Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Plenty of stuff to discuss in the world, with the focus on causes
Cesar Tort

Post by Cesar Tort »

My self-publishing plans got shattered with Spain's economic crisis. I guess I'll have to go back and see what I can do there?

My family is pretty much bizarre. Another of my brothers, the one who lives in uttermost denial about what happened to his much older siblings at home, holds a position in the Mexican government. Of course: he never helped me the least bit.

I don't know why I became obsessed with Daniel Mackler this couple of days. His futuristic philosophy of "no dreams, no unconscious" is so funny…

Instead of that psychic fantasy Dan should better question the legitimacy of therapy. Remember that entry in his forum about what a psychoanalyst did to me back in my teens? The therapist sided my perpetrators to the point of bringing the minor I was into panic: something pretty common in the profession according to Jeffrey Masson. And how could Dan become aware of reality if he rejected to read both Against Therapy and Final Analysis when we posted in his forum?

There can be no healing without hate. Thanks Jeffrey Masson!: as to my hellish analytic experiences you healed me. On the other hand I doubt that, as incapable as he seems to feel hate, Dan could ever help the clients who might attest the same horror stories in his office.

You say that what attracted to you was Dan's essay on Miller? Well, I hold another point of view. I believe that Mimsy really did it in Dan's forum:
Mimsy wrote:I mainly want to say that I think it's totally reasonable of Alice Miller to be unresponsive to your [Daniel Mackler] essay and even dismissive.

Here is a woman who has spent much of her life swimming upstream, going against the flow, fighting against the going paradigm. Simultaneously she is trying to heal her own wounds; she must feel awfully vulnerable much of the time. So here she is trying to stand up to constant criticism while at the same time carrying around all these unhealed wounds. And here you come along and attack her, yet again. It's true that you also say how much you have learned from her, how influential she has been for you. But your primary purpose with the essay seems to be to harp on how she's NOT PERFECT.

Sorry for the all caps shouting, but I want to make a point that by writing your essay with this accusatory tone, you are practicing exactly the same sort of critical, judgmental behavior that you say is so damaging. Somehow you expect this wounded, damaged soul, Alice Miller, to be immune to your criticism. For her not to be sensitive to your attacks.

If I were you, I'd go back and try to read your essay with a mind to how it might FEEL to be Alice Miller and read your words. Given the FEELINGS that your essay might invoke in her, imagine her trying to remain detached and untriggered by old wounds. No matter how successful YOU might be in remaining detached when people make comments, this doesn't mean SHE should be able to be equally detached. She's under constant fire, from all sides; she's getting old, and probably worn out from the battle. Despite all her efforts, and all her insights, she hasn't been able to truly get the healing SHE needs. She's also a woman in a field where most of the heavy hitters have been men. Getting recognition and not being heard as "shrill" is a battle women have to face on top of everything else. Can you cut her some slack? Not be so hard on her? She's done amazing things. No one is perfect. Life is a series of course corrections.

And perhaps you might even consider what parts of your own unhealed wounds you are projecting onto her in your demands for perfection. Are you insisting that she be the perfect mother you never had? I would perhaps question your motives in writing your essay as a "critique", rather than simply saying: "Here's what I learned from Alice Miller's amazing work. And here are some ways that I think maybe we could go even further."

Can you imagine writing what you did, extending her theories, going beyond where she went without attacking her in the process? If you were able to do this, I think she would feel validated, appreciated. You would be building on what she DID do, what she DID accomplish, rather than focusing on the areas where she was human and failed to be perfect.

If you choose to re-read your essay with an eye toward greater compassion toward Alice Miller, you might notice that using "Limits" in the title started off on the wrong foot to get her to listen to you with an open mind. You might do some word counts to see how often you use language that most people would perceive as critical if they were on the receiving end. Try to put yourself in her shoes. And I realize you didn't write the essay as a direct letter to her, and maybe never thought about whether she'd ever read it. You were processing your own needs, which is cool.

