As I listened to Sylvia Stanard respond to a question about the scientology view of psychiatry at the Chauquatua conference (see at 1:19;45), I could not help but be amazed a the “spin” she sought to put on this.

She claims that the church is only opposed to the “mind altering drugs, ECT and abuses in the field of mental health.”

An “acceptable truth” — along with so many others she delivered that day — but you have to wonder why when addressing a sophisticated audience of “thinkers and seekers” she didn’t tell them the real truth? Why NOT explain the REAL beliefs of the church? No self-respecting Christian would try to mealy-mouth the virgin birth? A Christian Scientist would not try to claim they are NOT opposed to blood transfusions. Every religion (and even more so, every cult) has unprovable beliefs. She claimed that OT III was just “taken from someone’s auditing notes” and is not part of “published” scientology. And that disconnection doesn’t apply if someone is just “critical” or “leaves the church” it is only used when, for example, a woman is in an abusive relationship. And many more examples.

I was reminded of the “spin” when a Special Correspondent sent me this from Facebook.

The REAL view of scientologists on psychiatry and psychology.

But this is hardly surprising. Hubbard railed against psychiatry almost from the outset when he claimed that he was “attacked” by “psychs” and a vast conspiracy unfolded to prevent his work from being widely distributed and recognized. There is no doubt a handful of psychiatrists opposed Dianetics and that government agencies relied on them for their opposition to Dianetics and Scientology. But perhaps there is also some truth to the idea that every faith (whether it be classified as a religion or a cult) needs a “devil” to oppose and fight for the salvation of mankind. For scientologists, the psychiatrists and psychologists are the devil. They have taken on almost mythic powers as the purveyors of all evil in society (or perhaps a more apt phrase would be “comic book powers”).

One of the tools the IAS uses most heavily to collect funds is their “campaigns” to “destroy,” “obliterate,” “eradicate” psychiatry (little do people know they basically do nothing on any of these campaigns, that is left to CCHR who try to raise their own money). Miscavige himself (and me and Heber before him) proclaims to the foot-stomping, cat-calling, clubbed seal audience that the “whole track implanters” and “SPs” will be brought down over the coming year. It is one of the most popular and successful activities to gain support for the IAS.

Of course, this is in large part because it plays to Hubbard’s view of psychiatry and psychology. And over the years, he did not soften his position. In fact it became more radical. There are unpublished “advices” from the 1980’s that are way more vitriolic than his public utterances. But the publicly available ones serve the purpose of illustrating the point just fine.

If you look in the Technical Volumes of Dianetics and Scientology, the official “scripture” of scientology, you will find some of Hubbard’s LAST published works are focused on the pervasive evil of psychiatrists destroying civilization and enslaving mankind.

In a published bulletin dated 29 Nov 1981 titled DIANETICS AND SCIENTOLOGY COMPARED TO 19TH CENTURY PRACTICES he said the following:

A comparison between Dianetics and Scientology and psychology and psychiatry is nonsense. The two 19th century subjects, psychology and psychiatry, do not achieve ANY good results. On the contrary they are destructive beyond belief. They make crackpots, sexpots and vegetables when they do not outright kill. The greatest crime of our times is the use of psychology and psychiatry to teach little children in schools with them and manufacture crime and a whole world of immorality and unhappiness. The character of the Governments themselves is established by their tolerance and use of psychology and psychiatry. In no human race of any civilized repute has any law condoned broad mayhem and murder of their populations. Yet under modern governments psychology and psychiatry not only have carte blanche but also get insistence on their use. Murderers flock to murderers according to old sages. The governments only smile at the brand of Cain upon their heads. Is this a civilized world we’re living in? I’m afraid it only will be when Dianetics and Scientology can bring wisdom enough to Man to blunt his furious efforts to do himself in. So laugh in people’s faces if they compare Dianetics and Scientology to the “orthodox mental subjects.” They are insulting you.

And this excerpt from 26 APRIL 1982, THE CRIMINAL MIND AND THE PSYCHS.

