WEBVTT - Autogenics 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to stuft to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.640 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.240 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:23.520 today we're going to be talking about autogenics, autogenic training, uh, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:29.040 the the origins of this uh approach at self hypnosis. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.080 And I have to admit that I had actually never 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.200 even heard of autogenics until I heard a very interesting 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.640 track and I think in some DJ mixes from about 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:43.360 a decade ago. But the track is called Group Autogenics 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.680 one by the American Dutch musical duo The Books. I've 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.280 never heard of autogenics either. When you first proposed the subject, 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:53.599 I was like, what is this? Is this where you 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:59.360 create your own geno? That doesn't sound right? Uh? So yeah, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.640 I was totally unfamiliar with this, uh kind of obscure. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.680 I guess relaxation technique developed in the twentieth century. And 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.080 and I will say I had never heard this song 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:12.480 that you were linking to, but but I looked it 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.880 up and it's a great song. Robert. Yeah, it's kind 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:16.600 of it's hard to describe. It's kind of a cut 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.560 up of clips from various self help and self hypnosis 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.000 tapes set to some very pleasing music. It's a wonderful track, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:25.959 and it's one that I find myself coming back to 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.000 again and again just because it has a very you know, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.319 pleasing atmosphere to it, and some of the little clips 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.080 in it I actually do kind of help me engage 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.120 in a certain amount of self relaxation. But it's really 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.000 hard to compare the books to other musical acts, or 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.760 at least for me anyway, I feel like there's not 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.760 a lot else out there that reminds me of the books. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.680 So this raised a big question though for me. When 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.200 I started listening to the song over and over again, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.279 I was like, Okay, it's it's clearly referring to something 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.240 what is autogenics UM? And I'm not sure how much 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.680 of the sampled material is actually rum autogenics rather than 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.960 other self help and self hypnosis tapes, but the book's 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.120 member Nick Zamuda implied that it was, you know, essential 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.480 to the intention of the track. In a two thousand 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.880 and ten WordPress post that he made about about the release, 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.080 he wrote, quote, Wikipedia does a pretty good job of 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.800 defining autogenics. Autogenic training restores the balance between the activity 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.520 of the sympathetic fight or flight and the parasympathetic rest 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.799 and digest branches of the autonomic nervous system. This is 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.280 a pretty good description of what music does as well, 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.480 so it seemed like a good pairing. And then he continues, Unfortunately, 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:40.880 a lot of the music that a company's guided meditation 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.880 productions is schlocky New Age. Don't get me wrong, I'm 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.440 not opposed to schlock It certainly has its place. But 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.000 my goal became to reframe this bizarre narrative with music 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.840 that could propel the track gently and still go on 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:57.560 unexpected tangents where necessary. You know, I'm not sure if 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:02.200 these recordings of of these guys meditations or or or 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:07.120 exercises are autogenics, because, at least in some of what 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.120 we were reading, the classic works on autogenics did not 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.480 come with recorded audio because you were not supposed to 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.720 listen to somebody else telling you what to do. You're 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.679 supposed to direct your own behavior, which is what provides 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.440 the auto part of the autogenics. Right, yeah, there there 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:26.560 is at least a pardon where here a woman saying 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.480 I'm calm, and that is that It is at least 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:34.240 a mantra that you here recited in autogenic training, which one. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.440 We'll come back to that later on. But okay, so, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.520 so what is this technique called autogenic training. Well, it 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.320 is an actual desensitization relaxation technique that has existed since 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.320 the early nineteen thirties. Autogenic. The word comes from the 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:54.200 Greek word autogenitos, meaning generated inside the body or self regulated. Yeah. 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.000 I've seen it translated as autogenic meaning sort of self 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:03.280 starting or uh self triggering. Right, yeah, And so basically 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.280 the idea here is that German psychologist Johannes Heinrich Schultz, 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.680 who lived eighteen eighty four through nine seventy he developed 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.840 autogenic training with the goal of removing the therapist and 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.160 or the hypnotist from the equation, focusing on what seemed 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.520 to be an inner switch that facilitated these states. So 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.480 the idea is, like the rough argument I guess you 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.440 would say, is, Okay, you're going to see a therapist, 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:30.479 you're going to see a hypnotist, and they're helping you 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.000 reach the state, but you were the one who like 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.839 allowed it to happen. Like that switch is not external, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.919 it is in you, and therefore this relaxation. Uh, the 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.560 state that you're reaching is auto generated. It is its 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.120 origins are within you. Now, later in the episode, we'll 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:52.400 get more into the specifics of autogenics and what what 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.720 what what research has to say about its effectiveness. But 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:57.760 we have to say that this is definitely a topic 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.800 where the research led us into some unex efectively weird 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:05.800 and decidedly dark material. Uh, namely, first of all, eugenics, 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.080 which will will discuss the the distinction between autogenics and 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.960 eugenics here and a bit they're not directly related concepts. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:20.080 And then also the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.720 So fair warning that we're going to be discussing some 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.960 heart mentioned content and some examples of humanity at its worst, 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.839 even as we explore the origins of an otherwise inocuous 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.920 sounding practice. So before we turned to Schultz and autogenic training, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.359 we have to lay the groundwork a little bit regarding 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:43.000 hypnosis and psychology going into the twentieth century. So let's 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.080 start with modern hypnotism or Mesmerism, which became popular due 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.080 to the work of German physician Franz Mesmer, who lived 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:55.600 seventeen thirty four through eighteen fifteen. We've discussed hypnotism on 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.760 the show before. Mesmer's work was was a point of 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.120 inter risk for a number of individuals, including the inventor 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:07.680 of the guillotine. Uh what Zosi, India's guillotin? Did I 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.280 say that correctly? I mean close enough? Okay? And then 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.120 Ben Franklin, of course was was was a fan as well. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:20.599 I believe it's Franklin Franklin Okay, Franklin m Franklin effect. Yeah. 