Say No To Psychiatry: Extended Introduction

Click HERE for large online selection of books about the flaws and dangers
of modern psychiatry and psychology.

Psychiatric treatments are harmful. All psychiatric treatments are harmful. Psychiatric drugs, ECT (electric shock) and brain surgery (lobotomy) each harm the individual and the society. This sometimes goes against what we have been taught or indoctrinated into believing, and also against what we would often like to believe. Taking a pill as a "cure" obviously is easier than confronting and dealing with the actual personal reasons for one's difficulties with their own mind and life. The alternative requires personal responsibility, expenditure of effort, self-control, and can take time, but the final results far exceed the quick fix (drugs, shock, etc.). In fact, the "psychiatric solutions" do not even slightly exist as true "fixes" in the first place. In fact, the "psychiatric" methods "fix" nothing at all and actually make things worse, because the "treatments" always interfere with the healthy and optimum functioning of any human mind.

The field of psychiatry is rooted in German experimental psychology, racist eugenics theories, and anti-human materialistic opinions parading as scientific facts. The promotional activities and tremendous profits of the major drug companies play a very large role and must be clearly recognized for any accurate understanding of the true development and tremendous expansion of modern psychiatry. Psychiatry as a field is not the natural result of 100 years of sincere, dedicated, and honest investigation into solving the problems of Man. But rather, it is the result of millions upon millions of dollars spent in the ruthless promotion of a severely flawed field that has dedicatedly (and falsely) clothed itself in a flashy and exaggerated suit of "scientific fact" and "clinical research". Modern psychiatric theories and methods deny everything comprising man's "inner" personality of thoughts, feelings, values, hopes, dreams, intentions, goals, and ultimately, life itself. Because without a human mind there would be no "life" at all - at least not for you or me. Life as any of us know it, appreciate it and experience it exists ONLY because each of us possess and fundamentally ARE a conscious mind. For all practical purposes, and in reality, nothing at all can or would exist without a conscious entity to view it. Modern materialistic interpretations of Man completely miss this fact or severely devalue its importance. Instead of directing attention at and investigating that which is doing the looking (i.e. you and me as conscious entities - or thinking observing minds), modern "science" tends to only concentrate on that which is being looked at (the physical universe). The most important part, that which does the observing, YOU, is usually left out of the equation completely.

That should be considered unusual when Albert Einstein is still viewed by many as the most important genius of the last century. Why? Because of his theories of relativity where Einstein pointed out the importance of the observer in any relationship with anything observed. In fact, the state of the observer became paramount in the theories of relativity. One might think that modern psychology would take a hint from that and decide to begin taking a closer look at the observer in the situation of a human being, but this has not occurred.

Most modern education and all aspects of the social sciences are rooted in flawed theories of psychology, which deny the importance of Man's mind (the observer), and instead concentrate upon genetics, environmental forces, social conditions, biochemistry, and biology (the observed). This has had and continues to have disastrous effects on individual people and western societies as a whole, because the mental processes of thought, will, conceptualization, intention, responsibility, imagination, concentration, attention and self-control are not appealed to in the solving of any problems or situations, whether individual, social, national or planetary. As difficult as it may be for the reader to believe, modern psychiatry and psychology have very little to do with the mind - what it is, what it does, how to help one, how a mind relates to life, etc. In fact, they don't even pretend to deal with the "mind" any longer, because they consider doing so "archaic", "outdated" and "unscientific". This is one of those things that many of us simply can't believe until we study up on it a little and see what they say about it themselves in their own words. The truth is that they tried, quite halfheartedly, to investigate the mind at the beginning of this century, failed to understand it much less "solve" it, gave up, and now instead primarily concentrate on and deal with biology (and more recently genetics), or social forces and environmental factors in some form.

The word psychology comes from the two roots "psyche" and "ology" (derivation - "logos"). By definition this means, "study of the mind or soul". The "psyche" part (i.e. mind, soul) has all but been surgically removed from the fields of psychiatry and psychology. For the most part these fields claim to be involved in studying something that they actually don't even consider to exist at all (i.e. the mind). The mind (as a subject) has been jettisoned in favor of concern for genetics, environmental forces, social conditions, biochemistry, and biology.  It would be more accurate to rename these subjects "people control", "physical duress techniques", "social behavior adjustment", "conformity management", or "biochemical manipulation", because these subjects no longer involve themselves with the ideas and things that these subject names originally and legitimately were defined to mean and involve.

The links to information here supply a formidable basis of knowledge leading towards an accurate and true understanding of what psychiatry really is. And make no mistake about it, psychiatry as a subject and field of activity is only what it has done in the past and now does in the present. The reader must learn to judge things by results and not by claims, assertions and PR. Examine the history of psychiatry and observe what they have done to people in the real world. Look directly at what they now do to people in the real world (and thus also at what they do to society, because society is nothing more than a group of individual people). Sources are referenced and much additional reading material is given both on the Internet and in books. Your local psychiatrist will never refer you to this information. Sadly he believes it completely, asserts it endlessly and happily enforces his view of Man and life on everyone else, just as did many 14th century priests of the Spanish Inquisition enforce their pitiful view of reality on everyone else. It is important to arrive at the understanding that pretenses to "caring", "compassion", "help", "science" and "truth" have never guaranteed positive results.

The 14th century priest tightening the thumb-screws on a declared heretic completely believed he had the truth, based upon "facts and evidence" (as he saw things). He happily tortured and murdered his victims while sincerely believing and adamantly claiming his "care", "compassion" and "concern for the souls of the unrepentant sinners". The Nazi leaders mapping out intricate plans to improve the "genetic pool" of the race completely believed their philosophic and scientific notions (the "truth" as they saw things) that justified the eradication of millions of "sub-humans" (jews, gypsies, homosexuals and mentally retarded). They did this while also believing and loudly proclaiming their concern for the betterment of all people, life and the world. The point is to LOOK only at the results, and don't listen and get sidestepped by the assertions, claims, dogma, logic, reasons, scientific justifications or complex theories. Anybody with a good understanding of words and meaning, and how a mind deals with these things, can just about make anything appear to make sense using the tools of "logic" and "reason". The 14th century priest, the Nazi world planner and the psychiatrist all suffer from the same idiocy. To arrive at truth you must look carefully and honestly, and base what you know on what you observe. Thinking and (games of) logic often have nothing to do with what is observably true. Far too many people remain mired in their own thought world of mental concepts instead of simply opening their eyes and taking a good long, hard, serious look.

