Andrew Lobaczewski - Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes

reached for my purse, but he waved me off; the paper was free.

The front page showed a picture of a young and handsome

Brezhnev decorated with all the medals he did not in fact re-

ceive until much later. On the last page, however, I found a

quite well-worked-out summary of investigations performed at

the University of Massachusetts on identical twins raised sepa-

rately. These investigations furnished empirical indications for

the important role of heredity, and the description contained a

literary illustration of the similarity of the fates of twin pairs.

How far “ideologically disorientated” the editors of this paper

must have been to publish something which could never have

appeared in the area subjected to a supposedly Communist

system.116

116 The freedom that !obaczewski noted in the U.S. in the 1980 is fast being

replaced by an almost total pathocracy. It won’t be long before such articles

are censored in U.S. newspapers as well, unless, of course, the study is “de-

signed” to prove the superiority of psychopathy. [Editor’s note.]

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PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY

In that other reality, the battlefront crosses every study of

psychology and psychiatry, every psychiatric hospital, every

mental health consultation center, and the personality of every-

one working in these areas. What takes place there: hidden

thrust-and-parry duels, a smuggling through of true scientific

information and accomplishments, and harassment.

Some people become morally derailed under these condi-

tions, whereas others create a solid foundation for their convic-

tions and are prepared to undertake difficulty and risk in order

to obtain honest knowledge so as to serve the sick and needy.

The initial motivation of this latter group is thus not political in

character, since it derives from their good will and professional

decency. Their consciousness of the political causes of the

limitations and the political meaning of this battle is raised

later, in conjunction with experience and professional maturity,

especially if their experience and skills must be used in order to

save persecuted people.