I think it'd be an interesting, and revealing, exercise for you to try to say what you think about her in a non-judgmental way.
Although I won't check it up, I would bet Daniel Mackler censored this entry in his now frozen "forum"...
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

I didn't realize this at the time, but on Daniel's old website he describes his therapy as follow: "Sessions are forty-five minutes in length. I do not ascribe to any particularly school of thought, except my own. My form of therapy is entirely talk therapy, face-to-face, non-directive, insight-oriented." I and others have discussed on this forum Talk Therapy and Feeling Therapy many times, and I see no permanent healing in Talking Therapy. The patient needs to come with the insights, not the therapist. And insight follows after feeling, not the other way around.

When it comes to Alice Miller and Daniel's essay, I disagree with Mimsy. I wrote at Daniel's Forum this:
Dennis wrote:Child abuse is real. You don't have to look for it with a flashlight. Alice Miller was one of
the first persons from the establishment who exposed the real reasons behind child abuse.
But it is clear to me that Miller fell in the same traps as she warned for and Daniel made
an effort to explain that.
Where does Daniel in his critique on Miller attacks the child? Point that out to me because
that's what it is about. Miller and Stettbacher's publications are public and that gives
everyone the right to critique that. Daniel did not poke in Miller's private life because he
didn't go and interview any of her relatives or friends or spied on her. Why should one only
focus on the good values of someone and ignore the bad ones? Isn't that the same
behavior that an abused child acts out in order to survive? And doesn't the poisonous
pedagogy tell the child that the bad things done to him or her are GOOD things. And isn't
this confusion between good and bad what causes suffering?
Masson's critique on Stettbacher is for a part valid. Going to an expensive clinic in
Switzerland is hardly a realistic option. In his book it says that the training of many
therapists is on the way but 17 years later and I still don't know where to find even one. I
know some people have made progress thanks to his book, including me, but it's a sign
that he hasn't written more about it. The self-help therapy wasn't convincing to a large
amount of people since the clinic received 10,000 applications when his book came out.
Why is this important? Because when you look at the amount of attention that all those
other poisonous psychologists, educators, therapies and the pharmaceutical industry get in
the media, then we desperately need more people to fight that, including Miller and
Stettbacher. And it doesn't have to become a day job. The sales of Miller's books are
dropping dramatically with every new book of hers and I guess Daniel and I have tried to
show her shortcomings, hoping that she would again publish a huge bestseller. Because
who'll continue after her?
Dennis
And when there was a discussion that Alice Miller had read Daniel's essay, I wrote:
Dennis wrote:Daniel, at least you didn't get threatened or publicly prosecuted like she did with me. Miller
never knows how to deal with critique. Because that way she has to let go of her intellectual
defenses. Maybe you can start calling yourself Daniel X from now on.
To me the part that's more shocking is:
Quote:
  • I have always been a great admirer of you and your work. I am a 45-year old
    man from the Netherlands and I first came into contact with your books in 1981,
    through my mother, who was herself badly abused, physically and
    psychologically, but who repeated this to some extent with me, her youngest
    child. I have read all your books.
    Unfortunately my intelligent and wise mother is in almost complete denial of her
    own actions towards me during my childhood, although she fully agrees with
    your books and she admires you enormously (as I do).
Here you have it in a nutshell. Here's the irony of it all. We have a mother who is called
intelligent and wise and has read all her books but is in almost complete denial about the
hurt she inflicted on her child. I wonder why someone like this man would have admiration
for that. Miller somehow refers to Primal Therapy as being a bottomless pit when it comes to
healing but doesn't say a word about these people who admire her and read all her books
(since 1981!) AND at least one of them not being able to question the cruelest behavior. Not
even after 25 years.

Dennis
This last quote came from Alice Miller's Letter section, around the same time Miller wrote her little note about Daniel's essay. Of course no one discussed this in detail any further, because many people feel that they have to protect father or mother figures...

Jeffrey Masson's Against Therapy is a very good book because it describes the hidden motivations of therapists. Therapy as in healing is not wrong of course, but it can come in many other forms than through the brains of other therapists.

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Post by Cesar Tort »

That woman may have been in darkness after reading all those books, yes. But what about the darkness in Daniel Mackler's mind? Have you read my review-essay Critics of psychiatry: blindness in their midst of vision?