The 14th century priest probably truly "felt" for the "heretic" as he lit the fire under the stake that the heretic was tied to just as the severely misguided psychiatrist may often honestly "feel for" the "manic-depressive" strapped to the table as the sudden, high-amperage electric current is jolted through his skull in the modern sham "therapy" known as ECT. The priest probably even cried in genuine sympathy for the sinner's "predicament". Of course, it was his belief system and his actions which put the person into the predicament of being tied to a stake and burned in the first place, but he never understands that. Equally, it is the nonsensical psychiatric theories and beliefs that cause the poor fellow to be strapped to the table so that some naive nurse working her way through medical school can push the button to jolt the brain of the "poor mentally disabled patient". Both the priest and the psychiatrist believe they "understand" and possess the "correct version of the truth", and both happily inflict harm on others while imagining themselves to be doing something else entirely. People believe just about anything. This is just as true in the sciences as it is in religion.

That neither the priest or psychiatrist is aware of their own idiocy does not excuse either of them of their crimes against their fellow man. That both may "feel" care, concern and even compassion for their victims (who they respectively call "sinners" or "patients"), even if only in their own twisted fashion, also does not change the fact that they bring about harm to others. That many people agree with them, and support their invalid ideas (theories, beliefs, opinions) and practices, and even though some of these people are "well respected educators, scientists, and leaders", does NOT alleviate them or those supporting them of their gross idiocy and harm caused to others. Simply, it's a nutty world and far too many people agree with far too many invalid ideas and concepts. The torturing priest completely believes he is dealing with "objective truth", "actual reality" and "facts" and never for a moment considers that his opinions, notions, concepts, or belief system may be far removed from the (imaginary) elevated status of "truth" and "fact" he so confidently and eagerly asserts them to be. Part of this is that he and others see and believe their ideas and practices to be "the truth", "scientific", "rational" and "reasonable" even though they are not. In a similar manner the modern psychiatrist wreaks havoc on lives and society by ramming his unique beliefs and techniques down the throats of the general public, head-nodding members of the academic communities, and very frantic governments that are often far too willing to accept any "solution" handed to them.

In a very real sense both the 14th century priest and the modern psychiatrist are nothing more than very dull people, incapable of calm detached observation of what actually is, and who chronically believe and assert very stupid ideas that far too many other people readily accept without any careful examination or resistance. Both appeal to extensive "educated reasoning", "authority", "logic" and "rational methods", but as will be discussed more in this web site, "logic" and "reason" fail completely at arriving at "truth" or "positive results" when the logic or reasoning is based upon false, absurd, or incorrect basic ideas, notions, postulates or fundamental axioms. It makes sense to torture and burn heretics if one accepts and firmly believes in the fundamental ideas of Satan, Heaven, Hell, Salvation, the Fall, an over-demanding Father who has a severe ego problem, hierarchies of demons and angels, witches, witchcraft, Cosmic battles between Good and Evil, God's Plan, Original Sin, Divine Retribution, heresy, the Holy Good, and on and on for a tremendous variety of concepts and ideas that have no actual correspondence to anything real. "Logically" and "according to reason" it is consistent to torture, burn and save the poor souls if these basic notions are true. And realize, at the time, the priests and most people did accept all of these ideas. The problem with this is that all the basic ideas and notions are largely nonsense. And therefore so are the ideas and actions of torturing disbelievers, burning heretics and saving souls that are derived from those more basic underlying concepts. Logic fails when the basic ideas upon which the argument rests are false. So while "logically consistent", and "reasonable" the ideas and results are quite crazy. Of course, I would hope most of us would not need to resort to "reason", "rational thought" or "logic" to arrive at the conclusion that burning people alive or torturing people, for any reason, is wrong. But, sadly, that was not the case then and it isn't now.

You see, you don't really need "scientific proof", "authority" or "rational arguments" to know something is true or not - as hard as that may be to accept by some of the staunch materialists, fanatics of reason or proponents of scientific naturalism. You either know and understand people should not be tortured or burned alive by other human beings or you don't. You can be taught this. But in the end your certainty of this has much more to do with your own individual sense of humanity (an "inner quality") than with depending upon any moral arguments or concatenation of logic. It has absolutely nothing to do with "science" or any products of scientific thought. "Logic", "consistency" and "reason" do not necessarily lead anyplace decent if the underlying fundamental ideas being used as starting points for the "logic" or "reason" to operate upon are incorrect or flawed. Marxist Communism was firmly based upon a supposed "scientific analysis of natural human and social processes", and look what that did in Russia and where it ended up (they murdered over 50 million of their own people). Chinese Communism (also Marxist based) murdered off almost the entire population of Tibetan monks who were some of the most gentle and compassionate people one could ever hope to meet. Theirs was (and still is) another modern "logical" and "reasoning" system based upon a purported "scientific analysis" of man and reality. Of course, if you take the time to actually read pure original communist writers such as Marx you will discover that they make more than a few very unwarranted assumptions about people and societies. Once you see through those initial faulty claims and assertions, then the conclusions (based on logic) that follow fall apart quite readily. The basic propositions are ludicrous and the places you end up logically after accepting those propositions are equally ludicrous.

The point here is that "logic" and "science" lead only to hell on Earth when the fundamental assumptions that the "logic" and "reason" work with and rely upon are asinine and flawed. It can all be so very consistent, and it was so in Nazi Germany. It was all very "scientific", "rational" and "logical", and Hitler was extremely consistent in systematically murdering off the Jews, gypsies and mentally retarded. You just have to admire that German scientific ingenuity and engineering skill involved in figuring out the best way to utilize them all as slave labor while planning and arranging their eventual deaths (sarcasm). Nazi Germany, what it asserted, and what it did was a direct result of the "best", the most intellectually advanced, and most "modern" of German philosophy and science. Again, "science" leads to disaster when the basic assumptions it deals with are false. Science also leads to disaster when those controlling its results have have no moral or spiritual sense (most modern people). There currently exists a tremendous gulf between the knowledge and power of modern technology and the moral, spiritual and ethical awareness necessary to responsibly wield such powerful technology. But that subject would involve an entire new essay to discuss properly so I will leave it alone for now.

