by Jerry Marzinsky BA M.ED

Patient Recovery Techniques

Schizophrenic patients need to learn to distinguish between their thoughts and those inserted by their voices. The general rule is to assume that every negative thought about themselves or others comes from these parasitic entities.

Usually, the patient’s first attempt to cope with their voices is to ignore them. This, however resulted in the voices getting louder. I counseled them not be block them but to watch those thoughts from a distance rather than engaging them. Positive changes began to appear in the patient’s mental state once they learned how to do this.

The probability of recovery depended heavily on the patient’s interpretation of what the voices were. These interpretations broke into three distinct groups:

1. The most healthy, functional and most likely to recover were the group of patients who concluded that the voices did not belong to them. Although they did not know who or what the voices were, they viewed them as mysterious invaders and attempted to disown these dark thoughts. These patients sensed that the mental assaults they experienced originated from elsewhere and that their mind was not attacking itself. They intuitively sensed a distinction between their own thoughts and intentions, and those of the voices.
2. The second group suspected the voices did not belong to them but had a hard time believing it. They experienced their voices as real but didn’t understand what was happening and were confused. As these dark thoughts ominously exerted increasing control, their ability to focus on positive aspects of life seriously eroded. When psychiatry told them their voices were hallucinations and diagnosed them as mentally ill, their fears were inflamed.
3. The third group was the least likely to recover. They could not distinguish between their thoughts and those of the voices. They believed all thoughts to be their own. They trusted psychiatry’s diagnosis of an incurable mental illness. They accepted that they had a broken brain, and their voices were hallucinations. They felt their mind was out of control. They believed the psychotic thoughts were theirs and were much more likely to act upon them. Unfortunately, this debilitating, hopeless, and destructive interpretation was the one psychiatry insisted was the truth.

Sherry Swiney, BBA [co-author] was the first sane person I could open up to safely with my findings. I was surprised to learn that her experiences significantly meshed with what I had discovered. As I revealed the techniques I found, Sherry told me of a program she developed to rid herself of the voices she struggled with as a young woman. After examining it, I found that it entailed the same basic principles I adapted. Sherry also based her program on the voices existing independently of their victim and being consummate deceivers. She streamlined her program, making it easy to remember and use. I tested it with many schizophrenic inmates and found it simple and effective. She called it her “That’s a Lie Program.”

Sherry: “During the period when dark spirits invaded my consciousness, they inserted unimaginably painful and guilt-provoking thoughts. Their constant assaults hurled me into a surreal reality To mask this, I took on the persona of a Chameleon. I developed the talent to fit in with any group or situation. Thus, I appeared normal to the world.

“The nature of the voices I experienced matched what Castaneda wrote about them, ‘The predators’ mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute.’

“I dared not tell anyone, or seek the help of a psychiatrist, for fear of being drugged senseless, and sent to a mental institution. Like Jerry, I had no one I could speak to about what was happening, who would even remotely understand. Having ruled out psychiatry, I saw no option other than to figure out where these thoughts were coming from, and how to get rid of them. I had a strong background in engineering, quantum physics, computer programming, and basic knowledge of the electrochemical workings of the brain. I reasoned that I might be able to reprogram my mind similarly to how I programmed computers. In other words, rewrite the code. The endeavor was analogous to climbing down Mount Everest alone in a blizzard. Stubborn and vigilant, I was determined to figure out where these relentless invading thoughts came from, and how to free my mind of them. At times it felt like sludge kept pouring over the flicker of my soul that was still trying to shine.

“I heard the dark thoughts saying, ‘The fence line is thin, isn’t it? You know it would be so much easier to take one step to this side where you can relax, just give in and let yourself go crazy. People will take care of you. No more fighting. No more pain. No more worries. You’ll be okay then.’ I was tempted to succumb and frightened that I might do so. I concentrated on the tiny light within me that was laboring to stay lit and told myself to get up and keep going. I knew there was an answer, and I was going to find it or die trying. What I learned about these debilitating, life-threatening spirits, was priceless to me, and later on, to many others who were willing to listen.

“As I developed the That’s A Lie program, I experimented with different ways to mentally overwrite my previous negative conditioning. Every time the voices inserted a negative thought about me or others into my mind, I responded with, ‘That’s a Lie’ and immediately rejected it. I noticed that as I continued to stick with this program, the disturbing thoughts began to subside. I was slowly able to regain some of my life-force back, and more able to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. In other words, the more I did this, the stronger I became. The result allowed me to formulate a clear idea of what had happened to me, what the voices were, and how they operated.

“I discovered that the voices were coming from outside of my mind, and they had a purpose. I could sit back and watch these thoughts as the observer. They were telling me awful lies. I found that if I confronted them as liars, they could no longer influence me. When they couldn’t upset me, they reacted with frustration and anger, sometimes yelling at me, even as they faded away. They would return, and try again and again. They acted like fishermen trying to bait me to bite on one of their lies. When one lie didn’t work, they baited the hook with another. Confronting them as liars, and disregarding them, worked every time. They could no longer persuade me to buy into their interpretation of what was going on around me. When lies influence our perception of the world, we generate negative emotions. This is food for these energetic parasites. The goal is to starve them.”