Yes: I remember those posts of yours in his forum and also have them printed in Mexico. Still, I think that Miller sides far more the child than Daniel. For instance, Miller seems to accept psychohistory (which shows that children in the past and in today's Third World have been treated more abusively than nowadays in the West). Dan's liberal, leftist, postmodern, culturally relativist and politically-correct mind would never, ever allow him to side the child this far. Since the psychohistory links are in my blog it's unnecessary to link'em again here, including those about infanticide and child sacrifice. But it's good that you reposted your comments here since there were some interesting threads in Dan's now vanished forum that merit a permanent, online record.

Maybe your experience with Miller moved you to defend Daniel in his forum after Mimsy posted the above entry? Isn't it curious that Dan didn't dare to defend himself? I still think that Mimsy had a point since, as I said in my blog, the very first time that I hit a Daniel writing in the internet (his Amazon reviews of Miller's books) I felt something was wrong with the guy. I still remember the feeling and this was before I had my first email exchange with Daniel.

I for one would never attack Miller as viciously as Dan did (e.g., what he says about her son and daughter presumably happened before Miller wrote her mature books). Could it not be that Mimsy saw something real in Daniel's mind? In that now vanished thread you stated that criticism should start with one's own parents. Well, Miller has done this. Dan hasn't. Further, I still maintain that errors of the worldview are far worse than character flaws. And Dan's worldview errors as pointed in my above threads are serious.

By the way, the last days I have exchanged a few emails with Miller. Although the content is private, I must say that it's unrelated to this board.
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

Cesar wrote:That woman may have been in darkness after reading all those books, yes.
What do you mean? That she had the lights out when she read Miller's books? This is not an isolated case. Books are generally read by intellectual people and there's a split between thinking and feeling. The more intellectual a person is, the more defenses he or she has built against feeling.

Daniel has zero influence in the world of psychology, unlike Alice Miller. So to pretend that Miller is somehow a victim of a "vicious attack" by Daniel is a bit strong. Whatever Daniel wrote about Miller, he wrote it based on public sources. When Miller mistreated me publicly and denied me any further explanation, it says something about her character. Why is it so difficult for people to point out in people what is bad and what is good. Why would the "good" outweigh the bad? Keep in mind that abused children want and need a good parent. They need it for a healthy emotional and physical development. When there's abuse, an abused child will start to build illusions to keep the good parent on his or her side.

By the way, the former quotes of mine from Daniel's forum were long before Mimsy came, and I never defended Daniel, I defended the right to criticize any bad behavior when you encounter it. Mimsy seemed someone who had great difficulty expressing critic towards people. "Thou shall only emphasize the good things in people" comes to mind as a phrase from the poisonous pedagogy. One can wonder of course why Daniel wrote such a critic about Miller and not his own mother. I did tell a lot about my background, parents and family at the forums and even a single account of a traumatic experience I had as a child was banned by Miller. How's that for a child advocate?And to mention a recent example, why would Miller remove every reply of Barbara Rogers in her letter section. Not only is that Orwellian, but she denied the empathic, passionate and intelligent responses these people received from Barbara. There's no valid justification for it.

I find it strange that Daniel doesn't mention his book Alice Miller : discoveries and contradictions on his website, a book that I published. It's not for sale anymore, but it's still an officially registered book. I also find it strange that Daniel never mentioned anything on his website about this site or forum.

Psychohistory has many valid factors but it doesn't explain everything. How does one measure child abuse? Why was World War II in the middle of Europe and not in Africa if child abuse is worse in Third World countries? Why is it that many times I meet Africans, they are less rigid, more alive, more emotional than Western people? If they are abused more, shouldn't they be more rigid, less alive and less emotional? Or is it because it's just another form of abuse that goes around there. I don't think child abuse is worse or better, it's different, and either way, it's destructive for a child.

Again, it's always difficult to discuss forms of healing at a forum because it's such an individual undertaking. I'm more interested in preventing cruelty. It's like there are people who chop off the legs of people and there are other people trying to teach them how to live a good and happy life without legs, instead of confronting the perpetrators so we can prevent it from happening in the first place.

I've read your articles on psychiatry and I don't think we disagree with each other about that.

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Cesar Tort »

Yes: it's curious that Daniel doesn't mention a book he co-authored, or even your site. I link to his site (critically) from my blog. But why doesn't he link to a friend's site, like yours?

>How does one measure child abuse?

Obviously child sacrifice and child cannibalism in my own town of prehispanic Mexico was more abusive than what my countrymen do today.