Of course, anyone who has taken the time to study up on it knows that the primary architects of the mass murders in Nazi Germany were actually and factually psychiatrists with a heavy eugenics bent who were simply trying to "scientifically" cleanse the genetic pool of its poor chromosomes and help bring about a "superior human being and race" (i.e the Übermensch - German for "superman"). Science, including psychiatry (which as a subject wants so very much to be accepted as a "legitimate science") never has had anything to do with morality, ethics, decency or humanity. But it's not "science" per se that is the problem, it's the people who practice what's called and considered to be "science" and the people who put into use the results of "science" that are the problem.

"Science" is simply a way to observe, tabulate, and determine the behavior of things, so as to enable prediction and control of these things in the future. There is a standard accepted way to theorize, test, and come up with models and formulas. This has worked fine on "raw matter and energy". It hasn't and isn't working well on people. It can't work well on people. One should venture to ask just how "science" can or should even bother to deal with people and societies when its goal has always been to control behavior, whether this behavior be of electrons, chemicals or objects. Extrapolating this idea of "controlling behavior" to people and society results in totalitarianism and abuses. The goal of science is always to control behavior. This entire approach of controlling behavior is completely wrong and misguided when applied to people and societies, although adhered to by almost every member of the psychiatric and psychological communities. They want to be "scientific" and accepted by the physical scientists. Why? Their aims are misguided and fundamentally wrong. It's a stupid goal. It's a tremendously stupid goal. It won't and can't ever "work". It will always degrade to duress, abuse and force. If you try to "help" people by controlling their behavior, which is just exactly what any "scientific" attempt to deal with Man or society intends to do by it's very nature, and does do in practice, it will always end up at the point of a gun. It cannot and will not ever be any other way. The reader needs to really see this as it is. It can never be any other way.

Science, by its nature, attempts to understand so as to predict and control behavior. That's what it does historically and in modern practice in physics, electronics, computer science, mechanics, etc. It's aim is to understand so as to control behavior. That is fine and as it should be in the physical sciences. That is not at all how it can be with people and societies. Any attempt to "scientifically" understand and address people with reduce to manipulation and force, because the entire goal of any scientific approach is to learn and understand so as to control future behavior.

The actual way to "handle" people is to make better, competent, well-thinking, aware and responsible people, and society will then take care of itself.

This idea is paramount to a legitimate understanding of a correct and workable approach to bettering people, society and the world. Concentrating on "fixing society" or "erasing social problems" is so much nonsense. The only way to actually improve the "society", which is actually nothing more than a group of individual people, is to first "improve" each individual person, or at least to improve enough individual people so that it makes a difference on a larger social scale.

But doing that can only involve working with and improving the abilities of the individual minds of the members of mankind - an area which is all but taboo today in these fields. The only way to "improve" a person is to "improve" their mind and mental abilities. Instead the apparently tireless social scientists come up with micromanaged notions of social control and manipulation in the form of endless social programs, belief manipulation, value adjustment, and on the other biological end, the psychiatrists come up with powerful psychoactive drugs and constant banner waving about the hope and promise of modern genetics. As usual, they continually omit and fail to ever address or deal with individual minds, as minds, as if the capabilities of minds will somehow just magically become enhanced through their social and biological manipulations. Of course it won't ever happen, and all the belief, hope, and assertions by Nobel Prize winners to the contrary will not change that one iota. There is only one correct direction for a solution yet none of them, not in any modern Earth field, are even remotely close to it.

The way a legitimate science could address the area, but never has, would be to investigate and develop ways to understand and improve the functioning of any mind, so that a predictable, controlled and desirable improvement in capability, awareness, responsibility, attention, imagination and concentration could be effected. The control and prediction would be in the expansion of personal ability. Instead of viewing a person and the mind as a "sick thing" and only aiming to remove dysfunction and ailment (through drugs, shock and surgery), approach it from a viewpoint of what is good and useful about a mind or minds, and work out ways to build on and improve on that. This approach would involve the personal actions of each individual with the use of their own minds and it's various functions - functions which still need to be delineated and investigated, such as attention, concentration, imagination, value creation, belief formation, etc., and techniques of improvement of these things developed. But instead of doing this, modern approaches concentrate on exact "outcomes" or forms of behavior and attempt to bring these about exactly and rigidly through belief manipulation, value adjustment, indoctrination, drugs, and endless social programs.

They need to abandon this compulsive attention on exact results, which while possible in the physical sciences, is NOT possible or even desirable with people and societies. In fact, when you work to get exact predictable results with people and societies you usually get some version of the opposite. Or you do get a predictable "social order" but it's under some dictatorship, enforced "democracy" or militaristic socialism.

Again, concentrate on making better people, by making better minds, and let the people themselves get on with making their own version of a better self, family, job, city, state, country or world. But the control freaks in the government, sciences, social sciences, medicine, economics, politics, psychiatry and religion certainly abhor that idea.

There is no real solution outside the individual mind of any single human being. There never has been and there never will be.

As a simple example, anyone can improve their concentration and ability to control their attention by doing the following exercise.

1. Multiply two numbers of two digits each (such as 11 x 14) in your head - not with pencil and paper. Do this until you are sure your answer is correct. Do this with larger and larger numbers. Do this for a few weeks at least once a day for at least 15 minutes. Then do the same with numbers having three digits each (such as 216 x 467). Do this for a few weeks.

Obviously one of the "tricks" and problems with working with a mind is first, ensuring you actually do what the drill or technique says to do, and second, that you do it completely and honestly. Anyone who does the above simple drill sincerely and completely, will find themselves improving in ability to concentrate and in directing their attention. Their memory will improve. Their susceptibility to attacks of depression or anxiety will decrease. All this from this one simple exercise where you actually have to use your own mind in a controlled fashion. That is what is missing in all this. The missing ingredient is learning to use your mind, and learning to control it's various aspects on your own, by yourself, on yourself. This is fundamental and I will repeat this because it is probably the most important thing to understand about all this. The key thing is:

Learning to use your mind, and learning to control it's various aspects on your own, by yourself, on yourself.

