How The Elite Plays God

By Henry Makow Ph.D.

April 08, 2006 By Henry Makow, Ph.D. Like a cat toying with a mouse, the elite teases us with glimpses of our true predicament. One such peek was the 1998 movie The Truman Show directed by Peter Weir. Truman Burbank, played by Jim Carrey, is unaware his life is a live reality TV show. Everyone, including his wife, is an actor, and everything that happens is staged. In other words, his life is a fraud. Truman Burbank's predicament describes our own. According to John Coleman, the elite has been writing and directing the script for almost hundred years at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations based in London. Coleman, 71, a former British Intelligence officer (MI-6) , first exposed the clique that dominates the world is his Conspirator's Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300. (1992) As its title suggests, his latest book is a rambling cry of despair: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping the Moral, Spiritual, Cultural, Political and Economic Decline of the United States of America. (2005) The book is confirmation that a financial elite engineered every war and depression in modern history and continues to condition our beliefs and behavior. According to Coleman, Tavistock began life before WWI to convince peace loving populations of the need to massacre each other. "Those fresh-faced young American boys from Arkansas and North Carolina were sent marching off to Europe believing they were "fighting for their country" never knowing that the "democracy" [Woodrow] Wilson sent them to "make the world safe for" was a Socialist-International One World Government dictatorship." (42) Funded by the royal family, the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, Tavistock pioneered the techniques of propaganda used to justify war. Outright lies about German atrocities in WWI resonate down through the decades to lies about Sadaam Hussein's gassing Kurds and killing babies in Kuwait. Of course the biggest lie of all is that Muslims had anything to do with Sept. 11. Coleman found that 94% of the key words and phases developed by Tavistock for WWII use "matched up with those used in the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War." (153) Coleman's main point is we can't trust anything the mass media or government tells us, especially not the "News." He cites Stalin's propaganda chief Willy Munzenberg: "All news is lies and all propaganda is disguised as news." Coleman says society is rotten with institutions and organizations directed by Tavistock to deceive and distort. They are called "elite" institutions because of whom they serve. The conspiracy reaches right down to the local level. According to Coleman, Tavistock has an "invisible army" of actors found "today in the halls of justice, police, churches, school boards, sports bodies, newspapers, TV...town councils, state legislatures, and are legion in Washington. They run for every office..." Virtually every important corporation, university, think tank or foundation is linked to Tavistock. (See Conspirators' Hierarchy pp. 221-253 for a list.) It chooses the entertainers we watch, the pundits we listen to; the politicians we elect. Every US President since Theodore Roosevelt has been under its control. They made examples of rebels like JFK and Richard Nixon. Tavistock is behind every "spontaneous" social movement of the last century, including feminism, sexual "liberation", the peace movement, the "New Age" movement, environmentalism, homosexuality, and abortion. "The moral, spiritual, racial, economic, cultural and intellectual bankruptcy we are in the midst of today is not some social phenomenon...that just happened. Rather it is the product of a carefully planned Tavistock program," Coleman writes. We are constantly studied to see how we will react under stress. Orson Well's Martian invasion in 1938 was designed to demonstrate the power of the "news" to deceive. Coleman doesn’t mention it but the power blackout in the Northeast was probably another study of mass behavior. So was New Orleans. Confident of our sedated sheep-like behavior, Coleman says Tavistock went ahead and massacred David Koresh and his followers at Waco after lying about his activities. (240). Tavistock follows Sun Tsu's maxim of "Kill a few; terrorize many." Coleman calls Winston Churchill's decision to bomb German civilians "a war crime." Dresden was "an outright attack on Christianity, timed to take place during Lent," he says. (188) According to Coleman, Tavistock is waging war on the Muslim world because Islam represents an obstacle to its control. (151) He claims Russia and China still have a measure of independence. CONCLUSIONS We are in this jam because a small group of dynastic families have amassed unlimited wealth by usurping the government's money-creation role. To maintain this unjust advantage, they need to create a "world government" dictatorship. As in any colonial situation, our national elites are chosen by their willingness to collaborate with the occupying power. Most people will do whatever it takes to be "successful". Many think they are free citizens creating a better world. Like the two Jewish professors who criticized the Israel Lobby recently, they discover the reality when they stray from the script. The public is constantly under psychological attack. Turn on the news and we see 9-11 cover-up accomplice Rudolph Giuliani shedding crocodile tears with victims' families at patsie Zacharias Moussaoui's show trial. Al-Quaeda hijacker Mohammed Atta "mistakenly keyed the air traffic control microphone instead of the cabin intercom" and is heard talking to the frightened passengers! Sure. Meanwhile, the bird flu is coming to get us. Someone is burning black churches. Illegal aliens are flooding the country (despite the "heightened security" mandated by the "war on terror.") Jesus asked Judas to betray him. It goes on and on. People find the Illuminati to be an abstract and elusive enemy. Look no further than your television, your iPod, your radio, movie or newspaper. Coleman says 450 of the Fortune 500 companies get their marching orders from Tavistock. This may explain why TV commercials seem more concerned with behavior modification than with selling a product. I saw this gem recently. A little boy besieges a little girl with gifts. Each time she rejects him. Finally she accepts a vase full of flowers but slams the door in his face. She dumps the flowers in the garbage and uses the vase to gulp McCain's Kool-Aid. What a message to send to children! They are messing people up so we are too divided and dysfunctional to resist them. Like Truman Burbank, more and more people are recognizing the plot. They are testing the elite's story line and finding it mendacious and perverse. They are walking off the stage to find an authentic life. ------ Related: my "Is the New World Order Jewish?" Comments for "How the Elite Plays God" Christene said (April 10, 2006):
Don't fear. Tavistock may create elaborate plans, but let's face it, only God is God. Submit to God and not to Tavistock's fear campaign. Ignore the media. This life is only temporary, just a crazy test, and it will all be over quickly. God knows the truth. Tavistock and their armies will be crushed and burned, their time is very limited. They are the ones who should be afraid, very afraid.
Dean said (April 10, 2006):
like reading your blogs. There may be more to the Truman show than most
people realize. The matrix in which we live allows most to base their
thinking, their very lives on many false premises. Basing their lives on
error they then develop a vested interest in error. Easy to swallow, hard
the divest.
In this way those of the Travistock and the banking elite, parasites all,
can control people through their thinking or believe systems.
For example, the book "The Bible Unearthed" by an Israeli and American shows that Moses was not an historical character and the so-called Israelites were never in any captivity. Of course all the other early old
Testament characters are equally fictitious as are the new testament characters including Jesus.
The matrix is indeed complex.
---- Dean I wouldn't be so quick to throw Moses and Jesus on the historical scrap heap. The proof is that their teachings are still valid today. Henry
Ed said (April 09, 2006):
Congratulations for a succinct, to the “heart of the matter” dissertation. As I see it, the genuinely “sad fact” is that the vast majority of western humans have become “hypnotically programmed” sheeple, thus they will not resist for they view immediately “perceived reality” from their sheeple-like psychological stance. Tavistock and their StarTrek “Borg-like” approach to human affairs seems an apt metaphor here … “Resistance is futile!” Absent “divine” intervention, which is not overtly discernable in recorded history, how can resistance be mounted in and from the West? I am certain that the Chinese, simply by being Chinese in thought and analytic techniques, long ago deduced Tavistock’s “plan”, and they will only “play” as long as they can benefit. What this will ultimately produce is yet to unfold. Interesting times, to be sure Larry said (April 09, 2006):
Your article reminds me of a photo I saw that was taken in a local bank in Baytown, Texas in 1950. There were perhaps 100 people in the lobby. All were well dressed, of normal weight and American citizens.

Since then, Baytown no longer has a downtown. It died. They're only strip malls, big chains and fast food restaurants along a drag on the north side of town. The bank was moved and bought out by a conglomerate and if another picture was taken in the lobby today I'm afraid all we'd see would be a bunch of fat slobs mixed with illegal aliens.

It's horrifying to know that NONE of this was just happenstance.
Ben said (April 09, 2006):
I find it frustrating and disheartening, to say the least, that the bulk of people just won't wake up. I know about the NWO conspiracy, the Illuminati, the deliberate degradation of morals in western society, the abolition of
the role of the male, and the coming Police-State. Most people cringe, scoff
or roll their eyes when confronted with the world's harsh reality, believing
it to be nothing more than a collection of paranoid conspiracy theories. After all, most of them are under the false impression (one that has been pushed onto them since birth) that they are doing the right thing, and that world-leaders care about them, etc. For doing the right thing by the world,
and trying to educate people with the facts and harsh truth, I have been called 'delusional', 'paranoid', 'crazy', 'anti-social', and my personal favourite 'terrorist sympathiser' (makes me chuckle). This is how the flock of mind-altered sheep repay original-thinkers that attempt to lead them to
greener pastures. However, none of this is a deterrent: I believe in doing the right thing; not conforming to someone elses standards, which are just downright wrong. In a few years all those sheep will look back and say "heck, if only we'd listened and done the right thing in the first place".
Sentot said (April 08, 2006):
Although I do believe that conspiracy exists, I also believe none of it would happen if God almighty has not ordained it. Tavistock Institute is not god. We can fight them, because they're humans too. If people forgets that, they will succumb to hopelessness in the face of this grand devilish plot. Please remind your reader often that they shouldn't give up.

Dan said (April 08, 2006):
I'm pleased to see your article tonight focuses on media's primary role being social engineering. Yes, selling products is secondary to that.
Now that I'm connected to marketing 'experts' here in Houston again, I can tell you that advertizing specialists pay primary attention to
selling the product within the 'correct' social 'package', first.
Naturally it's simpler for them to encourage 'trends' so as to have a
compliant and predictable public. I watch these guys work and go to the brain storming meetings, and what I deduce is that the entire advertizing and marketing profession has been subverted into being mouth pieces for the think tanks like Tavistock who actually devise how they
want people to think and behave this year and next. You got very close in this article to telling readers the obvious personal solution to step out of the herd. Turn off the television!
Commercials, shows, 'reality tv', CNN, whatever it is, they are all selling us a simulacra of reality that as Frank Zappa once said, "maybe
you shouldn't ought to buy".
Henry Makow, is the inventor of the board game Scruples, and the author of A Long Way to go for a Date. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto. He welcomes your feedback and ideas at henry@savethemales.ca.

SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS:

The Formative Years of an Interdisciplinary Field at the
Tavistock Institute by Amy L. Fraher

Paradox and Company

Systems psychodynamics is an interdisciplinary field amalgamating a triad of
influences—the practice of psychoanalysis, the theories and methods of the field of
group relations, and the task and boundary awareness of open systems perspectives.
Although systems psychodynamics is not a new field of study, there has been a
general lack of awareness of its roots, how its formative elements have become
intertwined over the years, and the role of the Tavistock Institute in developments
in the field. This article provides a synthesis of this history and focuses, in particular,
on the intellectual foundations of the Tavistock method of working experientially
with groups and the application of this method to the study of organizations.
Systems psychodynamics is an interdisciplinary field that integrates three
disciplines—the practice of psychoanalysis, the theories and methods of group
relations, and open systems perspectives. Systems psychodynamics is “a term used
to refer to the collective psychological behavior” (Neumann, 1999, p. 57) within
and between groups and organizations. “Systems psychodynamics, therefore,
provides a way of thinking about energizing or motivating forces resulting from
the interconnection between various groups and sub-units of a social system”
(Neumann, 1999, p. 57).
Although systems psychodynamics is not a new field of study, there has been
a general lack of awareness of its roots, how its formative elements have become
intertwined over the years, and the role of the Tavistock Institute of Human
Relations (Tavistock Institute) in developments in the field. This article provides
a synthesis of this history and focuses, in particular, on the intellectual foundations
of the Tavistock method of working experientially with groups and the
application of this method to the study of organizations. It will discuss the
formative years of systems psychodynamics from the late 1800s, with developments
in psychoanalysis and theories about groups, until Miller and Rice (1967)
outlined their approach to studying organizations by integrating group relations
practice with psychoanalytic and open systems theories. Throughout the essay,
Amy L. Fraher is Director and Principal Consultant of Paradox and Company, San Diego,
California. Her work focuses on the challenges of crossing boundaries and how unconscious factors
affect leadership efforts, learning, organizational productivity and communication, and social
change.
I thank the following people for their assistance in the creation of this article: Wesley Carr,
Laurence J. Gould, Kathleen B. Jones, Olya Khaleelee, Eric Miller, Jean Neumann, Mannie Sher,
Michael M. Sokal, and Lionel Stapley.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amy L. Fraher, 4704 Miracle
Drive, San Diego, CA 92115. E-mail: amylfraher@cox.net
History of Psychology
2004, Vol. 7, No. 1, 65–84
Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation
1093-4510/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1093-4510.7.1.65
65
the impact of the social, political, and cultural influences of the time will be
investigated.
Although Gould, Stapley, and Stein (2001) observed that “the field of systems
psychodynamics had its birth with the publication of Miller and Rice’s seminal
volume Systems of Organization (1967)” (p. 1), Miller and Rice never explicitly
used the term in their book. According to Laurence Gould, Eric J. Miller, who was
then director of the Tavistock Institute’s Group Relations Programme, coined the
term systems psychodynamics when discussing their work informally in the late
1980s and the concept just “caught on” (L. Gould, personal communication, May
8, 2003).
Mannie Sher, current director of the Tavistock Institute’s Group Relations
Programme, recalled, “When I took up my post at the Tavistock Institute in
October 1997, the term ‘system psycho-dynamics’ was in vogue at the Institute
and used widely by Eric [Miller], Richard Holti, and Jean Neumann” (M. Sher,
personal communication, May 12, 2003). Yet, further research reveals that it was
not until Systems Psychodynamics in the Service of Political Organizational
Change (Neumann, 1999) was released that any author explicitly discussed the
concept in a scholarly publication.
Jean E. Neumann, core faculty of the Tavistock Institute’s Advanced Organisational
Consultation (AOC) Programme, reflected on the process by which the
term systems psychodynamics came into use:
Both Eric and I wanted to discourage consultants from thinking that the role taken
by a consultant at a group relations event was the only, or even preferred, role to
take in working with organisations. I wanted to emphasize the idea that what an
organisational consultant needed to do was apply psychodynamics to the diagnosis
of, and intervention into, issues relevant to any particular organisational change
and development project. A range of roles, theories and approaches could be used
for the application of psychodynamic theory to organisations and other systems
(e.g. between groups and organisations, within communities). Psychodynamics,
instead of psychoanalysis, was important because AOC faculty considered other
depth psychologies relevant as well. (J. Neumann, personal correspondence, June
4, 2002)
The first mention of the term system psychodynamics in print form was in
1993 in the Tavistock Institute’s 1992/93 Review. The Institute’s annual report
provided a candid overview of the work of the Tavistock Institute, including the
activities, developments, interests, and concerns of Institute staff over the year.
Having observed that the Group Relations Programme emerged in the 1960s
based on “the Institute’s innovative work in bringing together open systems and
psychodynamic perspectives to the study of group and organisational processes,”
Miller noted nonetheless that “the Tavistock Institute’s own activities in this field
have not been expanding” (1992/93 Review, 1993, p. 42). He concluded that it
was necessary to “redevelop this heartland area of the Institute” (1992/93 Review,
1993, p. 42) and recommended a new strategy, termed system psychodynamics,
with which to accomplish this. System psychodynamics was as much an organizational
strategy as it was an integration of theoretical approaches.1 Miller noted
1 Thank you to one of the History of Psychology’s anonymous readers for this observation.
66 FRAHER
that “the two main thrusts of the emergent strategy are to enlarge the nucleus of
staff competent to work with the ‘system psychodynamics’ perspective and to
take roles in the educational activities of the Programme and, during 1993–94, to
extend the range of these activities to include events specifically designed for
industrial, commercial and other sectors and not confined to the experiential
method” (1992/93 Review, 1993, p. 42).
In response to this observation, three external Programme Advisers were
appointed in early 1992—Wesley Carr, Tim Dartington, and Olya Khaleelee—
and, along with former Tavistock staff member Isabel Menzies Lyth and current
staff member Jean Neumann, they undertook these tasks. So the term system
psychodynamics, which later transformed into systems psychodynamics, came into
existence.
Psychoanalytic Roots
The first element of the systems psychodynamics triad of influences—the
practice of psychoanalysis—emerged in the late 1800s. This Victorian era,
characterized by a conservative social climate, was accompanied by rapid advances
in science, medicine, and technological knowledge. One example of
advances in thinking during this time that laid the foundation for the field of
systems psychodynamics was Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis.
Although Freud is not known as a group theorist per se,2 his psychoanalytic
theories about individuals and his influence over the work of Melanie Klein can
be credited with laying the theoretical foundation of systems psychodynamics. In
particular, Klein’s (1986) object relations theory, which both built upon and
departed from the work of Freud, proved essential. Although Klein’s work
predominantly focused on children, her theories about splitting, projective identification,
and the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions were later applied to
adults and groups by her analysand, Wilfred Bion. In the post-World War II
period, Bion’s observations about group behavior led to the development of the
field of group relations, the second element of the systems psychodynamics triad,
which will be explored later in this essay.
In addition to Freud and Klein’s influences from the field of psychology, the
emerging field of sociology also contributed insights that led to the development
of theories about people’s behaviors in groups. In 1896, French sociologist
Gustave Le Bon published his now renowned observations about large, unorganized
groups in his book The Crowd. Le Bon theorized that a person sacrifices a
part of his or her individuality when joining a group, especially a large group, and
becomes more easily influenced and susceptible to suggestion. Perhaps one of the
first theorists to examine the group as a whole, Le Bon observed that the group
mind was illogical, intolerant, prejudiced, rigid, uninhibited, and submissive to
any dominant force that exerted its authority. According to Le Bon (1896), “An
individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind
stirs up at will” (p. 33). Le Bon described how a charismatic leader could sway
2 Freud did, however, publish several books that touched on group, organizational, and social
issues. Notably, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1922), Totem and Taboo (1913),
and Civilization and Its Discontents (1946).
67 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
a crowd by playing on the crowd’s childlike credulity and untethered emotions in
a manner which Freud (1922) observed “as being actually hypnotic” (p. 8).
Although Le Bon’s work has been cited frequently within the psychoanalytic
tradition, not everyone agreed with his theories about group behavior at the time.
Even Freud (1922) spent 15 of the 75 pages of Group Psychology and the
Analysis of the Ego quoting and paraphrasing the work of Le Bon, only to dismiss
his contributions. Freud contended, “None of that author’s statements bring
forward anything new. Everything that he says to the detriment and depreciation
of the manifestations of the group mind had already been said by others before
him” (p. 14). In fact, Freud (1922) interpreted Le Bon’s appraisal of the group
mind as a reflection of Le Bon’s contempt for the masses and fear of social
upheaval. Harrison (2000) agreed, observing that Le Bon’s “frightening picture of
mob activity reflected the bourgeois view of the upheavals occurring in France
throughout the nineteenth century” (p. 28).
Despite these criticisms, in 1920 British social theorist William McDougall
expanded upon Le Bon’s work and developed important insights about organized
groups as a whole. Like Le Bon, McDougall (1920) believed that unorganized
groups were emotional, impulsive, violent, and suggestible and, at times, acted
almost like a wild beast. McDougall added, however, that a mental shift occurs
along with a marked change in group behavior when a group is organized and
task-oriented. This shift causes an intensification of emotion in each individual
group member that is seldom attained under any other conditions and can be
harnessed effectively for positive group achievement (McDougall, 1920).
Group Relations
World War I and Its Impact on Psychological Studies of Group
Behavior
At the same time that many theorists were trying to gain a deeper understanding
of group behavior, European disharmony grew to the point of war in
1914. The war became a laboratory of sorts for the psychological study of group
behavior. For example, military leaders in Europe started to identify nervous
disorders or psychological ailments among their troops. They used the term
shell-shock to describe these ailments regardless of symptoms. Prior to this, any
instability exhibited by a soldier was classified as cowardice or malingering,
which was often punishable by death. Later research revealed that “amongst the
records of those men shot for cowardice there is clear evidence to suggest that a
number were suffering from mental health problems” (Harrison, 2000, p. 79).
When World War I ended in 1918, the horrors it had caused fostered revulsion for
war and a hope that future conflicts could be avoided through a clearer understanding
of human behavior and diplomacy.
As a result of psychological lessons learned during World War I, the
Tavistock Clinic was founded in London in 1920. Originally known as the
Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, the clinic was established as “one of
the first out-patient clinics in Great Britain to provide systematic major psychotherapy
on the basis of concepts inspired by psychoanalytic theory” (Dicks, 1970,
p. 1) for patients unable to afford private fees. In addition, it “subsequently
became an important centre for training for psychiatrists and allied professionals”
68 FRAHER
(Miller, 1989, p. 3). The clinic was founded based on the vision and energy of its
director, Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller, who conceived of it as a model clinic for other
psychiatric departments3 (Dicks, 1970).
In September 1920, the original Tavistock Clinic staff consisted of nine
doctors: Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller (Honorary Director), Dr. J .R. Rees (Deputy
Director in 1926), Dr. Mary Hemingway, Dr. J. A. Hadfield, Dr. E. A. Hamilton
Pearson, Dr. Leslie Tucker, Dr. Neill Hobhouse, Dr. W. A. Potts, and Dr. Evelyn
Saywell (Dicks, 1970, p. 14). This key group of doctors joined professionals from
a variety of backgrounds, including anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, neurologists,
and physicians, to found the clinic. From the beginning, an eclectic
group was formed that showed a desire to link the social sciences with general
medicine and psychiatry and fostered a tolerance of different professional viewpoints,
a characteristic that has remained a common element in the clinic’s work
(Trist & Murray, 1990).
In addition to the work being conducted at the Tavistock Clinic in the
post-World War I period, theorists and practitioners in other parts of the world
were continuing to develop new ideas about groups and organizations. Many of
these contributions were influential, albeit indirectly, to the development of the
second element of the systems psychodynamics triad—the theories and methods
of group relations.
Hayden and Molenkamp (2003) defined group relations as the study of “the
dynamics of the group as a holistic system” (p. 3). This field of study embraces
psychodynamic principles but, contrary to traditional psychoanalysis, applies such
theories to the study of the group as a social system. Three contributions proved
to be pivotal in the history of group relations. First, without identifying it as such,
Le Bon and McDougall provided key observations about group behavior by
introducing the idea of studying the group as a whole. Group as a whole refers to
the behavior of a “group as a social system and the individuals’ relatedness to that
system” (Wells, 1985, p. 112). This shift from the psychoanalytic focus on the
individual to an examination of the group as a singular entity represents
an important piece of the history of group relations and therefore of systems
psychodynamics.
A second contribution to the history of group relations was made by Bion and
others when, after World War II, they experimented by shifting from the clinician’s
gaze outside the phenomenon to an “outsider within” perspective. Abandoning
traditional psychoanalytic perspectives and embracing the perspective of