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.359 One of the funny things about hypnotism is that whatever 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.760 clinical relevance it actually has, the ways that we most 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.400 often encounter it are are in the more kind of 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.680 mesmerism tradition as a kind of like public performance, and 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.840 I think this in some ways undercuts it's credibility as 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.839 a as a scientific phenomenon. Yeah, Like we generally encounter 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.360 it in TV shows, Right, there's some sort of a 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.320 hypnotism episode. Somebody's hypnotized, and either it's played just for 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.680 sheer laughs, someone clucks like a chicken, or it has 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.760 a more fantastic treatment, uh, you know, in some sort 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.960 of a fantasy Buffy the Vampire Slayers sort of ship, 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.240 or you're putting down the red Queen and the Manchurian 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.120 candidate and all that kind of uh, mind control stuff, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.440 all of which it can be kind of distracting when 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.480 you're trying to understand what hypnotism actually is. We, like 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.320 you said, we've covered it on the show before. I'll 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.120 try to give the very short version of our conclusions 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.120 from previous investigations. First of all, yes, it's basically a 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.920 real thing, it's not just like made up. On the 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.680 other hand, no, it is not magic. There's nothing especially 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:31.160 spooky going on with it. Hypnosis refers to a particular 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.360 type of mildly altered state of consciousness, a state of 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:42.320 heightened relaxation and very importantly focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:47.040 and increased suggestibility. The research makes it very clear that 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.680 not everybody is equally susceptible to hypnosis. Some people appear 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:54.679 to not respond to it at all. Other people seem 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.840 very suggestible. The stuff you see in movies where people 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.120 get hypnotized and turned into a sleeper agent assassin, that 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.600 that's not very realistic. I don't think it makes sense 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.720 to think of hypnotism as a form of mind control. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:12.520 I think hypnotism could better be compared to other mildly 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:17.800 altered states of consciousness, like the things people achieve in meditation. Yeah, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:19.480 I agree. I think if you if you think of 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.680 it more in terms of a meditative state, uh, certainly 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.800 as opposed to TV mind control, you're you're far closer 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.080 to the mark. Yeah. However, it appears very possible and 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.360 even consistent with a lot of research that hypnosis could 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.959 in some cases be useful in treating medical complaints, especially 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:41.000 medical complaints with a subjective or psychosmatic component, maybe in 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.880 pain management or in treating stress. So while hypnosis itself, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.040 I think is a real phenomenon, it's invoked in the 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.559 service of a lot of hoaxes and fakeery and pseudoscience. 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.320 So when you go into the world of hypnotism and 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.040 people start making claims about what can be done with it, 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.400 you should you should have your guard up at solutely, 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:01.800 and and that can be said up for a number 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.760 of different meditative practices out there. You know, whenever the 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:09.040 claims begin to venture more into the the supernatural, uh, 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.720 you know, be cautious. I mean, not even just the supernatural, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.599 even when they venture into the physically plausible but grandiose. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.120 You know, the people who say like you know, through 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.600 my meditation technique or my self hypnosis tapes, you'll learn 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.840 to master you know, it's your it's your guide to 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.280 weight loss and confidence in the boardroom and all this stuff. 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:34.680 People say there might be some real clinical effects of 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.240 things like hypnosis, but just be cautious when the promises 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.200 get big, right, I mean it could kind of like 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.040 the the interview episode on the science of yoga that 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:45.600 put out several months ago. It's like, there are things 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.959 that there are things that yoga can do, and things 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.719 that the research shows that it it can or may 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:52.280 be able to do. And there are then there are 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.319 things for which there's no like plausible reason that it 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.360 would have that effect on you. Uh. And again you 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:00.040 can extrapolate that to a number of these diff and 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:05.840 mindfulness exercises potentially so Mesmeter's work. Again, it interested a 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:07.840 number of people have made quite a splash. One of 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.760 the individuals that it interest was a man by the 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:14.400 name of Oscar Vault who lived eighteen seventy through nineteen 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.480 fifty five, and his wife, Cecile Vat, a magnier who 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.560 lived eighteen seventy five through nineteen sixty two. They were 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.439 neurologists and neuro anatomous and they were really these two 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.800 were really quite a team. I was not I don't 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.360 think I was specifically aware of them, but they were 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:36.000 early pioneers in functional neuro anatomy and genetics, and then 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.320 made a number of important contributions to the study of 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.240 the brain during the twentieth century. Uh And and not 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.839 only that, their their daughter Martha Vaut, who lived nineteen 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.559 o three through two thousand and three a good solid 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.280 century there she was one of the twentieth centuries leading 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:55.360 neuroscientists as well. And then her younger sister, Marguerite Vaught, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.960 who lived nineteen thirteen through two thousand and seven, was 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:03.280 a cancer biologist and bologist. So Oscar and Cecil they 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:05.839 clashed with the Nazi regime during this time and were 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.840 forced out of government service in ninety seven, and they 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.000 continued there were in a privately funded institute in New 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:16.360 stat One of the sticking points, apparently with the Third Reich, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.120 was there was there collection of Russian contacts, and in 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.120 fact Oscar was charged with inspecting the brain of Vladimir 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.240 Lenin following his death from a following a series of strokes. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.720 Uh So So these were brain experts. They studied the 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.480 physical structure of the brain and how that contributed to 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.440 the functioning of the brain. And one of the things 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.760 that Oscar was apparently interested in was what you could 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.280 see with how the structures of the brain responded to 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.000 hypnosis exercises. Yeah, so he apparently used it with his 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.440 patients for a number of years, and along along the 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:54.839 way he did, he managed to cross paths with a 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.880 with this German psychiatrist, this man by the name of 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.240 Johannes Heinrich Schultz, and reported him that, you know, his 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.520 patients could use their own volition to produce sensations of 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.200 heaviness and warmth in their bodies and transfer into a 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:13.160 self hypnotic state. So Schultz uh took this idea, combined 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.200 it with his own experiences using hypnosis with patients, and 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.880 this brought about the birth of autogenic training. So basically 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.640 he just he just really you know, dove into this 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.120 this particular topic like what can be done in the 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:31.160 realm of of you know, self regulated self hypnosis. Yeah. Now, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.600 I think it's important to understand that in the first 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.120 half of the twentieth century especially, there is a lot 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:41.000 of stuff happening in the world of psychology and psychiatry 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.800 that is very interesting, but is not what we would 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.640 probably consider science today. There's a lot of stuff going 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:50.320 on in this world that I think is better to 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:55.000 think of as philosophy. It's kind of more broad observational 0:12:55.280 --> 0:13:00.280 science than it is science based on controlled experiments and rigor. Yeah, 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.800 we're we're talking about again the late nineteenth century, the 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:07.080 early twentieth century, the heyday of individuals like Sigmund Freud 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.960 and Carl Jung. The discipline of psychiatry itself was only 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.840 entering its second century of existence, and the first half 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:19.040 of the twentieth century was dominated by this idea of psychoanalysis, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.320 before chemical advances would bring about a new age of 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.280 pharmacology in the second half of the twentieth century. Yeah. Now, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.320 obviously it's it's not just drugs that change psychometry. I mean, 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.520 I mean, it's it was empirical methods of all sorts, 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.080 I think, because you can also run empirical tests on 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.120 the efficacy of therapeutic techniques that don't involve drugs and 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.199 that kind of stuff. But the world of Freud and 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.720 and Carl Young, while you know, I enjoy their writings 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:50.040 that I think they're very interesting, but it's not really science. 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:52.960 It's especially if you could drill into an idea like 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.960 the collective unconscious, you know, it's very it's fascinating stuff. 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:00.480 It can it can certainly benefit you from a philosophical standpoint, 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.880 of creative standpoint, you know, fascinating concepts. But is it 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:09.360 something that is you know, has any scientific validity to it? Uh, 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.440 probably not. Might it might be were it might be 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.680 able to generate ideas that could be put to rigorous 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.760 testing by experimental psychologists and psychiatrists who would come later. 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.160 So it was I guess you could say that it was, 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.400 you know, an age of optimism in many respects. You 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.720 had all these new tools that were coming online to 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.800 enable the treatment of nervous conditions, nervous conditions that had 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.320 plagued humanity for for for quite some time. The secrets 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.360 of the mind were being explored, and yet this was 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.520 also a time of incredible darkness and tailing some truly 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.400 horrendous studies and of course the horrors of eugenics. That's right, 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.800 I mean generally, Uh, science and medical practice under the 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.200 Third Reich is just a litany of horror stories. Of 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.360 various kinds, and of course psychiatry under the Third Reich 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.840 is is really no different, right, and we're not gonna 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.160 attempt to do any kind of a deep dive into that, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.440 but we will touch on, I think on some examples 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.760 that exemplify the sort of the sort of pressure that 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.280 was applied by the Third Reich on the sciences and 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.920 the sort of you know, corrupted results that you that 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.360 you get when that sort of relationship is in place. 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:19.760 So we're gonna take a quick break, but when we 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.400 come back, we will continue with our story and we'll 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.920 will bring in the character of Johannes Heinrich Schultz. Thank 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.360 all right, we're back. So we've been talking about this 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:35.520 idea of autogenics, which is some kind of form of 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:41.680 purported self hypnosis that was created by a German psychiatrist 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:46.480 named Johannes Heinrich Schultz in the nineteen twenties and thirties. Yeah, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.080 and he is. He has a troubling figure I think 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.120 to figure out again. Early twentieth century. This was the 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.840 heyday of psychoanalysis, and Schultz certainly believed in the power 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.520 of psychoanalysis, though he also thought that it was an 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.520 idea was not ideal for the treatment of psychosomatic disorders, 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.520 and in these cases he became convinced that the key 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.320 lay in self hypnosis, and of course in his in 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.200 his concept of autogenic training. Right, So hetero hypnosis would 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.800 be the opposite of what hetero hypnosis would be where 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.440 there is uh, it was the so called authoritarian method. Right, 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:25.160 there's a hypnotist guiding you, whereas auto hypnosis you take 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.600 into your own hands. Okay, So what's the distinction here 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.560 with psychosomatic disorders. Psychosomatic refers to problems in the body 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.520 that are caused or aggravated by psychological factors. So you 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.840 can have psychosomatic pain, Uh, you can, you know, you 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:45.840 can have hypochondriasis. Uh. Schultz was cited by a biographer 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.320 to have said, quote, it is complete nonsense to shoot 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.920 with psychoanalytic guns after symptoms sparrows. So I think what 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.120 he's saying there is, to whatever extent you can use psychoanalysis. 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.720 That's more for problems that are fully within the mind, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.440 you know, the psychology realm Uh. Psycho Somatic disorders where 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.120 the problems are somewhere in the body and may have 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.680 roots in psychological issues, are not best addressed with psychoanalysis. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.280 He thought they would be better addressed with hypnosis or 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.200 even auto hypnosis. So Schultz noted that, you know, there 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.200 were two very common reports of unique body experiences during 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.840 the process of hypnosis, and those two common reports were 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.840 heaviness in the limbs and this weird sensation of warmth. 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:35.840 How common these sensations were drove Schultz to see hypnosis 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.600 as a treatment for relaxation in the body, not just 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.639 something that affects the mind, but something to affect, for example, 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.520 the autonomic nervous system. And also based on the reports 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.439 about what Vote had been able to achieve with his 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.920 own patients, Schultz came to believe that the authoritarian figure 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.399 triggering the hypnotic state, within the authoritarian process, within the 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.480 hetero hypnosis, that that was not actually necessary. Yeah. Again, 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.199 the basic idea here is that when we undergo hypnosis, 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.960 the changes are occurring within us, and with training, we 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.200 would be able to trigger them without the aid of 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.240 another person. The patient permits it to happen, rather than 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.000 it being something that the hypnotist does to the patient. That, 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:19.200 Schultz is the whole argument. So inspired by Vote in 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:23.040 his own experiences with hypnosis. Schultz began employing these ideas 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.239 in private practice, and this would have been when he 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.679 opened his private clinic in neurology and psychiatry in Berlin 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.399 in ninety four, So by the twenties he's already trying 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.159 this out right. And then in nineteen thirty two he 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:39.320 published his first book on autogenic Training DOS autogene Training 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:41.840 and and again we'll get to the specifics of autogenic 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.359 training and a bid here, But in discussing nineteen thirty two, 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.160 we're of course just a year away from the establishment 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.119 of the Third Reich, and this is where Schultz becomes 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.560 a problematic figure. So first, let's be very clear about 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.840 the Nazi regime. It was a dictatorship and a totalitarian 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.480 date based on an ideology that celebrated nationalism, UH, the 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:10.520 pseudoscience of racial hierarchy, anti semitism, scientific racism, and eugenics. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:16.560 Germany contained a great many brilliant minds in nineteen thirty three, 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.119 but the Third Reich was only interested in how these 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.000 minds and ideas could be used to serve the Nazi 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.440 ideology and the war efforts. And UH rocketry, I think 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.200 is a good example to look at here. Just in 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.520 brief um you know that this was you had. You 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.760 had German rocket scientists who were inspired by things like 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.120 science fiction and dreams of exploration. But Bernard von Braun 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:43.400 von Bron is a great example of this. But of course, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.480 what did the what did the Third Reich want out 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.199 of these minds? They wanted weapons, They wanted ways to 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.680 deliver um V two one, etcetera, to rain hell down 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.879 upon England and punish their enemies. So there was no 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.320 interest in something like space exploration or moon bases or 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.680 whatever kind of like you know, fanciful extrapolation you find 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.520 in conspiracy thinking. I think the Third Reich is one 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.600 of the greatest examples in history of just an utter 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.879 waste of intellectual potential. You know that there was a 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.080 lot of great scientific infrastructure in Germany in the Weimar 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.600 period and going into the Third Reich, and the way 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.840 all of that great intellectual potential was just bulldozed by 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.720 Nazism is is a great tragedy. So all the sciences 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.520 become the domain of the state in Nazi Germany, and 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.760 of course that also means psychology and psychiatry as well. 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:39.160 Uh and and and really they were these were fields 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.800 that were I think especially vulnerable because, especially at the time, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.080 given all the changes that were taking place in these fields, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.760 they were highly susceptible to manipulation by a totalitarian regime. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.280 I mean, even the hardest of the hard sciences were 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.000 under attacked by the Nazi ideology, you know, like they 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.520 wanted to rid themselves of what they believed to be 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:00.639 Jewish physics, not understanding that physics is physics, like it 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.560 doesn't matter what the ethnicity of the scientists who discovered 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.640 it was. Oh yeah, I mean that's the whole other 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.040 side to it too. I mean it's one Not only 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.879 were of course the German scientist pressured to be a 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.879 part of this machine, but then people who were who 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.480 were suspected of having ties to say the Russians, like 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.040 the votes that we discussed earlier, they were at least 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.920 partially pushed out, and then Jewish scientists were completely pushed out. 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:26.760 But I mean, if there are that many problems in 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.240 a supposedly hard science like physics, you'd imagine that things 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.679 get even weirder when you get into burgeoning fields like 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:38.359 psychology and psychiatry. Yeah, so the Nazi regime apparently didn't 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.640 have any real strong opinions on self hypnosis or autogenic training, 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:45.840 but there were other ideas in the field that were 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.280 far more central to their ideology and uh, and so 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.800 all this is going on, Schultz ends up publishing another 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:55.720 book on autogenics, but his star continues to rise within 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:00.840 German psychiatry, and is his star rises others all from 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.919 grace in this now state controlled realm of the German 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.879 science is again namely Jewish scientists. In psychology it was 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:12.080 no different, But what were they to do about psychoanalysis? 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.520 It was again highly favored by Schultz and others, but 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.040 it was the product of Sigmund Freud, who was of 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:20.600 course Jewish himself. His books were among those burned and 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.480 he eventually had to flee the country as well. So 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.840 part of German psychiatry at the time part of the 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.440 mission statement of of the Goring Institute. This was named 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.159 for Matthias Heinrich Goring, cousin to the more famous and 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.280 at the time were powerful Herman Goring. Uh. Part of 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.880 its whole aim was to rid psychiatry of quote Jewish 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:46.159 influence and established quote a new German psychotherapy, which of 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.600 course is ludicrous. It's like if someone were to say, well, 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.840 let's just focus on on an American science. You know, 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:55.320 how do you what what would that even mean? What 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:57.720 that means you'd have to press out all like non 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:01.600 American ideas of what of how the world works and 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:03.480 what the cosmos consists of. I mean, it wouldn't be 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.360 the only time in history that there's been a kind 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:09.199 of like stupid nationalist lens applied to science is like 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.240 non understanding that the sciences are about figuring out what's 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.320 true about the world, and that those things are true 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.640 no matter what your ethnicity is or what your nationality is. 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:22.400 I guess the closest thing to validity you could find 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:24.119 there would be that like, well, you might say, as 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.960 a nation, we have these priorities about what we want 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:29.359 to find out. But yeah, again this is just a 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:34.359 tragedy of stupidity. So Schultz, again he keeps focusing on autogenics, 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:38.240 but he also ends up getting involved in these ideas 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:41.280 that are far more valuable to the Third Reich. So 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:45.800 he publishes work supporting eugenics. Um eugenics of course, and 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.600 involves the idea that you should, uh, you want to 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:53.640 encourage you know, the good genes within a population by 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:58.600 eliminating um uh, so called destructive genes uh. And this 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:02.120 generally takes the form of pretty horrific efforts like forced 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:08.480 sterilization for men with mental retardation, psychiatric or neurological disorders. 