Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00150)

Hi Brian. I mentioned Jeffrey Masson in a particular CONTEXT, to illustratea
point, so to go into this subject a little further. For those of you
whomissed out on the huge flap (stink) that Masson, one little person,caused
in an institution, that , in his opinion (and mine), had had andwas
continuing to have a subtle, pervasive detrimental effect on humansociety,
let me go into it a little. It has been many years since I examinedthis
material, but I think my memory is pretty clear. I do not knowif, asyou say,
the institution of Freudian psychology "withstood the attack fromMasson."
I personally believe his actions greatly weakened this institution,. As a
direct result of an association with him, the work of the German
psychoanalyst, Alice Miller's , such as "The Drama of the GiftedChild" and
"Thou Shall Not Be AwareSociety'sBetrayal of the Child" as well as her many
other books were translated into English and became wildlypopular in the
United States, which radically affected people's attitudesaboutchild abuse
and led to the taking of responsibility by adults. Also. as aresult of
this flap, Mason's intelligent, well-written anti-therapy books, "Against
Therapy," which has become a classic, "Final Analysis, TheMaking and the
Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst," "A Dark Science, Women, Sexuality
andPsychotherapy in the 19th Century," as well as "The Assault of
Truth,Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory," achieved great
popularity and were read by many. I have all these books, as well as many
Alice Miller books in my library and recommend "Against Therapy" and "The
Drama of theGifted Child" I as worth purchasing ."My Father;s Guru" was, in
my opinion, an insignificant, work. and I have not read his series of
booksabout animals which followed this. I get the feeling you have read the
assessment you give of Masson in a book and are simplyparroting someone
else's
words. Maybe there is some truth to what Daniel has suggested. I come to
this conclusion in that there seems to be no original ideas in your message
to me and I also do not see what point you are attempting to make that is of
any generative value. I used the example of Masson to illustrate something
about true debunking and the possible changing of society. Also, my
assessment and understanding of Masson is not copied from someone. It is
myown.Against Therapy" received a lot of publicity, due to a very lengthy,
much publicized trial, in which Masson sued a popular writer, Janet Malcom,
for some mis-quotes in an article she wrote about him for the New Yorker and
also published in book form, "In the Freud Archives." This book I also
own, and I recommend it as an interesting and fun, though perhaps somewhat
inaccurate read. This story,which tells what happened when Masson became
friends with Anna Freud and was appointed secretary of the Freudian
archives, took place way back when, in the early 80's, 1981, I believe,
and you
will read here about a most interesting character, Peter Swales,
a"follower" of the teachings of Gurdjieff, and the pivotal role he played in
theunfolding ofthis whole saga by prematurely leaking to the New York Times
(at what perhaps turned out to be exactly the right moment) Jeffry Masson's
plan to expose Freud.
The teaching of Gurdjieff is in RADICAL contradiction to the teaching of
psychoanalysis, as Gurdjieff empathized objective
physical reality, to be the basis of sane, intelligent human experience
andis a non-analytical model, whereas
psychoanalysis empathizes individual subjective interpretation to be the
basis and is an analytical model. The difference between these two is the
difference between building a
house on sheer rock and building it on shifting sand. I became interested in
Masson at the time of the lawsuit. and subsequently
researched the story for a recreational pass time, but the reason I have
chosen to put this material out here is to illustrate a point. This was a
situation where a disillusioned person, possibly with a bug of some kind up
his - - - (but(t) so what?) saw and seized an opportunity to do something
which could potentially have a major effect upon society. There is no point
in going into Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory here, but some of
his
letters relating to this were deliberately surpressed. This was dishonest.
Some might say, "but who cares? Most of us are so dishonest much of
thetime, anyway." The point is that this institution was affectehuman
society and
human relationship in a way that decreased the potential for the average
person to become honest, and perpetrated authority
based on a view of reality that was false, as it did not connect the adult
who was physically abusing the child to the child. The onus to adjust was on
the child and this does not lead to the transformation of the individual and
therefore of
society. We have learned, in the last twenty years, that childhood
sexual abuse is really quite common, not an oddity. There is now an emphasis
on theaking of responsibility by the adult. IT IS NOT SO MUCH ABOUT
INTERPRETATION BUT ABOUT REALITY. This shift in viewpoint has affected
allaspects of society. This is a direct result of the work of Jeffrey Masson
and Alice Miller, interconnected with some other factors, but none the less,
incremental to the shift. Psychiatry as an institution is weakened.
Peopledo not place as much trust in it as previously. Therapists are not
respected to the degree they once were. The point is, Masson (and Swales
entered at a juncture that was critical. I cannot see any real point in
trying to debunk Madame Blavatsky. If you believe theosophists have a wrong
view, there are other approaches you can take, such as enquiry, that are
more intelligent. It will not make the presses that Madame Blavatsky faked a
psychic incident over 100 years ago. It will not change anything on this
list, either. Believers will believe unless you give them something
betterto replace it with, but If you tell hem another way is true, this is
the same as authority perpretrating belief. Madame Blavatsky did not cause
this
belief. There is a dynamic within the individual person. Unless this is
explored through an enquiry that is interesting to such person, there is no
learning. It is not about what happened before, but about what is happening
within each of us now. Your habit of so-called debunking, in my opinion,
discourages the establishment of any real method by which people might come
to verify physical reality. Such verification would take place in present
time and cannot be done by looking back. Sincerely,
Wry-------------------------------------------------Original Message -----
From: "brianmuehlbach" <brianmuehlbach@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 9:37 PM
Subject: Theos-World From Mesmer to Freud. (Wry)


> Wry: Jeffrey Masson and the Freudian
>
> Brian: After Masson (who also wrote another expose called "My Fathers
> Guru"), it became difficult to argue that the Oedipus complex was a
> direct consequence of the abandonment of the seduction
> theory; instead, it was clear that he only gradually dropped one and
> embraced the other. But as to his reason for dropping the seduction
> theory, the traditional account, in which Freud came to suspect that
> his patients had not actually been abused, withstood the challenge from
> Masson.
>
> If loyal Freudians thought that they could relax, having fended off
> Masson, they were very much mistaken. A new and more sustained
> attack was still to come, this time from an assortment of scientists,
> philosophers, and literary critics. Of these, the literary critic
> Frederick Crews probably sparked the most debate, partly because his
> work first appeared in the New York Review of Books, long considered a
> Freudian bastion.
>
> In essays published in 1993 and 1994, Crews agreed with Masson that
> Freud lied about why he abandoned the seduction theory. Yet unlike
> Masson, who believed Freud backed away from his patients' stories of
> abuse because of cowardice, Crews accused Freud of essentially making
> up those stories in the first place. So eager was Freud to prove his
> seduction theory, according to Crews, that he encouraged his patients
> to recall having been abused as children. And the patients, who were
> none too stable to start with and eager to please their doctor, obliged
> with descriptions of abuse that, in fact, had never taken place.
>
> To prove his case, Crews delved into Freud's papers from the 1890s.
> He found repeated admissions that, prior to their analysis, Freud's
> patients had no idea that they'd supposedly been molested as
> children. "Only the strongest compulsion of the treatment," Freud wrote
> in 1896, "can induce them to embark on a reproduction of (the
> molestation scenes)."
>
> It was not that Freud intentionally invented the stories, Crews said,
> but that he grossly underestimated the extent to which his patients were
> susceptible to his suggestions.
>
> Gradually, however, Freud realized that the stories of childhood
> abuse he was hearing weren't true. Perhaps he also realized that was
> why his therapy wasn't working , or perhaps some of the patients
> retracted the stories. But then it was too late: Freud had already
> presented the seduction theory to his colleagues, and he was too
> embarrassed to admit that his findings were the result of a fatally
> flawed form of therapy.
>
> However to read the whole background of psychotherapy I
> recommend the scolarly work by Adam Crabtree "From Mesmer to
> Freud."
>
> Blavatsky and the early TS also experimented with "Magnetic
> Sleep" but they used drugs and had a secret masonic type degree
> system.
>
> But the TS went trough several re-inventions, for example when
> Blavatsky moved to England it became sort of a pseudo-scolarly
> gentlemen club that started hiding details of its previous history
> under the rug, next culminating in the "World Teacher" project or
> things like the. And when Krishnamurti left replaced by the "World
> Mother " project and things like "The Seven Virgins of Java" project, but
> they where not brown believe me.
>
>
> Brian
>
>
> Archives.--- In theos-talk@y..., "wry" <wry1111@e...> wrote:
> > Hi. I cannot wade through all of this material. You seem to be
> implying
> > that Brian is using someone elses ideas/words, but I'm not sure,
> as I
> don't
> > have much time to read a lot of crap about the past and analyses
> it,
> and I
> > see no pay-off, except possibly being sucked into a pit. Put salt
> on
> > anything I say about Brian being brilliant. It is just one person's
> opinion.
> > Maybe I have a use for him in the future and I am flattering him.
> Maybe
> > something else. I thought his analysis of some new-age physicists
> had
> > value, and could be important. To understand what a debunker can
> do, an
> > interesting read would be the story of Jeffrey Masson and the
> Freudian
> > Archives. I am not sure I would bother with theosophy in the
> respect
> that
> > Masson bothered about modern psychiatry, but it is possible, if a
> person
> > comes in at the right place, at the right Spot, so to speak, with a
> minimal
> > effort, major tendencies in society can be weakened, strengthened
> or
> > redirected in such a way that a greater aim is accomplished. You
> are
> > getting lost in words..My suggestion to you (and Brian): pick a
> simple
> idea
> > to ponder, or word roots, or a proverb like "a stitch in time saves
> nine, "
> > or a story from Grimms Fairy Tales or ALLEGORICAL material from
> any major
> > religion (the story of Christ and Judas?). or even a nursery rhyme
> from
> > Mother Goose. This will give you more GRP(grip). Reading and writing
> > subjective interpretations of the past is too slippery. I cannot
> believe
> > this is what Madame Blavatsky had in mind. She brought some new
> ideas and
> > concepts to the west in a form in which they could be assimilated,
> but
> that
> > act was time-appropriate and has probably already fruited (with
> > Krishnamurti). This is a different time, and a different kind of
> activity is
> > called for. Each person needs to find within himself where he fits
> in
> and
> > figure out what to do. Anything on the outside is grist for the
> mill and
> to
> > be used to accomplish this aim, but unless a person impartially
> studies
> > himself, he will never know what to do. It will all be pouring from
> the
> > empty into the void, and nothing of value will ever be accomplished.
> > Sincerely, Wry------------------------------------------------
> Original
> > Message -----
> > From: "Daniel H. Caldwell" <comments@b...>
> > To: <theos-talk@y...>
> > Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 5:16 PM
> > Subject: Theos-World "If we learn to use OUR OWN WORDS. . . ."
> plus Wry on
> > Brian
> >
> >
> > > Wry, you wrote in part:
> > >
> > > "I do not understand why you would want a person who is
> > > as intelligent as Brian, if not indeed brilliant, and obviously
> VERY
> > > interested in theosophy, to leave your list. All he is doing is
> > > giving words and his opinion....Brian has a passion.about your
> > > subject. That is so obvious. Why would you kick someone like this
> off
> > > your list? Why don't you ask him why he is so interested in this
> > > subject? Maybe he won't tell you, but maybe he will. If we learn
> to
> > > use OUR OWN WORDS and communicate honestly and simply about
> ideas, we
> > > will discover new ideas, and our words will make a bridge." Caps
> > > added
> > >
> > > So Wry, are you judging Brian's "intelligence" and "brilliance"
> > > by what he has posted on this forum?
> > >
> > > But how much of what Brian has posted on this forum was
> > > actually written by him?
> > >
> > > For example, in Brian's recent posting at:
> > >
> > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/8010
> > >
> > > do you think he writes "brilliantly"?
> > >
> > > But before you answer that question, please COMPARE what Brian
> > > has "written" with the material on the following web page:
> > >
> > > http://www.navreme.net/xenophobia.htm
> > >
> > > OBTW, I like what you wrote:
> > >
> > > "If we learn to use OUR OWN WORDS. . . ." caps added.
> > >
> > > Daniel
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> > >
> > >
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>