This IS control, but it is self-control and not external control or manipulation by others.

People simply do not often do this, and they are surely never taught anything about doing such things, because no part of the established educational system, public or at any college level, so much as even considers such a possibility. In fact some people never even do something like this ONCE in their entire life. This approach is very much alien to the modern approaches of belief manipulation, indoctrination, drugs and electric shock. They view you as something to be acted upon, to be influenced, to be shaped and controlled. The view as something wrong or damaged that needs to be fixed. A more useful and beneficial approach is to view you as something which can control yourself, and as something which has the ability to effect and cause things around you through your own conscious decisions, intention, purposes, choices, responsibility and actions. Of course, if no one ever bothers to teach people these things and effectively get them to practice doing these things, well then these abilities never develop or get put into use. And thus, for the most part, these aspects of Man's mental realm are largely missing from the majority of the population. But it need not and should not be that way. Man will not naturally evolve into this. He must practice and develop into this through self-controlled work. But first, somebody needs to examine, conduct research, cull through various existing mental methodologies, codify and finalize a complete workable system capable of enabling a person to do such things with their own mind.

Interestingly, the only place where much investigation has been done in the area of the mind is in what are considered "religions". The above exercise is from a Rosicrucian handbook on spiritual expansion. Of course, it works, and it gets results, but the modern established scientific community immediately dismisses everything and anything about the above drill because it came from "nutty religious wackos". Zen Buddhist materials, various Hindu practices and especially Tibetan Buddhist studies are filled with exercises and drills to improve mental ability, and to also learn about and develop mental skills most of us deny even to exist. It IS also true that much of this information is mixed up with strange religious notions and beliefs, but an intelligent team of investigators could unravel it all and separate the nonsense from the useful techniques. The point here is that modern science has failed to examine and solve the human mind. And the solution to the human mind is the only real solution which opens the door to then solving any human problem with self, others or society. But modern psychiatry has nothing at all to do with this approach, and instead deals with delusions (something a more accurate understanding of the mind makes clear and obvious).

The situation with the Spanish Inquisition is exactly true with modern psychiatry. The modern subject "makes sense", is "logical" and appears "rational" ONLY if one accepts the numerous (flawed) psychiatric concepts such as "mental illness" (as a "disease" of some sort), "brain disorders" (as causing all emotional difficulties), "mental health" (as some "medical" notion where removing "illness" or it's symptoms somehow magically results in "health") , "depression" (as illness), "anxiety" (as a disorder), biology as all and mind as nothing, and on and on. The problem here is that all these basic ideas are also complete nonsense. Almost all psychiatric ideas and concepts refer to no actual, existing thing or phenomena that can be directly observed. To me, someone who sees complete absurdity and lunacy in all their fundamental notions, the entire subject is a gross and obvious farce. It is entirely as absurd to me just as were the beliefs and actions of the participants of the Spanish Inquisition. The magnitude and extent of the idiocy are very comparable. It's actually quite scary that so many supposedly "intelligent" people can accept, believe and sincerely promote all this rubbish.

Far too many of their notions are what I call "unmoored ideas". These are ideas that are not attached or related to any observable or experiencable thing. The word "moor" is defined as "to make fast (a boat or buoy) by attaching a cable etc. to a fixed object". The primary word here is "attached", meaning, "to connect two or more things together in some manner". The idea here is that a valid or legitimate concept or idea MUST directly refer (attach) to some object, phenomena or thing that can be viewed, experienced, seen or observed by others. Otherwise it's nonsense. There can be words and concepts which refer to non-existent things, such as a "unicorn", "Luke Skywalker" or "the Great Turtle Upon Which the Earth Sets", but it is clear in these cases that "make believe" or "pretend" is greatly involved. We understand these to be "made up" and not actually referring to "things out there" that can be seen by anybody. The problem is that at any time in human history people believe many things to exist and to be true that do not exist and are not true in any way. The modern world views are no different. This phenomenon of believing things that are not true exists at every time period, including right now.

In other words a legitimate concept would and must "moor" to an observable or experiencable thing, event or situation. The word and concept "car" refers to an actual thing that can be pointed out and mutually observed by others. The idea "completely" can be shown, displayed or demonstrated as meaning "something done to a full extent". Even "invisible" things can be "real" because we can all experience them individually in our own minds. Things such as "love", "hate", feelings, concentration, imagination, attention, mental distraction, and intention, can all be "seen" or experienced by any of us by placing attention to our inner worlds. I am not talking mumbo-jumbo here. These things are "real" to each of us, even though "invisible" to any objective third-party observer. Dedicated materialists will discuss the word and situation of "mental distraction" by describing endless physical "symptoms" such as "wandering eyes", "fidgeting", "yawning" and so forth. Yes, it is true an internal state of "mental distraction" will often result in various observable physical manifestations, but the physical manifestations can be varied and nearly infinite depending on the circumstances. More so, the inner state of "mental distraction" can be basically the same for all of them. The point is that "mental distraction" or "lack of attention" is a thing in itself, observable by any of us when this occurs within any of us. What is different about this personal observation and self-awareness of "mental distraction" is that the perception is not physically based. You can be aware of your own mental distraction and you do not do it with any of the physical senses. You don't see it with your eyes, smell it with your nose, or touch it with your fingers. What do you actually perceive it with?

You don't see it with your eyes, or hear it with your ears or feel it with your fingers. In fact, you "sense" it without any physical senses at all, YET you perceive it and are very much aware of it. This is also true for any of the nearly infinite numbers of ideas, thoughts, feelings and aspects of mind that appear across your personal inner mental awareness twenty-four hours a day. You know when you are imagining something. You know when you are thinking what to make for dinner tonight. You know when you are envisioning meeting and talking to a good friend tomorrow evening. This is true for everything going on "in your head". These "things" exist and are very real, but because they are not detectable by a third-party observer, they are declared by "modern science" to not exist.

