 Despite
the great fame and notoriety he enjoyed during
the sixties and seventies, the last decade of
Laing's life was exceedingly turbulent. In 1980,
his close friend and confidante Hugh Crawford
died, and in 1981, he stepped down from his role
as Chair of the Philadelphia Association. That
same year, his marriage to Jutta Werner began to
unravel, and his various efforts to start a new
charitable foundation, St. Oran's Trust,
beginning in 1982, came to naught in 1984. His
last book, a memoir entitled Wisdom, Madness
& Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist,
published in 1985, sold poorly, and after
lengthy deliberations, the General Medical
Council of Great Britain withdrew his license to
practice medicine in March of 1987. At that
point, Laing and his companion, Marguerita
Romayn-Kendon, decided that a change of scene
would be profitable for them both, and they left
for extensive travels abroad. Their son Charles
was born on January 6th of 1988 in
San Francisco, and they settled in the Austrian
Tyrol in June of that year.
Theodor
Itten is a psychotherapist in St. Gallen,
Switzerland, who studied with Laing at the
Philadelphia during the 1970's, and founded the
Villa Therapeutica: R. D. Laing Institute in his
memory. In the following piece, Itten remembers
various episodes and exchanges from the last
three years of Laing's life, before his untimely
death on August 23, 1989. D.B.
This
is a short account of Ronnie Laing's Austrian
sojourn, based on my visit to his home in Going,
Austria, on the Pentecost-Weekend, May 13-15, 1989,
and of telephone conversations and exerpts from
correspondence spanning the last few years of
Ronnie Laing's life. Laing's last trip to
Switzerland was to visit our newly built house in
Rehetobel, an ancient farmer's village near St.
Gallen, at the end of July 1986. He came from
Scotland with Marguerita, where they were on
holiday with Ronnie's kin. We spent three glorious
days together, filled with longish walks and
animated conversation, in which we expressed and
explored our views of living together, of
respectful behavior towards others, and our deepest
convictions about life, culminating in a congenial
discussion around the kitchen table. Ronnie talked
at length about the dizzying itinerary on which
Marguerita and he were about to embark: St.Gallen,
Zürich, London, Rhinebeck (NY), Athens, Crete,
Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, New York City,
Philadelphia, Paris, Rome, Bologne, Milan, and
finally, Melbourne. Did I know that Jutta and he
were finally heading for divorce, and selling their
beautiful home on Eaton Road in Belsize Park,
London? "Yes," I replied, "I heard it from Fritjof
Capra, who visited us, after a lecture he gave at
St.Gallen University in June."
Before
he left for Zürich, Ronnie showed me his
sketch for a new journal entitled Shaman: An
Internationally Networked Institute for Shamanic
Research and Therapy, asking my opinion. Ronnie
was to be responsible for "Therapy," while Brian
Bates would take care of "Research." Their stated
purpose was: To offer integrated courses in
European shamanic tradition, its history, themes,
teachings. Implications of the shaman. s vision for
emerging paradigms. Approaches to research and
therapy inspired by the shamanic way of being.
Advanced training courses in therapy and research.
Then a "cheerio" and a Shaman's hug, as he and
Marguerita entered the bus, which brought them
safely to St. Gallen, where they took the train to
Zürich.
Around
midnight on Friday, the 9th of October,
1986, while in New York, he wrote:
"Congratulations and blessings all round on the
birth of Raphael Grisha. A hug to Heidemarie."
Raphael is our third son, born a few days after
Ronnie left us. His forthcoming birth was another
topic of animated conversation some three months
before, as Ronnie was an enthusiastic advocate of
Natural Childbirth, having made a film and a
speaking tour on that subject. Since his brief
tenure as a general practitioner in a Scottish
village, where he sometimes delivered babies, he
was fascinated with embryology, an interest that
persisted over the years, and resurfaced in The
Facts of Life (1976), and The Voice of
Experience (1982). Ronnie continued his
midnight musings:
We
are ... the very first generation of human
beings who have ever moved over the earth
like that (listing all the places he visited
recently) ... I think Kant is supposed
to have remarked . travel narrows the
mind.