the group as a whole, Bion used himself as an instrument to detect group behavior
and thereby developed a new method of working with groups.
A third important contribution to the history of group relations was provided
by Kurt Lewin in an almost accidental discovery. During a 1946 workshop, Lewin
and his colleagues experimented with his hypothesis that adults learn more
effectively through interactive experiences shared in experiential learning environments
rather than through traditional lectures and seminars. The results of this
3 Crichton-Miller’s hopes in this regard were dashed as other clinics were slow to become
established and the ones that were available were slow and halting in their development (Dicks,
1970).
69 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
first experiential learning event led to development of the human laboratory and
influenced the subsequent development of the group relations conference.
These three historical contributions—the group-as-a-whole perspective, the
practice of using one’s self as an instrument, and the methods gleaned from
experiential learning—laid the early foundation for the field of group relations. It
is important to note, however, that several other theorists made contributions to
the application of psychology to the study of group behavior and organizations.
One of the first theorists to apply psychology to the workplace, Mary Parker
Follett (1941), described the advantages of a more cooperative work environment
in her essay “The Giving of Orders.”4 Arguing for a less hierarchical worker–
management interface, Follett offered that the solution to workers’ resistance to
following orders was to “depersonalize the giving of orders” (p. 58). She suggested
that workers and foremen should study a situation together and allow a
solution to which both parties would be responsive to emerge naturally. “With
scientific management the managers are as much under orders as the workers, for
both obey the law of the situation” (p. 59).
Between 1927 and 1932, Elton Mayo conducted a now famous study at the
Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. By studying
women assembling telephone relays, Mayo (1933) explored the relationship
between the worker and the work environment and the link between human
motivation and productivity. “The Hawthorne experiments showed that complex,
interactional variables make the difference in motivating people—things like
attention paid to workers as individuals, workers’ control over their own work,
differences between individuals’ needs, management’s willingness to listen,
group norms, and direct feedback” (Shafritz & Ott, 1996, pp. 150–151).
Although the contributions of Follett (1941) and Mayo (1933) may seem like
obscure links to systems psychodynamics, they represent clear examples of the
ways in which theorists began to shift their thinking about organizations and work
between the wars. Paving the way for new methods such as systems psychodynamics,
these theorists recognized organizations as complex interactive systems,
a unique perspective at the time, and highlighted the importance of “the human
aspect of industry” (Mayo, 1933, p. 1).
As previously mentioned, another influential social scientist in the post-World
War I period was Kurt Lewin. Living in Germany during World War I, Lewin had
observed first hand the potential that humanity had for both good and evil and
firmly believed that the social sciences could and must be used to maximize
human good. His harrowing wartime experiences resulted in a life-long commitment
to the use of science to integrate democratic values in society. After fleeing
Nazi Germany for the United States in 1932, Lewin taught at Stanford and then
Cornell before establishing permanent residency and accepting a teaching position
in child psychology at Iowa State University (Hirsch, 1987).
One of Lewin’s many contributions to the development of systems psychodynamics
was the notion of psychosociological influences over group behaviors. His
methods were grounded in the philosophy that “the group to which an individual
belongs is the ground for his perceptions, his feelings, and his actions” (Lewin,
4 First presented in 1925 before a Bureau of Personnel Administration conference.
70 FRAHER
1948, p. vii). By providing the elusive conceptual framework to examine group
behavior, Lewin’s theories, which were known as applied psychology or field
theory, provided a way in which the tension between the individual and group
could be studied.
Field theory, originally used in physics, was made popular in the study of
social fields by Lewin, among others, in the 1940s because of its focus on the
characteristics of interdependence. By applying scientific reasoning, Lewin compared
groups to a molecule’s parts and their interrelatedness and thereby demystified
the nature of group life. He (1947) wrote:
There is no more magic behind the fact that groups have properties of their own,
which are different from the properties of their subgroups or their individual
members, than behind the fact that molecules have properties, which are different
from properties of the atoms or ions of which they are composed. (p. 8)
In addition, Lewin (1947) cautioned researchers that “only by considering the
groups in question in their actual setting, can we be sure that none of the essential
conduct has been overlooked” (p. 14).
Lewin’s philosophies exerted significant influence over members of the
Tavistock Institute. Miller (1993) noted that “the Tavistock group shared his
conviction that conventional modes of scientific analysis would not uncover the
‘Gestalt’ properties of complex human systems” (p. 5). Therefore, new methods
were required.
In another contribution, Lewin (1948) introduced the concept of degrees of
freedom and explored the sharpness of boundaries in a way that seems to
foreshadow Rice’s (1965) discussion of boundaries in open systems—the third
element of the systems psychodynamics triad—in his book Learning for Leadership.
Miller (1993) confirmed the importance of Lewin’s contributions, noting
that Lewin’s “way of looking at groups and institutions as ‘dynamic wholes’” had
considerable influence on “my early Tavistock colleagues” (p. 5).
As evidenced by the three examples discussed previously, theorists such as
Follett, Mayo, and Lewin were struggling in the post-World War I period to better
understand people’s behaviors in groups and organizations and to explore the
implications of this new knowledge for the development of a democratic society
and a productive workplace. Although none of these theorists can be considered
a systems psychodynamics expert, per se, each holds a piece of the historical
puzzle that led to developments of the field of systems psychodynamics. The
inciting incident that results in the merging of these different perspectives is once
again war.
Northfield Experiments of World War II
World War I revealed the necessity of developing ways to treat shell-shocked
soldiers; World War II required that therapists move beyond an individual
treatment model to address the large number of soldiers who required treatment.
Yet “at the outbreak of war in 1939 there was extremely limited mental health
expertise in the British Army” (Harrison, 2000, p. 83). As a start to rectifying this
problem, two senior psychiatrists were appointed as consulting psychiatrists to the
71 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
British army: Henry Yellowlees, a veteran from World War I, and J. R. Rees, the
former director of the Tavistock Clinic.
The appointment of Rees proved pivotal. After Rees’s appointment, many
Tavistock Clinic employees joined the war effort. Two members joined the Royal
Navy, 31 joined the army, and 3 staff members joined the Royal Air Force. Dicks
(1970) recalled, “The ranks held in the Services by members of the Tavistock staff
included two brigadiers (J. R. Rees and E. A. Bennet), twelve Surgeon Commanders,
Lieut.-Colonels or Wing Commanders, and nineteen Majors or squadron
leaders” (p. 118). As a result of these recruiting efforts, “by July 1943 there were
197 serving psychiatrists, and by 1945 there were over 300” (Harrison, 2000,
p. 84).
The presence of the former Tavistock Clinic employees in the British army
remained formidable throughout the war. Colloquially referred to as the Tavistock
group or the invisible college, this group included Wilfred Bion and John
Rickman, as well as Harold Bridger, Tom Main, Eric Trist, Tommy Wilson, John
Bowlby, Ron Hargreaves, and John Sutherland. Although these men were not all
clinicians, they were all interested in psychoanalysis and shared many of the same
philosophies about working with groups. They kept in close communication
during the war.
In a twist of fate, Bion’s prior military experience, education, and athleticism
brought him to a juncture in the 1940s that made it seem as if he was somehow
destined to become “the father of group relations” (Fraher, 2002, p. 14). Bion
served with distinction in World War I as part of the Tank Corps, eventually
qualifying as a tank officer in France later in the war. After World War I, Bion
read history at Queen’s College in Oxford. He was active in athletics and excelled
in swimming, water polo, and rugby. After Oxford, he took a position as a
schoolmaster for 2 years. Bion’s daughter Francesca (F. Bion, 1982) writes that
“by 1924 it was clear to him where his interest lay—in psychoanalysis” (p. 6).
Bion completed medical training at University College Hospital in London and
joined the staff at the Tavistock Clinic before World War II. Bion’s combination
of front-line battle experience from World War I and psychoanalytic training
proved to be an invaluable combination for British army psychiatry.
Manpower shortages during the war severely hampered British military
success. It was during this desperate time to get rehabilitated soldiers back to the
battlefield that much of Bion and his colleague’s experimentation with groups
took place at a treatment facility called the Northfield Hospital. Trist (1985)
recalled the following:
Northfield was a large military psychiatric hospital which functioned as a clearing
house. According to a man’s condition, he would be discharged from the army,
return to his unit or found alternative military employment. The need for manpower
was at its height. Any method was welcome which would encourage a body
of disaffected men displaying a bewildering variety of symptoms in different
degrees of acuteness, to re-engage with the role of being a soldier in an army at
war. Methods so far tried had yielded poor results. (p. 14)
In response to this need, Bion devised a therapeutic community, outlined in
a document called the “Wharncliffe Memorandum” in 1939. The premise of the
therapeutic community was to use the entire hospital environment as a therapeu-
72 FRAHER
tically engaged social system to treat patients by shifting the focus from individual
treatment to that of group process, leadership concepts, and social obligation.
Paramount was the notion that the group analyzes its own dynamics rather
than waiting for outside direction from authority figures. This philosophy becomes
a central tenant in the field of group relations and therefore in systems
psychodynamics.
Events that transpired at the Northfield Hospital had widespread impact on the
field of psychiatry both during and after the war. Many of the invisible college
returned to their former employer, the Tavistock Clinic. Much of the clinic’s
post-war work was based on the experimentation that this interdisciplinary group
from the invisible college conducted at the Northfield Hospital during the war
years. In particular, experimentation with experiential group methods and the
development of a therapeutic community laid the foundation for the emergence
after the war of a new field called group relations—the second element of the
systems psychodynamics triad.
Like many organizations after the war, the Tavistock Clinic was challenged to
pick up the pieces that remained of the once thriving organization and rebuild. In
1945, an interim planning committee was established to consider the future of the
Tavistock Clinic and to redefine the clinic’s mission in light of experiences gained
during the war. This committee was chaired by Bion who, modeling his new
findings about groups, helped to clarify issues and reduce conflicts within the
committee itself, which facilitated the committee’s approval of his report by
year’s end. This report diagrammed the clinic’s tasks as: (a) exploration of the role
of outpatient psychiatry based on a dynamic approach and oriented toward the
social sciences in the as yet undefined settings of the new National Health Service
and (b) incorporation of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (Tavistock
Institute) for the study of wider social problems not currently seen as being within
the purview of the mental health profession (Trist & Murray, 1990). As a result,
the Tavistock Institute was founded in 1946.
Post-World War II and the Development of Group Relations
The post-World War II period could be classified as the birth of the field of
group relations, because many people excitedly experimented with the knowledge
gained from their wartime experiences. Central to this exploration were Bion and
his fellow members of the Tavistock Clinic, then Tavistock Institute, in England
and Lewin and the National Training Laboratory (NTL) in the United States. The
NTL’s contributions were pivotal with the development of its human laboratory,
an experiential method of studying groups in 1947.
In London, Bion continued to make significant contributions to social psychiatry.
In 1948, he was asked to take therapeutic groups, a colloquialism for
using the group techniques he had honed through his experiences in World War
II. While working with this small group of patients in the adult department of the
Tavistock Clinic, Bion decided to provide the group with no direction and no
structure to assess the group’s reaction. Rosenbaum and Snadowsky (1976)
observed that the reason for this abrupt break from traditional methods was
twofold: “First, he wasn’t sure what he was doing so he decided to remain silent.
Second, he is a rather withdrawn individual” (p. 27). As a result of Bion’s silence,
73 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
the patients were puzzled, upset, and angry and responded in a variety of ways.
Bion’s unique contribution was that he interpreted these reactions as the group’s
dynamic as a whole not as the behavior of individual group members.
What may have started as a response to uncertainty and/or a reflection of
Bion’s personality was transformed eventually into a therapeutic technique central
to group relations and the Tavistock tradition. Trist (1985) wrote the following
observation of Bion’s methods for taking groups: “Several features characterized
Bion’s group ‘style’. He was detached yet warm, utterly imperturbable and
inexhaustibly patient. He gave rise to feelings of immense security—his Rock of
Gibraltar quality. But the Rock of Gibraltar is also powerful and he exuded power
(he was also a very large man)” (p. 30).
In Kleinian terms, Bion seemed to be inviting, whether consciously or not, the
group’s projective identification with him. That is, he made himself available for
the group to disown their uncomfortable feelings and project them onto him as a
means to understand the group’s unconscious behavior (Gabriel, 1999). As Trist
(1985) put it, “He made it safe for the group to dramatize its unconscious
situation” (p. 31).
Bion’s methods were heavily influenced by the theories of Melanie Klein,
especially her ideas about basic defense mechanisms, such as splitting and
projective identification. These theories proved to be the link Bion needed to join
theories that described the individual’s unconscious experience with those he was
developing to represent experiences of group membership. Bion extended Klein’s
