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What's that got
to do with the survey we are carrying on, this month too, about mental
control or moral subjugation, whichever you want to call it? The concern is
that in this century, featured by materialism, the implementation of
materialism and the loss inside the official religions of that sense of the
sacred that is the way to hold back the deepest worries of man along with the
twisted effects of certain approaches to spirituality. It's in
confusion and fear that the weed of brainwashing finds its background, if
mainly practised over the most fragile and exposed minds, and leading to
devastating effects. We asked a lawyer Guariente Guariente, a well-known
criminal lawyer and to a collaborator of his, Dr. Paolo Guarienti, to take a
stock of the legislation, after the abolition of the crime of moral
subjugation and the suppression of the corresponding provisions. Dr. Giuseppe
Spinetti, on his part, deals with the same matter but with the approach of
the psychiatrist physician, used to go into the twist and turns of mind. Interview
to lawyer Guariente
Guarienti
Why
did they abolish the crime of moral subjugation? The
Constitutional Court, with the sentence on April 9th 1981 n. 96 has declared the
constitutional illegitimacy of the article 603 of the crime code that
contemplated and punished the so-called moral subjugation, that is the fact
that “someone subjects a person to his own power so to induce him to a
complete subjection condition “. The norm's
motivations of unconstitutionality have been individuated by the Court in the
excessive generality of the case that constituted the crime, generality that
contrasted with the principle of peremptoriness of the case, contained in the
absolute saving clause of the law in crime matter, according to article 25 of
Constitution. As it is well
known, when article 603 crime code was in force, it has been elaborated,
interpretatively, three different conceiving of moral subjugation succeeding
chronologically according to the following order: 1) A first
conceiving according to which moral subjugation is the establishment of a
physical-material dominion substantially equivalent (in fact) to slavery. 2) A second
conceiving (prevailing in jurisprudence) according to which moral subjugation
is in the establishment of a psychical dominium, induced by the means of
suggestion and leading to the hetero-direction of will, and according to
some, the determination of a condition of incapability (equal or not, depending
on the several thesis, to the one stated at article 85 crime code 3) A third
conceiving, according to which the moral subjugation is a psychological
conditioning leading to a decay in personality followed by a complete
seclusion condition from any else, setting who practices the moral
subjugation as the sole interlocutor of the morally subjugated person. How
can be citizens or the relatives of the subject that has undergone moral
subjugation defended? By the moment
the Italian juridical system does not have adequate instruments in order to
contrast the phenomenon of organizations that “employ subliminal systems of
fascination and the so-called brainwashing or other methods in order to
affect the individual's freedom in self-determining...” ( From the Report of
the Public Security Department to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, written
in February 1998 and entitled “Religious sects and new magical movements in
Italy “). The abolition of
the crime of moral subjugation has lead jurisprudence and doctrine to
research in the crime code other cases of crimes that could fit the cases at
object, with results, it must be said, often deceiving, to such an extent
that, de iure condendo, it is been discussed the convenience to introduce an
new case of crime 'aggression to the psychical freedom “. Which
are the obstacles against the institution of a crime alike? The main
obstacle is represented by the troubles coming fromprosecuting the mental
conditioning over individuals that, even if psychologically weak and easily
influenced, have legal capability; it is sure that if the conditioning
happens by the means of hypnotic and suggestive techniques or administration
of alcohol or drugs or other forms of violence, it would be applied different
cases of crimes or fines and in detail: - Assault (article
610 crime code); - Incapability
condition caused by violence (article 643 crime code); - A treatment
able to suppress other's conscience or will (article 728 crime code); - Misuse of the
popular credulity (article 661 crime code). On April 29th,
after nearly two years of investigation, the Minister of Internal Affairs, by
then Giorgio Napolitano sent the Constitutional Affairs Committee a
voluminous dossier written by the Public Security Department entitled “Religious
sects and magical movements in Italy “, wherein it is deserved a wide space
to the delicate matter related to the perils and the possible crime relevance
of certain practices put in act by the mentioned movements. The report
highlights five special aspects related to the activity of the single groups: 1) The use, in
order to recruit new followers and to keep those “already fallen in the net “
of subliminal mechanisms of fascination and the so-called “ brainwashing “ or
other methods alike in order to limit individuals' freedom in
self-determining; 2) The interest,
more than to the spiritual enrichment of adepts, to the material enrichment
of the charismatic leaders, carried out by the means of levy of
contributions, carried out with aggressive methods, and the sale of goods
(books, cult goods, talismans) and other services (in general
psychotherapeutic sessions and “specialization”); 3) Hiding,
behind the look, sometimes respectful, immoral or illegal behaviours, and
beyond the declared purposes; 4) The advocacy
of doctrines featured by strongly irrational elements, that could cloud
adepts and push them to deviant and dangerous behaviours as regard to the
public security; 5) Aiming to
targets different from those declared, or furthermore subversive and
destabilization plans, disguised by the “religious pretext”. The difficult in
reaching the crime condemn for such self-proclaimed religious sects, is
linked to, as already said, both the lack in our crime code of an exact case
of crime that condemns unequivocally the behaviour of whom subjects a person
to a real “brainwashing “, and the fact that often the defenders of sects
invoke (and judges account them) the application of article 51 crime code
whereas it is asserted that “The practice of a right or the performance of a
duty imposed by a juridical norm or a legitimate order of Public Authority,
leaves out the punishability”. Does
the international legislation acknowledge the power of this kind of mental
control techniques? On February 5th
1992 the Council of Europe adopted the Recommendation about Sects and New
Religious Movements n. 1178. In this document
