“I have made a technical breakthrough which possibly ranks with the major discoveries of the twentieth century*… it is called the introspection rundown.” — LRH
* Other major discoveries of the 20th century: Nuclear fission, carbon dating, microwave ovens, aspirin, the Big Bang Theory, television, antibiotics, blood typing, blood banks, powered flight, heart transplant surgery, DNA, and Scientology’s least favorite discovery… the Internet.
Lisa McPherson died after Scientologists checked her out of a hospital and brought her back to a Church property to apply LRH’s treatment for psychotic breaks, the “Introspection Rundown” (billed by LRH as “THE TECHNICAL BREAKTHROUGH OF 1973!”). Now that WikiLeaks is back up, you can download the LRH bulletin that outlines this “treatment” and read it for yourself.
Now, a note of caution: This is a revised bulletin. The date code is “23 January 1974RB”, the RB indicating that this is the third revision (R, RA, RB), and the final date is 1991, 5 years past LRH’s death.
Some highlights:
Psychotic breaks as explained by LRH. In this bulletin, LRH says, “Man has never been able to solve the psychotic break,” and that a psychotic break is accompanied by “violence, destruction and all.” (This, of course, isn’t even close to correct. Psychotic breaks can take many forms and symptoms which run the gamut from hearing voices to catatonia. This is easy information to come by – all it takes is a simple Web search – but most Scientologists would rather stab themselves with a fork than read anything written by those dreaded psychs, so they’re willing to take LRH’s uninformed word for it.)
How psychiatrists handle psychotic breaks. According to LRH, upon witnessing a psychotic break, a psychiatrist “would have sharpened up his ice pick, filled his syringes with the most powerful (and deadly) drugs he could find and turned up the volts.” Scientologists actually believe this. (For the record, Scilon readers: This isn’t true.)
Isolation is critical. LRH says to “…isolate the person wholly with all attendants completely muzzled (no speech).” In a follow-up bulletin, LRH explains that isolation is paramount, and that aside from auditing – discussed next – no one can speak while in earshot of the victim. Only one person, the case supervisor (C/S), may communicate with him or her – and then only by passing notes, which must be answered in writing. I don’t think you need a PhD in clinical psychology to figure out how much psychological damage one does by refusing spoken contact to a person who is losing touch with reality. (Lisa died after 17 days of “isolation watch.”)
Audit, audit, audit. (Lisa apparently did not live long enough to get to this stage.) According to LRH, the reason for a psychotic break is that some incident happened that caused the person to focus their attention inwardly. No, really, that’s what he says. So the cure is auditing – holding the cans of the E-Meter while being given commands like “Has another ARC broken you [made you upset]?”, “Have others demanded withholds of anyone else they didn’t have?”, “Locate an incident of others giving others a false assignment that they were being done in,” and “What would be the intention behind the giving of problems to people that don’t belong to them?”
Frankly, all this would be pretty funny, except for the fact that a) Scientologists really do this instead of proper medical treatment, and b) it really killed Lisa McPherson.
The Independent’s view
Now, you might be wondering where Marty Rathbun stands on the issue of Lisa McPherson. Surely, in his search to eliminate the abuses of the Church, he wouldn’t advocate this sort of ridiculous reaction to a serious medical condition, right? Wrong. According to Marty, Lisa McPherson died because DM “squirreled” (altered) Hubbard’s technology and misinterpreted the state of Clear. Let me reiterate: According to Marty, isolating a person and asking them inane questions is the proper cure for a psychotic break. Don’t take my word for it: Read Marty’s blog entries concerning Lisa’s death here and here.
If you think Scientology is just a kooky-but-innocent religion, think again. Scientology is dangerous and harmful – just ask Lisa McPherson.
Oh, wait, you can’t.
ML,
Caliwog
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