Comments for THE PROCESS IS...

Comment on Comfortable Delusions: An Interview with Ray Comfort by frustratedfairy

frustratedfairy — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:06:52 +0000

wow, just…wow

Comment on Dr. Colin A. Ross: Psychiatry, the Supernatural, and Malpractice Most Foul by jeanettebartha

jeanettebartha — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:22:14 +0000

I find Colin Ross’ rebuttal to Doug Mesner to be little more than an advertisement for his theories and products. Did he not offer that one can find them at Amazon? Did he not print his website address? And how about his future “research”? What place does that information have in a rebuttal?

I sued my former psychiatrist (and hospital) and won a settlement 2 days before trial. I have an abbreviated gag order – I cannot name names, but I can tell my story. Said psychiatrist practiced in Philadelphia and is a colleague of Ross’, Braun, Kluft, the late Cornelia Wilber (one of Sybils MD’s) et all. The big guys that met in Chicago and invented this preposterous dx of MPD.

Like Roma Hart, I believe I was coerced to suicide, but it didn’t work. Came close though. Being a guinea pig for these “doctors” is what we were. I know of at least 4 people who died in Philadelphia in the late 1980s during treatment that seemed somewhat or directly related to repressed memory therapy. How many patients have to die before medical licenses are yanked? And, why is it OK for a psychiatrist to flee his country and set up shop in another only to do the same thing?

I fled Philadelphia and fortunately relocated in Colorado where people think more rationally, maybe it’s the altitude, maybe it’s because the cowboys and cowgirls out here can clearly smell shit when it’s flying.

Back in 1992, I read Robert Jay Lifton’s work about thought reform and the psychology of totalism – he published in the 50s if I am correct. Reading his work was like reading my medical chart from Philadelphia. The coercion, mind control, thought reform he discusses is identical to what we were seduced into during repressed memory therapy. Identical. I find it impossible that the Chicago group knew nothing about Lifton’s work. Not possible.

I agree, these doctors, and I use this term loosely, belong in prison. What they did to patients is against the Geneva Conventions. If they did not have a medical license, and did these crimes at Gitmo, they would be in prison enjoying 3 hots and a cot.

Keep up the dialogue, the more they say, the deeper the hole. Thank you Doug for making this forum possible.

Jeanette Bartha
Colorado, USA

Comment on Dr. Colin A. Ross: Psychiatry, the Supernatural, and Malpractice Most Foul by Booboola from Winnipeg

Booboola from Winnipeg — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:00:52 +0000

Message from Roma Hart to Colin Ross:

Dr.Colin Ross seems to think that unless he published something it didn’t exist.
none of the lectures or interviews he gave before 1995 about CIA conspiracies existed,
none of the lectures or interviews he gave before 1995 about Satanic Rituals existed,
and everything that his tortured patients report about him telling them that they were victims of Satanic Cults and CIA mind control experiments never existed.
The great and wonderful Dr.Colin Ross never published it therefore it never existed?
What the hell kind of illogical argument is that?
Just how stupid do you think we all are Colin Ross?

Furthermore, stop dragging Dr.Bodkin’s name into your defence. Dr.Bodkin provided an affidavit supporting my lawsuit against you not for you, idiot. You were given a copy of that affidavit, didn’t you read it? Does he have to publish it before you accept that it exists?

You made a big mistake not killing me when you had the chance Ross, although I give you credit for doing your best.
And you think you won when my lawsuit against you was dismissed due to delay because of a stupid lawyer.
But you forgot something very important: I have no gag order.
No court settlement means no gag order.
And I have crates and crates of documents that prove what a raving lunatic you are.
So if Doug Mesner publishes them will they exist?