theories by exploring how group membership often evoked some of the same
contradictory feelings as those experienced during childhood in response to the
mother. Through Bion’s lens, Klein’s object relations theory explained how
experiences in groups trigger “primitive phantasies [sic] whose origins lie in the
earliest years of life” (Gabriel, 1999, p. 118). For example, one unconscious desire
is for the individual to join with others in an undifferentiated entity, like the infant
fusing with the breast. Although comforting, this desire also creates resultant
fears, such as the fear of becoming overwhelmed or consumed by the undifferentiated
mass of the group or the fear of being rejected or abandoned by the group.
In his articles, Bion outlined his theories of group behavior that were based
largely on observations he made while working with small groups over the years.
He hypothesized that groups have two modes of operation. One mode he called
the productive sophisticated group, more commonly called a work group. The
work group focused intently on the group’s task and maintains close contact with
reality. The other mode of group operation Bion called basic assumption. Its
primary task was to ease the group’s anxieties and avoid the pain or emotions that
further work might bring. As an example, Bion identified three types of basic
assumption modes: basic assumption of dependence (baD), basic assumption of
pairing (baP), and basic assumption of fight-flight (baF) (W. R. Bion, 1961).
When a group operates in the basic assumption mode of dependency, Bion noted:
One person is always felt to be in a position to supply the needs of the group, and
the rest in a position to which their needs are supplied. . .having thrown all their
cares on the leader, they sit back and wait for him to solve all their problems. . .the
dependent group soon shows that an integral part of its structure is a belief in the
omniscience and omnipotence of some one member of the group. (pp. 74, 82, 99)
74 FRAHER
The group assumes this leader, whether selected formally or informally, has
clairvoyance of thought and supernatural powers and that the rest of the group is
powerless and dependent. When the leader fails to meet the group’s unrealistic
expectations, as he or she inevitably does, the group becomes quickly frustrated
and disappointedly selects another member for the daunting task. This leader will
also fail eventually, of course (W. R. Bion, 1961; Gabriel, 1999).
The basic assumption mode of pairing is evident in a group when the group
invests irrational hopefulness for the future in two of the group members.
Regardless of gender, the group assumes that these two individuals have paired
either for a “sexual” experience, which would provide the birth of a new group,
a religious experience, which would provide a messiah, or a reparative experience,
which would produce world peace.
When a group operates in the basic assumption mode of fight-flight, Bion
(W. R. Bion, 1961) wrote:
The group seems to know only two techniques of self-preservation, fight or
flight. . .the kind of leadership that is recognized as appropriate is the leadership of
the man who mobilizes the group to attack somebody, or alternatively to lead it in
flight. . .leaders who neither fight nor run away are not easily understood. (pp. 63,
65)
In 1961, Bion published his influential book, Experiences in Groups, which
was a compilation of his series of articles printed separately over the years in
different journals such as the Tavistock Institute’s journal, “Human Relations.”
Since then, his ideas about groups have had a widespread impact in many different
fields from social psychology and sociology to organizational development and
leadership studies. Pines (1985) observed:
Experiences in Groups is probably the shortest and most influential text in
psychoanalytic group psychotherapy. Whether you agree or disagree with Bion,
ignore him you cannot for he looms up at you from the darkness of the deepest
areas of human experience, illuminating it with his “beams of darkness.” (p. xi)
Similarly, Miller (1998) observed, “Bion’s theory has generated a voluminous
literature, mainly in the field of psychoanalysis, group psychotherapy, and group
dynamics” (p. 1498).
Bion’s theories continued to be interpreted and evolved by other theoreticians
who applied his theories to working with groups. Rice, Miller, Bridger, Trist,
Menzies, and other social scientists affiliated with the Tavistock Institute carried
Bion’s theories about covert group dynamics, such as unconscious defense mechanisms,
into their continued exploration of how best to understand organizations.
The first civilian training group, as opposed to those for military members
during and after the war, was held in 1945 under the direction of Bion, Rickman,
and Sutherland at the Tavistock Clinic. It consisted of 12 members, one of whom
was A. Kenneth Rice. Although it only lasted six sessions, it seemed to have a
profound influence over many group members—especially Rice. Rice was so
taken by these new methods that he volunteered to become a member of the
training group at the Tavistock Institute, again under the direction of Bion. This
training group met weekly as a small study group for a period of 2 years between
1947 and 1948.
75 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
Rice, an anthropologist by training, had been a businessman and consultant to
organizations around the world, most notably to textile industries in India. One of
Rice’s (1958) most famous projects was with the Ahmedabad Manufacturing and
Calico Printing Company, Ltd., in India from 1953 to 1956 detailed in his book
Productivity and Social Organization the Ahmedabad Experiment. Prior to his
experiences in India, Rice had been an officer “in colonial Africa where his liberal
convictions and lack of sympathy with racial prejudice made him unpopular with
the British colonial administration at the time” (Rioch, 1996, p. 11).
This combination of life experiences would prove pivotal in 1962 when Rice
was authorized by the Tavistock Institute to take over the leadership of their new
experiential learning events called group relations conferences. First started in
1957, these events were held at the University of Leicester and became known as
The Leicester Conference. Miller (1989) recalled the circumstances of Rice’s
appointment, “The reasons were largely pragmatic: the conferences had been
losing more money than the Institute could afford, and Rice was willing to try to
make them financially viable” (p. 5).
Although Bion provided the foundational theories for the group relations
conference, he never attended a Tavistock Institute conference. It was Rice, along
with a cadre of others, who developed the design of the group relations conference
by further expanding the application of group relations theories and practices.
Sher, current Director of the Tavistock Institute, reported:
Rice would have been talking to people like Trist, Mary [Barker], Turquet,
Gosling, and Eric Miller of course, and others. It started off the idea of a
laboratory. And that no doubt A. K. Rice’s clients would come to this laboratory,
and Miller’s clients, and Turquet’s clients, would come to this laboratory. And
learn about things and take the stuff back into their organizations and, at times,
take the consultants back with them into the organizations. So there would be a
fruitful link between the Leicester Conference, or whatever it was called then, and
the ongoing consultation that Rice and others were having with their client
organizations. (Fraher, 2002, p. 74)
This new way of thinking, learning, and then applying this knowledge back
into organizations quickly became known as the Tavistock method. This model
used group relations conferences as a way to relieve clients of the organizational
distractions of their business world by bringing them into a temporary institution
that would provide an experiential learning environment. This environment would
provide a common language and experience with which to build upon when the
clients and consultants returned to the client’s organization. It is not too difficult
to see the vestiges of Bion’s therapeutic community, as well as the influence of
Lewin and the NTL’s human laboratory, in the design of this experiential learning
community.
After a brief evolutionary period between 1957 and the early 1960s, the
design of the Leicester Conference began to stabilize and the format became more
predictable. Miller (1989) recalled:
The essentials of the approach, including its theoretical underpinnings, were
largely established by the mid-1960s. Since then, the “Leicester Model” has
provided the basis for numerous other conferences, some run by the [Tavistock
Institute] and very many more by other institutions, in Britain and a dozen different
76 FRAHER
countries around the world. In most cases these were developed with the active
support of the Tavistock Institute. (p. 1)
Although the structure of the conference has remained largely unchanged, the
experience of a group relations conference is never the same. The dynamics
among member and staff groups vary; consequently, no two conference experiences
are ever alike. Certain conference events have become hallmarks of the
Leicester Conference design. Fraher (2002) noted some of these hallmarks,
gleaned from a review of 32 Leicester Conference brochures5:
1. Every conference member is assigned to a small study group, which is
made up of approximately 9 to 12 individuals from all walks of life. The
task of this small group is to study its own behavior as it unfolds, in the
here and now. A consultant is assigned to assist the group at its task by
helping the group examine its own behavior.
2. All working conference members attend the large study group that
usually consists of the entire conference membership sitting in a spiral
seating arrangement. Not part of the original conference design, the large
study group was added to the conference structure in the late 1960s
based largely on the work of Turquet (E. J. Miller, personal communication,
October 29, 2001). The task of the large study group is to study
behaviors that might occur in a crowd or in meetings that consist of more
people than can easily form face-to-face interpersonal relationships. It is
not uncommon for subgroups to form or split, anti-groups to emerge, and
fantasies or myths to be played out. Three to four consultants are
normally assigned to assist the group at its task of examining its
behavior.
3. An intergroup event, not included in the first conference design, was
successfully added in 1959 largely through the work of Harold Bridger.
During the intergroup event, members are free to form their own
subgroups within the predetermined conference groups to study behaviors
within and between groups in any manner they choose. In addition,
most conferences also include an institutional event that enables the
study of the relationships and relatedness between all subgroups of the
conference as an institution.6 Consultants are available upon request
during both events.
4. Near the end of the conference, all members are assigned to review and
application groups that are made up of 5 to 10 people from similar or
complementary backgrounds. The goal of the application group is for
members to reflect on their conference experience to consider how their
5 1963 to 2002, excluding 1977 and 1986 to 1989.
6 For example, the “A” subconference, the “B” subconference, and the training group might
have separate intergroup events but might all participate in a joint institutional event.
77 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
learning can be applied to similar roles outside. A consultant is assigned
to assist individuals in their interpretations and application of their new
knowledge.
After having experienced the events of a conference, it is up to the individual
to decide which conference experiences and learning are valuable. Therefore,
Miller (1993) observed:
What he learns, therefore, is unique to him. He cannot be told what he “ought to
have learned”: indeed, that phrase itself is an expression of dependence on
authority. Other people, including the consultant, may offer their views of a
situation, but only the individual member is in a position to understand, in light of
the role he has, the relationship between what is happening around him and what
is happening inside him; hence it is on his own authority that he accepts what is
valid for him and rejects what is not. (p. 22)
At approximately the same time that the theoretical and methodological
underpinnings of the group relations conference were emerging in the post-war
period, the work of von Bertalanffy (1950) came to the attention of social
scientists at the Tavistock Institute. Trist and Murray (1993) reported:
While on sabbatical at the Institute from Australia in 1951, Emery alerted his
colleagues to the significance for social science of von Bertalanffy’s (1950) notion
of open systems. This provided a new way of considering individuals, groups and
organizations in relation to their environments. (p. 30)
The amalgamation of open systems thinking with the Institute’s previously
popular sociopsychological perspective resulted in the creation of a new paradigm:
the sociotechnical perspective. This perspective set the stage for the
emergence of systems psychodynamics approximately 30 years later.
Systems Theory
The third and final element in the systems psychodynamics triad is the task
and boundary awareness from open systems theory. Systems thinking was, of
course, not novel even in the late 19th century. In fact, Churchman (1968) claimed
that systemic thinking can be traced back at least as far as Plato’s Republic in 400
B.C. He added, “the ‘pre-Socratics’ are even fresher than Plato and Aristotle, and
are mainly interested in the ‘whole system’. . .The nineteenth century produced
many writers on the nature of whole systems: Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche, Spengler, Spencer, to mention a few” (Churchman, 1968, p. 240).
These early theorists’ contributions about whole systems laid an intellectual
foundation that ignited general inquiry into the nature of social systems.
Work being done at the Tavistock Clinic prior to World War II and then at the
Tavistock Institute in the post-war period explored the question of whole systems.
In a manner similar to the ways in which successes in group psychology during
the wars led to developments in the field of group relations, the successes of
scientific teams in the military in World War II led to expanded system thinking.
Churchman (1968) noted, “As a consequence after the war there was a rush to
apply the same kind of thinking, which then was called ‘operations research,’ to
78 FRAHER
various nonmilitary problems, and in particular to industry” (p. ix). One of the
co-founders of operations research, Sir Charles Goodeve, also founded an Organization
for Promoting Understanding of Society (OPUS) as a way to examine
unconscious group processes that shape society and the institutions within it (L.
Stapley, personal communication, June 8, 2003).
Churchman noted, “As the scientist’s perspective widened, he began to think
of his approach as the ‘systems approach’” (p. x). In particular, refinements in the
systems approach included developments in psychophysical systems, field theory
methods, the understanding of social systems as defenses against anxiety, open
systems thinking, and sociotechnical approaches. These five theoretical developments
significantly influenced systems thinking and became the third element in
the systems psychodynamics triad—the task and boundary awareness from open
systems theory.
Trist and Murray (1990) wrote, “Historically, there have been two major
conceptual schemes in the human sciences: that of the psycho-physical system, or
organism, and that of social structure, or the institutional systems” (p. 540). Yet,
as a result of field theory or action research conducted in the post-war period, Trist
