Selling Spirituality

Re: # 44

Dear tamhed 32....thank you for your generous support. Our project in Urdu is still in

infancy. There is another project we are persuing that is based on my Green Zone

Philosophy. You can see a few glimpses on www.greenzoneliving.ca. We are planning

to prepare audio and videotapes to educate masses on mental health issues alongside the

website and books. We hope to use all mediums available especially for next generation.

But you know such a process is slow. I am like a turtle and a believer in human evolution.

sincerely sohail

Dr. Sohail: Thanks for your prompt and informative response. I followed the link, and enjoyed going through your website. I checked out the pictures as well (on my theory that every pakistani knows every other pakistani either directly or maximum through one or two links). alas could only identify one individual I had met in real life, and that too briefly (the poet ahmed faraz).

Anyway, I think it is a great service you are doing to the non-english speaking pakistani immigrants by preparing urdu language write-ups on reducing stress and other relevant advice. We definitely need a psychiatrist on chowk as well (as you can see from poor echoboom`s condition in his post below, e.g.) This is only partly a joke. :-)

Anyway, coming back to the subject: I think there are two distinct ``target groups`` that could benefit from your advice. First, the ``normal`` person, who nevertheless goes through life worrying far more, and getting stressed out far more, than is necessary. After all, life is incredibly short, and once it is over we will all be pushing daisies (to use an american expression) in our respective graves forever. Something on the benefits of exercise, positive thinking, voluntary work (i.e. giving rather than taking), meditation and prayer, and so forth would be very beneficial.

Second, for the ``clinically ill`` I agree with you on the need for better care in Pakistan. There are too many ``mad`` individuals languishing in mental wards in Pakistan who could easily be cured (as you of course know quite well) thanks to the breakthrough on medicine. It would seem useful to bring their plight to light on your website.

Perhaps you would keep these two segments (i.e. ``normal`` vs ``clinical`` groups) in mind in your website - thus permitting more focussed advice. Hope this makes sense. Also, perhaps you could talk chowk staff into developing a visible link from chowk to your website , perhaps once the latter is a bit further along. (we could then refer clinical cases on chowk to you - this too is a joke of course).

I wonder what is worse: the belief that a certain book or certain personality from 1000+ years ago is the FINAL word on everything (and we will kill you if you say otherwise!) VS. having a diversity of gurus/advisers with varied opinions whom one can interact and seek solace when dealing with lifes problem. Admittedly, not all the gurus/advisers are of the highest quality but at least one can find a second one if the first dissapoints.

For me the answer is clear. But i think there are still people who still dont quite get it. There are still people who talk about ``pure vedic thinking`` or ``original islamic state`` or other garbage. These people are much more dangerous than some shyster thief who takes your money and gives bogus spiritual advice.

It won`t hurt if a certain Psychilist (my coinage: the Dabba-Peer licensed to buk to make a buck) to exercise full-disclosure by telling innocent muslims that he himself is a Muurtadoon & uses his dabba-peeri prop to give credence to his evangelicism to ``cure`` others to make them Murtadoons.

Alongwith Dr., every Murtad must also write Mtd. so that muslims know who they are dealing with.

Re: # 36
Dear Tahmed32...I am glad you took SR seriously and read within the lines of what I

wrote. For me in any serious dialogue there is a thesis...then anti-thesis...and finally a

synthesis. It is like the court of law

....the crown represents the tradition of the comunity and wants to punish the accused

...the defence attorney defends the accused and states he is challenging the traditions

of the community

...and the judge or the jury decides

In science, medicine and psychiatry many theoris have been presented, discussed,

challenged and finally accepted.

Writers like Thomas Szazs and RD Laing challenged traditional theories. They challenged

the diagnosis of mental illness and schizophrenia and challenged the power traditional

psychiatrists have in the system.

Time is the best judge and people are the jury to decide when they are emotionally

suffering whether they want to

...see a priest, a pandat, a rabbi , a maulvi

....see a mystic

...see a psychiatrist and psychotherapist

I am of the opinion that biological psychiatry has done wonders in the last fifty years and

discovery of antipsychotics and antidepressants have revolutionalized mental health

practice. Now we can control symptoms of those suffering human beings that we could not

do fifty years ago. Those are the miracles of science.

At the same time psychologists like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred adler, Eric Fromm,

Victor Frankl and Abraham Maslow helped us see the psychosocial reasons of human

suffering and suggested different forms of psychotherapy.

We are also becoming aware of the cultural factors and immigration in mental illness.

Gradually we are develping a bio-psycho-socio-cultural model of mental illness. This is all

a scientific approach quite different than a religious approach to life. And in a scientific

approach people in favour or against a theory are all welcome. As far as they are sincere

and not doing it for ulterior motives. I have as much respect for biological psychiatrists,

as for psychotherapists. I think we need to tailor the help according to the needs of the

individual, couple and family and we need to have education available for all members of

the community. I am preparing a mental health education website as part of my www.drsohail.com
website to have articles in Urdu for asian immigrant families who cannot read English.

