Insanity and Psychosis
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To serve his own purpose of psychological manipulation, Ron Hubbard misdefined a well known clinical term “psychosis” – the description that evidently became the basis for his notions of SP and PTS. In the reference below, Hubbard describes a “psychotic” in a very similar way as he later described an “anti-social personality” (see Social and Anti-Social Characteristics):
February 1966: Psychotics (Certainty Vol. 13, No. 2) [grayscale]
. . .
The true psychotic is not always found in an institution. Behind those grey walls you mainly discover his victims. The true psychotic is one who causes hysteria, apathy, misconceptions and the reactions of stress in others. That is the identity of the being that is the source of psychosis.
He is, by and large, rather unconfrontable as a being, talking in the widest generalities, and sounds quite sane unless you listen to him closely. Then it will be found that the reasons he gives do not quite make sense, but are all directed toward the necessity of smashing or brutalizing anyone and everyone or selected groups, or material objects.
The actual psychotic is covertly or overtly destructive of anything the rest of us consider good or decent or worthwhile.
Sometimes such a being is “successful” in life, but the end result of his activities are what you would expect—total smash. Some notable examples were Hitler and Napoleon. Not even historians are quite brave enough to state that these two beings were totally, completely and incomprehensibly separated from reality and acted without good cause, reason or justification other than an obsession to destroy, ruin and bring misery to millions.
How Napoleon, for instance, justified beginning an attack on Russia too late in the year for his troops to operate there at all is very hard to see. Why Hitler had to destroy the Jewish people in Germany as a “necessary act in prosecuting his war against the world outside of Germany” has no other answer other than madness.
The true psychotic brings about an hysterical, apathetic, or deranged mental condition in others. He or she does it for “many good reasons”, does it for no reason at all, or doesn’t even notice that he is doing it.
The true psychotic worships destruction and abhors reasonable, decent or helpful actions.
Although history affords us innumerable examples, they are so common in the society around us that one does not have to go into a study of mass murderers to find them. The phenomenon is by no means rare and at the absolute minimum is 2½% of the population.
This individual fills the institutions with victims, the hospitals with the sick and the graveyards with the dead. The statistics of psychosis are not going to lessen in the society until this type of personality is completely isolated and understood. The first problem one confronts in identifying the true psychotic is that anyone detecting in himself, or herself, some destructive urge is likely to believe that he or she is psychotic. This is definitely not the case. One of the primary characteristics of the true psychotic is a total lack of introspection, a total irresponsibility to the pain or suffering of others, coupled with a logic which explains it all away but uses reasons which are not sensible to any of the rest of us.
. . .
Therefore, under the subject of psychosis, we have the actual psychotic and the victims of the psychotic. As long as we only studied the symptoms of the victims we could not discover the source of their difficulty.
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Last and not least, any true psychotic can be counted upon to attack or attempt to destroy Scientology groups or activities as these help people. The source of such attacks traces back usually to pretty dangerous psychotics who aren’t in institutions or even suspected, some in public places where not only Scientology groups suffer from their actions. Thus it isn’t likely that Scientologists will do much to help cure them even if Scientology was in the business, which it is not.
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The total indicated therapy cure for an institutional psychotic who is, after all, only the victim of an actual psychotic is to locate the actual psychotic in that person’s life. There is a very magic response to this action. The technology now exists. It is called “Search and Discovery”.
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And if this leaves you wondering whether or not you are insane, all you have to do is ask yourself the questions:
1. Have I ever helped anybody or wanted to?
2. Am I violently opposed to those who help others?
If you can answer “Yes” to 1 and “No” to 2 there is no slightest doubt about your sanity. You are quite sane and those times in your life when you have wondered about your own wits you were only in connection with an actual psychotic somewhere in your environment.
The actual psychotic sometimes climbs to high places in the society, as witness Napoleon and Hitler. But even so he can be identified. Those who advocate violent measures as the only means of solving problems—such as advocating war—those who are violently opposed to organizations which help others are easily identified.
And in the smaller world when you see a cold, indifferent smile to the agony of another, you have seen an actual psychotic.
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In the next bulletin, Hubbard states that:
HCOB 28 Nov. 70 Psychosis C/S Series 22 [color]
About 15 percent to 20 percent of the human race apparently is insane or certainly a much higher percent than was estimated.
In this reference he also links psychosis to the same symptoms as for a PTS Condition as well as to continuous destructive actions and departures which unavoidably brings the theme of Overts and Withholds into the mix. In here, Ron Hubbard also brings up the concept of insanity and effectively ruins it by limiting it to a very narrow definition:
INSANITY IS THE OVERT OR COVERT BUT ALWAYS COMPLEX AND CONTINUOUS DETERMINATION TO HARM OR DESTROY.
Note, that one of the main goals of Dianetics was the resolution of insanity – yet Ron Hubbard never properly defined it. How can a problematic condition be resolved without first developing a clear understanding of the very nature of the problem? This is why I developed the page SANITY AND INSANITY with simple functional definitions.
In a later reference, Ron Hubbard further misrepresents and discredits clinical understanding of psychosis and arbitrarily links it to an evil, destructive purpose which leads to destructive activity.
HCOB 9 May 77 II Psychosis, More About [color]
. . .
The actual basis of all psychosis is motive. It is NOT competence or incompetence.
Below all psychotic conduct lies an evil purpose.
Because psychiatry and psychology did not have this single technical fact they defined psychosis as “incompetence,” had the wrong target and so could not and never did understand psychosis and were thereby led into atrocities such as shocks and brain surgery and, in the country where these subjects originated (Germany), slaughtered 300,000 insane in gas chambers some time before Hitler came to power.
