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Hidden Communion: An Exploration Of Non-Verbal Communication Between The Unconscious Minds Of Therapist And Patient
118 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1964
About the author
Joost A.M. Meerloo
18 books68 followersJoost Abraham Maurits Meerloo (March 14, 1903 – November 17, 1976) was a Dutch Doctor of Medicine and psychoanalyst.
Born as Abraham Maurits 'Bram' Meerloo in The Hague, Netherlands, he came to United States in 1946, was naturalized in 1950, and resumed Dutch citizenship in 1972. Dr. Meerloo was a practicing psychiatrist for over forty years. He did staff psychiatric work in Holland and worked as a general practitioner until 1942 under Nazi occupation, when he assumed the name Joost to fool the occupying forces and in 1942 fled to England (after barely eluding death at the hands of the Germans). He was chief of the Psychological Department of the Dutch Army-in-Exile in England.
After the war he served as High Commissioner for Welfare in Holland, and was an advisor to UNRRA and SHAEF. An American citizen since 1950, Dr. Meerloo was a member of the faculty at Columbia University and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York School of Psychiatry. He was the author of many books, including Rape of the Mind, the classic work on brainwashing, Conversation and Communication, and Hidden Communion.
He was the son of Bernard and Anna Frederika (Benjamins) Meerloo. He married Elisabeth Johanna Kalf(f), Den Haag, May 16, 1928, divorce Februari 19, 1946. He married Louisa Betty 'Loekie' Duits (a physical therapist), New York, May 7, 1948.
Education: University of Leiden, M.D., 1927; University of Utrecht, Ph.D., 1932.
Meerloo specialized in the area of thought control techniques used by totalitarian regimes.
Born as Abraham Maurits 'Bram' Meerloo in The Hague, Netherlands, he came to United States in 1946, was naturalized in 1950, and resumed Dutch citizenship in 1972. Dr. Meerloo was a practicing psychiatrist for over forty years. He did staff psychiatric work in Holland and worked as a general practitioner until 1942 under Nazi occupation, when he assumed the name Joost to fool the occupying forces and in 1942 fled to England (after barely eluding death at the hands of the Germans). He was chief of the Psychological Department of the Dutch Army-in-Exile in England.
After the war he served as High Commissioner for Welfare in Holland, and was an advisor to UNRRA and SHAEF. An American citizen since 1950, Dr. Meerloo was a member of the faculty at Columbia University and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York School of Psychiatry. He was the author of many books, including Rape of the Mind, the classic work on brainwashing, Conversation and Communication, and Hidden Communion.
He was the son of Bernard and Anna Frederika (Benjamins) Meerloo. He married Elisabeth Johanna Kalf(f), Den Haag, May 16, 1928, divorce Februari 19, 1946. He married Louisa Betty 'Loekie' Duits (a physical therapist), New York, May 7, 1948.
Education: University of Leiden, M.D., 1927; University of Utrecht, Ph.D., 1932.
Meerloo specialized in the area of thought control techniques used by totalitarian regimes.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 17, 2017
Published in 1964, this short book of less than 200 pages manages to capture parapsychology in a decisive moment. One can see in this book the pseudoscientific basis of much of New Age thought and the foundation of so much contemporary writing about treatment for anxiety and related issues [1]. This is not to say that the book is a very good one, as it is not, nor that its insistent claims about being scientific or much less true are accurate, because they are not, but they are evidence of the legitimacy that parapsychology seeks. The author seeks to conflate anything involving human intuition or actions involving the spiritual world into a biological theory of telepathy, which the author continually claims has been supported by scientific investigation. This is the sort of book that would be most convincing to those who already agree with the author and his perspective, namely that our ideas of having a cohesive identity are imaginary and that we are all a crowd of different personae with masks, continually being influenced by the outside world and hence not even original or creative or "ourselves" at all. And the author somehow thinks this is a good thing, for some reason.
The book is a bit of a bait and switch, and the author is very slow to reveal what it is that he is actually writing about and promoting. Fortunately, the book is short enough that the author has to get to his point about the telepathy that occurs in therapy and his misguided beliefs about identity. This book would be a good deal longer if the author laid out his case honestly, but it would require him to seek to prove his statements rather than assume them to be true, and he does not have the evidence to back up his continual bogus truth-claims. Even so, we see that the author wants to place his own worldview as being in between misguided and outdated traditional beliefs and a naive credulity in anything. In other words, he wants to be seen as objective. Yet this objectivity is undercut by his hostility to biblical morality and the biblical worldview, his friendliness to heathen views of ecstasy through the use of drugs and alcohol and sexual immorality, his fondness for Eastern religion, and his own discussion of his experiences in World War II in occupied Holland. This is not even to begin on discussing the imaginary nature of the author's wholesale adoption of Freudian psychology with all of its ridiculous and bogus claims. In short, the author's perspective is a mess, and he engages in a substantial amount of intellectual dishonesty in order to present himself as a credible scholar.
If this book is of little value from the point of view of worthwhile scientific evidence, what value does it have? Its value is in showing the ambitions of those who promote pseudoscentific ideas like telepathy or Freudian or Jungian psychology to scientific validity, as if the demonstration that there was such a thing as a nonphysical connection people would prove the specific contentions of the author. The author's writing shows parapsychology at a decisive moment when it would become part of the foundation of contemporary New Age philosophy, and how much of psychiatry would happily ally itself with any religious thinking that would allow it to promote Eastern religion and personal immorality among the wider population. Even more of interest, the author's writing demonstrates that a major aspect of sensitivity comes from having experienced trauma as well as broken relationships, and that this sensitivity is the same sort of sensitivity that results from intoxication of one kind or another, suggesting a common spiritual link between abuse and intoxication that allows for one to be sensitive to the promptings of God or the influence of demonic spirits. And so the hearts and minds of troubled and tormented souls become the battleground between good and evil.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
The book is a bit of a bait and switch, and the author is very slow to reveal what it is that he is actually writing about and promoting. Fortunately, the book is short enough that the author has to get to his point about the telepathy that occurs in therapy and his misguided beliefs about identity. This book would be a good deal longer if the author laid out his case honestly, but it would require him to seek to prove his statements rather than assume them to be true, and he does not have the evidence to back up his continual bogus truth-claims. Even so, we see that the author wants to place his own worldview as being in between misguided and outdated traditional beliefs and a naive credulity in anything. In other words, he wants to be seen as objective. Yet this objectivity is undercut by his hostility to biblical morality and the biblical worldview, his friendliness to heathen views of ecstasy through the use of drugs and alcohol and sexual immorality, his fondness for Eastern religion, and his own discussion of his experiences in World War II in occupied Holland. This is not even to begin on discussing the imaginary nature of the author's wholesale adoption of Freudian psychology with all of its ridiculous and bogus claims. In short, the author's perspective is a mess, and he engages in a substantial amount of intellectual dishonesty in order to present himself as a credible scholar.
If this book is of little value from the point of view of worthwhile scientific evidence, what value does it have? Its value is in showing the ambitions of those who promote pseudoscentific ideas like telepathy or Freudian or Jungian psychology to scientific validity, as if the demonstration that there was such a thing as a nonphysical connection people would prove the specific contentions of the author. The author's writing shows parapsychology at a decisive moment when it would become part of the foundation of contemporary New Age philosophy, and how much of psychiatry would happily ally itself with any religious thinking that would allow it to promote Eastern religion and personal immorality among the wider population. Even more of interest, the author's writing demonstrates that a major aspect of sensitivity comes from having experienced trauma as well as broken relationships, and that this sensitivity is the same sort of sensitivity that results from intoxication of one kind or another, suggesting a common spiritual link between abuse and intoxication that allows for one to be sensitive to the promptings of God or the influence of demonic spirits. And so the hearts and minds of troubled and tormented souls become the battleground between good and evil.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
Displaying 1 of 1 review