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.160 Those were exactly the forms it took under the Third Reich. Now, 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.879 while eugenics was sort of one of the founding principles 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:17.520 of the Third Reich ideology, I think it's worth acknowledging 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.080 that in the first half of the twentieth century, I mean, 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.200 eugenics was all over the place. It was fashionable among 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:26.240 intellectual elites all around the world, even in the United 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:28.640 States and in other Western nations that ended up fighting 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.000 the Nazis. Yeah, absolutely it was. But yeah, by no 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:34.800 means was it a German idea. Uh, you know, you 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:37.600 saw it. Plenty of examples of it in the United States. 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:40.440 We talked a lot about eugenics. Actually in our interview 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:44.080 with Karl zimmerwent excellent book about heredity. So if you 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:46.040 want to go back and listen to that episode you can. 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:49.159 But yeah, he explores a lot of the roots of 0:24:49.160 --> 0:24:51.800 eugenics within the United States at the time. But in 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:55.080 this case, the s the eugenics movement would eventually sterilize 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:57.600 some four hundred thousand individuals by the end of the war, 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:02.480 and Schultz also focused on sexual education and the subject 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:05.800 of homosexuality and the idea that it could be cured. 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:12.040 So at the time, homosexuality was in general poorly understood 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:16.080 from any sort of scientific standpoint and was highly susceptible 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:19.760 to pre existing prejudices. We know today, of course, that 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:24.920 the notion of curing homosexuality is pseudoscience at best, and 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:29.240 generally it's it's worse than that. Two thousand nineteen study 0:25:29.240 --> 0:25:32.040 published in the journal Science, the largest study to ever 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:36.840 analyze the genetics of same sex sexual behavior, points out 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:39.639 that there's no one, you know, gay gene or anything 0:25:39.640 --> 0:25:42.680 of the sort. Rather, to quote Pam Bellock in the 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:46.280 New York Times quote, the influence comes not from one gene, 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:49.760 but many, each with a tiny effect, And the rest 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.359 of the explanation includes social or environmental factors, making it 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:57.080 impossible to use genes to predict someone's sexuality. Right, So, 0:25:57.280 --> 0:26:00.840 sexual orientation, like almost everything else out us, is in 0:26:00.960 --> 0:26:03.840 fact controlled by a number of different genes acting in 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:07.160 concert with our environment. As were brought up, Yeah, yeah, 0:26:07.200 --> 0:26:10.399 it's this complex interplay of nature and nurture individual in 0:26:10.400 --> 0:26:13.160 the environment. And more to the point of course, it's 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:15.840 not something to be corrected at all. It's not as 0:26:15.880 --> 0:26:18.159 it was often thought at the time. And some of 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:22.000 these regimes, including you know, the Third Reich, it was 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:25.080 it's not a societal problem, though it again is often 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:27.920 framed like that, and and was and was outlawed as 0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:32.880 such in various nations. And uh, homosexuality was certainly at 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:37.080 odds with the Nazi ideology, which celebrated, among other things, 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:42.159 this exaggerated and toxic vision of masculinity. Historians, however, have 0:26:42.240 --> 0:26:46.320 also pointed out that this that this this Nazi hyper 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:51.919 masculine ethos paradoxically may have encouraged male bonding and homosexual 0:26:51.960 --> 0:26:54.840 relationships as well. But you know, I guess it's one 0:26:54.840 --> 0:26:57.960 of these situations where that the kind of proximity of 0:26:58.119 --> 0:27:03.200 ideal and antithesis are often a common feature of homophobia. Meanwhile, 0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:06.320 under in the sciences of the Third Reich, you had 0:27:06.359 --> 0:27:09.359 scientists that were who were, you know, taking a eugenics 0:27:09.359 --> 0:27:12.840 approach to the issue of homosexuality, believing that homosexuality was 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:16.480 centered in a person's genes and could therefore be addressed 0:27:16.600 --> 0:27:20.920 via the violence of eugenics. Schultz, on the other hand, 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:24.959 thought psychotherapy was the answer that homosexuality was based in 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:30.880 quote perversion, a profound disorder of the entire personality. And uh. 0:27:31.080 --> 0:27:33.639 That quote was pointed out in a paper that I'm 0:27:33.640 --> 0:27:38.120 gonna refer to again here, uh, titled Johannes Heinrich Schultz 0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:43.199 and National Socialism by Jurgen Brunner, m d. Matthias Shrimp, 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:47.160 and Florian Stagger, m d, pH d. This was published 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:50.040 in the Israeli Journal of Psychiatry in two thousand and eight. 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:52.840 So here we get around to a different version of 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:58.440 anti gay reaction, right, which instead of thinking, okay, there's 0:27:58.520 --> 0:28:01.640 just a there's a gene we can eliminate somewhere, this 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:05.560 instead says, no, it's something that's wrong with with you, 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:08.080 know how your brain is working, and we can sort 0:28:08.119 --> 0:28:11.520 of train it out of you. And unfortunately, this point 0:28:11.520 --> 0:28:14.320 of view is not entirely gone from the world today. No, 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:16.640 I mean, that's that's that's the thing. You could take 0:28:16.680 --> 0:28:21.600 Schultz out of this this particular place and time, and 0:28:21.640 --> 0:28:26.000 you could easily place him, say in the United States today, 0:28:26.119 --> 0:28:28.439 and there would be some place for him with this 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:30.760 kind of rhetoric. Yeah, the most common being things that 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:34.360 are known as like gay conversion therapies, which are utterly 0:28:34.400 --> 0:28:38.920 condemned by every psychological organization. From the American Psychological Association 0:28:39.040 --> 0:28:42.520 is issued statement after statements saying these treatments do not 0:28:42.720 --> 0:28:45.360 work and they don't do anything good for the person, 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:49.240 that they should be discouraged at all costs. So, without 0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:54.480 a doubt, Schultz definitely echoed and amplified Nazi homophobia and 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:58.719 uh and and and gay persecution within German psychiatry, and 0:28:58.760 --> 0:29:02.520 that alone is reprehensible. But on top of that, he 0:29:02.600 --> 0:29:08.000 also engaged in experimentation. So under under Nazi rule, homosexuality 0:29:08.160 --> 0:29:11.320 was illegal in Germany, and it was it was apparently 0:29:11.520 --> 0:29:15.880 previously technically illegal as well, though not prosecuted during the 0:29:15.920 --> 0:29:20.160 Weimar Republic, and convicted homosexuals under the Third Reich were 0:29:20.200 --> 0:29:24.400 sent to concentration camps. According to the US Holocaust Memorial 0:29:24.520 --> 0:29:27.920 Museum quote, between nineteen thirty three and nineteen forty five, 0:29:28.320 --> 0:29:31.640 and estimated one hundred thousand men were arrested for violating 0:29:31.720 --> 0:29:35.920 Nazi Germany's law against homosexuality, and of these, approximately fifty 0:29:36.000 --> 0:29:39.680 thousand were sentenced to prison and estimated five thousand to 0:29:39.880 --> 0:29:43.760 fifteen thousand men were sent to concentration camps while on 0:29:43.840 --> 0:29:47.640 similar charges, where an unknown number of them perished. And 0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:50.840 I also read that the death rate in the camps 0:29:51.320 --> 0:29:55.640 for homosexuals has been estimated to something like sixty Now 0:29:55.680 --> 0:29:59.160 interestently enough, um, you know, we briefly touched on the 0:29:59.240 --> 0:30:02.120 during the Weimar public heal. It was was not prosecuted, 0:30:02.160 --> 0:30:04.800 and there was more of a uh, you know, a 0:30:04.840 --> 0:30:07.480 feeling really I've read of you know, liberation. They were 0:30:07.480 --> 0:30:10.479 actually you know, gay, there's a gay rights movement at 0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:14.000 the time. Um So, when you look at the early 0:30:14.120 --> 0:30:19.120 days of the Nazi regime, apparently it stands on homosexuality 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:23.640 was a little more ambiguous and uneven, with some individuals 0:30:23.720 --> 0:30:27.080 not having really much of a stated opinion, while you 0:30:27.120 --> 0:30:29.800 had other people like uh s, you know, s s 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:33.400 Commander in chief Holocaust architect Heinrich Kimmler being one of 0:30:33.400 --> 0:30:36.760 the the the early you know, strong voices in favor 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:40.960 of violent persecution of homosexuals, and his view increasingly one out. 0:30:41.760 --> 0:30:46.840 So Schultz began to experiment with treating homosexuals through psychoanalysis, 0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:50.360 including many inmates that were brought in from concentration camps, 0:30:50.800 --> 0:30:53.360 and part of this was apparently that he needed to 0:30:53.400 --> 0:30:58.040 demonstrate concrete psychotherapeutic success to maintain his position within the 0:30:58.080 --> 0:31:02.560 Goring Institute. And according to Bruner at All, between nineteen 0:31:02.960 --> 0:31:06.600 three and nineteen thirty eight, five hundred and ten homosexuals 0:31:06.600 --> 0:31:09.800 were quote treated at the Goring Institute, three hundred and 0:31:09.840 --> 0:31:12.320 forty one of them were said to be cured, and 