On
Monday, March 28th, 1988, he wrote the
following from Holne, near Newton Abbot, South
Devon, England:
Dear
Theo,
It
is a pleasure to say, "Hello, old friend" to
you, in writing alas, now, in the ordinary
sacrament of every extraordinary present moment.
Without, I hope being ungracious about present
graces, I hope it will not be too long before we
meet flesh to flesh, face to face, as now we do,
in spirit only, as through a glass darkly
...
I'm
giving, I think, the keynote address at the
European Humanistic Psychology Conference in
Barcelona (You know Michela Festa, etc. Maybe
you will be there ... Maybe we can get together
sometime in that merry month of May?
Love
from Marguerita and Charles and me
To
you Heidemarie, Dimitrij, Anatol and
Raphael,
Ronnie.
P.S.
Marguerita and I have settled for settling in
Devon.
As we
know with hindsight, of course, they did not settle
in Devon, but went on the road again. At long last,
in June of 1988 Ronnie phoned to invite me to spend
some time with him in Kitzbühel, Austria.
Sadly, I replied, "I'm about to take the train to
Cologne, to attend the funeral of my sister Ruth,
who tragically died of a thrombosis in the hip (at
age 38), two days ago." As I sat there with eyes
streaming, Ronnie consoled me tenderly, much as I
tried to console him at the death of Hugh Crawford
eight years ago, when our positions were
reversed.
Now
that he had relocated in Austria, Ronnie was living
only five hour's train ride away, a gentle gift of
fate. We agreed to meet as soon as possible. In the
meantime, we spoke by phone frequently, exchanging
family news and professional gossip whenever
possible. We finally met over the Pentecost weekend
in May 1989 in Going, a little village ten minutes
west of Kitzbühel, where he now lived with
Marguerita and Charles. I arrived at the
Kitzbühel Railway station just after noon on
Saturday. Ronnie was waiting on the platform. He
gave me a warm, welcoming hug, and eagerly inquired
about our Spring holiday in Cyprus, which is where
we were when he had visited Zürich recently to
lead a workshop at the University of Zürich
Psychiatric Clinic, the famous
"Burghölzli."
Recounting
some of our adventures, I satisfied his kind
curiosity. He then led me to his white Subaru. In
days gone by, Ronnie seldom drove anywhere, so this
was a novelty for me. Ronnie was a speedy yet
competent driver. On the road he informed me about
his living arrangements, showed me where they used
to live in Kitzbühel, in a comfortable flat
owned by a wealthy German woman friend. Presently,
he said, "I am no longer drinking alcohol. I've
been off the booze for over a year. Driving a car
is once again a pleasure not to be despised."
Having arrived safely in the driveway of the large
Tirolian country house they rented, he showed me
the woodshed first of all. Why? Ronnie was
responsible for keeping the house warm, by feeding
an old iron stove. It certainly kept him busy, and
he seemed to take a certain pride in his new
domestic responsibility.
We
went up, where I was greeted by Marguerita and
Charles. The upstairs consisted of a main living
area and an open hall leading to a kitchen. On the
landing stood a black baby Steinway grand with some
Mozart and Gershwin scores on it. There were two
bedrooms; one facing west, for sleep and rest; the
other, facing north, with a spectacular view of
Going's mountain, for Ronnie's writing and
meditation practice. He said: "I like these steep
mountains more then the ones you have in
Rehetobel." As Ronnie was doing some arbitration
for a couple coming shortly, I withdrew to the
guest room.
Before
going to greet the new visitors, Ronnie mentioned
how important this mediation work was for him. The
couple were good friends of his, and beneath the
overt financial wrangling, there were deeper issues
of trust, clarity, honesty and friendship at stake.