At the end of the day it boils down to choices. I just hope people make informed and wise

choices. I feel sad when I see human beings suffer and know that some of the suffering

can be relieved and quality of life improved with education and professional and self help.

Thanks for inspiring me....sincerely sohail

#16 by ali_1

[Dr. Sohail, have you heard of Sai Baba, the most famous Hindian spritual personality who claims to be a bhagwan and and expert of kuldanini?




]


ali_1, have you heard of Muhammad, the most famous Musloo-Arab spritual personality who claimed to be a prophet and to chat with god on a regular basis?


Here`s one of his followers:

Re: # 35
tahmed:

``to SR: what makes a plane fly - a swami`s levitation techniques or science? thank you. ``

hahaha ....

that must have been the dumbest questin by tahmedji.

how do you think mo flew to the heaven and back, that too on a pony.

author:

what do you think about the points raised by me in #26?

I would like to get your input.

author:

what do you think about the points raised by me in #26?

I would like to get your input.

dr sohail: and i ask that last question in #35 not rhetorically but because i would really like to know your views. I recognize of course all the caveats that go with use of psychiatric medicines: e.g. that we dont yet understand precisely how they work although we have a general idea; that lowering stress in the environment can re-inforce the effect of drugs. but what exactly is szazz saying beyond this that makes him a great mind?

dr sohail: i think you are being too respectful of the ``great mind`` of szazz and of SR`s equation - in yet another great feat of political correctness on chowk - of science with superstition in all its variations (i.e. as embedded in the ``religion`` of maulvis, pirs, fakirs and so forth).

to SR: what makes a plane fly - a swami`s levitation techniques or science? thank you.

As for szazz - after 60 years of sole reliance on freuds half-baked theories, doctors finally stumbled by accident to the fact that mental illnesses of the most terrible kinds (schizophrenia, manic depression and so forth) are often readily fixed by medicine. and this has revolutionaized psychiatry in the past few decades. so what exactly is szazz`s contribution other than to set the clock back to the pre-1950`s era?

[“God told me to do so.”
“I had a sacred dream.”
“I had a special revelation.” ]

Just like Mohammad.

Re: # 30

Dear Sr....I have a great respect for the skeptic and great minds of Thomas

Szasz and RD Laing. But do you think we can study human brain, mind and personality

in a scientific way and try to help those human beings who suffer from emotional problems

in a compassionate way. I think scientific minded mental health professionals try to do

that...obviously some are more successful than others. sincerely sohail

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“Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary consequence, with moral symbols, sacred emblems, or legal formulae which are widely believed and deeply internalized (by the masses). These central conceptions may refer to a god or gods, “the votes of the majority”, (“freedom”, “democracy”)... or the alleged extraordinary endowment of the person of the ruler himself. Various thinkers have used different terms to refer to this phenomena: Mosca’s “political formula” or “great superstition”, Locke’s “principal of sovereignty”,Sorel’s “ruling myth”,Weber’s “legitimations”, Durkheim’s “collective representations”, Marx’s “dominant ideas”...Mannheim’s “ideology”, Herbert Spencer’s “public sentiments” (Gramsci’s “hegemony”) all point to the central place of master symbols in social analysis.” (Hans Gerth & C. Wright Mills, Character & Social Structure, 1964:277)

The Mind-Control mechanisms in any human society

Doctor sahib

You have nicely identified and exposed these pseudo-spiritualists as fraudsters. But, the picture is yet more complex. These fraudsters are transparent and easily identified by any serious minded free thinking person who is not encumbered by ordinary superstitions.

Societies create mind-control (and consequently behavior control) devices and mechanisms to keep the masses in line. These devices vary through time and place.

Roughly speaking, these devices and mechanisms can be classified three ways:

Religion
(a) It can be organized church/temple/mosque kind of religiosity, or,
(b) the yogi-sufi-saiN-baba kind (the subject of your article).

The victims of this broad category are deluded into a strong sense of security derived from various forms of persistent unquestioning belief that is commonly referred to as faith. Their thinking (behavior) is influenced by the purveyors of religiosity.

Quasi-religious and Pseudoscientific superstitions
This category includes such things as fortune tellers, Tarrot card readers, palmists, astrologers, numerologists, crystal readers etc.

The victims of this broad category are not too religious and lack strong faith but are still feeble enough to have plenty of residual superstitions that can be capitalized on under the guise of this milder form of religiosity.

Secular mind control mafia
This is a tricky one. Those who are of the modern world and do not easily fall for the Confessional box, or the Pir-baba, or the Jotishi, or the crystal reading astrologer need to be somehow influenced by scientific means. This is where professions such as yours, or worst still, psychiatry come into the picture. I am referring to the Thomas Szasz`s argument regarding the Myth of Mental Illness.

This is not an assault on your noble profession, but if truth be told, the niche occupied by the shrink is not too dissimilar to that of the yogi. Only the level of sophistication (or sophistry) is different.

...SR