Yes, the mattress is freeeeeeeee! Yes, even in the land of psychos / psychopaths.
A few days ago, I found out through the Disquiet Reservations blog, that there is a PDF of this book available for all to download and read for free. Be warned, it's not an easy read!
This is a followup to the original blog entry Political Ponerology: Harrison Koehli interviewed by Dustin Sunflower.
ARRRG! They got rid of the pdf file. Here's another link. Please report any broken links!
[PDF] Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski: The Book (Be careful with adware)
Here is a Sott's webpage of Andrew Lobaczewski containing an introduction and an interview conducted November 2005.
Excerpt:
The editors of sott.net were recently informed that, after a long period of illness, Dr. Andrzej M. Łobaczewski passed away in late November of last year. Łobaczewski was the author of Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes.
He was born in 1921 and grew up on a rural estate in the piedmont vicinity of Poland. Under the Nazi occupation of Poland he worked on the family farm, was an apiarist, and then a soldier of the Home Army, an underground Polish resistance organization. After the Soviet invasion of Poland, the family estate was confiscated and the Łobaczewski family was driven from their ancient home.
Łobaczewski's desire to learn psychology grew during World War II, and after the war he attended Yagiellonian University in Cracow while working to support himself and his studies. The conditions under Communist rule turned his attention to the matters of psychopathology, especially to the role of psychopathic persons in such a governmental system. As his investigations proceeded, he learned that he was not the first such researcher to follow this line of thinking. As others became aware of his questions, it was made known to him that a similar work was already underway, having been begun by a secret agreement of scientists of the older generation which included Kazimierz Dąbrowski. Łobaczewski joined this effort, but the network of scientific collaborators, and their work, was soon destroyed by the Communist Secret Police. Łobaczewski undertook the task of completing the work and putting it in writing.
Working in a mental hospital, then a general hospital, and finally in the open mental health service, Łobaczewski improved his skills in clinical diagnosis and psychotherapy. Finally, when suspected by the political authorities of knowing too much about the pathological nature of the system, he was forced to burn the manuscript of the collected research only a few minutes ahead of a search by the Communist Secret Police. After this disaster, he painfully assembled a second version of the manuscript which he sent to the Vatican in care of a tourist acting as courier. No word was ever received about the fate of this document. In 1977, the Roman correspondent to Radio Free Europe, to whom Łobaczewski had spoken about the work, denounced him to the Polish authorities. He was forced to emigrate in 1977, and all his papers, books, and research materials were confiscated.
In the USA, his efforts to bring the results of this research were stymied by the activities of communism in the United States both in academia and in the publishing industry. In spite of very difficult opposition, he re-wrote the manuscript - the research into psychopathy and other psychopathologies and how they dominate totalitarian government systems - as best he could from memory in New York in 1984. All attempts to publish this book at this time failed. A small printing of copies for academics was the only result, and these soon faded from view. (SOTT research has uncovered the fact that at least some academics must have read this material - or heard of it - and incorporated the ideas into their own work. Robert Rieber of John Jay College of Criminal Justice being a case in point.)
His health broken, Łobaczewski returned to Poland in 1990. His health was partially restored under the care of old friends in the medical profession, and he became able to work again. He soon published another of his works on topics of psychotherapy and socio-psychology and began to transcribe the manuscript of Political Ponerology that he had written by hand in 1984 into a computer file.
Despite the horrors he witnessed and experienced, including the loss of most of his family, Łobaczewski remained a courageous and gentle soul. His compassion, understanding, and tangible hope for humanity pervade his work, both clinical and written. He saw the condition of our world, and the disease which has plagued humanity for millennia. And yet he also saw the possibility of a better future. His work, Political Ponerology, embodies this hope, as the following words which conclude the book, show. It is up to us to see that his vision is remembered, and that his work was not completed in vain.