Comment on Dr. Colin A. Ross: Psychiatry, the Supernatural, and Malpractice Most Foul by doug

doug — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:31:57 +0000

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:54:28 -0600 [07:54:28 PM PST]
From: George Bergen < **********>
To: doug mesner
Subject: Re: Colin Ross

Dear Mr. Mesner,
I would like you to post this letter on the website wherein Colin Ross
makes false allegations about me and my family. From Ross’s own
testimony in the Minnesota Humana case, he (Ross) testifies
that he (Ross) was employed by the University of Manitoba after
completing his medical residency at the U of M and the St. Boniface
Hospital, and that he (Ross) led a small team of clinicians at the U of
M that started in 1985 as well as an assignment with the St. Boniface
Hospital. Phyllis Peters, my sister-in-law committed suicide on July
20th, 1986. Dr. Dennis Dyck and a graduate student were also part
of this small clinic at the U of M, headed by Ross. Both Ross and Dyck
terminated their employment at the U of M very shortly after July 20th,
1986. They both fled to the United States under a cover up disclosure
by the University of Manitoba and the St Boniface Hospital.
My Court case was NOT dismissed by the Courts in Manitoba as Ross
alleges. My family withdrew charges against Ross and the St Boniface
Hospital after the Baptist Church Minister, Robert Carroll, had taken the
side of my wife’s therapist (one of Ross;s advocates), and convinced
my wife that if she did not withdraw from the case , that she would
wind up in a mental Institution. So, my family’s Court case never did
reach the Court room in the Province of Manitoba. Also, my wife and
myself were never divorced as Ross alleges. And further, my wife,
Bonnie, has never as much as touched a drop of alcohol ever. So where does
Ross get the idea that my wife was an alcoholic? Depending how well
you document the evidence in your book, I fully intend to launch a
law suite or press for a public inquiry into the operations of the St.
Boniface Hospital and University of Manitoba in their handling of
the Colin Ross debacle in the Province of Manitoba. If there is a small
consolation to this story, it is that Bob Carroll, Tammy Schultz, my wife’s
therapist an d Colin Ross have all fled the Province of Manitoba. Colin
Ross is a psychopath and a criminal who should be locked up in prison
for life.
Thank you in advance for posting this letter/
Regards,
George Burden in Winnipeg Manitoba, Canada

Comment on Dr. Colin A. Ross: Psychiatry, the Supernatural, and Malpractice Most Foul by doug

