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FINAL REPORT OF THE ENQUETE COMMISSION ON "SO-CALLED SECTS AND PSYCHOGROUPS" |
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Minority opinion submitted by the Commission members Professor Dr Ralf-Bernd Abel, Ursula Caberta y Diaz, Dr Jürgen Keltsch and Professor Dr Hartmut Zinser with regard to the Commission's Final Report The Final Report has to be supplemented because a major segment of the services which are nowadays used by clients in the psychomarket has not been adequately discussed. This is the segment of "mind machines and new learning". The expert L. Berger 1 ) describes mind machines as "electronic aids to meditation" that influence human consciousness by means of light, sound and colour, with magnetic fields and bioelectric pulses. According to Berger, meditation and autogenic training are classical (but time-consuming) techniques; while mind machines and mental training systems produce similar effects in a much shorter period of time. The use of technical, audio-visual stimulation is said to result in flexibility of thought, understanding of complex situations and contexts, control of complexity in the mind as a response to the many facets of a task, rich sensations and intuition as a complement to logic and analysis, recognition and experience of different areas of consciousness, and associated special skills and qualities. B.Sherman/P. Judkins 2 ) expect that "virtual reality" (cyberspace), created by computers, will also be used in the field of psychotherapy. Psycho-cybernetic training programmes for therapeutic purposes are already available on the Internet. We do not intend to discuss what effects the use of these technologies will have on the mind and what learning effects can be achieved through man/machine interaction. Our intention is to show that we are now faced with a phenomenon that totally destroys our traditional distinction between the mind (consciousness) on the one hand and nature on the other. We might say that the human mind fuses with a technical prosthesis that changes and allegedly strengthens it, even making spiritual experiences possible. There is no doubt that this man/machine interaction has a considerable manipulative influence on our minds. It can have a major impact on our inward and outward behaviour. In unstable individuals, it can lead to psychological disorders resembling psychiatric illness. If the present experiments with mind machines were to become a movement affecting the whole of society -- a society that would then seek its salvation and happiness in the use of such devices -- we would leave the traditional sphere of religion and ideology as the form and expression of our own inwardness that shapes our lives. Faith and ideological conviction as the foundation on which to build our lives would be replaced by science and technology, in the shape of the learning laboratory, as a new system for generating well-being and happiness. According to this new concept we would then increase the capacity of our minds in the learning laboratory, like the software of a computer, in accordance with the latest technological developments in brain and intellect research. J. Habermas 3 ) predicted a trend of this kind as long ago as 1968 and described it as a characteristic of the post- modern age. One of the main representatives of this new, technological concept of man is Scientology. If we take L. Ron Hubbard's human machine model seriously as he describes it in his book "Dianetics" (cf. the use of a lie detector as a bio-feed-back instrument and the conception of man as a piece of engineering), Sciento- logy is part of the post-modern movement that takes engineering and science as its ideology and is no longer within the sphere of religious belief as experts on religion throughout the world maintain to this day. According to Hubbard's own view of himself he is a psycho-engineer re-programming the human computer by means of engineering technology and exercising socio-cybernetic control over a society that has become a mega-machine made up of perfectly-functioning human computers. However, how are we to classify such psycho-engineers and social engineers? There is no doubt that they do not fall into the category of religious pastoral care; nor do they qualify as (mental) psychotherapists; instead, they must be considered to be part of the field of behavioural modification (behavioural psychology). This shift of paradigm in our conception of ourselves as human beings, associated with the switch to science and technology as an ideology, may have more profound effects than any of the philosophical or ideological changes of the past, for it replaces our current civilian and religious concept of human beings as self-determining individuals invested with human dignity with a concept that equates human beings with machines which have to be manipulated in a learning laboratory in order to function properly. The primary objective in life is no longer the search for meaning but the achievement of perfect functioning. The motto is no longer "Know thyself!" but "Function optimally and economically!". _______________ NOTES: 1 ) Berger, L.: Neues Lernen braucht das Land Mind Machines und Neues Lernen, in: Lehmann, R. G. (ed.), Weiterbildung und Management. Planung, Praxis, Methoden, Medien. Landsberg Lech 1994. 2 ) Sherman, B./Judkins, P.: Virtual Reality, Cyberspace Computer kreieren synthetische Welten. Bern/Munich 1993. 3) Habermas, J.: Technik und Wissenschaft als "Ideologie". Frankfurt/Main 1968.
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