This is dumb. This is so amazingly dumb. They DO exist. We all know they exist. They obviously exist in a very different way than all the other things our five physical senses perceive. But they exist nonetheless. As with any ideology in the past, when a belief system gets to a point where it demands you deny your own perceptions and what you can obviously "see", then it's time to begin questioning the belief system. The modern materialistic belief system says the mind and all things invisible are impossible and cannot exist (because they are not physical and only physical things are real). Since any of us can easily and clearly "see" (be aware) that we think, have a mind, and have many invisible things in our mind, tells me that we all need to stop listening to their beliefs and theories and simply start looking at what is. In other words, base your knowledge on what you perceive and observe instead of upon what you think by regurgitating other people's claims, ideas and theories.

Invisible things exist. They are real. They may not be real in the same way as physical reality but these things are real nonetheless. It's time to open up the gate and permit the idea to enter in that reality need not be and is not only physical. This isn't a religious statement or an ideological belief. It's simply the way it is. Be aware of your own awareness for ten seconds. Now stop. Good. You have just now perceived an invisible reality without the use of any of the physical senses. You can explain it any way you want, make up endless theories of how this can be, and blah-blah-blah, but the fundamental reality is that we all have an invisible universe going on twenty-four hours a day and it is completely real and legitimate. This universe has been destroyed by the attitudes and meager theories of modern materialistic "science". Their little mediocre worldview is simply not big enough for the truth. The truth is that there is physical reality and there is also a very experiencable invisible reality. If you look into this more deeply, honestly and without bias you will discover that to a large degree the invisible reality is actually the more important of the two. It is definitely the more important of the two as far as sanity, happiness, responsibility and creativity are concerned.

This is actually where modern psychology went astray. They decided that since a third party could not objectively observe a mind in action, in it's own "arena" as it were, that all such research was futile, and that effectively, as far as they were concerned the mind was of no value and didn't exist! This is not my opinion. This is actually what they decided to do and did do and they unabashedly discuss it exactly in this manner. Instead they went off on the tangent of behaviorism and chose to only observe and deal with physical symptoms of inner phenomena (i.e. behavior). This  obsession with symptoms and dismissal of actual root causes exists throughout the entire medical field. Of course, ways and methods, based upon scientific methodology could have been worked out to deal with the interesting problem of investigating the phenomena of human thought and consciousness, but they didn't do it, and simply gave up. As far as you or me are concerned though, we know we have a mind, we know we have ideas and concepts about things, by direct personal observation and experience, and we can understand the idea that concepts can be "moored" or "not moored" to actual things, objects or phenomena.

It is important to realize that what actually exists in place of legitimate investigation of the human mind, thought and consciousness, is a never-ending parade of (complex) opinions, (haughty) assertions, (pseudo-intellectual) guesses, (unwarranted) posturing, and (unwavering) biases and beliefs. Most of these are simply false or off the mark in some big way. Yet they make up the catechism of modern psychology and the dogma of modern materialistic ideology.

In the case of the Spanish Inquisition and 14th century priests, things such as "demons", "heresy", "legions of the devil", "angelic hierarchies", and "Evil" forever remain only ideas and fail completely to ever connect to any actual experiencable thing. These things have no real existence or basis in any reality anywhere. The problem is that certain people (usually fanatics) do assert these to be real and to exist, and they do not remain satisfied to leave them quietly in the realm of "make believe" or "pretend", and they want others to accept as true what they have also accepted as true. I consider this chronic acceptance of idiocy by people, and their compulsive demand that others accept and follow the same or similar idiocies to be one version of real mental illness on this planet. Psychiatrists suffer from this just as did the torturing Priest.

Certain folks completely believe certain things to be true that have no definite and verifiable existence, and the words and concepts never get outside the minds of the people who hold them because these words and ideas never referred to anything legitimate that can be observed or experienced in the first place. It is truly a case of delusion, belief in the non-existent, assertion of the make-believe, and fabrication of reality. That doesn't mean, of course, that all of these people don't completely assert and believe their conceptual nonsense. They certainly do. They aren't doing it as part of some conspiracy to trick anybody, because they usually believe the same nonsense themselves. Psychiatry is a modern example of this. It is totally and completely a modern example of this.

Realize that just because people get together, talk in a seemingly educated manner about these things as if they were real, relate the various concepts together, and conduct what they consider "research" does not change the truth of the matter which is that they are dealing in delusion and imaginary realities. Their ideas, concepts, words and definitions do NOT actually refer to any real and existing things or situations. The priests could also spend months and years discussing and arguing the fine points of their religious beliefs, how to correctly torture a sinner, how to extract a legitimate confession from a heretic, and on and on. They had incredibly detailed terms, definitions, concepts and intricate relationships between all of these various concepts, and it fit together very well in a logical whole, BUT it was almost completely nuts! None of their "intelligent discussing of concepts and ideas" changes anything at all about the fact that both systems of ideas both primarily involve mostly nonsense. People can be and often are "intelligent" about many things and still be completely disconnected from reality and truth. "Intelligence". "intellect", "reason" and "logic" have never been a sure road to truth. This is much more common than the reader probably imagines. Most people have unknowingly accepted some version of the idea that logic and reason lead to truth. This is largely not true. What the above examples actually show is that people have an uncanny ability to believe nonsense, believe it sincerely, become extremely convinced of it, and to forever incessantly strive to make others agree and conform to their own ideas and expectations of belief and behavior. Many modern scientific theories and ideas have more in common with past religions in this regard than most scientific type folks would want to ever become fully aware of or admit.

"Unmoored ideas" and "unmoored concepts" do NOT relate to and are not attached to any fixed thing, object or phenomena. In this sense all the underlying notions discussed above involving heresy, burning heretics, and religious torture were largely unmoored ideas. The notions of Satan, demons, Cosmic battles, and the Holy Good, while all quite interesting and making at times for great movies and books, are NOT directly or consistently experiencable or observable by anyone. That many people have written books about these things, relayed these ideas to others, and promoted these notions over the centuries means nothing except that people have a strange tendency to do and believe stupid stuff. This trend continues today unabated in the social sciences. Most of the fundamental ideas and notions in the social sciences do not directly relate to anything outside the imagination and minds of various human beings. They think and consider that their ideas and concepts directly relate to real things, but they don't. In other words, the ideas and concepts do not and cannot be fixed or attached to any objects, things or phenomena any of us can detect. These are unmoored ideas.