When victims understand that the voices are liars, they are on their way to breaking free from their clutches.

In putting this knowledge to use, Sherry accomplished something psychiatry insisted was impossible. Many people have used Sherry’s program alone with remarkable success.

My remedies encompassed Sherry’s but were more complex, included several different aspects and were more difficult to remember. For example some of these other facets were the discovery of the volatile reaction the voices had to the recitation of the 23rd Psalm. While working in the state prison one inmate told me that after reciting the 23rd Psalm, his voices reacted like worms thrown onto a hot frying pan. I began handing out the 23rd Psalm to other schizophrenic prisoners to see what would happen. They all reported their voices reacted negatively. The prisoners viewed this Psalm as a tool to strike back at and drown out the voices, giving them some small measure of control.

I learned that over the week between our sessions, most of them managed to lose their copy of the Psalm. I gave them another and asked them to carry it in their pockets and repeat it when their voices showed up. Those who complied reported that their voices tried to distract and focus their attention away from the psalm.

I spoke of these findings to Dr. Van Dusen who sent me the book, “Thirty Years Among The Dead” written by Carl August Wickland, a 20th-century psychiatrist and psychical researcher. Dr. Wickland gave patients repeated shocks from a static electricity generator, and the voices were driven out. His psychic wife then guided them into the light. Afterward, they did not return to torment the patient.

Dr. Van Dusen and I discussed how to implement something similar in the prison setting without getting me fired. The closest thing I could find to a static shock was to have patients snap a rubber band on their wrist when the voices showed up. Snapping the rubber bands silenced the voices long enough for patients to remember to read the 23rd Psalm.

For the first time ever, patients had a tool that allowed them to take action against the voices on their own. This simple tool lifted their spirits, and dispelled feelings of complete helplessness.

Over the next few weeks I had a half dozen of my most motivated inmates walking around waging a rubber band battle against their voices. When the chief psychologist discovered this, I was ordered to stop.

I implemented Sherry’s program as the backbone of a more comprehensive program in the battle against the voices. Other aspects of the overall program consisted of such things as:

• Stay away from negative people, books, magazines, violent video games, murder TV shows, or anything with negative or violent content. It is important to notice how the voices steer you away from positive spiritual input, videos, books, etc. Don’t allow this to happen.
• Stay clear of drugs and alcohol which fuels the voices.
• Do at least one or two good things for yourself each day. The voices will try to block or discourage you from doing anything you find positively pleasurable.
• When something good happens, concentrate on that and be grateful. Look for things around you for which to be grateful.
• Listen to pleasant music, instrumental only. Stay clear of acid rock, rap music, or music with words.
• Pray for protection every night before sleep and surround yourself with white light to keep down nightmares.
• Don’t buy into psychiatry’s propaganda that you are insane or have chemical imbalance.
• Beware of attempts of the voices to sabotage family and loving relationships. Don’t break contact.
• The voices do the same thing to you that we do to dairy cows: isolate then drain you. They treat you like we treat prisoners of war: badger, starve, prevent sleep, hammer away at your resistance, and wear you down. These are attempts to make you more suggestible to their destructive messages.
• Remember, if there are bad entities, there are good ones. You have at least two guardian angels waiting to help you at all times, but you must specifically ask them to silence the voices. Ask them for help when things get tough.
• Closely monitor your thoughts for negative insertions.
• Set goals for yourself and stay productively occupied. Don’t allow yourself to get bored. If you don’t direct yourself in a positive direction, the voices will direct you in a negative one.
• Expect the voices to resist or attempt to distract you from doing any of these things.
• Remember to recite the 23rd Psalm every time the voices bother you.

When patients did all these things and worked Sherry’s program consistently for long periods, their voices often weakened and frequently disappeared. Eventually, many no longer needed medication.

Conclusion

If we would listen, schizophrenic patients have pivotal information they could teach us about ourselves and how our minds operate and malfunction. The fact is that neither the academic nor the medical establishments have listened, nor have they done any research into the voices before arbitrarily proclaiming them to be hallucinations.

Those able to temporarily suspend their belief system and take the time to talk to these patients about what their voices are telling them, will see the many patterns and correlations we’ve brought to light, including why isn’t the content of these so-called auditory hallucinations random like all other hallucinations? What force holds them to a consistent and unswervingly negative trajectory? What accounts for the fact that the voices are giving patients the same negative and self-destructive messages across time and space?

Throughout our investigation, the guiding principle was that whatever we did had to work. It had to have some positive impact on weakening the voices which were consuming the patient. The tactics we present are simple and straightforward. You don’t have to be a clinician or have any advanced academic training to understand and apply the information contained here, but you must break free of previous erroneous programming.

In the physical world, we believe we are at the top of the food chain. Our findings reveal this is not true.

One of the most important things we can learn from studying the voices is that we are all surrounded by a world of spirits containing predators that are feeding on all of us to different degrees. Acknowledging the reality of alien spirits instead of dismissing them as hallucinations is necessary for helping schizophrenics and the rest of us to heal.

Excerpt from An Amazing Journey Into The Psychotic Mind

See Part I here.