and others at the Tavistock Institute proposed a new conceptual scheme—the
sociopsychological perspective—that enabled the sociological and psychological
fields to become interrelated. They urged adoption of the term sociopsychological
rather than the earlier term psychosocial to stress the examination of the influence
of psychological forces on social systems (Trist & Murray, 1993, p. 29). Trist and
Murray (1990) noted, “The source concepts which gave rise to the socio-psychological
perspective are psychoanalytic object relations theory, Lewinian field
theory, the personality-culture approach and the theory of open systems” (p. 37).
The premise of the sociopsychological perspective was that when one examines
social systems one finds there are two undercurrents simultaneously influencing
organizational life. On one level, there are socio-factors that influence
reality within an organization such as the organization’s structure; its products and
services; and the organization’s culture, policies, and procedures. On another
level, there are psycho-factors that affect organizations such as the fears, anxieties,
values, hopes, and beliefs of the people that work within them. To understand
organizations more fully, one must examine both levels of activity. “Experiences
during World War II had shown that psychoanalytic object relations
theory could unify the psychological and social fields in a way that no other
could” (Trist & Murray, 1993, p. 30).
Further research by Tavistock Institute staff members Elliot Jacques (1952)
and Isabel Menzies (1960) into the use of social systems as a defense against
anxiety proved to be pivotal to future developments in systems psychodynamics
as well. These studies showed how organizations develop mechanisms to defend
against the anxiety inherent in the system. These defense mechanisms establish
methods of helping an organization’s members deal with “disturbing emotional
experiences—methods that are built into the way the organization works” (Menzies,
1960, p. 101).
In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, studies in coal mines, textile mills, and
hospitals conducted by Tavistock members Jacques, Rice, Miller, Trist, Bridger,
and Menzies Lyth, among others, proved influential to the development of another
important concept, the sociotechnical perspective. The sociotechnical system
79 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
provided a way to optimize both human elements and technological imperatives
within organizations, without sacrificing one to the other. Yet, the sociotechnical
system approach focused at the level of what Bion would have termed the primary
work group (W. R. Bion, 1961) rather than the wider organization and its
environment. Further developments in open system theory made it possible to
look simultaneously at the relationships between the individual worker and the
work group, the work group and the organization, and the organization and its
environment. In other words, open systems theory built upon, yet expanded, the
premise of the sociotechnical system in ways that permitted an understanding of
the operation of the organization’s internal dynamics as well as its interaction with
its external environment.
As Rice (1965) described it, the classic model of an organization is one of a
closed system, a mechanically self-sufficient organization neither importing nor
exporting across the boundaries of the organization. Rice noted, “Open systems,
in contrast, exist and can only exist by the exchange of materials with their
environment. . .the process of importing, converting, and exporting materials is
the work the system has to do to live” (cited in Miller, 1993, p. 10). Miller (1993)
provided examples to illustrate Rice’s point:
Thus a manufacturing company coverts raw materials into saleable products (and
waste), a college converts freshmen into graduates (and drop-outs) and there are
the other resources that are required to bring about the processing: the production
workers, the teachers, the machinery, the supplies, etc. The boundary across which
these materials flow in and out both separates the enterprise from and links it with
its environment. (p. 11)
This permeable boundary region came to be viewed by open system theorists
as a critical area for the exercise of leadership. If the boundary is too loose, it is
possible that the outside environment can become too influential and disruptive to
the internal work of the organization. If the boundary is too rigid, the internal
organization can stagnate and become inflexible to market or environmental
changes. Miller (1993) wrote, “Survival is therefore contingent on an appropriate
degree of insulation and permeability in the boundary region” (p. 11).
The idea of boundary management has also been applied to thinking about an
individual’s boundary management. Miller (1993) and Rice (1965) incorporated
Freud and Klein’s theories into their thinking by equating the ego function in
individuals with the boundary region. Rice (1965) described this notion as
follows:
In the mature individual, the ego—the concept of the self as a unique individual—
mediates the relationships between the internal world of good and bad objects and
the external world of reality, and thus takes, in relations to the personality, a
“leadership” role. (p. 11)
Therefore, when one is involved in organizational or group life, one is
influenced both by the external environment of the work setting and by one’s
internal environment that is largely a product of previous work and childhood
experiences. In Rice’s (1965) words, “The mature ego is one that can define the
boundary between what is inside and what is outside, and can control the
transactions between the one and the other” (p. 11). However, the group can also
80 FRAHER
evoke more primitive feelings in the individual, such as those “in the areas of
dependency aggression and hope. The individual is usually unaware of this
process: these basic emotions slip under the guard, as it were, of his ego function”
(Miller, 1993, p. 19).
Even though these primitive feelings and defenses might go undetected by the
individual, they often have an impact on the group and are sensed by others within
the organization. According to Rice (1965), “The tendency for most human beings
to split the good from the bad in themselves and to project their resultant feelings
upon others is one of the major barriers to the understanding and control of
behaviour [sic]” (p. 11). When people come together in groups, individuals’
primitive feelings and defenses can get mobilized on behalf of, and in service to,
the group and the bad feelings are often the split off and projected onto authority
figures, whose task it is to regulate the boundary region. As one method to study
people’s struggles with these types of authority issues, the Tavistock Institute
developed the group relations conference in the late 1950s. In this way, they
created an experiential learning method that linked psychoanalytic theory with the
notion of open systems theory that was developed in the social sciences.
In addition to the development of the group relations conference, a second
result of the amalgamation of open systems theory with psychoanalytic theory
was an expanded definition of Bion’s notion of a group’s task. As discussed
previously, Bion postulated that a group can be understood to operate potentially
at two levels: the sophisticated work group level that is oriented toward overt task
completion, and the basic assumption level that sometimes supports, but more
often hinders, the overt task by acting out one of three possible defenses (W. R.
Bion, 1961; Gabriel, 1999; Miller, 1993). Rice (1965) used open systems theory
and its notion of external influences to reconceptualize the notion of the group’s
task. Rice called the task that an organization or group “must perform if it is to
survive” (p. 17) the group’s primary task.
Rice’s definition of primary task is nuanced. His appreciation of the contextual
factors constraining any organization’s performance recognized the importance
of examining an organization in its full environmental context, including
historical and social influences. Rice emphasized how important the contextual
factors constraining an organization’s performance were to an assessment of that
organization’s ability to survive.
In Learning for Leadership, Rice (1965) outlined the complex set of tasks that
most enterprises must perform simultaneously. In most cases, he argued, one task
above all was the critical one. An organization must perform this primary task if
it was to continue to be the organization it claimed to be. Rice further argued that
environmental constraints such as political, economic, legal, and social contexts
within which an organization operates further influence an organization’s primary
task (Rice, 1965).
An example of how an organization’s primary task can shift in an open system
due to environmental changes can be found in the days and months after the
terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. Whether the organization’s
primary task had been educating children, flying commercial airliners,
or winning football games in the National Football League, organizational priorities
shifted in response to these environmental changes. Many organizations
81 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
adopted a new primary task, at least temporarily, of safety, security, or as Rice
would put it “survival.”
Concluding Thoughts
Today’s organizations are continuously challenged to keep pace with rapidly
changing environments and emerging technologies in a globalized marketplace.
“Everywhere in society the pace of change is accelerating” (Klein, Gabelnick, &
Herr, 1998, p. ix). As a result, old organizational paradigms will no longer be
sufficient to address future organizational needs. Krantz (2001) noted:
Major organizational change efforts pose great psychic challenges to their members
and require, in response, distinctive conditions in order to adequately contain
the profound anxieties evoked by such upheaval. And, in the absence of these
conditions change efforts are likely to fail, in part because members will tend to
employ primitive and destructive defenses to protect themselves from the painful
anxieties and fears that attend disruption and turmoil. (p. 134)
These challenges heighten the requirement for leaders at all levels within
organizations to better understand systems psychodynamics to survive in today’s
competitive market.
As this review of the history of psychology has demonstrated, psychology has
made important contributions to the study of groups—both unorganized, amorphous
groups such as crowds and organized, structured groups such as organizations.
An understanding of the history of psychology’s long trajectory of influence
on the study of organizations enables us to better appreciate the impact of
contemporary psychology on the study of leadership and the dynamics of change
in today’s organizations. An understanding of the historical roots of systems
psychodynamics not only allows us to recognize and respect the developments
made by our predecessors but also allows us to connect these to subsequent
developments in the field.
References
Bion, F. (1982). Foreword. In W. R. Bion, The long week-end 1897–1919: Part of a life
(pp. 6–7). London: Free Association Books.
Bion, W. R. (1961). Experiences in groups. London: Routledge.
Churchman, C. W. (1968). The systems approach. New York: Dell.
Dicks, H. V. (1970). Fifty years of the Tavistock clinic. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Follett, M. P. (1941). The giving of orders. In H. C. Metcalf & L. Urwick (Eds.), Dynamic
administration (pp. 50–70). London: Management Publications Trust.
Fraher, A. L. (2002). The development of the Tavistock and Tavistock-inspired group
relations movement in Great Britain and the United States: A comparative and
historical perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of San Diego,
California.
Freud, S. (1913). Totem and taboo. New York: Vintage.
Freud, S. (1922). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. New York: Liveright.
Freud, S. (1946). Civilization and its discontents. London: Hogarth Press.
Gabriel, Y. (1999). Organizations in depth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Gould, L., Stapley, L. F., & Stein, M. (Eds.). (2001). The systems psychodynamics of
organizations. New York: Karnac.
Harrison, T. (2000). Bion, Rickman, Foulkes and the Northfield experiments: Advancing
on a different front. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Hayden, C., & Molenkamp, R. J. (2003). Tavistock primer II. Unpublished manuscript.
Hirsch, J. I. (1987). The history of the national training laboratories 1947–1986. New
York: Peter Lang.
Jacques, E. (1952). The changing culture of a factory. New York: Dryden Press.
Klein, E. B., Gabelnick, F., & Herr, P. (Eds.). (1998). The psychodynamics of leadership.
Madison, CT: Psychosocial Press.
Klein, M. (1986). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In J. Mitchell (Ed.), The selected
Melanie Klein (pp. 175–200). London: Penguin Books.
Krantz, J. (2001). Dilemmas of organizational change: A systems psychodynamic perspective.
In L. J. Gould, L. F. Stapley, & M. Stein (Eds.), The systems psychodynamics
of organizations (pp. 133–156). London: Karnac.
Le Bon, G. (1896). The crowd: A study of the popular mind. London: Ernest Benn.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: I. Human Relations, 1, 5–41.
Lewin, K. (1948). Resolving social conflicts: Selected papers on group dynamics. New
York: Harper & Row.
Mayo, E. (1933). The human problems of an industrial civilization. New York: Viking
Press.
McDougall, W. (1920). The group mind. New York: G. P. Putnam.
Menzies, I. (1960). The functioning of social systems as a defense against anxiety. In I. M.
Lyth, Containing anxiety in institutions (pp. 43–88). London: Free Association
Books.
Miller, E. J. (1989). The Leicester model: Experiential study of group and organizational
processes (TIHR Occasional Paper No. 10). London: The Tavistock Institute of
Human Relations.
Miller, E. (1993). From dependency to autonomy: Studies in organization and change.
London: Free Association Books.
Miller, E. J. (1998). A note on the protomental system and “groupishness”: Bion’s basic
assumptions revisited. Human Relations, 51, 1495–1508.
Miller, E. J., & Rice, A. K. (1967). Systems of organization. London: Tavistock.
Neumann, J. E. (1999). Systems psychodynamics in the service of political organizational
change. In R. French & R. Vince (Eds.), Group relations, management, and organization
(pp. 54–69). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Pines, M. (Ed.). (1985). Bion and group psychotherapy. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul.
Rice, A. K. (1958). Productivity and social organization: The Ahmedabad experiment.
London: Tavistock.
Rice, A. K. (1965). Learning for leadership. London: Tavistock.
Rioch, M. J. (1996). Personal perspectives (In memoriam reprinted from Models of
achievements: Reflections of eminent women in psychology, 1983). New York:
Columbia University Press.
Rosenbaum, M., & Snadowsky, A. (Eds.). (1976). The intensive group experience. New
York: Free Press.
Shafritz, J. M., & Ott, J. S. (1996). Classics of organization theory (4th ed.). New York:
Harcourt Brace.
Tavistock Institute. (1992/1993). Review. London: Author.
Trist, E. (1985). Working with Bion in the 1940s: The group decade. In M. Pines (Ed.),
Bion and group psychotherapy (pp. 1–46). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Trist, E., & Murray, H. (Eds.). (1990). The social engagement of social science: A
83 SYSTEMS PSYCHODYNAMICS
Tavistock anthology, Volume I: The socio-psychological perspective. Philadelphia:
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Received September 11, 2002
Revision received June 16, 2003
Accepted October 9, 2003 y

