The History of Psychology

For thousands of years psychology existed under the name of philosophy. The Hindu Vedas contain the oldest record of man's examination of mind and spirit. In India all forms of Yoga, which are essentially psychology, are described as one of the six systems of philosophy.

Sufi teachings, which again are chiefly psychological, are regarded as partly religious and partly metaphysical. In more modern times some version of these systems, still largely following in this same vein, can be found the subjects of Rosicrucianism, New Thought, Science of Mind, visualization techniques, practical magick, and Scientology.

If you found yourself flinching or reacting negatively to the mention of any of these subjects, such as Yoga, Rosicrucianism, Scientology, or any of the the many other alternative approaches to the mind and reality, realize this is not necessarily because there is anything actually strange or weird about these subjects. It is often largely because modern psychology, psychiatry and affiliated proponents of modern materialistic "science" have successfully applied black PR to them to such a large degree.

In fact, they have covertly attacked these subjects for most of this century. An intelligent and objective look into any of these fields, although sometimes initially confusing largely due to the newness of the subject and difference in approach to reality will result in a widened understanding of yourself (and Man in general). Granted, you do need to and in fact you MUST weed out some of the nonsense often added to these subjects.  Once you do take an honest look though it should become very obvious that modern western psychology has little to do with that incredible universe that exists a few inches behind your forehead. It must be mentioned that over time most of these subjects and fields (i.e. Scientology, Rosicrucianism, Transcendental Meditation, etc) have most definitely suffered from some combination of
a) gross alterations introduced by self-appointed leaders following internal power struggles,
b) manipulation of views and information by the more influential members,
c) the sad tendency of some of the not-too-bright members to dictate changes not part of the original information, and
d) the use of the subject and field to exert thought control and behavioral manipulation on its members.

These faults are observably true and easily seen in the recent history of Scientology, though these faults exist in all to some degree. Lastly though, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. While these all have serious flaws, don't use that as an excuse to dismiss everything about them outright without any serious examination. It takes careful and serious examination to separate the valuable from the invaluable - and there is often much of both to be found.