They may exist, but then again, so can just about anything. The idea I am trying to convey about this is that these "unmoored ideas" more or less "float" around by themselves in the minds of people, like an unanchored boat in a storm at sea, and have nothing to do with anything really, except that people assert and accept that these ideas do have to do with something, and that these things do have value and meaning to themselves and others simply because they say they do. See? There is never, not really, any "proof" based upon direct experience that results in a person "accepting Jesus" or believing in the Devil (or believing in the theory of Evolution or in the Big Bang idea of how it all started). They each do what they do in these cases because they simply choose to do so despite a very noticeable lack of evidence and personal experience. The worst and most dangerous aspect of all this though is that people force others to believe and undergo all sorts of lunacy in accordance with a certain set of unmoored ideas they themselves accept and assert. Religious ideas are an area where this occurs frequently.

Psychiatry is a modern version of such a situation. One important aspect of such a situation is that the people involved in it never for a moment entertain the notion that their ideas, beliefs and actions are anything less than one-hundred percent truth based on one-hundred percent fact (observable or otherwise). They believe it completely, whether as a religious fanatic or as a disciple of science. These two things are flip sides of the same coin. The religious fanatic or the scientific zealot are simple different versions of the same nutty phenomenon. The content of their assertions and beliefs differ, but the manner in which they function are exactly the same.

(Note: The truth is that what people do fundamentally, as minds, as thinking beings, foregoing all "reason", "logic" and "sense", and before any "reason", "logic" and "sense", is to simply accept and assert ideas, concepts, notions, and attitudes, relate them to things quite arbitrarily, and attach value and meaning to these things, themselves and others all just because they say so or decide it to be that way. It is pretty much ALL arbitrary, but that doesn't mean it is meaningless. It simply means one must understand their own participation in the game of reality. Your role in this game of reality is much greater than you probably ever previously thought it to be. If something is meaningless to you, it's because it's meaningless to you. You make it that way. "It" doesn't make it that way for you. And on the flip side of the coin, if life has meaning and value for you, it's because you make it that way. You "do it" to the world around you. It doesn't "do it" to you. A good understanding of this can lead to a positive, creative, and responsible interaction with people and life. But the downside is the more common chronic, uncontrollable personal acceptance and assertion of ideas, concepts, and beliefs done unconsciously without any knowledge or awareness of one's own participation in the "belief acceptance process", and the compulsive forcing of others to accept and adhere to the same or similar beliefs. There can be and should be a world where everyone understood how they decide and create their own view of reality (based on one's conscious choice of belief structure). There can be and should be a world and where this could be done without force or duress of some small clique of "authorities", and where tolerance of opposing views was a natural inclination, but that place is definitely not 21st century Earth.)

The same exact thing is true of modern psychiatry. And just as with the misguided religious folks during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (which spanned almost 500 years!), people can and do believe just about anything and these ideas and concepts too often refer and correspond to no actual observable thing or phenomena anywhere outside of their own minds and imaginations. As an example, nobody at any time has ever seen or detected a "chemical brain imbalance". There is no test for such a thing. The idea of such a thing is entirely and only a theory. In fact, the theory and models refer to no actual phenomenon. The problem though, and this has always been a major problem on Earth with humans, is that far too many people assert and require others to accept their own severely limited and unique personal unmoored ideas. Additionally, far too often practices, methods and behaviors are enacted and enforced which are largely based on the same shoddy set of unmoored ideas. In a way, people get these weird ideas in their heads, they accept and hold them to be true, and then they push them on everybody else. They never notice for a moment how their own minds deal with "beliefs", and what they do with these things. They are too busy thoroughly confusing the beliefs with actuality (where there is actually very little correspondence). This was obviously true for the ideas and activities of the Spanish Inquisition, and is also, but not so obviously, true for the ideas and activities of psychiatry. It is not that it's "not obvious" because the above statement is not true, but because the person for whom it is "not obvious", possibly you the reader, is most likely mired in their own rigid ideas about these things and is incapable of untainted observation free of preconceived notions and biases. In other words, you cannot simply look at what's sitting right in front of your face because your "thinking" within the current worldview prevents you from doing so. This is another thing most people are utterly unaware of - the degree to which their current structure of beliefs and ideas preconditions their perceptions and strictly defines the very experience of the world they currently find themselves in. It is usually easy to see this in retrospect when a large number of years separate the viewer from the events, as in the case of the Spanish Inquisition idiocy, but not so easy when one is themselves solidly immersed in the current worldview of accepted ideas and notions about reality.

Most people "view" reality and life "through" an extensive array of unexamined and preconceived notions about the very same things they are viewing, thinking about or experiencing. These preconceived notions limit, mold and restrict your actual perceptions, and then your supposed "objective" perceptions, along with your often complex "logic" and "reasoning", which are also closely based upon and interwoven with the same preconceived notions, act to "explain" and "justify" what you claim to experience or detect as "truth". People "rationalize" or "explain logically" what they would probably hold to be true anyway without any requisite observation or "reasoning" done in the first place. This notion is vital to a correct understanding of what is going on here. This is true for both religious and scientific people. They each seem to have their own inherent tendency to believe along certain paths, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. People accept and assert certain things as true, and then use "logic" and "reason" to justify and explain why they believe these things or to support their opinions. But, they generally accept what they hold to be true before reason or logic ever enter the picture. Most of the time people choose their beliefs before any serious observation is ever done. In the end their really is no reason for what a person believes, but he cannot usually see or admit that, and will instead spend endless hours defending his beliefs with complex logic, reasoning, and posturing. This last statement is probably one of the more truthful things about human psychology you have come across in your entire life. The above paragraph is a legitimate statement based upon what people actually observably do with their minds, ideas and with other people.

Psychiatry is far from the only place this happens, but it is more dangerous in the case of psychiatry, because of its influence on individuals and society. In other words, if a young starry-eyed New Age neophyte chooses to believe in some "strange" belief system involving Cosmic beings, a long drawn-out spiritual evolution spanning eons, and alien entities, it really makes do difference as long as it isn't taught authoritatively in the colleges, forced on patients in hospitals, or funded by the government. It makes a big difference when a lunatic belief system, like psychiatry, is taught in the colleges, forced on patients in hospitals, and funded extensively by the government. People should be allowed to believe whatever they choose. They should be allowed to pass onto their children whatever beliefs they feel appropriate and correct with no interference form anyone else whatsoever.