84 FRAHER

Tavistock and the "New" Identity

TAVISTOCK -
THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN AMERICA

"The illegal we do immediately.
The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
Henry Kissinger

From Dr. Byron T. Weeks, MD
July 31, 2001
http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwotavistockbestkeptsecret.shtml

[Editor's Note: No one deserves more credit than Dr. John Coleman for bringing to light the history and true purpose of the City of London's Tavistock Institute and its many subdivisional institutions and organizations which was exposed in stunning detail in his 1992 book, Conspirators' Hierachy: The Story of The Cimmittee of 300. Dr Coleman has rightly complained that many NWO expose writers who have followed in his wake, have used his original research without crediting him as the originating source and in fairness to him, it should be observed that the information presented below is a reflection of his pioneering investigations into Tavistock.

The article below was sent to John Quinn by Dr. Byron Weeks. The insidious propaganda and public opinion manipulations (including mind control agendas) orchestrated by London's Tavistock Institute is covered at length in the books of David Icke and Dr John Coleman, but this recent article adds fresh insights and historical perspective. Our thanks to Brice Taylor for forwarding...Ken Adachi]

Preface from John Quinn (NewsHawk)
This forwarded article was received from Byron Weeks; who in our opinion really has a good firm handle on exactly WHAT is up on many levels with the extraordinarily extensive "control trips" currently being directed against the peoples of the world by elements of the global shadow government.

Weeks, whom I quoted at length in the book PHOENIX UNDEAD, has sent us this compelling look at a globally-active British institute which has had it's hands in just about every social and political/governmental movement of note throughout much of the world for the past 50 years.

For example, ever wonder who and what is "behind", let's say, the CIA? Well, they don't swear allegiance to America, that's for certain. Try the British royal family.

This report is the real stuff--solidly researched and meticulously documented; so for lots more truly concept-bending data, read on.

NewsHawk Inc.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
To John Quinn

I believe Tavistock has always had secret ties to British Freemasonry.

Byron T. Weeks, MD
Col. AFUS, MC, Ret.
--------------------------

TAVISTOCK - THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN AMERICA

TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE . . . . . . . . .
30 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4DD.--

Formed in 1947, the Tavistock Institute is an independent not-for-profit organization which seeks to combine research in the social sciences with professional practice. Problems of institution-building and organizational design and change are being tackled in all sectors - government, industry and commerce, health and welfare, education, etc. - nationally and internationally, and clients range from multinationals to small community groups. A growth area has been the use of a developmental approach to evaluation of new and experimental programs, particularly in health, education and community development. This has also produced new training events alongside the regular program of group relations conferences. The Institute owns and edits the monthly journal Human Relations (published by Plenum Press) which is now in its 48th year, and has recently launched (in conjunction with Sage Publications) a new journal Evaluation.

Three elements combine to make the Institute unusual, if not unique: it has the independence of being entirely self-financing, with no subsidies from the government or other sources; the action research orientation places it between, but not in, the worlds of academia and consultancy; and its range of disciplines include anthropology, economics, organizational behavior, political science, psychoanalysis, psychology and sociology.

The ideology of American foundations was created by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. In 1921, the Duke of Bedford, Marquess of Tavistock, the 11th Duke, gave a building to the Institute to study the effect of shellshock on British soldiers who survived World War I. Its purpose was to establish the "breaking point" of men under stress, under the direction of the British Army Bureau of Psychological Warfare, commanded by Sir John Rawlings-Reese.

Tavistock Institute is headquartered in London. Its prophet, Sigmond Freud, settled in Maresfield Gardens when he moved to England. He was given a mansion by Princess Bonaparte. Tavistock's pioneer work in behavioral science along Freudian lines of "controlling" humans established it as the world center of foundation ideology. Its network now extends from the University of Sussex to the U.S. through the Stanford Research Institute, Esalen, MIT, <http://watch.pair.com/Hudson.html>Hudson Institute, <http://watch.pair.com/heritage.html>Heritage Foundation, Center of Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown, where State Dept. personal are trained, US Air Force Intelligence, and the Rand and Mitre corporations. The personnel of the corporations are required to undergo indoctrination at one or more of these Tavistock controlled institutions. A network of secret groups, the Mont Pelerin Society, Trilateral Commission, Ditchley Foundation, and the Club of Rome is conduit for instructions to the Tavistock network.

[Editor, Tim Aho's note: See Watch Unto Prayer report on The Heritage Foundation founded by Paul Weyrich with funding from Joseph Coors, who also founded and financed respectively the Moral Majority and Council for National Policy.]

Tavistock Institute developed the mass brain-washing techniques which were first used experimentally on American prisoners of war in Korea. Its experiments in crowd control methods have been widely used on the American public, a surreptitious but nevertheless outrageous assault on human freedom by modifying individual behavior through topical psychology. A German refugee, Kurt Lewin, became director of Tavistock in 1932. He came to the U.S. in 1933 as a "refugee", the first of many infiltrators, and set up the Harvard Psychology Clinic, which originated the propaganda campaign to turn the American public against Germany and involve us in World War II.

In 1938, Roosevelt executed a secret agreement with Churchill which in effect ceded U.S. sovereignty to England, because it agreed to let Special Operations Executive control U.S. policies. To implement this agreement, Roosevelt sent General Donovan to London for indoctrination before setting up OSS (now the CIA) under the aegis of SOE-SIS. The entire OSS program, as well as the CIA has always worked on guidelines set up by the Tavistock Institute.

[Editor, Tim Aho: See Watch Unto Prayer report on <http://watch.pair.com/jbs-cnp.html>The John Birch Society & Council for National Policy for information regarding CIA operations on the Christian Right.]

Tavistock Institute originated the mass civilian bombing raids carried out by Roosevelt and Churchill purely as a clinical experiment in mass terror, keeping records of the results as they watched the "guinea pigs" reacting under "controlled laboratory conditions". All Tavistock and American foundation techniques have a single goal---to break down the psychological strength of the individual and render him helpless to oppose the dictators of the World Order. Any technique which helps to break down the family unit, and family inculcated principles of religion, honor, patriotism and sexual behavior, is used by the Tavistock scientists as weapons of crowd control.

The methods of Freudian psychotherapy induce permanent mental illness in those who undergo this treatment by destabilizing their character. The victim is then advised to "establish new rituals of personal interaction", that is, to indulge in brief sexual encounters which actually set the participants adrift with no stable personal relationships in their lives, destroying their ability to establish or maintain a family. Tavistock Institute has developed such power in the U.S. that no one achieves prominence in any field unless he has been trained in behavioral science at Tavistock or one of its subsidiaries.

