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THE RELIGIOUS HERITAGE OF SCIENTOLOGY
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Professor Wilhelm Wundt, a German psychologist and Marxist at the University of Leipzig, proclaimed that man’s soul – if indeed he had one – was irrelevant, as man could only be understood in terms of physically observable phenomena. A search for the spiritual nature of man, he reasoned, was a waste of time as there was no psyche. Thus psychology became the study of the spirit which denied the spirit. The subject of psychology thereafter became prevalent in universities.
Sigmund Freud further reinforced this “modern” concept of man, arguing that all impulses stemmed from his repressed and uncontrollable sexual desires. Such impulses were then “analyzed” as primitive and instinctive, not that different from those which drive an animal.
Although Freud himself broke new ground with his recognition that man could overcome physical ills through addressing the mind, the real value of his work was soon buried in a hodgepodge of theories from others.
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