William Sargant

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"Politicians, Priests, and psychiatrists often face the same problem: how to find the most rapid and permanent means of changing a man’s belief…The problem of the doctor and his nervously ill patient, and that of the religious leader who sets out to gain and hold new converts, has now become the problem of whole groups of nations, who wish not only to confirm certain political beliefs within their boundaries, but to proselytize the outside world.”

— William Sargant (1907-1988), “Battle of the Mind”

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“What is new is not always true, and what is true is not always new.”

— William Sargant (1907-1988)

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“...Jesus Christ might simply have returned to his carpentry following the use of modern psychiatric treatments.”

— William Sargant (1907-1988)

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“In brainwashing and the eliciting of confessions, the physiological importance of inducing a sense of guilt and conflict can hardly be over emphasized.”

— William Sargant (1907-1988)

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"Though men are not dogs, they should humbly try to remember how much they resemble dogs in their brain functions, and not boast themselves as demigods. They are gifted with religious and social apprehensions, and they are gifted with the power of reason; but all these faculties are physiologically entailed to the brain. Therefore the brain should not be abused by having forced upon it any religious or political mystique that stunts the reason, or any form of crude rationalism that stunts the religious sense."

— William Sargant (1907-1988)