0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:15.640 the cure was tested by forcing the individual to have 0:31:15.720 --> 0:31:18.720 sex with female prostitutes. So these all all would have 0:31:18.720 --> 0:31:20.920 been gay men. Yes, so that I think that that 0:31:21.000 --> 0:31:24.440 just paints the horrific picture. Obviously. Now Schultz wasn't the 0:31:24.480 --> 0:31:27.000 only one involved here. According to the U. S. National 0:31:27.040 --> 0:31:31.200 Holocaust Museum, there was an expanded program of medical experimentation 0:31:31.240 --> 0:31:35.080 on homosexual inmates that ultimately caused illness, mutilation, and even 0:31:35.200 --> 0:31:39.600 death with absolutely no scientific benefits whatsoever. So again we said, 0:31:39.600 --> 0:31:42.120 we're gonna be talking about a dark period of history, 0:31:42.200 --> 0:31:45.680 and and so here we are. So the war ends. 0:31:45.720 --> 0:31:51.240 Of course, Schultz dies in nineteen seventy and never faced 0:31:51.280 --> 0:31:55.800 any repercussions for his ideas or his experiments, and in fact, 0:31:56.000 --> 0:31:59.320 he continued to discuss his findings published his findings even 0:31:59.480 --> 0:32:02.000 and support or did the outlaw of homosexuality for the 0:32:02.120 --> 0:32:05.120 rest of his life. And this is apparently not out 0:32:05.120 --> 0:32:07.640 of the ordinary. Sadly, as much of the Third Reich's 0:32:07.680 --> 0:32:12.480 crimes against homosexuals went unrecognized at a governmental level until 0:32:12.680 --> 0:32:15.160 the like the well into the nineteen eighties that the 0:32:15.160 --> 0:32:19.840 German government formally apologized in two thousand and two. I mean, 0:32:20.200 --> 0:32:21.920 part of this, I think would just have to do 0:32:22.040 --> 0:32:24.720 with attitudes around the rest of the world as well. 0:32:24.760 --> 0:32:27.240 I mean, I think about what happened to Alan Turing 0:32:27.280 --> 0:32:30.760 even in England, England which wanted to purport itself to be, 0:32:30.840 --> 0:32:34.280 you know, the free alternative to the to the authoritarian Germany. 0:32:34.360 --> 0:32:36.960 You know, like gay people did not have equal rights 0:32:37.000 --> 0:32:40.360 there at all. Yeah, and and Alan Turing was was 0:32:40.680 --> 0:32:45.480 subjected to the hors of eugenics. He was uh, chemically sterilized. 0:32:45.880 --> 0:32:48.800 One of the topics that Brunner and his co authors 0:32:49.040 --> 0:32:53.360 discussed concerned Schultz's legacy and to what extent he actually 0:32:53.440 --> 0:32:58.080 bought into Nazi ideology, because you'll certainly encounter the argument that, okay, 0:32:58.120 --> 0:33:01.920 he didn't fully buy into Nazi idea oology, and and 0:33:01.960 --> 0:33:04.000 you know, there you also see it written. Then, Okay, 0:33:04.040 --> 0:33:08.200 through his experiments, he actually retrieved inmates from concentration camps. 0:33:08.840 --> 0:33:12.560 Though of these some were ultimately returned to the concentration camps, 0:33:12.640 --> 0:33:16.960 and even the cured in the case of of cured, 0:33:17.200 --> 0:33:20.240 the so called cured, uh, ultimately they were sent back 0:33:20.280 --> 0:33:22.560 to the front. So both of these would have been 0:33:22.640 --> 0:33:25.479 high mortality fates. Uh. You know, certainly one is as 0:33:25.520 --> 0:33:29.400 an inmate and one as a soldier. They're not directly comparable. Um, 0:33:29.480 --> 0:33:32.719 But it does sound like this, this argument that he 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:37.760 was saving lives in any sense is is kind of ridiculous. 0:33:38.280 --> 0:33:42.680 The conclusion of Brunner and the co authors is that, well, 0:33:42.720 --> 0:33:45.120 first of all, they say that, you know, they're limited, uh, 0:33:45.160 --> 0:33:48.000 in that they had to depend on writings rather than interviews, 0:33:48.120 --> 0:33:52.040 and certainly they couldn't actually interview Schultz himself. But their 0:33:52.080 --> 0:33:55.200 conclusion was that Schultz perhaps was more of an opportunist 0:33:55.320 --> 0:33:59.760 and a political survivor. But still he certainly expressed these 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:03.560 amophobic beliefs throughout his life, and that quote. The use 0:34:03.600 --> 0:34:06.720 of typical Nazi vocabulary, as well as the dissemination of 0:34:06.760 --> 0:34:09.640 the Nazi body of thought as late as nineteen fifty two, 0:34:09.680 --> 0:34:12.840 give reason to believe that the statements from nineteen thirty 0:34:12.840 --> 0:34:16.960 five and nineteen forty were not only about opportunistic lip service, 0:34:17.360 --> 0:34:20.799 but instead we're an expression of his fundamental conviction. So 0:34:20.840 --> 0:34:23.400 we're left with this, this image of a discipline and 0:34:23.440 --> 0:34:26.040 a practitioner certainly caught up in the storm of Nazi 0:34:26.080 --> 0:34:29.359 ideology and also embracing much of its vileness. He and 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:35.280 he helped enable homosexual persecution and engage an abusive, unethical experimentation. 0:34:35.600 --> 0:34:38.719 And yet he also created this practice of intercalming that 0:34:38.840 --> 0:34:41.880 is still practiced to this day. We mentioned how autogenic 0:34:41.920 --> 0:34:44.919 training is maybe, you know, not that widely known here 0:34:44.920 --> 0:34:47.320 in the United States, but it's it's apparently more widely 0:34:47.360 --> 0:34:50.560 practice or has been more widely practiced in Canada, England, 0:34:50.719 --> 0:34:53.480 Germany and Russia and Russia. Yeah, so we're gonna take 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:56.759 another break, but when we come back, will discuss autogenic 0:34:56.800 --> 0:35:02.759 training a little bit on its own. Alright, we're back, 0:35:02.880 --> 0:35:05.560 all right, So we've been talking about johanness Heinrich Schultz, 0:35:05.640 --> 0:35:11.040 the creator of this self hypnosis process that is called autogenics. 0:35:11.160 --> 0:35:13.799 The idea is that you could, uh, you don't need 0:35:13.880 --> 0:35:17.000 the authoritarian figure telling you you know you are you 0:35:17.000 --> 0:35:19.960 are feeling relaxed, you feel your limbs being heavy, and 0:35:19.960 --> 0:35:23.360 all that stuff that you can train yourself to undergo 0:35:23.560 --> 0:35:27.040 this process on your own. I thought it was interesting 0:35:27.080 --> 0:35:30.960 that even though I've read about hypnosis before, I had 0:35:31.160 --> 0:35:34.959 never really encountered anything about autogenics before you you brought 0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:37.319 up this topic as a possibility to talk about on 0:35:37.320 --> 0:35:39.560 the show, and I was wondering why it is that 0:35:39.640 --> 0:35:43.480 I've never heard of this at all before. Well, something 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:45.600 that I had heard of and you may have heard 0:35:45.640 --> 0:35:48.839 of this previously as well, is the practice of progressive 0:35:49.000 --> 0:35:54.399 muscle relaxation, which is sometimes integrated into yoga practices. I've 0:35:54.400 --> 0:35:56.480 been to the yoga classes where they engage in like 0:35:56.520 --> 0:35:59.640 a little of this anyway, And this was developed independently 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:03.239 by the American physician Edmund Jacobson in nineteen o eight, 0:36:03.320 --> 0:36:06.279 So pretty much emerging from the same, the same, you know, 0:36:06.360 --> 0:36:10.959 realm of of psychiatry and contemplation of the human mind. 0:36:11.080 --> 0:36:15.040 As we're going to discuss, autogenic training, I think suffers 0:36:15.160 --> 0:36:18.480 from a dearth of research into its you know, high 0:36:18.560 --> 0:36:23.319 quality research, recent research into its efficacy. But what is 0:36:23.400 --> 0:36:27.520 out there, A lot of it focuses on different types 0:36:27.560 --> 0:36:30.560 of relaxation techniques all sort of put together. So it 0:36:30.600 --> 0:36:34.640 looks at progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, and then maybe 0:36:34.680 --> 0:36:40.120 also something like mindfulness meditation or biofeedback feedback. Yes, so 0:36:40.200 --> 0:36:42.879 it seems to be considered part of a class of 0:36:43.480 --> 0:36:49.640 stress relief for relaxation and exercises. A standard autogenic training 0:36:49.640 --> 0:36:53.640 exercise tends to consist of several phases. There's a heaviness 0:36:53.680 --> 0:36:57.680 exercise of limb and body relaxation, a warming exercise, a 0:36:57.800 --> 0:37:02.160 heart regulation exercise, a breathing exercise, and then organs and 0:37:02.200 --> 0:37:05.880 then head And it involves spoken mantras and focusing on 0:37:05.920 --> 0:37:09.080 specific parts of the body. So for instance, you might say, 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:11.479 you know, might you might say that your arms are heavy, 0:37:11.520 --> 0:37:13.759 and you'll repeat that like six times, and then you'll say, 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:18.040 I am very quiet, and then you'll do another six 0:37:18.120 --> 0:37:21.000 on the the arm, on the other arm, and uh, 0:37:21.040 --> 0:37:23.680 and then you will again return to this mantra of 0:37:23.680 --> 0:37:27.640 of of quietness. Yeah, we were looking for a good recent, 0:37:27.960 --> 0:37:31.319 uh you know, skeptical scientific source on autogenic training, and 0:37:31.400 --> 0:37:33.080 I think one of the best things we came across 0:37:33.160 --> 0:37:35.799 was a chapter in a book. It's a it's a 0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:39.799 psychiatry textbook called The Principles and Practice of Stress Management, 0:37:40.239 --> 0:37:43.880 and this chapter was by a professor emeritus in the 0:37:43.880 --> 0:37:47.400 Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia named 0:37:47.440 --> 0:37:51.719 Wolfgang Linden, and Lindon points out one thing that's kind 0:37:51.760 --> 0:37:55.760 of unique to autogenic training, which proponents of autogenic training 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:59.799 call passive concentration. So I'm gonna read from Lyndon here 0:37:59.800 --> 0:38:04.920 it's blaming what this is. Passive concentration may sound paradoxical 0:38:05.200 --> 0:38:08.920 in the concentration usually suggests effort. What it means in 0:38:09.040 --> 0:38:12.200 a T is that the trainee is instructed to concentrate 0:38:12.239 --> 0:38:16.920 on inner sensations rather than environmental stimuli, and this is 0:38:16.960 --> 0:38:21.360 indeed somewhat effortful, especially for the novice. If this concentration 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:24.439 does not come easily, the trainee is told to let 0:38:24.600 --> 0:38:27.960 thoughts wander for a while or to rearrange the body 0:38:28.000 --> 0:38:31.800 position for more comfort, rather than to force inner concentration. 