doug — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:58:22 +0000

Hello Dr. Ross – Thank you for joining us. Certainly I am sensitive to the idea of promoting false or unfounded allegations. For this reason I am very thorough in matters such as this. If the allegation is, as you say, “that the Government of Manitoba, the University of Manitoba, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba and St. Boniface Hospital conspired to cover up malpractice by me and my being fired,” then the counter-allegation must be that several individuals independently and (in the cases of Hart and Tyo) geographically unrelated, confabulated a very bizarre, unlikely, and specific narrative regarding your therapeutic practice. Further, Ms. Tyo won a rather large settlement. While Ms. Hart’s case ran over the Statute of Limitations, the Law Society of Manitoba found her case “winnable” thus agreeing to pay her legal charges in compensation of Allan Baker’s incompetence. These facts remain unchanged though you still hold medical license.
I make no mystery that I feel the events we now refer to as the Satanic Panic were the workings of delusional paranoiacs and heart-less opportunists. To me, it matters little that your first publication regarding Satanic Ritual Abuse comes before or after a certain point. The fact is, your work on SRA comes highly recommended by those who still wish to keep the righteous witch-hunts of the eighties (to mid-nineties) alive. For this reason I would ask you not to be elusive: Do you find merit in the claim that there is an organized, underground society or agency systematically engaging in Ritual Abuse for the purpose of mind-control? Such a belief, in my view, is delusional. For a man in your position (most-cited among panic-mongers), I feel that not explicitly distancing yourself from those beliefs, if you don’t in fact hold them, is grossly irresponsible. As you know, claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse are nearly universally disregarded as an artifact of a hysteria by nearly all professions but for those in a certain sub-set of the psychotherapeutic world. Within this world, your work is felt to be vital in understanding the vile machinations of a global satanic mind-control plot. If you came to disregard claims of Satanic cult activity in the course of your work, you’d possibly do much good for those still afflicted with such delusions to explain how you reached your conclusions.
You say, “My high-dose benzodiazepine protocol was approved by the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee at St. Boniface Hospital before it was ever used. I can also supply you a list of references on ultra-high dose psychopharmacology which was widely used in the 1980s – including doses of chlorpromazine up to 24,000 mg per day.” I believe you could. Certainly, I don’t mean to imply that any errors in your treatment occurred in vacuum, that nobody could have been complicit, or that similar mistakes didn’t, even for a time, rule the day. My own feeling is that the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, as listed in the DSM, is just such a mistake in need of correcting. Certainly, I do not need to direct you to papers that tell the unfortunate story of Bennett Braun (a Google search will do) – who I hear you acted as an expert witness in defense of – a dissociative disorders expert who lost his license following malpractice claims remarkably similar to those brought against you by Hurt, Tyo, and Hart. Similar claims were brought against Hammond and many others – all thoroughly documented on the FMSF website.
Are you saying that you never treated Phyllis Peters, George Bergen’s sister-in-law who committed suicide, apparently deluded into believing her family were members of a satanic cult?
You ask, “If you were told that the James Randi Foundation was conspiring with the US Government and several other bodies to cover up the reality of the paranormal, and if this allegation was made by someone whose lawsuit against James Randi had been dismissed by the courts, would you accept affidavits from psychics as ‘evidence’?” I don’t find this to be analogous. The story told by Hurt, Tyo, Hart, and Bergen, is less one of massive conspiracy, more of massive bureaucracy. Again, the counter-allegation resulting from the idea that these people have fabricated their claims against you seems far more improbable. There are an awful lot of people willing to sign sworn affidavits yet again to meet you in court and defend the claims they’ve made in court before, and here on Process.org, and I have to wonder why? I have to wonder, where did their ideas of Satanic Ritual Abuse come from if not the contamination of a therapist “recovering” their “memories”? Could they have confabulated such things independently? Could they have manufactured these stories following treatment? Would you tell me that these subjects here did not recover such memories in your care? Or would you perhaps assert that they were indeed Ritually abused by Satanic cults?
I have spoken with both Dr.’s Freyd and Loftus in the course of my false memory research, and though I haven’t spoken to them specifically about this, I feel their names are brought up inappropriately in your defense. I read Dr. Loftus’s afterward to your book on Satanic Ritual Abuse, and I feel it is worth noting that she saw fit to call into question your attempted display of neutrality on the topic in the afterward itself.
Regarding Randi, I believe he specifically told me that you had not gotten back to him, but I have emailed him for confirmation. It is my hope your claim may soon be tested.
I appreciate your rebuttal, but I find it unsatisfactory as a denial of the claims against you. It reads much more like a lawyer’s oration which seeks only to cast “reasonable doubt”. I hope you’ll see fit to answer the questions I’ve posed here in response.
Thank you –
doug

Comment on Dr. Colin A. Ross: Psychiatry, the Supernatural, and Malpractice Most Foul by colin ross