>Why was World War II in the middle of Europe and not in Africa if child abuse is worse in Third World countries?

I think that Miller explained eliminationist anti-Semitism in For your Own Good. And the psycho-historical statistics I posted in other thread of this forum (just follow my post after the word "Nop!") show that tribes are even more murderous than Europeans during WWII.

>Why is it that many times I meet Africans, they are less rigid, more alive, more emotional than Western people? If they are abused more, shouldn't they be more rigid, less alive and less emotional? Or is it because it's just another form of abuse that goes around there.

Character is not the measure but childrearing. In Egypt alone (and childrearing is worse in sub-Saharan Africa) most girls have suffered genital mutilation. African childrearing explains why present-day Africa is in a wretched state.

>I don't think child abuse is worse or better, it's different...

This is cultural relativism. It has also been addressed in the above-linked thread in this very post; for instance, search for the phrase "The savage savage isn't a myth."

Why aren't other viewers of this thread commenting? Hello? Is any old member of the "Order" watching? (If you ever watch it Mismy, sorry for what I wrote about you way above, in the first page of this thread...).
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

Of course child murder is the highest degree of child abuse. But how does one interpret child murder. In the western world, abortion is prevalent, which is a form of child murder. A country like Sweden, the statistics are like this:

"On the overall, of the women who had been pregnant, nearly one woman out of two, under the age of 25 has undergone a legal abortion. Of those between the ages of 25 and 49 nearly one woman out of three had had such an experience. 99 per cent of the abortions had been performed in Sweden. The number of second abortions was highest among the age group of 35 – 49." (source)

Then how do you measure child abuse on a population? One murdered child equals 10 tortured children? Isn't it better to just condemn any type of cruelty to a child, born or unborn, instead of pointing to countries where it's worse. And we need many people all over the world who have to point this out, everyone to his or her best abilities.

I'm not minimizing the amount of child abuse in Africa. Female Genital Mutilation is horrible. But how do you, for example explain this within psychohistory:

"The US government has released data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) on the circumcision status of males born from 1999 to 2002. The aggregate (or overall) rate is 79% with a rate of 41% for Mexican Americans, 78% for non-Hispanic blacks, and 89% for non-Hispanic whites. I suspect by the time this age cohort reaches adulthood the overall rate will be about 85%." (source)

Child murder also happened a lot during the Middle Ages in Europe. Miller has also written about that. I also wonder if kids growing up in the beginning of the 20th century in Germany were worse off than a 100 years before that?

This forum doesn't attract a lot of visitors. I think it's because they don't want to be pulled in long discussions about matters that are in no direct relation to their own lives, or day-to-day life.

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Post by Cesar Tort »

Yes, sure: Western abortion is wrong. There's no question about it. The point made by Lloyd deMause is that female genital mutilation in Muslim and some African countries would be equivalent to, say, the cutting of the glans in male babies. Yes: murder and castration of boys did happen in the West, it was common. But not now. And this can only mean that those countries in which female genital mutilation is practiced belong to an inferior psycho-class (i.e., they treat worse their children) than us.

The same with Western abortion vis a vis infanticide and child sacrifice. While it is true that abortion is wrong, it's a far cry from what Indian children used to endure in my native town before the Spanish conquest. Mexican Indians not only sacrificed some of their children, but often ate them. The real issue is how did such practices impacted the mental health of the surviving siblings. Now you can get the point that Wirsen was trying to make in other thread of this forum: "Put in this perspective, the emotional abuses and the stressful life situation that Martin Maag, the narrator of Dennis' novel, was put through was just as destructive as it was, but less destructive and less producing of the kind of howling-at-the-moon stressful psychosis and magical thinking that the childrearing of the European Middle Ages produced," and Mexican Indians were even much more psychologically dissociated than those 16 century Europeans.

Despite its flaws, the graphic I posted in other thread of this forum gives the picture of what Wirsen and I are trying to say.
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

We're not opponents when it comes to psychohistory, Cesar, we're on the same side of the table. But I do wonder sometimes. Today for example, a Swedish newspaper reported that in Europe, Sweden has the highest percentage of reported rape. And one of the lowest percentages of solved rape cases. That doesn't make any sense and I really wonder why it's like that.

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Post by Cesar Tort »

Curious if that rape comes mostly from immigrants or from native Swedes... Are you familiar with Bruce Bawer's articles about the current clash of psycho-classes in Nordic countries? This is just one of them.
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

I don't know if there are more Swedish natives or immigrants responsible for the high percentage of rape but what I do know is that there are more immigrants living in England, which has half as much reported rapes as Sweden. Also it doesn't make much sense that the percentage of solved rape cases is very low in Sweden, because the majority of the police consist of native Swedes.

I've never read anything by Bruce Bawer, but I stopped reading the linked article after this:
Such views, taught in Sweden's classrooms and enshrined in Sweden's state-approved schoolbooks, are reiterated daily by Sweden's mainstream press organizations, all of which are either government-owned or government-subsidized.
This is incorrect. Most press organizations are in the hands of a couple of wealthy families, such as the Bonnier Family (and they aren't subsidized either).

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Post by Cesar Tort »

Right. Bawer lives in Norway, not Sweden. But what about what some Swedes wrote about the article?
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

Yes, this one sums it up pretty good.

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Cesar Tort »

Actually the high crime rates in Malmö are mostly due to Muslims. Opposing immigration, id est, opposing those who treat women and children worse than us, doesn't turn you into a "racist", Anders Gardebring's epithet. This is the most abused word in today's Western Europe. On the contrary: those Swedes responsible of the social engineering of bringing millions of members of an inferior psychoclass who mistreat their women and children horribly, reproduce like rabbits and sometimes wear T-shirts claiming they will rule Sweden in thirty years from now (i.e., Sharia law) are committing a crime worse than that of the Nazis and the Communists.

I explain this in my blog but for the moment I rather stick to the Bawer piece. In a controversy such as the dozens of letters to the editor to Bawer's article the only reasonable way to be part of the "Jury" is to listen to both sides without leaving the court room. In fact, a member of the Juror isn't allowed to leave the court room if s/he has already made up his/her mind and doesn't like what the prosecutor/attorney is saying (Wirsen stopped communication with me when I called his attention to this very controversy). As a complying member, I read the replies last year, both pro and con. IIRC some Swedes responded to Gardebring.
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Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Dennis »

those Swedes responsible of the social engineering of bringing millions of members of an inferior psychoclass who mistreat their women and children horribly, reproduce like rabbits and sometimes wear T-shirts claiming they will rule Sweden in thirty years from now (i.e., Sharia law) are committing a crime worse than that of the Nazis and the Communists.
No kidding Andreas Wirsén didn't communicate with you anymore. Are you serious with this? One can disagree with other people, but this is pure propaganda, lies and hatred projecting on minority groups. First there are are 1 million immigrants (from all over the world) living in Sweden, which has a total population of 9 million. The Mormons and Catholics, to name two Christian groups, are having just as many if not more children than some Muslim families. Second, anyone living here obeys to the same laws. So if a muslim child gets hit, it's being reported and dealt with in the same way as a native Swedish child would.

This comment also recognizes the lies this Bawer comes with.

You may want to look at this again and let me know where you stand:

Image

Dennis
Everything I write here is my opinion, not absolute truths but I don't want to start every sentence with[i] in my opinion[/i]...
Cesar Tort

Re: Failed "Phoenix Order"…

Post by Cesar Tort »

Of course I am serious with this: many Muslims treat women and children worse that us. That it not "pure propaganda, lies and hatred projecting on minority groups". Indeed, not addressing arguments (crime rates, etc.) but using instead this sort of language is like stepping outside the court-room every time the "prosecutor" (Bawer et al, including me) dare to speak out. I had already read that reply (by the "attorney") you posted. It adds nothing new to what I knew. The real issue, Dennis, is if psychoclasses exist, and if due to their religion and childrearing methods many Muslims do indeed belong to an inferior psychoclass.

By the way, this is a good example why I say that character flaws are infinitely less serious than moral flaws in our worldview. For instance, during the US invasion on Irak Alice Miller wrote about Sadam Hussein, not about the US hawks.

But this is just a side note: the real issue here is radical Islam and the Islamization of the West, a dispute which reminds me precisely the main thrust of Bawer's article: that Sweden is becoming "soft totalitarian", an accusation endorsed by some Swedes in the reply section.

The article is must read, along with *all* the replies, despite the mistakes pointed by the readers.
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