answer: Of course. Psychiatrists are everywhere in the courts, but Solomon did not need a psychiatrist to determine who would be the better mother of the child in dispute. He took dramatic action, and got two specific responses. One of the women clearly had the child's interests at heart, and the other wanted it for other motives. Solomon did not call in a psychiatrist to find out which would be the better mother. I believe that man has free will as well as another terrible and also beautiful aspect that is often overlooked. This last is an area in which the Christian and Jewish faiths do not differ very much. It is that man cannot evade responsibility for judging good and evil. I am reminded of Dante's Inferno, in which there is limbo, neither hell nor heaven, where those people, who reserved judgment when the angels and the devils fought, wandered disconsolate forever. People make choices, and ought to be held responsible in various ways for the choices and actions that they take in life."

I find that a very interesting article presenting the crux of the problem in modern psychiatry today. The sad part about this is that the relationship between psychiatry and Eastern mysticism is even overlooked by so-called Christian psychiatrists. And I close with this quotation from the book called The Cult Explosion, pages 70 and 71:

"Some Christians have imagined they could better explain and apply the Bible by viewing it through secular psychology's grid of teaching. Today, the church is being destroyed from within by Christian psychology that interprets Scripture on the basis of a bankrupt, atheistic philosophy, which at best turns Christ into a heavenly psychiatrist. Months, and even years, of Christian psychiatry are now attempting to do what was once accomplished in a moment by coming to the cross. Thomas Szasz has rightly said, 'With the decline of religion and the growth of science, the cure of sinful souls was recast as the cure of sick minds. ... One of the largest referral systems to psychotherapy is the church. Christians are quite regularly referred to psychotherapists by unsuspecting priests and ministers. ... Many Christians have either questioned or left the faith once delivered unto the saints to follow after one or more of the 200 psychotherapeutic myths. Through the guile of psychotherapy and the naivety of the church, the holiness of Christianity has been exchanged for the hollowness of psychiatry. Many have made the transaction as if it were all done for scientific and medical reasons.

"The fact is that they have exhibited a faith in the psychological which has exceeded their faith in the spiritual, and they have done it all for less than objective reasons. Under the influence of a growing army of psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and sociologists, who largely control our public schools, millions of today's youth have been persuaded to believe the serpent's ancient lie now clothed in psychological dogma, that there is nothing inherently wrong with the child's self, and that any aberrant behavior is the fault of trauma suffered in the home. All blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the bewildered parents, who themselves were supposedly born with perfect psyches, but were traumatized by their parents. At all cost, sin must be denied, and moral responsibility to God for choices and actions must be explained away as conditioned responses forced upon the individual by society, glands, or environmental influences."

Psychology is indeed the cult of self-worship. Salvation always centers in self: self-confidence; self-potential; self-awareness; self-acceptance; self-love; self-image; self-esteem; self-fulfillment; self-development; self-assertion, self-actualization; and, self-ad nauseam. The imprint of the serpent's lie is unmistakable. It is amazing that today, thousands of years after Eden, the promise of godhood through self-realization, with all the psychic powers that implies, holds a stronger appeal than ever for Adam and Eve's modern and scientifically sophisticated descendants. Exactly as Christ and the apostles prophesied, the influence of this delusion upon the human race is accelerating."

So, again, we must declare that the doctrine that man is not inherently evil, which is promoted by Eastern mysticism and by modern psychiatry, is a doctrine of demons.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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