NSA-RDP96X00790R000100040018-5

The SUN
Approved For Release 2008/04/01 : NSA-RDP96X00790R000100040018-5 1955
EVILI
TAKING POSSESSION
OF THE HUMAN SOUL
1
By Isaac Rehert
N A luxurious hotel in Wash-
ington, where diplomats and
foreign government officials
are hobnobbing in the spacious
lobby downstairs, a gentle
man wearing a light brown suit is
talking quietly in an upstairs room
about the devil.
He is convinced that Satan, or
the devil, or an active evil spirit -
call it what you like, he says - this
active demon is abroad in the world,
doing battle within the human soul,
taking possession of it whenever'it
can be victorious, and propelling it
to evil.
People should be aware, he says.
They should be on their guard. If
they are not careful, they may be
damned.
So should nations, especially
powerful nations. They too can be
possessed by the devil. If they are
not careful, if they become too self-
righteous in the way they wield
power, they too can be damned.
This man's viewpoint is by no
means new. It has been around at
least as long as the Bible.
.
In the modern world, evangelis-
. tic preachers shout it every Sunday
in street-corner churches through-
out the land. And in more "primi-
tive" societies, probably more peo-
ple subscribe to the existence of a
devil, complete with horns, tail and
pitchfork, than not.
-
+. But this man - 47 years old,
.
pleasant amile, rounded pink face,
blond hair going gray, controlled
soft voice:f= is neither evangelist
nor preacher nor primitive. He is a
New England doctor, a psychiatrist,
:
whose mind has been molded to sci-
entific thinking at some of Ameri-
ca's finest universities.
And within the last five years,
thanks to a book he wrote on getting
"your head together, he has become
spiritual mentor to millions of edu-
cated middle-class people.
His name is M. Scott Peck, and
his earlier book, "The Road Less
Traveled," has sold 434,000 copies
'I don't see how
we're going to . ..
heal a disease that
we're not willing
to study or name,'
M. Scott Peck says
DR. M. SCOTT PECK
and last month appeared on the
New York Times best-seller list.
Now he has written a new book,
"People of the Lie: The Hope for
Healing Human Evil" (Simon and
Shuster, $14.95) ....
Dr. Peck is the first to proclaim
that while his earlier work was a
"nice book," this new one is disturb-
ing, downright dangerous.
The ideas in "The Road Less
Traveled" have been discussed by
professors, journalists and house-
wives over the telephone and at cof-
fee klatches: the difference between
falling in love and loving; the notion
that laziness and cowardice are the
source of our miseries.
Critics, even fellow psychiatrists,
have hailed it as the self-help book
that doesn't oversimplify, that
teaches the way to be happy not
through looking out just for No. 1
but by seeking spiritual growth.
Here in Baltimore, in some of the
most prominent churches, it is being
used - chapter by chapter, every
week -- as a text for seminars on
getting a handle on managing your
life.
But of his new book, Dr. Peck
says, "It has potential for harm. It
will cause some readers pain.
Worse, some may misuse its infor-
mation to harm others."
In both his books, he says, he is
building bridges between psycho-
therapy and religion. But while his
first one was general and pleasant
- as he put it, "an attempt to tell
laymen what psychotherapy is all
about" - this one is specific and
disturbing. It takes a look at the
dark underside of the human soul.
"Over the years," he explains,
"in my practice I've had a number
of experiences with people who
have gone beyond being ordinary
sinners - which we all are - to
where the sinning seems to be ir-
revocable, to where they are uncor-
rectable as people, to where they
become more and more fixed in
their destructiveness.
"This book grew out of a terrible
sense of frustration and helplessness
of how to combat or help or heal the
damage that these people do.
"I've come to the conclusion that
the disease they're suffering from is
that they're evil. In our profession
there's a reluctance to call them
that. But I don't see how we're going
to be able to heal a disease that
we're not willing to study or name."
He faults both psychotherapists
and clergymen for their unwilling-
ness to accept the existence of evil
as an active force in the world.
In 1960, he says, a confidential
poll taken among Roman Catholic
priests showed that 80 percent of
them did not believe in evil, and
See EVIL, B4, Col. 1
Approved For Release 2008/04/01 : NSA-RDP96X00790R000100040018-5
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