SelfDefinition.Org
The Brainwashing Manual
(1955)
L. Ron Hubbard
Chapter X Conduct Under Fire
The psychopolitician may well find himself under attack as an individual or a member of a group. He may be attacked as a Communist, through some leak in the organization, he may be attacked for malpractice. He may be attacked by the families of people whom he has injured. In all cases his conduct of the situation should be calm and aloof. He should have behind him the authority of many years of training, and he should have participated fully in the building of defences in the field of insanity which give him the only statement as to the conditions of the mind.
If he has not done his work well, hostile feeling groups may expose an individual psychopolitician. These may call into question the efficacy of psychiatric treatment such as shock, drugs, and brain surgery. Therefore, the psychopolitical operative must have on hand innumerable documents which assert enormously encouraging figures on the subject of recovery by reason of shock, brain surgery, drugs, and general treatment. Not one of these cases cited need be real, but they should be documented and printed in such a fashion as to form excellent court evidence.
When his allegiance is attacked, the psychopolitical operative should explain his connection with Vienna on the grounds that Vienna is the place of study for all important matters of the mind.
More importantly, he should rule into scorn, by reason of his authority, the sanity of the person attacking him, and if the psychopolitical archives of the country are adequate many defamatory data can be unearthed and presented as a rebuttal.
Should anyone attempt to expose psychotherapy as a psychopolitical activity, the best defence is calling into question the sanity of the attacker. The next best defence is authority. The next best defence is a validation of psychiatric practices in terms of long and aggressive figures. The next best defence in the actual removal of the attacker by giving him, or them, treatment sufficient to bring about a period of insanity for the duration of the trial. This, more than anything else, would discredit them, but it is dangerous to practise this, in the extreme.
Psychopolitics should avoid murder and violence, unless it is done in the safety of the institution, on persons who have been proven to be insane. Where institution deaths appear to be unnecessary, or to rise in "unreasonable number", political capital might be made of this by city officials or legislature. If the psychopolitical operative has, himself, or if his group has done a thorough job, defamatory data concerning the person, or connections, of the would-be attacker should be on file, should be documented, and should be used in such a way as to discourage the inquiry.
After a period of indoctrination, a country will expect insanity to be met with psychopolitical violence. Psychopolitical activities should become the only recognized treatment for insanity. Indeed, this can be extended to such a length that it could be made illegal for electric shock and brain surgery to be omitted in the treatment of a patient.
In order to defend psychopolitical activities, a great complexity should be made of psychiatric, psychoanalytical, and psychological technology. Any hearing should be burdened by terminology too difficult to be transcribed easily. A great deal should be made out of such terms of schizophrenia, paranoia, and other relatively undefinable states.
Psychopolitical test need not necessary be in agreement, one to another, where they are available to the public. Various types of insanity should be characterized by difficult terms. The actual state should be made obscure, but by this verbiage it can be built into the court or investigating mind that a scientific approach exist and that is too complex for him to understand. It is not to be imagined that a judge or a committee of investigation should inquire too deeply into the subject of insanity, since they, themselves, part of the indoctrinated masses, are already intimidated if the psychopolitical activity has caused itself to be well-documented in terms of horror in magazines.
In case of a hearing or trial, the terribleness of insanity itself, its thread to the society, should be exaggerated until the court or committee believes that the psychopolitical operative is vitally necessary in his post and should not be harrassed for the activities of persons who are irrational.
An immediate attack upon the sanity of the attacker before any possible hearing can take place is the very best defence. It should become well-known that "only the insane attack psychiatrists". The by-word should be built into the society that paranoia is a condition "in which the individual believes he is being attacked by Communists". It will be found that this defence is effective.
Part of the effective defences should include the entire lack in the society of any real psychotherapy. This must be systematically stamped out, since a real psychotherapy might possibly uncover the results of psychopolitical activities.
Jurisprudence, in a Capitalistic nation, is of such clumsiness that cases are invariably tried in their newspapers. We have handled these things much better in Russia, and have uniformly brought people to trial with full confessions already arrived at (being implanted) before the trial took place.
Should any whisper, or pamphlet, against psychopolitical activities be published, it should be laughed into scorn, branded an immediate hoax, and its perpetrator or publisher should be, at the first opportunity, branded as insane, and by the use of drugs the insanity should be confirmed.