the Council of Europe asserts that freedom in conscience and religious
ensured by article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights turns into
inappropriate applying for a further legislation for sects and that on the
opposite the troubles planted by them must be faced with educational-kind
interventions, that must include the spread of a concrete and objective
information about the most important religions and their main variants and
about the nature and the activities of sects and new religious movements. On June 22nd
1999 the same Council of Europe has adopted the 1999 Report as regards to
sects and in which reasserts the substantial validity of the Recommendation
n. 1178-1992 and has deepened some aspects. In detail the
Report pauses upon the name to give to the new religious movements and
recommends to the State Authorities to avoid referring to them by using the
definition of “religious, spiritual or exoteric kind groups “. This way it
would be avoid three wrong positions: - Discriminating
groups featured by strange doctrines but absolutely innocuous; - Including in
the dangerous groups organizations perfectly settled in the majority
religions; - Distinguishing
in an arbitrary and discussable way sects from religions. Those groups
assert being religious and on consequence State has not the right to act
against them. If State, facing
those assertions, enters the debate in order to prove that the group at
matter is not religious, it fails its task of being neutral and participates
directly to the spiritual or religious dispute. This is the kind
of dispute to which some groups systematically try to attract authorities and
the last must avoid it”. Then, the
Report, to further reassert the attention and the worry of the European
governments as regard to phenomenon of the spread of the sects, even if
reasserting the impossibility to come to an European legislation about this
matter, asserts that the freedom creed, sanctioned by article 9 of the Human
Rights European Convention, must, in some cases, undergo some restrictions
and, this purpose, it mentions some sentences of the Human Rights European
Court that just establish some restriction in applying article 9 and in
details: - Restrictions
to proselytism -Restrictions to
public manifestations of religious freedom that must be proportional to and
correspond to a legitimate interest; -
Incompatibility between religious practice and maintenance of charges of
civil service - Limits related
to the “legal consequences of the indoctrination of the sect's members “
often called as “mental manipulation “.
Psychiatry and
moral subjugation Giuseppe Spinetti
On April 19th 1981
the Constitutional Court judged as illegitimate the article 603 of the Crime
Code, that punished with imprisonment from 5 to 15 years “anybody subjects
and individual to his own power in order to induce him into a full subjection
condition “, because such norm, in the opinion of the High Court, contained a
conjecture of crime “not verifiable in its effectuation and in its results,
not being neither identifiable nor verifiable the activities that concretely
must be performed to reduce a person to a full condition of subjection “. Article 603
intended referring to those typical situations of psychic dependence, that
must occur in the teacher-student relationship, between physician and
patient, between religious and believer, in the love relationships, in the
reciprocal influence relationships. According to
Franco Granone, pioneer and senior member of the Medical Hypnosis and
Honorary President of the Clinic Hypnosis Italian Centre (see this regard the
articles about hypnosis, written by the Professor, issued on “Leadership
Medica” n.8/93, 1/95 and 2/96) “...in personal relationships it may raise
special conditions, well known in awake hypnosis during which the individual
does not succeed in rescue from the dominion of certain suggestive ideas...
these cases it can occur a certain moral subjugation of the individual by the
means of an hypnotic procedure, that hardly is recognized neither by the
presents nor by the operator, if the last is not acquainted with the dynamics
of the hypnotic processes, a moral subjugation that could lead neuro-labile
or predisposed individuals to crime or to committing suicide “. By the moment
law foresees only the crime or circumvention of an incapable (Article 643
Crime Code), foreseen for anybody that“to see to himself or other a profit,
by abusing of the needs, passions, or inexperience of a minor, or by abusing
of the condition of illness or psychical deficiency of a person, even if not
incapacited or disabled, leading to any juridical effect, harmful for him or
others “. Such suggestion
level in a dual relationship can chance and are several, going from the
critic and aware consent, to indifference and rejection. The special kind
of the relationship between religious and believer, above mentioned, at the
light of the renewed needs of Spirituality occurred at the threshold of the
third millennium, allows us focusing our attention over a special aspect that
deserves interest. Indeed, as Jean
Vernette reminds in his work “Che cos'è il New Age? (What's the New Age?)” :
“...on the way the Aquarium Movement has been sometimes recovered by the
consumeristic society it denounced, and diverted into a pseudo-religious
parody: it become the object of a trade where traders of no scruples played
on the vulnerability and expectation of people on the search of mystical and
the recovery of the spirit “ . All that has
leaded also to disquieting episodes as those related to the Japanese sects
Aum Shinrikyo (The Supreme Truth), or the massacre of the Davidian Sect of Waco
(Texas) in 1993, or the Order of the Sun Temple. This regard the
Canadian sociologist Susan Palmer asserts that the extreme strategy applied
by the responsible of the Order of the Sun Temple, and passively accepted by
almost the whole of the adepts, in the special “atmosphere “ where they live,
catered for confirming the nucleus of their own religious message: “if the
world where we live corrupts us and turns us to be impure and if there are
not believable alternatives to escape this social destine, it does not
remains but experiencing another way of passage to another world “. Conclusions Since individual
raised, but mainly the individuals victims of influences that can be
assimilable to moral subjugation are not in practice safeguarded by law, and,
in case of individual's conditioning, nobody can act to defend him from the
techniques adopted to subjugate him. The only
possible solution, but it concerns surely a theorisation, is that of
strengthening the psychological defences and giving these individuals inwards
certainties. Gabriella De Marco – Luisa Miccoli |
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David Koresh
The assault at Waco
The
logos of "Bambini di Satana"
Marco Dimitri
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