In the meantime, however, the necessary scientific data and

papers must be obtained somehow, taking difficulties and other

people’s lack of understanding into account. Students and be-

ginning specialists not yet aware of what was removed from

the educational curricula attempt to gain access to the scientific

data stolen from them. Science starts to be degraded at a worri-

some rate once such awareness is missing.

~~~

We need to understand the nature of the macrosocial phe-

nomenon as well as that basic relationship and controversy

between the pathological system and those areas of science

which describe psychological and psychopathological phenom-

ena. Otherwise, we cannot become fully conscious of the rea-

sons for such a government’s long published behavior.

A normal person’s actions and reactions, his ideas and

moral criteria, all too often strike abnormal individuals as ab-

normal . For if a person with some psychological deviations

considers himself normal , which is of course significantly eas-

ier if he possesses authority, then he would consider a normal

person different and therefore abnormal, whether in reality or

as a result of conversive thinking. That explains why such peo-

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

265

ple’s government shall always have the tendency to treat any

dissidents as “mentally abnormal”.

Operations such as driving a normal person into psycho-

logical illness and the use of psychiatric institutions for this

purpose take place in many countries in which such institutions

exist. Contemporary legislation binding upon normal man’s

countries is not based upon an adequate understanding of the

psychology of such behavior, and thus does not constitute a

sufficient preventive measure against it.

Within the categories of a normal psychological world

view, the motivations for such behavior were variously under-

stood and described: personal and family accounts, property

matters, intent to discredit a witness’ testimony, and even po-

litical motivations. Such defamatory suggestions are used par-

ticularly often by individuals who are themselves not entirely

normal, whose behavior has driven someone to a nervous

breakdown or to violent protest. Among hysterics, such behav-

ior tends to be a projection onto other people of one’s own self-

critical associations. A normal person strikes a psychopath as a

naive, smart-alecky believer in barely comprehensible theories;

calling him “crazy” is not all that far away.

Therefore, when we set up a sufficient number of examples

of this kind or collect sufficient experience in this area, another

more essential motivational level for such behavior becomes

apparent. What happens as a rule is that the idea of driving

someone into mental illness issues from minds with various

aberrations and psychological defects. Only rarely does the

component of pathological factors take part in the ponerogene-

sis of such behavior from outside its agents. Well thought out

and carefully framed legislation should therefore require testing

of individuals whose suggestions that someone else is psycho-

logically abnormal are too insistent or too doubtfully founded.

On the other hand, any system in which the abuse of psy-

chiatry for allegedly political reasons has become a common

phenomenon should be examined in the light of similar psycho-

logical criteria extrapolated onto the macrosocial scale. Any

person rebelling internally against a governmental system,

which shall always strike him as foreign and difficult to under-

stand, and who is unable to hide this well enough, shall thus

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PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY

easily be designated by the representatives of said government

as “mentally abnormal”, someone who should submit to psy-

chiatric treatment. A scientifically and morally degenerate psy-

chiatrist becomes a tool easily used for this purpose. Thus is

born the sole method of terror and human torture unfamiliar

even to the secret police of Czar Alexander II.

The abuse of psychiatry for purposes we already know thus

derives from the very nature of pathocracy as a macrosocial

psychopathological phenomenon. After all, that very area of

knowledge and treatment must first be degraded to prevent it

from jeopardizing the system itself by pronouncing a dramatic

diagnosis, and must then be used as an expedient tool in the

hands of the authorities. In every country, however, one meets

with people who notice this and act astutely against it.

The pathocracy feels increasingly threatened by this area

whenever the medical and psychological sciences make pro-

gress. After all, not only can these sciences knock the weapon

of psychological conquest right out of its hands; they can even

strike at its very nature, and from inside the empire, at that.

A specific perception of these matters therefore bids the

pathocracy to be “ideationally alert” in this area. This also ex-

plains why anyone who is both too knowledgeable in this area

and too far outside the immediate reach of such authorities

should be accused of anything that can be trumped up, includ-

ing psychological abnormality.

CHAPTER VIII

PATHOCRACY AND RELIGION

Monotheistic faith strikes a contemporary thinker primarily

as an incomplete induction derived from ontological knowl-

edge about the laws governing microcosmic and macrocosmic

material and organic and psychological life, as well as being a

result of certain encounters accessible by means of introspec-

tion. The rest complements this induction by means of items

man gains by other ways and accepts either individually or in

accordance with the dictates of his religion and creed. A sound-

less, wordless voice unconsciously awakens our associations,

reaches our awareness in the quiet of mind, and either comple-

ments or rebukes our cognition; this phenomenon is every bit

as true as whatever has become accessible to science thanks to

modern investigative methods.

In perfecting our cognition in the psychological field and at-

taining truths formerly available only to mystics, we render

ever narrower the space of nescience which until recently sepa-

rated the realm of spiritual perception from naturalistic science.

Sometime in the not too distant future, these two cognitions

will meet and certain divergences will become self evident. It

would thus be better if we were prepared for it. Almost from

the outset of my deliberations on the genesis of evil, I have

been conscious of the fact that the investigative results con-

cisely presented in this work can be used to further complete

that space which is so hard for the human mind to enter.

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PATHOCRACY AND RELIGION

The ponerological approach throws new light upon age-old

questions heretofore regulated by the dictates of moral systems

and must of necessity bring about a revision in thought meth-

ods. As a Christian, the author was initially apprehensive that

this would cause dangerous collisions with ancient tradition.

Studying the question in the light of the Scriptures caused these

apprehensions gradually to fade away. Rather, this now appears

to be the way to bring our thought processes closer to that

original and primeval method of perceiving moral knowledge .

Quite characteristically, reading the Gospels can provide teach-

ings clearly convergent with the method of understanding evil

derived from naturalistic investigations on its origin. At the

same time, we must foresee that the process of correction and

conformation will be laborious and time consuming, which

ultimately will probably prevent any major tumult.

Religion is an eternal phenomenon. A sometimes overly ac-

tive imagination would at first complement whatever esoteric

perception could not handle. Once civilization and its concur-

rent discipline of thought reaches a certain level of develop-

ment, a monotheistic idea tends to emerge, generally as a con-

viction of a certain mental elite. Such development in religious

thought can be considered a historical law rather than individ-

ual discovery by such people like Zarathustra or Socrates. The

march of religious thought through history constitutes an indis-

pensable factor of the formation of human consciousness.

Acceptance of religion’s basic truths opens to man a whole

field of possible cognition wherein his mind can search for the

truth. At that point, we also free ourselves of certain psycho-

logical impediments and gain a certain freedom of cognition in

areas accessible to naturalistic perception. Rediscovering the

true, ancient, religious values strengthens us, showing us the

meaning of life and history. It also facilitates our introspective

acceptance of phenomena within ourselves for which naturalis-