Henry Kissinger, whose meteoric rise to power is otherwise inexplicable, was a German refugee and student of Sir John Rawlings-Reese at SHAEF. Dr. Peter Bourne, a Tavistock Institute psychologist, picked Jimmy Carter for President of the U.S. solely because Carter had undergone an intensive brainwashing program administered by Admiral Hyman Rickover at Annapolis. The "experiment" in compulsory racial integration in the U.S. was organized by Ronald Lippert, of the OSS and the American Jewish Congress, and director of child training at the Commission on Community Relations. The program was designed to break down the individual's sense of personal knowledge in his identity, his racial heritage. Through the Stanford Research Institute, Tavistock controls the National Education Association. The Institute of Social Research at the National Training Lab brain washes the leading executives of business and government.

Such is the power of Tavistock that our entire space program was scrapped for nine years so that the Soviets could catch up. The hiatus was demanded in an article written by Dr. Anatol Rapport, and was promptly granted by the government, to the complete mystification of everyone connected with NASA. Another prominent Tavistock operation is the Wharton School of Finance, at the University of Pennsylvania. A single common denominator identifies the common Tavistock strategy---the use of drugs. The infamous MK Ultra program of the CIA, in which unsuspecting CIA officials were given LSD, and their reaction studied like "guinea pigs", resulted in several deaths.

The U.S. Government had to pay millions in damages to the families of the victims, but the culprits were never indicted. The program originated when Sandoz AG, a Swiss drug firm, owned by S.G. Warburg Co. of London, developed Lysergic Acid [LSD]. Roosevelt's advisor, James Paul Warburg, son of Paul Warburg who wrote the Federal Reserve Act, and nephew of Max Warburg who had financed Hitler, set up the <http://watch.pair.com/FreedomHouse.html#ips>Institute for Policy Studies to promote the drug. The result was the LSD "counter-culture" of the 1960s, the "student revolution", which was financed by $25 million from the CIA.

One part of MK Ultra was the Human Ecology Fund; the CIA also paid Dr. Herbert Kelman of Harvard to carry out further experiments on mind control. In the 1950s, the CIA financed extensive LSD experiments in Canada. Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, president of the Canadian Psychological Association, and director of Royal Victorian Hospital, Montreal, received large payments from the CIA to give 53 patients large doses of LSD and record their reactions; the patients were drugged into weeks of sleep and then given electric shock treatments.

One victim, the wife of a member of the Canadian Parliament, is now suing the U.S. companies who provided the drug for the CIA. All the records of the CIA's drug testing program were ordered destroyed by the head of MK Ultra. Because all efforts of the Tavistock Institute are directed toward producing cyclical collapse, the effect of the CIA programs are tragically apparent. R. Emmett Tyrell Jr., writing in the Washington Post August 20, 1984, cites the "squalid consequences of the 60s radicals in SDS" as resulting in "the growing rate of illegitimacy, petty lawlessness, drug addiction, welfare, VD, and mental illness".

This is the legacy of the Warburgs and the CIA. Their principal agency, the Institute for Policy Studies, was funded by James Paul Warburg; its co-founder was Marcus Raskin, protege of McGeorge Bundy, president of the Ford Foundation. Bundy had Raskin appointed to the post of President Kennedy's personal representative on the National Security Council, and in 1963 funded Students for Democratic Society, through which the CIA operated the drug culture.

Today the Tavistock Institute operates a $6 Billion a year network of Foundations in the U.S., all of it funded by U.S. taxpayers' money. Ten major institutions are under its direct control, with 400 subsidiaries, and 3000 other study groups and think tanks which originate many types of programs to increase the control of the World Order over the American people. The Stanford Research Institute, adjoining the Hoover Institution, is a $150 million a year operation with 3300 employees. It carries on program surveillance for Bechtel, Kaiser, and 400 other companies, and extensive intelligence operations for the CIA. It is the largest institution on the West Coast promoting mind control and the behavioral sciences.

One of the key agencies as a conduit for secret instructions from Tavistock is the Ditchley Foundation, founded in 1957. The American branch of the Ditchley Foundation is run by Cyrus Vance, former Secretary of State, and director of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Winston Lord, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

[Editor, Tim Aho's note: The wife of Winston Lord (CFR, Bilderberg, Skull & Bones), Bette Bao Lord (CFR, Bilderberg), is Chairman of the Board of Freedom House whose manipulation of the Christian Right via the Religious Persecution issue is documented in our report <http://watch.pair.com/FreedomHouse.html>Freedom House: A CFR Front.]

One of the principal but little known operations of the Rockefeller Foundation has been its techniques for controlling world agriculture. Its director, Kenneth Wernimont, set up Rockefeller controlled agricultural programs throughout Mexico and Latin America. The independent farmer is a great threat to the World Order, because he produces for himself, and because his produce can be converted into capital, which gives him independence. In Soviet Russia, the Bolsheviks believed they had attained total control over the people; they were dismayed to find their plans threatened by the stubborn independence of the small farmers, the Kulaks.

Stalin ordered the OGPU to seize all food and animals of the Kulaks, and to starve them out. The Chicago American, February 25, 1935 carried a front page headline, SIX MILLION PERISH IN SOVIET FAMINE; Peasants' Crops Seized, They and their Animals Starve. To draw attention from this atrocity, it was later alleged that the Germans, not the Soviets, had killed six million people, the number taken from the Chicago American headline by a Chicago publicist.

The Communist Party, the Party of the Peasants and Workers, exterminated the peasants and enslaved the workers. Many totalitarian regimes have found the small farmer to be their biggest stumbling block. The French Reign of Terror was directed, not against the aristocrats, many of whom were sympathetic to it, but against the small farmers who refused to turn over their grain to the revolutionary tribunals in exchange for the worthless assignats. In the United States, the foundations are presently engaged in the same type of war of extermination against the American farmer.

The traditional formula of land plus labor for the farmer has been altered due to the farmer's need for purchasing power, to buy industrial goods needed in his farming operations. Because of this need for capital, the farmer is especially vulnerable to the World Order's manipulation of interest rates, which is bankrupting him. Just as in the Soviet Union, in the early 1930s, when Stalin ordered the Kulaks to give up their small plots of land to live and work on the collective farms, the American small farmer faces the same type of extermination, being forced to give up his small plot of land to become a hired hand for the big agricultural trusts. The Brookings Institution and other foundations originated the monetary programs implemented by the Federal Reserve System to destroy the American farmer, a replay of the Soviet tragedy in Russia, with one proviso that the farmer will be allowed to survive if he becomes a slave worker of the giant trusts.

Once the citizen becomes aware of the true role of the foundations, he can understand the high interest rates, high taxes, the destruction of the family, the degradation of the churches into forums for revolution, the subversion of the universities into CIA cesspools of drug addiction, and the halls of government into sewers of international espionage and intrigue. The American citizen can now understand why every agent of the federal government is against him; the alphabet agencies, the FBI, IRS, CIA and BATF must make war on the citizen in order to carry out the programs of the foundations.

The foundations are in direct violation of their charters, which commit them to do "charitable" work, because they make no grants which are not part of a political goal. The charge has been made, and never denied, that the Heritage-AEI network has at least two KGB moles on its staff. The employment of professional intelligence operatives as "charitable" workers, as was done in the Red Cross Mission to Russia in 1917, exposes the sinister political economic and social goals which the World Order requires the foundations to achieve through their " bequests ".

Not only is this tax fraud, because the foundations are granted tax exemption solely to do charitable work, but it is criminal syndicalism, conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States of America, Constitutional Law 213, Corpus Juris Secundum 16. For the first time, the close interlocking of the foundation "syndicate" has been revealed by the names of its principle incorporators---Daniel Coit Gilman, who incorporated the Peabody Fund and the John Slater Fund, and became an incorporator of the General Education Board (now the Rockefeller Foundation); Gilman, who also incorporated the Russell Trust in 1856, later became an incorporator of the Carnegie Institution with Andrew Dickson White (Russell Trust) and Frederic A. Delano. Delano also was an original incorporator of the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Daniel Coit Gilman incorporated the Russell Sage Foundation with Cleveland H. Dodge of the National City Bank. These foundations incorporators have been closely linked with the Federal Reserve System, the War Industries Board of World War I, the OSS of World War II and the CIA. They have also been closely linked with the American International Corporation, which was formed to instigate the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Delano, an uncle of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was on the original Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 1914. His brother-in-law founded the influential Washington law firm of Covington and Burling. The Delanos and other ruling families of the World Order trace their lineage directly back to William of Orange and the regime which granted the charter of the Bank of England.

Tavistock Institutions In The United States

Flow Laboratories Gets contracts from the National Institutes of Health.

Merle Thomas Corporation Gets contracts from the U.S. Navy, analyzes data from satellites.

Walden Research Does work in the field of pollution control.

Planning Research Corporation, Arthur D. Little, G.E. "TEMPO", Operations Research Inc. Part of approximately 350 firms who conduct research and conduct surveys, make recommendations to government. They are part of what President Eisenhower called "a possible danger to public policy that could itself become captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Brookings Institution Dedicates its work to what it calls a "national agenda." Wrote President Hoover's program, President Roosevelt's "New Deal", the Kennedy Administration's "New Frontiers" program (deviation from it may have cost John F. Kennedy his life), and President Johnson's "Great Society." Brookings has been telling the United States Government how to conduct its affairs for the past 70 years and is still doing so.

Hudson Institute This institution has done more to shape the way Americans react to political and social events, think, vote and generally conduct themselves than perhaps any except the BIG FIVE. Hudson specializes in defense policy research and relations with the USSR. Most of its military work is classified as SECRET. (One idea during the Vietnam War was to build a moat around Saigon.) Hudson may be properly classified as one of the Committee of 300's BRAINWASHING establishments. One of its largest clients is the U.S. Department of Defense which includes matters of civil defense, national security, military policy and arms control.

[Editor, Tim Aho: This is the same <http://watch.pair.com/Hudson.html>Hudson Institute which gave us GOALS 2000 and authored the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act, which became the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. This law required the creation of a federal commission to monitor religion chaired by a presidentially-appointed Ambassador-at-Large on International Religious Freedom under the mandates of the United Nations' covenants and authority of the International Criminal Court.]

National Training Laboratories One of the key institutions established for this purpose in the United States was the National Training Laboratories (NTL). Founded in 1947 by members of the Tavistock network in the United States and located originally on an estate in Bethel, Maine, NTL had as its explicit purpose the brainwashing of leaders of the government, educational institutions, and corporate bureaucracies in the Tavistock method, and then using these "leaders" to either themselves run Tavistock group sessions in their organizations or to hire other similarly trained group leaders to do the job. The "nuts and bolts" of the NTL operation revolves around the particular form of Tavistock degenerate psychology known as "group dynamics," developed by German Tavistock operative Kurt Lewin, who emigrated to the United States in the 1930s and whose students founded NTL.