A true psychotic can be brilliant or stupid, competent or incompetent. It is his general motive or purpose that determines whether or not he is insane or sane.
Famous psychotics like Napoleon, Ivan the Terrible, Stalin and Hitler were all quite brilliant yet wound up destroying everything in sight including their own people.
They had a destructive basic purpose. Every psychotic has one. It is usually covert, hidden, but in full play against his unsuspecting friends.
The sole difference in motive is whether it is destructive or constructive.
Everyone has a basic purpose. The psychotic has a destructive one.
The test of a personality, then, is whether the result of a person’s activity is destructive or constructive.
. . .
The progress of psychosis then begins with a belief something is evil. This is followed with an effort to stop it. This stop becomes general. A basic purpose is then formed which contains an evil intent.
The being then goes on from disaster to disaster, seeking overtly or covertly to destroy everything around him.
At a guess about 15 percent to 25 percent of living human beings are psychotic and bring covert disaster to those around them and themselves.
The evil purpose is expressed by committing harmful acts and withholding them.
Ordinary Overt/Withhold Processes, as in Grade II Expanded, can handle this condition providing the person can be audited and providing the evil purpose is also brought to view.
. . .
Get this, according to Hubbard in the above reference as many as 25% of humanity may be psychotic – that is, according to Hubbard’s definition of the term – harboring evil purposes and engaging in destructive activities. That’s 1 in 4 persons. This sounds quite insane (within a more proper definition of the term).
When everything is said and done, Ron Hubbard actually occludes a true understanding of insanity and conditions like psychosis and psychopathy and instead groups everything into one pile in order to stigmatize and vilify anyone with a hostile disposition toward Scientology itself.
Hubbard slips up in one place where he states that:
The progress of psychosis then begins with a belief something is evil.
This points to a faulty PERCEPTION as being the ultimate cause behind the formation of (harmful) intention and resulting (destructive) actions. Hence, using PERCEPTION as a reference point, a much simpler, clearer and ultimately more correct understanding of INSANITY and various conditions such as PSYCHOSIS can be developed – as being linked to the quality of someone’s thinking and perception. See following pages for further analysis:
SANITY AND INSANITY
Problematic Conditions
Also, there is an earlier reference on this subject – HCOB 18 DEC. 1957 PSYCHOSIS, NEUROSIS AND PSYCHIATRISTS [color] – that follows a rather different logic (more in line with 1950’s Scientology about CAUSE and EFFECT). Though there might be something to it, overall it seems to be too abstract and does not describe the actual realities of mental conditions such as psychosis and neurosis nor does it provide a clear definition of insanity, and yet it purports to be literally “THE ONLY THING THERE IS TO UNDERSTAND about neurotics and psychotics” which is stated in Ron Hubbard’s usual thought limiting phraseology. At best, this reference can be used as an additional explanation to consider when assessing the actual underlying nature of these conditions.
It should also be noted that in this earlier reference – HCOPL 06 OCTOBER 1958 WHO CAN BE PROCESSED WHO CAN BE TRAINED [color] – Ron Hubbard defined INSANE as “Having been pronounced insane by a psychiatrist or being incapable of any responsibility for social conduct.”
Overall, it is obvious that the later writings from Ron Hubbard have little to do with developing a true science of the mind and spirit, even though it may approximate it on the surface (in appearance), but everything to do with his obsessive effort to try to block people from even considering any kind of criticism or destructive action toward himself and “Scientology” which is basically a stream of his recorded assertions and directions, along with his organizations and mind controlled followers.
To block people from disagreeing, criticizing or attacking and getting them into agreement and compliance seems to be the main intention of Ron Hubbard’s later work.
In fact, Hubbard began using the label of “psychotic” for the purpose of enforcing compliance as evidenced by HCOB 25 AUGUST 1960 NEW DEFINITION OF PSYCHOSIS where he basically linked the label psychotic to inability to “receive and follow orders and directions.” Later he doubled down on the negative identity labeling for not following orders with another crafty label – a degraded being: HCOB 22 MARCH 1967 ALTER-IS AND DEGRADED BEINGS [color].
Formal definitions of PSYCHOSIS correctly identify and describe the condition as relating to LOSS OF CONTACT WITH REALITY which basically has to do with the quality of one’s mental functioning and the resulting THINKING, PERCEPTION and BEHAVIOR.
This means that a psychotic condition can be brought about through indoctrination and psychological conditioning targeting (the formation of) thought and perception along with dictates for action based on such (conditioned, programmed) thoughts and perception – see section CONDITIONED PSYCHOSIS on page Problematic Conditions.
Sample professional definitions:
Psychosis is a condition that affects the way your brain processes information. It causes you to lose touch with reality. You might see, hear, or believe things that aren’t real. Psychosis is a symptom, not an illness. A mental or physical illness, substance abuse, or extreme stress or trauma can cause it.
https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/what-is-psychosis#1
The word psychosis is used to describe conditions that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality. When someone becomes ill in this way it is called a psychotic episode. During a period of psychosis, a person’s thoughts and perceptions are disturbed and the individual may have difficulty understanding what is real and what is not. Symptoms of psychosis include delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that others do not see or hear). Other symptoms include incoherent or nonsense speech, and behavior that is inappropriate for the situation. A person in a psychotic episode may also experience depression, anxiety, sleep problems, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, and difficulty functioning overall.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/raise/what-is-psychosis.shtml
Initial draft of this material was published on CivilizationUpgrade.com as part of page “PTS/SP Technology” on October 15th, 2014. The material was enhanced and moved to ScientologyAnalsysis.com on June 25, 2020.