But NO belief system, religious or scientific, should be accepted, endorsed, and enforced above any other. Psychiatry and to a large degree "materialism", or "scientific naturalism" are pushed way above any other view. Of course, they say and claim that this is done because "it is true". But realize that asserting and demanding acceptance "because it is true" is the primary sign of what I am trying to explain to be any nutty belief system. In these cases the believers truly believe it to be true no matter what, above all else, and they demand that others view things similarly. Interestingly, really "together" and confident people don't care so much about "what they believe" and surely do not place very much attention on getting others to view things in the same way as they do. The realm of belief is much "looser" to them and they allow greater variation and tolerance in the beliefs of others. But the modern materialist, sincere adherent of Darwinism, or anti-religious naturalistically-inclined atheist, is as much guilty of this intolerance and in demanding that others view things similarly as any religious believer has ever been. While the content of their beliefs may differ, they function and act in exactly the same way as far as asserting rightness, demanding adherence to their ideas, attacking opposing views, attempting to monopolize the conceptual playing field, and claiming total correctness of their view of truth and reality. Put a Creationist (one who believes in the idea that God created the universe and everything in it) in a room with a Evolutionist (one who believes in the Big Bang theory and the idea that all life "evolved naturally" as a result of chemical accidents, genetic mutations, natural selection, and LOTS of time). There will be no end to the lunacy. They are both equally fruitcakes (a slang term meaning "a nutty person" or "crazy person") of the same caliber. The argument is a parade of hilarity (to me anyway). Each side is very much off the wall as far as being able to prove what they believe.  See:

Problems With The Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection

Creationism versus Evolution

It's like two prisoners in a maximum security prison arguing and fighting over which one of them has more freedom. Who cares? They are both in a prison! In a very real sense they, and all of us, need to just get out of the prison - out of the prison of limited belief and the need to ram these beliefs down the throats of everyone we encounter. Also, in the Creationism versus Evolution argument above, note that what they are fundamentally arguing over is beliefs and not facts or reality. There isn't now, and there will never be enough "proof" or "verifiable evidence" for either side. You weren't there when it "all started" and neither was I. You weren't there as it all came about, changed and developed over millions or billions of years (I choose to not use the word "evolve"), and neither was I. Other than that it is mostly guessing, theorizing, and when it comes down to it, what we each arbitrarily finally choose to believe despite all proof or evidence and the immense lack of either. We like to kid ourselves that we have the "right evidence" and the "right view of it all", but obviously we don't, and really, we can't and never will. It has little to do with "what is" and mostly to do with people asserting their beliefs about what is. That is the truth of what is going on with people and the universe around them. Logic and reason ALWAYS, in every case, reach a point where any argument stands only upon unverifiable or unprovable basic assumptions, assertions or beliefs. There is no argument anywhere existing at anytime free of these unverifiable and unprovable basic assumptions or assertions, although the posers of the arguments like to imagine and assert they are free of this (they aren't and never will be). In the end you believe what you want to believe. It has nothing to do with logic, reason, facts or proof.  End of story.

This nonsense just never seems to end. I suppose that it's not a "religious" problem, or a "science" problem, but a "people" problem. People do it no matter what they are involved in. There will always be those who assert their ideas as right, and demand everyone else accept them. The labels or names of fields of human endeavor, such as "religious", "scientific", "political", or "economic" may change but the same stupid pattern just mentioned above will surface and play itself out. It is interesting to look at human history from this idea of who has done this and who hasn't. In the past the religious folks have done it. Today the scientific folks are doing it. And the funniest part is that generally the scientific folks attack and claim to be so superior to the religious folks, in terms of "truth", "reason" and "legitimacy" when they really do exactly the same thing! They suffer from the same degree of lunacy as did the religious nuts of the past they so correctly criticize and attack.

Said in another way, it is so easy to look back and observe the apparent stupidity and absurdity of the ideas, notions and actions of the people of 50, 100 or 500 years ago. Each of us can sit back, laugh, and sincerely ask, "how could those people believe and act on such nonsense?" It is never so easy to pull back and out a little from "modern" ideas and from one's own current personal set of notions and observe the same exact type of stupidity. Absurdity of ideas exists and functions right now, as they always do at any time in human history and they do so in much the same way as they did at anytime in the past. Rest assured that if you could move yourself one-hundred years into the future, that you would look back to this time period and find many of the notions, "scientific concepts", theories and practices to be quite incomplete, unfounded and simply absurd. Of course, that implies some natural advancement of science and overall information towards "truth", but there is absolutely no guarantee that will occur. The form and framework of the ideas would surely be different than today but there is no guarantee this new way of viewing reality and understanding would be any closer to the truth than the current (incorrect) materialistic approach of modern "science" and psychiatry. But no matter what, the ideas and practices of psychiatry would be viewed in a very negative light when looked at from some future point in time. One of the purposes of the information in this web site is to attempt to assist the reader in "pulling out" a bit from some of the "dumb" ideas of modern western civilization (although the "dumbness" certainly has not been restricted only to western civilization)  and from their own rigidly held ideas and notions about the world around them. The reader won't and can't usually just right off recognize these ideas and notions as being held rigidly or incorrectly (because he has accepted them slowly over time, unconsciously, and agrees with them so strongly), and hopefully the jogging of your belief structure a bit will thereby allow you to observe and judge somewhat more honestly and clearly. Until you loosen up your preconceived notions to some degree, your perceptions and experiences will forever be tainted by them.

Of course, the psychiatrist types can appear to be, and do present themselves as being very "smart", "educated" and "knowledgeable", and far too many people can err and incorrectly assume the psychiatrists possess these attributes in some legitimate manner, but that is actually just more undetected pretense and also discussed extensively in this web site. Please realize that back in the 14th and 15th centuries the Christian priests were the most educated folks in the entire world. They had the largest libraries, operated the printing presses, ran the "colleges" and they attained the highest degrees of "education" possible anywhere in the world. They truly "knew" more than anyone else. And they believed and promoted largely nonsense. The fact of the situation is that they achieved the greatest degree of "indoctrination" into their select variety of unmoored ideas. That phenomenon of believing and promoting largely nonsense has not necessarily changed as we have moved into modern times. The same is true of psychiatry and the modern university system which relays the current modern version of conceptual nonsense. "Educated folks" like to think that mankind has "evolved" and "advanced", that the past errors of mankind no longer occur, and that they now comfortably possess the true facts and knowledge. Sadly, this is not at all the case. One set of dumb ideas and notions have simply been swapped for another.