0:38:32.360 --> 0:38:36.520 Not forcing, allowing sensations to happen, and being an observer 0:38:36.800 --> 0:38:40.319 rather than a manipulator are what the passive refers to. 0:38:41.000 --> 0:38:43.920 The a T trainee is warned that trying too hard 0:38:44.080 --> 0:38:47.520 is counterproductive. It main lead to negative reactions such as 0:38:47.600 --> 0:38:50.520 muscle spasms, and it stands in the way of acquiring 0:38:50.560 --> 0:38:55.200 the necessary passive attitude. Interestingly, I I see a couple 0:38:55.239 --> 0:38:58.560 of pail I'm sure they're unintended, but parallels here with 0:38:58.640 --> 0:39:03.200 some mindfulness meditation practices. Yeah. Yeah, again, I feel like 0:39:03.239 --> 0:39:05.279 we come back to the idea that that these are 0:39:05.320 --> 0:39:09.680 all kind of discussing the same phenomena. There are just 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:12.360 different ways of getting there. They're sort of you know, 0:39:12.400 --> 0:39:15.279 getting to that. You need different sort of trails of 0:39:15.400 --> 0:39:18.479 language and trails of culture to approach it. Some people 0:39:18.520 --> 0:39:20.319 are gonna be able to best approach it through something 0:39:20.320 --> 0:39:22.640 through a trail that is more spiritual, you know, in 0:39:22.680 --> 0:39:28.080 its trappings. Others needs something more based in psychiatry, or 0:39:28.120 --> 0:39:30.840 you know, something that is either attached to the latest 0:39:30.880 --> 0:39:33.360 thinking or has perhaps an air of history to it. 0:39:34.200 --> 0:39:37.080 I would say, ultimately, what all these things have in common? 0:39:37.120 --> 0:39:40.279 To me? It might be not what the proponents of 0:39:40.320 --> 0:39:42.879 something like autogenic training would say, which is that, well, 0:39:42.960 --> 0:39:45.759 you know, it's about the relaxation of the body, and 0:39:45.800 --> 0:39:48.799 the self control aspect is very important and all that 0:39:49.440 --> 0:39:52.720 to me, what seems most important unifying all these different 0:39:52.719 --> 0:39:56.960 relaxation techniques is the control of attention. Yeah, yeah, to 0:39:57.000 --> 0:40:00.440 be able to to take the wandering mind u uh, 0:40:00.480 --> 0:40:02.960 you know, it's in the default mode network and it's 0:40:03.040 --> 0:40:05.640 it's uh, you know, the voice of narrative, and all 0:40:05.680 --> 0:40:09.200 these things that are occurring are are ponderings and our 0:40:09.239 --> 0:40:12.200 our our anxiety over past and future, and to be 0:40:12.280 --> 0:40:16.000 able to sort of refocus that onto something very specific 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:19.640 like what is your arm doing right now? Or or 0:40:19.680 --> 0:40:24.120 you're breathing being the prime example across numerous different practices 0:40:24.400 --> 0:40:28.120 focusing on the breath. Yeah, I think that's right. Uh So, 0:40:28.200 --> 0:40:32.680 Lyndon says that the passive concentration principle here, the thing 0:40:32.719 --> 0:40:34.960 we were just talking about, is the one thing that 0:40:35.040 --> 0:40:39.960 supposedly separates autogenic training from other methods of relaxation techniques 0:40:40.000 --> 0:40:45.000 like like progressive muscle relaxation or biofeedback. It's you know, 0:40:45.040 --> 0:40:48.640 if you talk to an autogenics training person, they would 0:40:48.680 --> 0:40:53.600 probably heavily emphasize this passive concentration part as important. Beyond that, 0:40:53.680 --> 0:40:56.279 when you go through the different stages, Robert, what you 0:40:56.320 --> 0:40:58.560 were talking about earlier, you know, where you go through 0:40:58.600 --> 0:41:02.359 the the limb and body relaxation and then the heart regulation, 0:41:02.480 --> 0:41:04.960 and then the breathing, and then your guts and then 0:41:05.000 --> 0:41:08.120 your head. Uh that when you go through these you 0:41:08.200 --> 0:41:12.520 will have sort of like formulaic schemes of repeated things 0:41:12.600 --> 0:41:15.399 that you go through in order to to do those 0:41:15.480 --> 0:41:18.359 different parts of the body each time, and that what 0:41:18.440 --> 0:41:21.759 you want to do, Lyndon says is have vivid, personally 0:41:21.920 --> 0:41:27.400 meaningful imagery to accompany each of these formulate body relaxation schemes. 0:41:27.960 --> 0:41:30.000 So I was trying to know exactly what that is. 0:41:30.000 --> 0:41:33.160 But apparently, like for the head, you're supposed to picture 0:41:33.719 --> 0:41:36.880 something about a cooling forehead, maybe something about water, and 0:41:36.920 --> 0:41:39.680 then for your guts it's something about rays of light. 0:41:40.880 --> 0:41:43.800 But I just kept thinking, picture your head as a toilet, 0:41:43.880 --> 0:41:47.600 all the stresses flushing away. Well, it makes me think 0:41:47.640 --> 0:41:51.759 back to the books Track autogen Group Autogenics Part one, 0:41:52.400 --> 0:41:54.680 where one of the clips they use as someone saying 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:58.480 your body is a warm orange colored liquid. That seems 0:41:58.520 --> 0:42:00.960 to be potentially a specific exam ample of this, you know, 0:42:01.040 --> 0:42:05.279 to a very very specific bit of mental imagery, and 0:42:05.320 --> 0:42:08.120 probably one of the details that that I really dug 0:42:08.120 --> 0:42:11.000 about that song. It's like your bodies of warm orange 0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:14.200 colored liquid. There's something very relaxing about that concept. I mean, 0:42:14.200 --> 0:42:17.360 whether or not these techniques actually reduce stress. That image 0:42:17.360 --> 0:42:20.120 reduces stress for me. I like that, like it's it's 0:42:20.200 --> 0:42:24.000 it's weird and it takes you. Yeah, maybe that was 0:42:24.080 --> 0:42:27.520 the warm fago, some hot fago to get you through 0:42:27.520 --> 0:42:32.280 the winter. Um. So Linden rights that in a clinical setting, 0:42:32.760 --> 0:42:38.960 uh autogenic training is used primarily to reduce unnecessary autonomic arousal, 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:41.720 in other words, to reduce stress. This shouldn't be surprising 0:42:41.719 --> 0:42:44.319 given what we've already talked about. Though in theory, he 0:42:44.360 --> 0:42:47.399 points out, it's it is designed and believed by its 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:51.040 advocates to work in any direction. So in theory it 0:42:51.080 --> 0:42:53.279 could be used not just to reduce stress, but to 0:42:53.680 --> 0:42:58.439 raise problematically low levels of autonomic arousal. Though how often 0:42:58.440 --> 0:43:00.440 do you need to do that? No? I mean he 0:43:00.440 --> 0:43:03.320 mentions like a like a low heart rate or something. 0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:08.200 As for the question of whether Schultz himself was rigorous 0:43:08.239 --> 0:43:12.319 in in how he presented the benefits of this technique, uh, 0:43:12.400 --> 0:43:15.040 Linden's writing about a book published by Schultz and a 0:43:15.120 --> 0:43:19.239 student of his named Wolfgang Lutha. I believe this was 0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:22.239 published in nineteen sixty nine or nineteen seventy. I think 0:43:22.280 --> 0:43:24.359 Schultz died in nineteen seventies, so it would have been 0:43:24.400 --> 0:43:27.280 right around the time of his death. But Lyndon writes 0:43:27.400 --> 0:43:31.080 quote for a reader with a strong empiricist bent, reading 0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:34.480 the original works will likely be a frustrating task because 0:43:34.480 --> 0:43:38.759 in the ultimate evaluation of eighties effectiveness, no distinction is 0:43:38.800 --> 0:43:42.960 made by Schultz and Lutha among opinions single case reports 0:43:43.000 --> 0:43:46.520 and controlled studies, of which there were precious few. So 0:43:46.600 --> 0:43:50.400 by nineteen seventy they're still advocating, you know, our technique 0:43:50.440 --> 0:43:54.320 is great, but there is not a strong experimental record 0:43:54.360 --> 0:43:58.880 to back that up. Now, Wolfgang luth he would have 0:43:59.200 --> 0:44:02.120 he would have been a Canadian at the time, but 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:04.919 he had moved there. He was a German by birth 0:44:04.960 --> 0:44:07.680 and moved there in the late nineteen forties. And I 0:44:07.719 --> 0:44:10.600 found that in in like the Wikipedia entry about him, 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:12.839 for instance, it kind of it doesn't really mention what 0:44:12.880 --> 0:44:16.560 he did during uh the Second World War. I did 0:44:16.560 --> 0:44:19.719 find another source that said that he served as a 0:44:19.800 --> 0:44:23.399 junior medical officer on the Eastern Front. And also he's 0:44:23.440 --> 0:44:25.960 not to be confused with the U boat captain Wolfgang 0:44:26.080 --> 0:44:29.759 luth Um, who was a different figure altogether. But Luther 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:34.640 would have would have practiced autogenic training in Canada during 0:44:34.640 --> 0:44:36.799 this post war period. Do you know if he was 0:44:36.800 --> 0:44:41.040 primarily responsible for bringing it to Canada. I'm not certain 0:44:41.080 --> 0:44:44.280 on that, but I would Yeah. I kind of suspect 0:44:44.280 --> 0:44:48.400 that he was given his affiliation. Um, you know, especially 0:44:48.440 --> 0:44:51.880 throughout the post war period with Schultz. Now, there were 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:54.239 others you know that definitely tried to bring I mean it, 0:44:54.280 --> 0:44:56.320 certainly it came to the United States and was practiced 0:44:56.360 --> 0:44:58.399 and is practice in the United States by by some. 0:44:59.120 --> 0:45:01.719 But one in resting story I came across where someone 0:45:01.719 --> 0:45:05.280 was strongly advocating for it was a nineteen seventy seven 0:45:05.280 --> 0:45:09.040 New York's New York Times report that pointed to a 0:45:09.920 --> 0:45:15.040 psychologist and hypnotism advocate, Dr william S. Kroger, who warned 0:45:15.080 --> 0:45:18.120 in ninety seven that the Russians were training their Olympic 0:45:18.160 --> 0:45:22.719 athletes with hypnosis and autogenic training to improve performance, and 0:45:22.800 --> 0:45:25.080 that the United States would need to get with the 0:45:25.120 --> 0:45:27.319 program if they if they were hoping to keep up. 0:45:27.719 --> 0:45:30.160 This is also when they were training psychic assassins. So 0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:32.440 it all works out, yeah, I mean, it does kind 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:34.840 of tie into the whole Cold War fear of like, Okay, 0:45:35.480 --> 0:45:39.000 the Russians are doing something, or the reverse, the Americans 0:45:39.000 --> 0:45:42.000 are doing something, what if it works? And then adding 0:45:42.000 --> 0:45:47.160 in perhaps some misinformation and disinformation about it actually working. Yeah, 0:45:47.200 --> 0:45:49.279 I mean, it does appear to have been popular with 0:45:49.360 --> 0:45:52.680 some therapists in Russia. A lot of the studies on 0:45:52.719 --> 0:45:56.240 the effectiveness of autogenic training are older. I would hesitate 0:45:56.280 --> 0:45:58.160 to rely on them too much. I mean, I would 0:45:58.160 --> 0:46:02.840 say overall, auto genic training's efficacy at treating specific diseases 0:46:02.880 --> 0:46:06.400 such as hypertension, I think remains sort of an open question. 