These are truly horrendous reports about the health quackery of the SES -- it sounds very similar to the scientologists methods of "curing" people 'without drugs' and involving isolation or being forced to stay in the cold or alternatively their "sweating out" of drugs under the spurious Narconon program.
I suspect that this stems from somewhere in their dim past with the influence of Gurdjieff and the reputed Tibetan practice of being left sitting in the snow with a wet cloak over the bare body and having to dry it by intense meditation .
The documentary I referred to a few posts back about the child abuse in the Hare krishna schools was entitled "Faith and Fear; Children of Krishna" from KCTS television out of Seattle -- see
www.kcts.org/productions/krishna if interested -- the story preceded the $400 million dollar lawsuit brought by the child victims of the same sort of Hindu inspired mental,physical and sexual abuse.
I hope that the harrowing personal testimonies being revealed here are being passed on to the StJames inquiry (even if not actually carried out in the school itself they certainly back up the evidence of warped SES beliefs being translated into actual mistreatment )
The scientologists base their ideas about health on the crazy invented history of space aliens some 75 000 000 years ago led by "Xenu" and the delusion that somehow the 'lost souls' of these vanquished warriors are 'possessing' people and they need to be driven out by scientology 'auditting' and occassionaly something that sounds a lot like (Christian) exorcism and similar damaging diet/purging etc practices .
It has been said that there are no links between scientology and the SES (despite the obvious similarities in their approach to illness treatment ) and I did not question this until I thought back to the actual Hindu mythology which quite clearly refers to mega battles between spaceships (Vimanas)and a sort of apocalyptic atomic war that leaves a few survivors with ancestral memories of the earlier times .
The 'downhill' philosophy of history is common to the "Garden of Eden' fall from grace , the lost "golden age" of Pericles and Greece and many other "Atlantis" type legends -- the outcome is a belief system that repudiates the modern ways in favour of the 'pure' or 'uncorrupted' ways of the honoured forefathers . That is what justifies their turning to folk medicine and the 'power of the mind' etc . -- the interest in Sanskrit and the vedic texts stems directly from this .
I bought an interesting second hand book at the Erasmus school fete last week "In search of heaven on earth' by Rachel Storm (Bloomsbury pub) which has the back cover blurb " puts today's New Age into it's historical perspective. Hundreds of fascinating facts about cults and cult leaders .etc"
On pages 25 to 29 it goes into the background of the SES and the influences of Gurdjieff /Ouspensky on Mc Claren ..
quote " The gurus who had influenced McClaren's change of heart were none other than the two philosopher mystics Gurdjieff and Ouspensky . Following a car crash....... Gurdjieff turned instead to writing . The resulting book ," All and everything; Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" , deserves recognition as one of the most obscure books to have been penned . "It was the year 223 after the creation of the World....Through the Universe flew the ship Karnak of the 'trans- space communication'. he wrote . The bizarre science fiction world Gurdjieff created finds a later echo in the work of the American L.Ron.Hubbard , founder of the Church of Scientology. As part of his science of mental health. Hubbard describes how Xemu, an evil tyrant who lived seventy five million years ago, froze people in alcohol and glycol and dropped nuclear bombs on them." end quote.
Another anti scientology website urges the technique of printing up the ridiculous "Xenu" story (the spelling varies) and handing them out in front of scientology 'churches' and where the scientologists are trying to rope in new recruits to thereby confront the ,initially intriguing, scientologist spruikers with the facts of their stupid teachings and to deflate the 'mysterious' great revelation that they say their study of scientology will lead to.
Maybe the SES needs this too. At least a modern "Secret Cult" book (?)
Again from "In search.." , ... Leon Mc Claren in 1947 took over the reins of the SES ...attended the Society for the study of normal psychology.. who believed they hit upon the source of Gurdjieff's teaching... in the Shankaracharya.. who Mc Claren visited ... Vedanta school.... world is an illusion ".... etc . " In addition to the Vedantic and Gurdjieffian input, the school of economic science has taken on board the vision of utopia portrayed in Plato's ' The Republic ' There, society is based on a highly disciplined class system -comparable to the Hindu caste system ... ruled by the Philosopher Rulers .. these 'saviours of society' 'will have to employ a great deal of fiction and deceit for the benefit of their subjects' because "philosophy is not possible among the common people" (Pg 29 )
Hmmmm.
To the great unwashed this seems like standard cult or secret society stuff not unlike say Freemasonry or many Christian fringe sects , or certain Buddhist etc teachings -- study of philosophy it ain't.
So, to the inferred question behind 'The SES ? - don't know what to think'
the 'answer' could be as simple as "for yourself" -- if any organization attempts to stifle your critical reason or acts to conceal it's motives then you can be fairly sure it is not benign -- an informed examination of the SES from an unbiased viewpoint does not commend them -- from the point of view of someone sucked in or abused as a relatively defenceless child it is just a horrible exploitative and mentally damaging thing - that somehow impinges on your life and tries to coerce young vulnerable minds, cloaking itself in the authority of adults and the trappings of respectability, confusing and discouraging of any resistance or questioning....... I could see the subtle signs of this at the erasmus school -- "very well behaved" and 'self disciplined" students could also be confused,suppressed,and cowered with no one to talk to outside of the cult and fearing to voice their thoughts .
I have heard stories from friends about the Montessori and Steiner schools that indicate a failure of the goverment authorities to adequately monitor what is going on in these schools as well -- it is a difficult call to not deny some choice in schooling or religions but I cannot help concluding that a secular society would be better all round -- it seems that the SES and scientology are neither religions nor scientific or philosophical bodies but outgrowths of bizarre science fiction ideas grafted to deliberately mystical Eastern superstition.
What to think indeed.
Ross.