colin ross — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:23:40 +0000

Doug – I would like to encourage you to investigate these allegations against me with the same skepticism and rules of evidence that you would bring to bear on a claim of the supernatural or the paranormal, or a conspiracy theory. The allegation is that the Government of Manitoba, the University of Manitoba, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba and St. Boniface Hospital conspired to cover up malpractice by me and my being fired. There are numerous inaccuracies in the allegations that are disproven by my published writings and the documents. The complaints against me were reviewed in great detail including the entire medical record and dismissed by the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners (twice) and the Manitoba courts. My 1989 text on Multiple Personality Disorder contains no mention of cults, Satanism or the CIA, nor do any published writings prior to my 1995 book Satanic Ritual Abuse, published by the University of Toronto Press. I have also published books with John Wiley & Sons and Haworth Press plus 140 peer-reviewed papers including a series of papers in the American Journal of Psychiatry. My book on CIA mind control experiments, republished as The C.I.A. Doctors in 2006 is based entirely on documents – nothing in it is undocumented and it is thoroughly referenced. These facts alone are inconsistent with the portrait of me being painted in your postings.
Concerning George Bergen, whose lawsuit was dismissed, I never met or treated him or any of his relatives. His relative who committed suicide did so in 1986 – I finished my residency in 1985 and had never heard of Satanic ritual abuse by 1986. She was treated at a University of Manitoba clinic ten miles away from the hospital where I worked and I never had any contact with that clinic. George Bergen’s wife did not begin treatment for alcoholism until 1993 according to his own documents – I left Canada in 1991. She divorced him subsequent to my leaving Canada according to his documents. It is not plausible that I had an extensive influence on the clinical practice of people I had never met within one year of finishing my residency, especially when I never published a word on cults by that time.
You should look up the paper by Alexander Bodkin in which he gave 80 mg of lorazepam per day to his patients – I can give you the reference if you can’t find it. My high-dose benzodiazepine protocol was approved by the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee at St. Boniface Hospital before it was ever used. I can also supply you a list of references on ultra-high dose psychopharmacology which was widely used in the 1980s – including doses of chlorpromazine up to 24,000 mg per day.
In 1995 I organized and conducted a workshop in Houston with Pamela Freyd (Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation) and Elizabeth Loftus wrote an Afterword to my Satanic Ritual Abuse book – I also organized talks by the two of us. The book contains a long set of explanations for SRA other than it being objectively real and the treatment approach is based on therapeutic neutrality – it and my CIA Doctors book can be purchased from amazon (I never heard of CIA mind control experiments until I moved to Texas in 1991). All my papers and books are listed on my web page.
This is just a sample of the facts not consistent with the allegations. I have published scholarly responses to Merskey and others in my 1997 text Dissociative Identity Disorder and most recently in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse.
If you were told that the James Randi Foundation was conspiring with the US Government and several other bodies to cover up the reality of the paranormal, and if this allegation was made by someone whose lawsuit against James Randi had been dismissed by the courts, would you accept affidavits from psychics as “evidence”? Would you require more than rumors to even entertain the possibility that the allegations might be partially accurate? I think so.
I am requesting that you apply the same standards of evidence and logic to your comments on me and the allegations against me.
Concerning my JREF Paranormal Challenge (www.randi.org) my revised protocol submitted a year ago is posted on my web page at http://www.rossinst.com. I am still waiting for a response to it. Researchers at the University of Surrey have published a series of papers in which they take an EKG using a high-impedance electrode that is three feet away from the person. In the future, I imagine, such wireless scanning of electromagnetic output from the brain, heart and body as a whole will be a standard procedure in medicine. My challenge is based on the same scientific principle, except that my high-impedance electrode, which makes no physical contact with the body, detects brainwaves emitted through the eye – since brainwaves are emitted through the skull, they obviously must also come out through the eye socket. The reason the JREF accepted my challenge as a claim of the paranormal is that extramission (emission of any form of energy through the eyes) is disallowed by western science and is therefore “paranormal” – the intellectual point of the challenge is to prove that this doctrine is scientifically mistaken. JREF rules state that once a challenge has been accepted, which mine has, a later explanation of a scientific mehanism by which the challenge works will not invalidate the challenge. However, if I published a series of papers in the scientific literature (which I intent to do in the future) and they were replicated and the reality of extramission was accepted scientifically, then extramission would no longer be “paranormal” and my challenge would not be accepted. Hence the sequence of challenge first, evidence later. My first data-based peer-reviewed paper on human ocular extramission is in press and the reference will be posted on my web page after it is published. Also, my US Patent Application for a system to detect extramission and use it to activate a switch (analogous to a clapper light) is posted on the US Patent office web page – the link is on my web site.
In other words, my JREF Paranormal Challenge is also a testable scientific hypothesis.
Thanks.
Colin Ross

Comment on Electric by drover2000

drover2000 — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:17:56 +0000

Please send me the step by step advice to increase the speed as I am a new owner of a “Giant Lite” and as you mention its a bit slow.

Comment on Dr. Colin A. Ross: Psychiatry, the Supernatural, and Malpractice Most Foul by Emma

Emma — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:44:19 +0000

The audio interview is terrific, doug. Excellent job.

Comment on Lies, Levitation, and Defamations Most Foul by John M. Knapp LMSW

John M. Knapp LMSW — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:13:40 +0000

Great telling of your courageous story, Doug. I’m off to Twitter and FaceBook right now….

Comment on Lies, Levitation, and Defamations Most Foul by Gina

Gina — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:00:55 +0000

Thanks, Doug!

Your excellent essay is now linked onto our blog site which discusses “controversial” views about the practice, teachings and methods of Transcendental Meditation’s Organization : http://tmfree.blogspot.com/

Keep up the good work!
g