0:46:06.480 --> 0:46:10.000 But Lyndon does draw attention to a few studies in 0:46:10.160 --> 0:46:14.840 his assessment of the effectiveness of a T. For example, 0:46:14.920 --> 0:46:18.920 he writes, quote, A particularly striking demonstration of treatment affect 0:46:19.000 --> 0:46:22.879 variability is provided by I got I got some names here. 0:46:23.239 --> 0:46:29.759 I have a zion Zetsev and urinev in n who 0:46:29.840 --> 0:46:33.600 randomly assigned hypertensive patients to either a T or a 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:37.919 no treatment control condition. When mean changes were broken down 0:46:37.960 --> 0:46:42.160 into percentage improved ratings, the following figures emerged In the 0:46:42.160 --> 0:46:46.120 autogenic training treated group, thirty two percent improved, fifty nine 0:46:46.200 --> 0:46:50.600 percent remained unchanged, and nine percent deteriorated. In the control 0:46:50.680 --> 0:46:55.720 group also remained unchanged, thus the same as the last group, 0:46:56.040 --> 0:47:00.960 eleven percent improved and thirty percent deteriorated. Clearly, therapy did 0:47:01.040 --> 0:47:04.480 little for the majority of patients, whereas the between group 0:47:04.560 --> 0:47:08.439 difference is effectively attributable to treatment effects, consisting of both 0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:12.880 direct improvement and the prevention of worsening. Thus, valuable healthcare 0:47:12.960 --> 0:47:15.680 funds may be better invested if patients who are not 0:47:15.719 --> 0:47:19.279 going to benefit from treatment can be identified a priori 0:47:19.320 --> 0:47:22.600 and left out of the treatment comparison. And there are 0:47:22.640 --> 0:47:25.560 a few other studies that Lyndon talks about the show. 0:47:25.640 --> 0:47:29.680 You know, maybe there is some effectiveness of techniques like 0:47:29.800 --> 0:47:35.200 a t AT reducing stress or physiological arousal, maybe reducing 0:47:35.400 --> 0:47:40.560 some downstream effects of stress, like hypertension. I wasn't seeing 0:47:40.600 --> 0:47:43.600 anything that makes it look like autogenic training is any 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:46.520 kind of you know, like magic bullet, that's that's gonna 0:47:47.320 --> 0:47:50.200 that's gonna solve all the world's problems, though it may 0:47:50.280 --> 0:47:54.640 have some benefits similar to some other relaxation techniques. Now, 0:47:54.680 --> 0:47:57.120 another idea that comes up in autogenic training is the 0:47:57.160 --> 0:47:59.719 idea that that in these practices you'll have like this 0:48:00.120 --> 0:48:04.400 urge of say negative emotion. Oh, Yeah, that that is 0:48:04.440 --> 0:48:08.560 the ultimately is like a purging of negative feelings from 0:48:08.600 --> 0:48:12.440 the body. Yeah, this was Schultz's idea of autogenic discharge. 0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:14.480 This is where I mean. So there are some elements 0:48:14.840 --> 0:48:17.320 of the autogenic training that you can see. Okay, it 0:48:17.480 --> 0:48:20.600 just seems like this is a technique that could plausibly 0:48:20.680 --> 0:48:24.360 have psychosomatic benefits and you know, could reduce stress and 0:48:24.400 --> 0:48:26.239 all that. There are other things that seem a little 0:48:26.320 --> 0:48:29.040 more kind of freudy, just kind of like you know, 0:48:29.120 --> 0:48:32.080 like talking about the discharging of all these pent up 0:48:32.400 --> 0:48:35.600 things that come out during the process. I think there 0:48:35.680 --> 0:48:39.319 was this belief in like discharging of sexual tensions and 0:48:39.320 --> 0:48:42.200 things like that, which I don't know, I don't see 0:48:42.239 --> 0:48:44.879 any good reason to believe stuff like that is happening. Yeah, 0:48:44.920 --> 0:48:48.160 I mean, on one hand, I you know, I I think, 0:48:48.360 --> 0:48:49.480 like a lot of us, you know, you can I 0:48:49.520 --> 0:48:51.480 can certainly think two examples in my own life where 0:48:51.520 --> 0:48:54.360 I'm engaged in some sort of uh you know, yogic 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:59.880 or relaxation meditative experience and there is some feeling of purging, 0:49:00.040 --> 0:49:03.919 you know, of some emotional negativity you know, coming out 0:49:03.960 --> 0:49:06.760 and then you're being free of it. On the other hand, 0:49:08.239 --> 0:49:10.120 One of the frequent things that occurs when you try 0:49:10.320 --> 0:49:13.560 and meditate or you know, or or or enter into 0:49:13.600 --> 0:49:17.440 kind of relaxed state is that you'll you'll stumble and 0:49:17.480 --> 0:49:20.360 sometimes you'll fail. Right, And the more you try and 0:49:20.400 --> 0:49:22.960 focus on nothing, sometimes your brain will just really want 0:49:22.960 --> 0:49:25.640 to stab you with a with a big piece of 0:49:26.280 --> 0:49:30.000 negative shrapnel. Uh. And that's just how our brain often works. 0:49:30.320 --> 0:49:32.600 And it's it seems like this might be an interest 0:49:33.200 --> 0:49:37.359 interesting way of working that into a meditative practice so 0:49:37.400 --> 0:49:41.440 that when those thoughts emerge. Uh, that's just that's just 0:49:41.520 --> 0:49:45.040 the purging in process. Uh. And I don't know to 0:49:45.040 --> 0:49:47.520 to some extent, I can see that being a helpful 0:49:47.719 --> 0:49:50.319 technique if it keeps you on the horse as it 0:49:50.440 --> 0:49:51.880 as it were, you know, if it keeps you on 0:49:51.960 --> 0:49:54.319 the bicycle of meditation, and it keeps you from just 0:49:54.360 --> 0:49:57.719 giving up and stopping. So I think that you know, 0:49:57.760 --> 0:49:59.719 this is this all makes for an interesting case to 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:02.439 cat and considering you know, first of all, how how 0:50:02.480 --> 0:50:07.799 state promoted ideology can impact professions and professionals, and it 0:50:07.840 --> 0:50:10.160 also presents a problem of how we relate to a 0:50:10.200 --> 0:50:13.880 possibly beneficial idea that springs from the life and the 0:50:13.920 --> 0:50:18.000 mind of someone who's engaged in unethical or morally reprehensible 0:50:18.120 --> 0:50:22.560 UM movements. So, first of all, I will say, if 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:25.200 you're listening to this and you have some experience with 0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:29.080 autogenic training, you've you've practiced it yourself, you've looked into 0:50:29.120 --> 0:50:31.719 it yourself, etcetera. We would obviously love to hear from 0:50:31.760 --> 0:50:34.919 you about this your first hand, uh, you know, take 0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:38.200 on the practice itself and maybe even on its history 0:50:38.200 --> 0:50:40.520 as well, because you know, I think this is ultimately 0:50:40.680 --> 0:50:44.280 an interesting case to look at and considering how state 0:50:44.320 --> 0:50:48.879 promoted ideology can impact professions and professionals, and it also 0:50:49.320 --> 0:50:52.360 presents a problem of how we relate to possibly beneficial 0:50:52.400 --> 0:50:55.560 ideas that spring from the lives and minds of people 0:50:55.680 --> 0:51:00.560 engaged sometimes an unethical or morally reprehensible movements. Now, of course, 0:51:00.600 --> 0:51:02.960 his autogenic is the only concept or idea to have 0:51:03.040 --> 0:51:07.200 its origins and a problematic individual certainly not, though it 0:51:07.280 --> 0:51:10.760 perhaps is a pretty jarring example to turn to given 0:51:10.840 --> 0:51:13.959 his role again in gay conversion therapy under the third 0:51:14.000 --> 0:51:17.600 reich Um. But you know, this is a question we again, 0:51:17.640 --> 0:51:20.560 we have to we have to contemplate regarding a number 0:51:20.600 --> 0:51:24.279 of different UM concepts and ideas that have any kind 0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:28.520 of historic origin or even not so historic origins, because ultimately, 0:51:28.760 --> 0:51:32.040 no matter how you know, elevated a concept may seem 0:51:32.080 --> 0:51:34.680 to us, uh, no matter how you know great a 0:51:34.719 --> 0:51:38.480 particular teaching, they are inevitably, you know, have their origins 0:51:38.520 --> 0:51:42.480 in the minds of human beings, uh, who at the 0:51:42.600 --> 0:51:46.360 very best are flawed and at worst can be engaged 0:51:46.400 --> 0:51:49.480 in in monstrous practices. Well, you know, there have been 0:51:49.520 --> 0:51:52.000 other cases I can think of where there are attempts 0:51:52.040 --> 0:51:56.440 to I don't know distance a practice that in some 0:51:56.480 --> 0:52:00.520 way people believe to have found helpful from a problematic 0:52:00.600 --> 0:52:03.160 individual who it came from. I mean, I think about 0:52:04.160 --> 0:52:06.440 for example, there there were some efforts I know, to 0:52:06.600 --> 0:52:10.080 try to come up with a kind of secular version 0:52:10.520 --> 0:52:15.320 of of mantra based meditation to kind of get away 0:52:15.400 --> 0:52:19.319 from the transcendental meditation movement origins. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, 0:52:19.320 --> 0:52:23.120 And there's certainly used examples of this throughout um, you know, 0:52:23.200 --> 0:52:25.440 yoga practices as well, where that we say, a particular 0:52:25.440 --> 0:52:28.360 school of yoga that emerges and then the individual that 0:52:28.480 --> 0:52:31.520 is associated with there will be you know, some some 0:52:31.920 --> 0:52:36.000 you know, scandal or whatnot that occurs, but people will 0:52:36.120 --> 0:52:38.240 want to hold onto the teaching. So you know, sometimes 0:52:38.239 --> 0:52:40.960 it's more of a rebranding attempt or you know, order 0:52:41.000 --> 0:52:43.360 to take you know, what works about something, distance it 0:52:43.440 --> 0:52:47.400 from the individual, and and and um and and celebrated 0:52:47.480 --> 0:52:51.240 their practice it there. I mean Ultimately, a corrupt yogi 0:52:51.400 --> 0:52:54.120 or even a gay conversion therapy nazi does not own 0:52:54.200 --> 0:52:58.959 the way you find peace, whatever your techniques are. So obviously, again, 0:52:58.960 --> 0:53:00.359 this is a topic that we'd love to hear from 0:53:00.360 --> 0:53:03.720 folks about if you have any experience with autogenetic training, certainly, 0:53:03.760 --> 0:53:07.399 but also just this broader question we're asking here as well. Uh, 0:53:07.440 --> 0:53:10.600 we're curious to hear what everyone has to say. Uh. 0:53:10.600 --> 0:53:12.000 In the meantime, if you want to check out other 0:53:12.040 --> 0:53:14.440 episodes of our show, you can find it wherever you 0:53:14.480 --> 0:53:17.200 get your podcast. Stuff to Blow your mind is everywhere 0:53:17.239 --> 0:53:20.000 wherever you get it. Just make sure that you rate, review, 0:53:20.040 --> 0:53:23.080 and subscribe. This really helps us out in the long run. 0:53:23.120 --> 0:53:25.680 And oh, for our listeners out there, any listeners who 0:53:25.719 --> 0:53:28.600 are in the Atlanta area, UM, I want to let 0:53:28.600 --> 0:53:31.520 you know that there is an event coming up part 0:53:31.520 --> 0:53:35.080 of the Atlanta Science Festival. It's called How Snakes Work. 0:53:35.680 --> 0:53:39.040 It is going to be on Saturday, March seven, from 0:53:39.040 --> 0:53:41.240 two pm to four pm. You can find out about 0:53:41.239 --> 0:53:44.600 it at Atlanta Science Festival dot org. But it's pretty 0:53:44.640 --> 0:53:46.920 cool because it is a It is a team up 0:53:46.960 --> 0:53:51.120 effort from how Stuff Works, the website from which we spawned, 0:53:51.520 --> 0:53:55.840 and the Amphibian Foundation uh Mark Bendinka's organization. Matt Mark Mendick, 0:53:55.920 --> 0:53:57.520 of course, is a friend of the show and has 0:53:57.520 --> 0:54:01.719 been on to discuss amphibians, uh snakes, lizards and more. 0:54:02.040 --> 0:54:05.080 Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth 0:54:05.160 --> 0:54:07.399 Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch 0:54:07.440 --> 0:54:09.600 with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 0:54:09.640 --> 0:54:12.040 to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hi, 0:54:12.200 --> 0:54:15.759 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 0:54:15.800 --> 0:54:25.600 your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 0:54:25.640 --> 0:54:28.320 production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my 0:54:28.360 --> 0:54:31.320 heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:42.320 or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.