So let us look at psychs again—what they call “treatment” is a suppression (by shocks, drugs, etc.) of the ability to think. They are not honest enough, these psychs, being just dramatizing psychotics themselves for the most part, to publish the fact that all their “treatments” (mayhem really when it is not murder) make people more stupid. These actions of shock and crazy evaluative counselling etc. lower IQ like an express elevator going down to the basement. They do not tell legislators this or put it in their books. This is why they say “no one can change IQ.” They are hiding the fact that they ruin it. So the psych in prisons is engaging in an action (shocking or whatever) that makes people who are already criminal even stupider. Although they obviously tell their victims to go out and commit more crimes (the psychoanalyst urged wives to commit adultery for instance), they would not have to do this at all to manufacture more crime. Their “treatments” make the criminals more stupid. The stupid commit more crimes. It is pretty simple, really, when you look at it. Why does the state support psychiatrists and psychologists? Because the state is stupid? Or does it want more citizens robbed and killed? It’s one or the other. Take your choice.

And this one from 6 May 1982, THE CAUSE OF CRIME.

They say poverty makes crime. They say if one improved education there would be less crime. They say if one cured the lot of the underprivileged one would have solved crime. All these “remedies” have proven blatantly false. In very poor countries there is little crime. The «improving» education, it was tailored to «social reform,» not teaching skills. And it is a total failure. The fact that rewarding the underprivileged has simply wrecked schools and neighborhoods and cost billions is missing. So who is “they”? The psychologist and psychiatrist of course. These were their crackpot remedies for crime. And it’s wrecked a civilization. So what IS the cause of crime? The treatment of course! Electric shocks, behavior modification, abuse of the soul. These are the causes of crime. There would be no criminals at all if the psychs had not begun to oppress beings into vengeance against society. There’s only one remedy for crime—get rid of the psychs! They are causing it! Ah yes, it’s true on cases and cases of research on criminals. And what’s it all go back to? The psychs! Their brutality and heartlessness is renowned. The data is rolling in. Any more you pick up off a criminal or anyone, send it in. On crime we have an epidemic running on this planet. The wrong causes psychs assign for crime plus their own “treatments” make them a deadly virus. The psychs should not be let to get away with “treatment” which amounts to criminal acts, mayhem and murder. They are not above the law. In fact there are no laws at all which protect them for what sane society would sanction crime against its citizens even as science? They should be handled like any other criminals. They are at best dramatizing psychotics and dangerous, but more dangerous to society at large than the psychotics they keep in their offices and looney bins because they lie and are treacherous. Why the government funds them I do not know. They are the last ones that should be let loose to handle children.

And virtually the last issue in the Tech Vols is HCO Bulletin of 26 AUGUST 1982 PAIN AND SEX which contains the following which is characterized as an “important discovery”:

Go into an asylum or a prison and look at the increasing institutional population and know what you are looking at. In the main, there are pain and sex addicts, decadent and degraded and no longer capable. They were sent on that route down through the ages by the psychs and here they are still in the psych’s hands! And do they get well or go straight? Oh no. Whether in prisons or insane asylums they just get worse. And the psychs in both places rub their bloodied hands as they turn their products loose again upon the remaining population! It’s no accident. And the stocks- in-trade of psychs are PAIN and SEX. They will even tell you it’s “natural” to steal! To compound their felony—if that is possible—they tell you it’s the body doing it. Another crashing big false datum on top of all their other lies. These are data which emerged from recent thorough research of the whole track. This is not theory or some strange opinion. It is provable electronic fact. The waves are just synthesized. They are the most used tools in the campaign against beings in furthering the general goal of those creatures whose sole ambition is destruction. The universe does not happen to be either destructive or chaotic except as such obsessed creeps make it. Statements it is otherwise are just more false data from the same suspect “authorities”. It fits their purposes to make seem natural what they make artificially. The universe only seems that way to a being because such loathsome psychotics make it seem so. They destroyed every great civilization to date and are hard at work on this one. The one thing they can’t stand is the light of truth so, despite their objections, one must turn it on them. Only in its glare do their lies wither. It is the potent weapon they can’t fend off.

It is pretty clear what a good scientologist is supposed to believe about psychiatry and psychology.

So, why doesn’t Sylvia Stanard come right out and say it?

Because everything is “spun” in an attempt to make it palatable for the audience. The public “face” of scientology (when there is one, this is the first time I have seen a scientology official respond to questions on camera since Tommy Davis show his last footnuke) attempts to mask the reality of what scientologists really believe and practice. It is a strategy that worked to some extent when available information about the subject was limited. Today, it is going down in flames worse than the Hindenburg.

And just one final note. When it is convenient (especially in court case) the church trots out a pat line that “this is our scripture” and it is “a firmly held religious belief” in order to justify things like the Squirrelbusters or the “right” to disconnect. But those “firmly held” beliefs turn into jello in a hurricane when the “PR tech” is being employed to make scientology look warm, fuzzy and acceptable to the public.