There has been little "advancement". It is business as usual on planet Earth. Of course, this is not easy for many to accept, and some of you reading this will giggle to yourselves, smirk or flippantly utter comments of scorn and ridicule about my comment here. But it is true nonetheless. "Education" is largely education into the modern range of arbitrary ideas and indoctrination into the current conceptual structure of nonsense, and this is especially true in the humanities and social sciences. Modern technological gadgets and devices may deceive a careless observer into concluding that "humanity has advanced", but take away the technological props and mankind would be in the same sorry state he had been in up until about the 18th century.

"Man" as a "thinking entity" has advanced exactly not one inch. Man knows nothing much more about himself as a mind, or as a creative thinking entity than he did a thousand years ago. And the "modern scientific" view of a human being as solely a biological, chemical and electrical machine with no consciousness or mind is quite representative of the same sad state of affairs. How could the "mind" of Man, his responsibility, his morality, his character or his awareness advance or improve when the self-proclaimed scientific and academic folks have all but denied the mind's very existence? Well, it can't and it won't as long as the current trend continues.

Getting back to the the psychiatrist, I will mention again, sincerity of belief, assertions of "caring", displays of confidence, and claims to "scientific facts" have never guaranteed truth, decency or positive results. One must learn to disentangle assertions of "caring, compassion and concern" with the results of the methods the "caring and compassionate" people practice. Far too often the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. By the way this flaw is not at all limited only to psychiatry. Take a look around and see for yourself. (Note: There can be and are caring people who do also get worthwhile results. The two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although far too often they are. Psychiatrists just do not happen to be members of that group of people who both care and who also get real, honest, and worthwhile results.) Pretense to caring and concern is far too common, while workable methods which get useful, positive, and worthwhile results, sadly, are not. In fact, workable methods in the realm of the mind and society are largely lacking. Look around and notice that things are NOT getting better. In fact, quite a few people would say that things are getting worse. And many people claim to be trying and working very hard at "making things better". It is not that they are not sincere or aren't trying, but they suffer from a severe lack of workable methods.\

No amount of hard work or money can make a failed subject bring about successful results.

This is the primary reason why modern public education is in such a bad way The methods of the educational psychologists that are pushed in the public schools are mostly inane and quite incapable of working to produce positive results no matter how many new teachers, new classrooms, or billions or dollars are thrown in their direction.

Do not base your opinion only on what members of the psychiatric field tell you. Liquor manufacturers will not tell you their products cause liver damage, are the source of numerous automobile related deaths every year, and encourage you to cease drinking liquor. In fact, they will involve themselves and you in endless "rational" discussions and "reasonable" arguments about "responsible partying", "drinking with control", "designated drivers", "take lots of B vitamins" and so on, and do everything but suggest the one and only effective and sensible thing. Simply choose not to drink at all and encourage others to do the same. Similarly, no psychiatrist will tell you that psychiatric procedures harm people and that you should avoid them at all cost. Even if he or she knew or suspected this, he or she couldn't endure the loss of income, status and authority this would entail. After all, psychiatry is primarily a business. It is a money-making venture just like the liquor manufacturers. It is not a field ultimately concerned with "helping" people and society. Any honest study of its history and practices makes this abundantly clear. And again, pay no attention to what they say or claim. People can and do believe and say anything, and far too often what they say and believe has nothing at all to do with "truth" or your best interests.

The major drug companies and psychiatrists, who are the salesmen for the drug company products, form a huge money making enterprise which can tolerate no criticism. This is a fact. Each psychiatrist has gone to school for many years, spent much money on their "education" (i.e. indoctrination), and invested a good part of their life towards building their "profession". That is a fact. It isn't easy for anyone, regardless of one's "profession", to flush years of "education", expense, time spent in their field and one's source of a very good income down the drain, much less also confront that what one does for a living is fundamentally harmful to other people and society. That is also a fact. So, don't argue or even discuss the facts with them. It is very similar to trying to argue or reason with a Jehovah's Witness, or the 14th century priest. It cannot be done. They perceive and experience reality "through" their belief system. Their fixed ideas and rigidly held opinions completely prevent them from being able to accurately observe or judge much of anything honestly. Most of them won't listen, cannot honestly observe actual reality, are incapable of understanding simple facts, and instead will defend their opinions to the end while sarcastically and "authoritatively" criticizing the proponents of anything at all more closely resembling the truth. In a very real sense they are morons. "Intelligent" people can and often are incredibly "stupid".

Psychiatry (and also modern materialism or naturalism) functions very much like the priesthood and Catholic Church of the Spanish Inquisition, and this is not simply a "cute" or disingenuous analogy. Just as, and exactly in the same way as the 14th century priest they believe adamantly in their doctrines (i.e. theories, assertions, "studies", "research"), tolerate no criticism, ruthlessly attack disbelievers, enforce their beliefs and practices on the general public, cause continual and extensive harm while claiming to help, align closely with state agencies, obtain state support, infiltrate positions of power, influence the direction and content of education, behave as if they "know it all" while actually knowing next to nothing, flaunt their undeserved and feigned status of intellectual and moral superiority, and enjoy and vigorously protect their positions of authority and control. The members of the medieval Christian Church functioned much in the same way. Further honest and real objective study makes this very apparent. Numerous examples can be given for each section of the above sentence ("Just as, and exactly in the same was as . . . "), and I urge the reader to take the time to look for the examples themselves. The examples exist. You need only look and open your eyes. The examples are abundant and everywhere.

Some of this may be hard to believe for anyone who has been brought up in "modern" society, because these "psychiatric" and "materialistic" ideas are everywhere. These ideas, notions and concepts are the bricks in the foundation of the modern worldview. The only thing an honest and truly caring person can do is investigate the subject for oneself and come to one's own decisions based upon one's own sincere efforts to observe, look, and understand. If you really do this you will have no choice but to:

Say NO To Psychiatry!

Pursuing Truth in all subjects...

©Gene Zimmer 1999 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED