Advance knowledge and prediction of the nature, intentions, plans, circumstances and conditions of the enemy cannot be obtained from supernatural entities, similarity of data or by logical reasoning from degrees, standards or rules. Advance knowledge or prediction must be gathered from people.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Hey, hey, APA! How many kids did you..?
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Good riddance, Bennett Braun!
Bennett Braun was perhaps one of the most evil psychiatrists I ever met or investigated. The anti-religious, criminal kidnap-deprogramming groups of the 1980's just loved him, because he made all "cults" seem even more dangerous, with his presentations including 11x17 glossy photographs of severed genitalia and tales of horrendous "international, multi-generational, satanic ritualistic conspiracies" that were secretly embedded in every community, stealing, raping, murdering, skinning and eating innocent children.
Braun and his cohorts, including Colin Ross, Roberta Sachs, Jerry Simandl and others, caused extreme paranoia for the media (who loved them for that, of course!) to spread around in society. Needless to say, they also caused horrible mental and emotional damage to their patients, many of whom spent years of their lives believing that they had multiple personalities caused by childhood sexual abuse, only to realize later that it was all false memory, implanted with the help of drugs and hypnosis by their psychotherapists. Bennett Braun was sued, prosecuted, and disgraced.
Friday, April 12, 2024
From Lincoln South Unit at Packard MHC
Thursday, April 11, 2024
The Bronze Plaque
An EMHC psychiatrist recently stated, "Of course, not one single patient in this place wants to be here..." For me, and perhaps for most people at EMHC (patients or staff), this may seem like unremarkable common sense. Nobody wants to be locked up in a state nuthouse, right?
But... what of the words on that decorative bronze plaque prominently displayed for the public as they walk through the security magnetometer and get "wanded" by a stern, uniformed guard in the Forensic Program Building lobby (??):
THIS IS A HOSPITAL DEDICATED BY THE STATE OF ILLINOIS TO THE WELFARE OF ITS PEOPLE FOR THEIR RELIEF AND RESTORATION - A PLACE OF HOPE FOR THE HEALING OF MIND BODY AND SPIRIT WHERE MANY FIND HEALTH AND HAPPINESS AGAIN
Somehow, it just seems that such a wonderful "hospital" would not inspire such universal desire to not be there. Maybe it can be said that nobody really likes being in the hospital; but people who are really sick are generally thankful and appreciative for good hospitals where they are well treated. In my decades of experience in EMHC, there are no such thanks and there is no such appreciation from the psychiatric "patients" who are held at EMHC, ever. There is only desperate desire to get out; the "relief and restoration... hope... health and happiness again" only comes from getting the hell out.
If that plaque in the lobby were truthful, it might tell the public:
THIS IS A HORRIBLE PLACE OF PSYCHIATRIC SLAVERY THAT YOU PAY YOUR TAXES FOR IN ILLINOIS TO CONFINE AND DISABLE PEOPLE YOU ARE AFRAID OF - A PLACE THAT VIOLATES FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMEANS BOTH MEDICINE AND THE LAW
Then the psychiatrist's categorical statement about not a single person wanting to be there would make sense.
He would probably want to find a different job, too.
Friday, April 5, 2024
SHAME on you, Vik Gill!
My guy Gus has supposedly been offered "a deal" by his treatment team a EMHC. Nobody is really sure what the "deal" is because they are unwilling to write it down, or to let Gus write it down. Nevertheless, they insist that Gus must formally accept the invisible, unwritten, undefined "deal" by a date certain, lest he will never get a conditional release, even if he qualifies for one under the law.
The psychiatrist in charge of this nonsense is Vikramjit Gill. Vik repeatedly admonishes Gus that he'd "better accept the deal" soon, or he'll lose his chance and he'll "never get out" of EMHC. Vik further insists that the "deal" will remain unwritten because, "We don't do that here at EMHC, and we don't have to put anything in writing." He further claims that no one else has any authority: not Dr. Corcoran, the Statewide Supreme Forensic Medical Director who plainly stated in the presence of a handful of witnesses (including me), that Gus doesn't belong at EMHC anymore; nor will any judge or any prosecutor decide. Only Vik himself will determine whether Gus can ever leave EMHC.
This is all ridiculous and despicable gaslighting, of course. There isn't any "deal." Gus can say he accepts it or he doesn't accept it, and it will make no difference whatsoever. The truth is, the overseers on the slave plantation simply think they can crack some patently silly, rhetorical whip, to get Gus worried enough to say, "Oh, gee, I'm so sorry if I have ever entertained bad opinions about any of you wonderful, all-knowing and all-beneficent mental health professionals. I will never again say a critical word or think a critical thought about you, I will only praise you, even if I have to lie!"
They probably want Gus to bow and scrape when he says that, too. Or kiss Michelle Evans' ring, or suck somebody's....
And now that I think about it, I don't believe this weird new attitude or faux "treatment plan" point for Gus came from Vik at all. He's a rational treating psychiatrist, maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but decent. He's clearly not over-enthusiastic (like, e.g., Malis-with-malice or Syed Hussain) about forcing "medicine" on human beings, and he seems reluctant to consider that his patients are less than human. The problem is, he's a wimp. He tends to believe whatever was said by the last person he spoke to, so his true point of view is unstable and too amenable to any momentary influence.
Somebody probably told Vik that he can prove something by subduing Gus. He may believe that he needs to prove something to protect his career or his state-employee benefits, too, because his competence has been directly questioned in court, by none other than Dr. Corcoran, the Statewide Supreme Forensic Medical Director (testifying under oath; I have the transcript of that hearing).
It's remarkable that Vik has stated several times to Gus that "Dr. Corcoran has nothing to say about this, it doesn't matter what he thinks." It raises the possibility that either Corcoran is on his way out, or the Statewide Supreme Forensic Medical Director himself concocted this whole strategy for some purpose of his own. Fascinating..!
The only other explanation could be that Gus is just flat-out lying to me about what people have said to him. Nothing is impossible, but I've known him a long time, and I doubt that he's lying. As far as I know, he doesn't have any clandestine voice recordings, like Marci Weber and Ben Hurt were able to get. Gus is almost obsessed with staying legal, following the rules. It's arguably neurotic of him. (Neurotic is of course a concept that's ironically out of favor in orthodox psychiatry, which is why I can use the word, even as a fanatical anti-psychiatry crusader.)
Gus' attention to correct behavior is exactly what gets him in trouble with people who have to constantly worry that their own incorrect behavior will be discovered. He won't stop, though.
A sure tip-off here is the question: Who writes things down, and who forbids writing things down?
Friday, March 15, 2024
Psychedelics vs. the Apotheosis of Reason
Jules Evans recently interviewed Steve Rolles about "What comes after the war on drugs?" A transcript of that conversation is a fascinating demonstration or dramatization, in my opinion, of what Max Weber (and many others) have called "the apotheosis of reason."
Psychedelic drugs basically turn loose the best, and the worst, intentions and experiences accessible to individuals. Both the best and the worst are far more extreme than modern day humans can easily imagine. We have historical references like Christ/Buddha/Gandhi, and Torquemada/Hitler/Manson; but we do not find or confront those extremes regularly in our daily lives. When somebody gets crazy, like on October 7th in Israel, that merely precipitates a crazy reaction: lives and society are destroyed, but nothing is learned. In fact the world only becomes stupider.
No great patriotic war has ever helped humanity. Each and every one of them brought only dishonor, ruin and tragedy. Ideas, not battles, mark forward progress for Man. During battle, ideas literally disappear and only force exists. Battle is an absence of ideas, even if ideas are blamed or credited beforehand and afterward. Drugs, especially psychedelic drugs, produce battle within a mind.
The interview by Evans of Rolles is replete with the blissful ignorance and glib denial of evil. The whole framework of how to best regulate psychedelics so they provide benefits without causing harm hearkens back to classic lines from war movies like (two of my favorites) Full Metal Jacket and Starship Troopers:
"How can you shoot women and children? Easy--just don't lead them quite as much."
"What's the matter, you want to live forever? Let's all get tattoos!"
Steve Rolles is charming to note that psychedelics can turn people into boring dickheads. But there may be nothing so boring as his own discussions about, "The core thrust of regulation (being) ...keeping people safe or at least safer, and mitigating known risks."
That's not why people take psychedelic drugs, it's only what they seem to get interested in after they've been turned into dickheads. People take psychedelic drugs to overcome themselves, or in Nietzsche's own language, zur Selbsüberwindung zum Übermenschen. People want salvation, and that has never been a project for reason, but always a project for faith.
Galileo began the long historical trend away from faith and toward reason in the early Seventeenth Century; but not long after Nietzsche died insane and godless at the dawn of the Twentieth, Albert Hoffman, Richard Helms, Paul Tibbets, Rudolph Höss, Captain Al Hubbard and Timothy Leary certainly ended that trend.
Now people vote for Donald Trump or believe in woke-ism. And they fight each other. They appear only able to cherish the artillery shell in the face or the bullet in the heart.
They want a trip, but it'll be a bad one now. Forget regulation.
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Easter and Music
I have always loved the concept of the Christian Resurrection as an ultimate triumph over death. In retrospect, I'm not sure what sort of "death" needs to be triumphed over, or that human life is anything like an ultimate game. My favorite New Testament bit is the angel's question on Easter morning, "Why do you look in a place of the dead?"
I know my mother never feared death. (I'm not sure about my dad.) Among the other dead people whom I miss most are my wife's dad, a rare violin expert named Robert, and John Prine.
My parents loved music. When I hear certain Jimmy Buffet songs, or Don McClean's American Pie, or the Eagles, it sure seems to me like they are alive. My father-in-law listened to Harry Belafonte and sang along with Tennessee Ernie Ford's 16 Tons. Music is resurrection in some far more significant way than any mere re-animation of a ruined meat body.
Nevertheless, I had a strange and wonderful dream.
My wife and I do an annual music cruise with another couple, which entails 41 bands and about two thousand paying fans on a ship for a week in the Caribbean. It's called Cayamo (a made-up word which means nothing beyond being the name of the event itself). This year we had the Mavericks, Brandy Clark, The War and Treaty, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, and various others too good to forget but too many to remember. Cayamo is not quite Woodstock, but it's fully beautiful, and much more comfortable.
The pool deck is our favorite of about six different venues on the boat. You can sit in the hot tub and listen to the show, watch old people dance, read your book and drink. It's not easy to find a seat in the shade. One afternoon this week we walked out and there were several shady seats available. Our friend (age 84) commented dryly, "Yep, people died." I hate to say it, but the crowd does seem to get more geriatric every year; anyone who appears to be under forty is almost certainly a member of a band.
There are just over three dozen patrons who have been there every year (of 16) without exception. Those guys always get an official shout-out from Shawn Mullins, the one performing musician who has never missed a year. They all parade down the aisle of the Stardust Theater in bathrobes. We've done nine Cayamo's in a row now, and we won't miss next year, because Emmylou Harris will be back on board.
Which brings me back to my dream.
We were sitting on the pool deck during a set by Buffalo Rose, when one of the female singers said, "Ladies and gentlemen we have a very special surprise for you. Please welcome my friend and hero, back from the dead, Mr. John Prine!" And to our shock, he actually walked out onto the stage with his guitar!
Needless to say the crowd was instantly hysterical, in unrestrained tears. No human being is more loved on Cayamo than John Prine. He is the patron saint of the event, everyone tells stories about him, most of the artists imitate him in some way, and they try to tell stories like he told stories. (One colorful example is Paul Thorn, who has some story to introduce every song he sings: "My daddy was a preacher and my uncle was a pimp... they taught me how to love and how to fight.")
Anyway... my dream continued with the most wonderful lyricist who ever lived stepping up to the microphone and speaking to us all in that same conversational, Kentucky-drawl tone as soon as the stunned pool deck multitude could calm down. "Thank you, I'm happy to be here. I'm sorry if I look tired. You know, I've been dead for several years, and that takes a lot out of a person. They say rest in peace, but man I gotta tell you, it ain't restful being dead. So I'm happy to be back on Cayamo, it's a lot better...."
Then he sang Souvenirs, and we all cried, and I woke up from the dream crying. Every year at Cayamo I have the same realization: music is the most important thing in my life!
Back from the ship, walking by the ocean on Miami Beach, a man was dragging a cross south by the water's edge. The cross wasn't quite big enough to actually crucify anyone on it, just big enough to theatrically remind sunbathers and spring breakers of The Crucifixion. An interviewer and a videographer followed about ten yards behind the man dragging the cross, to record people's reactions (and proselytize).
I suggested that the guy with the cross should fall down occasionally, and they'd see whether anyone named Simon could be convinced to help him carry it. The interviewer ignored that, but asked what the cross meant to me. I thought for a moment, and came up with something along the lines of... coming back from such a gruesome death would sure prove a person is tough.
I could have mentioned centuries of persecuted non-believers, brutal forced conversions, and prejudice that inspired the ruinous American Civil War. But these days Christians are decent, if boring, people.
The guy asked if he could pray for me. I told him pray for peace, that will be praying for me.
I should have said pray for music.