In a Lewinite brainwashing group, a number of individuals from varying backgrounds and personalities, are manipulated by a "group leader" to form a "consensus" of opinion, achieving a new "group identity." The key to the process is the creation of a controlled environment, in which stress is introduced (sometimes called dissonance) to crack an individual's belief structure. Using the peer pressure of other group members, the individual is "cracked," and a new personality emerges with new values. The degrading experience causes the person to deny that any change has taken place. In that way, an individual is brainwashed without the victim knowing what has taken place.

This method is the same, with some minor modification, used in all so-called "sensitivity groups" or "T-groups," or in the more extreme rock-drug-sex counterculture form, "touchy-feely groups," such as the kind popularized from the 1960s onward by the Esalen Institute, which was set up with the help of NTL.

From the mid-1950s onward, NTL put the majority of the nation's corporate leaderships through such brainwashing programs, while running similar programs for the State Department, the Navy, the Department of Education, and other sections of the federal bureaucracy. There is no firm estimate of the number of Americans who have been put through this process in last 40 years at either NTL, or as it is now known the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences, which is based in Rosslyn, Virginia, or its West Coast base of operations, the Western Training Laboratories in Group Development, or in various satellite institutions. The most reliable estimate is in the several millions.

One of the groups that went through the NTL mill in the 1950s was the leadership of the National Education Association, the largest organization of teachers in the United States. Thus, the NEA's outlook has been "shaped" by Tavistock, through the NTL. In 1964, the NTL Institute became a direct part of the NEA, with the NTL setting up "group sessions" for all its affiliates. With funding from the Department of Education, the NTL Institute drafted the programs for the training of the nation's primary and secondary school teachers, and has a hand as well in developing the content of educational "reforms," including OBE.

Also known as the International Institute for Applied Behavioral Sciences. This institute is a brainwashing center in artificial stress training whereby participants suddenly find themselves immersed in defending themselves against vicious accusations. NTL takes in the National Education Association, the largest teacher group in the United States. While officially decrying "racism", it is interesting to note that NTL, working with NEA, produced a paper proposing education vouchers which would separate the hard-to-teach children from the brighter ones, and funding would be allocated according to the number of difficult children who would be separated from those who progressed at a normal rate. The proposal was not taken up.

University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance & Commerce Founded by Eric Trist One of the "brain trusts" of Tavistock, Wharton has become one of the more important Tavistock in so far as "Behavioral Research" is concerned. Wharton attracts clients such as the U.S. Department of Labor---which teaches how to produce "cooked" statistics at the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates Incorporated. This method was very much in demand as we came to the close of 1991 with millions more out of work than was reflected in USDL statistics. Wharton's ECONOMETRIC MODELING is used by every major Committee of 300 company in the United States, Western Europe, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Institute for Social Research Among its clients are The Ford Foundation, U.S.Department of Defense, U.S.Postal Service and the U.S. Department of Justice. Among its studies are "The Human Meaning Of Social Change", "Youth in Transition" and "How Americans View Their Mental Health".

Institute For The Future This is not a typical Tavistock institution in that it is funded by the Ford Foundation, yet it draws its long-range forecasting from the mother of all think tanks. Institute for the Future projects what it believes to be changes that will be taking place in time frames of fifty years. So called "DELPHI PANELS" decide what is normal and what is not, and prepare position papers to "steer" government in the right direction to head off such groups as "people creating civil disorder." (This could be patriotic groups demanding abolition of graduated taxes, or demanding that their right to bear arms is not infringed.) This institute recommends action such as liberalizing abortion laws, drug usage and that cars entering an urban area pay tolls, teaching birth control in public schools, requiring registration of firearms, making use of drugs a non-criminal offense, legalizing homosexuality, paying students for scholastic achievements, making zoning controls a preserve of the state, offering bonuses for family planning and last, but most frightening, a Pol Pot Cambodia-style proposal that new communities be established in rural areas, (concentration camp compounds). As can be observed, many of their goals have already been more than fully realized.

INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES (IPS)

One of the "Big Three", IPS has shaped and reshaped United States policies, foreign and domestic, since it was founded by James P. Warburg and the Rothschild entities in the United States. Its networks in America include the League for Industrial Democracy. Lead players in the League for Industrial Democracy have included Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Irwin Suall of the ADL, Eugene Rostow, Arms control negotiator, Lane Kirkland, Labor Leader, and Albert Shanker. IPS was incorporated in 1963 by Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnett, both highly trained Tavistock Institute graduates. The objectives of IPS came from an agenda laid down for it by the Tavistock Institute, one of the most notable being to create the "New Left" as a grass roots movement in the U.S. Its been said that Barnett and Raskin controlled such diverse elements as the Black Panthers, Daniel Ellsberg, National Security Council staff member Halprin, The Weathermen Underground, the Venceramos and the campaign staff of candidate George McGovern. No scheme was too big for IFS and its controllers to take on and manage.

Through its many powerful lobbing groups on Capitol Hill, IPS relentlessly used its "Big Stick" to beat Congress. IPS has a network of lobbyists, all supposedly operating independently but in actual fact acting cohesively, so that Congressmen are pummeled from all sides by seemingly different and varied lobbyists, In this way, IPS was, and is still, able to successfully sway individual Representatives and Senators to vote for "the trend, the way things are going." By using key pointmen on Capitol Hill, IPS was able to break into the very infrastructure of our legislative system and the way it works.

IPS became, and remains to this day, one of the most prestigious "think tanks" controlling foreign policy decisions, which we, the people, foolishly believe are those of our law makers. By sponsoring militant activism at home and with links to revolutionaries abroad, by engineering such victories as "The Pentagon Papers," besieging the corporate structure, bridging the credibility gap between underground movements and acceptable political activism, by penetrating religious organizations and using them to sow discord in America, such as radical racial policies under the guise of religion, using establishment media to spread IPS ideas, and then supporting them, IPS has lived up to the role which it was founded to play.

[Editor, Tim Aho: See Watch Unto Prayer report on <http://watch.pair.com/FreedomHouse.html>Freedom House: "Grants (for the IPS) came from the Samuel Rubin Foundation and the Stern Family Fund. Samuel Rubin was himself a member of the elite Comintern of the Communist Party, founded by none other than Lenin himself. Billionaire Armand Hammer assisted Rubin in making the fortunes which helped launch IPS. Philip Stern, an IPS trustee, was the president of Stern Fund. The executive director of the Stern Fund, David R. Hunter, was previously an official of The National Council and the World Council Of Churches. (Dr. James W. Wardner, Unholy Alliances, p.125)]

STANFORD RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Jesse Hobson, the first president of Stanford Research Institute, in a 1952 speech made it clear what lines the institute was to follow. Stanford can be described as one of the "jewels" in Tavistock's Crown in its rule over the United States. Founded in 1946 immediately after the close of WWII, it was presided over by Charles A. Anderson, with emphasis on mind control research and "future sciences." Included under the Stanford umbrella was Charles F. Kettering Foundation which developed the "Changing Images of Man" upon which the Aquarian Conspiracy rests.

Some of Stanford's major clients and contracts were at first centered around the defense establishment but, as Stanford grew, so, did the diversity of its services:

Applications of Behavioral Sciences to Research Management Office of Science and Technology

SRI Business Intelligence Program

U.S. Department of Defense Directorate of Defense Research and Engineering

U.S. Department of Defense Office of Aerospace Research

Among corporations seeking Stanford's services were Wells Fargo Bank, Bechtel Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Bank of America, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Blyth, Eastman Dillon and TRW Company. One of Stanford's more secret projects was extensive work on chemical and bacteriological warfare (CAB) weapons.

Stanford Research is plugged into at least 200 smaller "think tanks" doing research into every facet of life in America. This is ARPA networking and represents the emergence of probably the most far reaching effort to control the environment of every individual in the country. At present Stanford's computers are linked with 2500 "sister" research consoles which include the CIA, Bell Telephone Laboratories, U.S. Army Intelligence, The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Rand, MIT, Harvard and UCLA. Stanford plays a key role in that it is the "library", cataloging all ARPA documentation.

"Other agencies".....one can use one's imagination here, are allowed to search through SRI's "library" for key words, phrases, look through sources and update their own master files with those of Stanford Research Center. The Pentagon uses SRI's master files extensively, and there is little doubt that other U.S. Government agencies do the same. Pentagon "command and control" problems are worked out by Stanford.

While ostensibly these apply only to weapons and soldiers, there is absolutely no guarantee that the same research could not , and will not be turned to civilian applications. Stanford is known to be willing to do anything for anyone.

[Editor, Tim Aho: See Watch Unto Prayer report Lambert Dolphin & the Great Sphinx, which documents the connections of SRI's Lambert Dolphin with the Edgar Cayce Foundation and The Discernment Ministries.]

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (MIT),
ALFRED P. SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

This major institute is not generally recognized as being a part of Tavistock U.S.A. Most people look upon it as being a purely American institution, but that is far from the truth. MIT- Alfred Sloan can be roughly divided into the following groups:

Contemporary Technology Industrial Relations NASA-ERC Computer Research Laboratories Office of Naval Research Group, Psychology Systems Dynamics

Some of MIT's clients are:

American Management Association
Committee for Economic Development
GTE
Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA)
NASA
National Academy of Sciences
National Council of Churches
Sylvania
TRW
U.S. Army
U.S. Department of State
U.S. Navy
U.S. Treasury
Volkswagen Company

RAND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

Without a doubt, RAND is THE think tank most beholden to Tavistock Institute and certainly the RIIA's most prestigious vehicle for control of United States policies at every level. Specific RAND policies that became operative include our ICBM program, prime analyses for U.S. foreign policy making, instigator of space programs, U.S. nuclear policies, corporate analyses, hundreds of projects for the military, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in relation to the use of mind altering drugs like peyote, LSD (the covert MK-ULTRA operation which lasted for 20 years).

[Editor, Tim Aho's note: The founder of the Rand Corporation, Herman Kahn, also founded the Hudson Institute in 1961. In Educating for the New World Order, B.K. Eakman tells of a training manual for "change agents" developed for the U.S. government by Rand Corporation: ". . . a how-to manual with a 1971 U.S. Office of Education contract number on it entitled 'Training for Change Agents'; seven volumes of 'change agent studies' commissioned by the U.S. Office of Education to the Rand Corporation in 1973-74; scores of other papers submitted by behaviorist researchers who had obtained grants from the U.S. Office of Education for the purpose of exploring ways to 'freeze' and 'unfreeze' values, 'to implement change,' and to turn potentially hostile groups and committees into acquiescent, rubber-stamp bodies by means of such strategies as the 'Delphi Technique.'" (p. 118)]

Some of RAND's clients include:

American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T)
Chase Manhattan Bank
International Business Machines (IBM)
National Science Foundation
Republican Party
TRW
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Department of Health
U.S. Department of Energy

There are literally THOUSANDS of highly important companies, government institutions and organizations that make use of RANDS's services. To list them all would be impossible. Among RAND's specialities is a study group that predicts the timing and the direction of a thermonuclear war, plus working out the many scenarios based upon its findings. RAND was once accused of being commissioned by the USSR to work out terms of surrender of the United States Government, an accusation that went all the way to the United States Senate, where it was taken up by Senator Symington and subsequently fell victim to scorn poured out by the establishment press. BRAINWASHING remains the primary function of RAND.

These institutions are among those that fund The UNIFORM LAW FOUNDATION, whose function is to ensure that the Uniform Commercial Code remains the instrument for conducting business in the United States.