The man involved, as I found out later, was working
with Ronnie on a project they termed the "Mind
Olympics." Their idea was to bring some of the
brightest (mainly western) minds together, in order
to share, inspire, and enchant each other. To
create a new "morphic field" and fresh "morphic
resonance," as our friend Rupert Sheldrake would
say (Sheldrake, 1981, 1990). Then they would put
their refreshed minds to the problems that plague
our planet and all human kind. Sadly, this project
never left the planning stage.
To
mark this visit, I had brought with me the
"Festschrift," for Ronnie's 60th birthday, which he
had not yet seen. I had hoped to get it published
under the title: R.D.Laing- So What?: An
anthology of thoughts, feelings and reveries on the
spirit of Ronald David Laing's
psychology.1
I solicited contributions from Martin Esslin,
Susan Griffin, Morris Berman and others. Ronnie
read these essays over the weekend, and on Monday
morning talked to me about his impressions. He felt
most of the contributions were second rate, while
some authors, like Andrew Collier, (author of
R.D.Laing - The Philosophy and Politics of
Psychotherapy, 1977), were putting forward
arguments without substantiating them with
references to his written words. Our plan for a new
book, with the working title: The Politics of
Truth, came out of this conversation. In the
beginning we simply called it "the 50/50 book,"
since we envisaged it as an equal
collaboration.
While
Ronnie was seeing the couple, trying to sort out
their differences, Marguerita and I sat in the
comfortable living room, with Charles, toddling
about and playing, till he was tired and fell
asleep. Marguerita spoke of their travel
experiences and of recent visits from Natasha and
Max, two of Ronnie's children with Jutta.
Marguerita said: "I am keeping a diary, noting down
Charles's developments as he grows." Ronnie planned
to draw on this stock of knowledge, for a book to
be called Childhood, Youth and Adolescence.
Meanwhile, Marguerita was helping Ronnie finish his
new book, The Lies of Love, which she was
assiduously typing and retyping, parts of which
were revised up to ten times, as the writing was so
complex. She did this work in a large sunlit room,
downstairs.
While
driving to the house, Ronnie promised to show me
his new manuscript. I reminded him of this after
his tea break just before he returned to the couple
downstairs. He went to his room and promptly came
back, giving me a large pile of folders, some
thicker than others, loosely arranged so that he
could shuffle them round. He said: "The
finished book is hopefully going to be on your desk
within a year's time. All that remains to be done
is to polish up the rhetoric." To aid this process
he and Marguerita were reading to each other from
Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ronnie mentioned his
plan to give the final manuscript to Ted Hughes,
then Poet Laureate of England, for the latter's
comments because, in Ronnie's own words, "I want to
be second to none." He considered this book to be
his most original work after The Divided
Self and Knots.
In
this new text, which he began to write in 1982,
Ronnie included passages from his unpublished
book: Schizophrenia: Sickness or Strategy
(1967), where he sought to articulate a
"Grammar of Relationships." In the early 1970's, he
had decided not to publish this book. Why? Because
he was convinced that most of his prospective
critics would not grasp his evolving theoretical
perspective, and did not wish to be ridiculed by
his inferiors.
Admittedly,
some of his thoughts on this score were presented
in Interpersonal Perception: A Method of Theory
and Research (1966), which he co-authored with
Phillipson and Lee at the Tavistock Institute, and
the chapters entitled "Mapping" and "Rules and
Metarules" in the first, Canadian edition of
The Politics of the Family, edited by
Phyllis Webb (CBC publications, 1969). In
The Lies of Love, however, he wished
to go beyond the dyadic perspectives featured in
Interpersonal Perception to map the
lineaments of the triple-bond or triangle of
mother, father and child, articulating the
overlapping and convergent impact of our concurrent
relationships with significant others, both in and
after childhood. Laing's argument is impossible to
summarize here, but I found a useful example of his
"grammar of relationships" to give to the reader
some intimation of where he was going. He
says:
If
we are as a, b or
c , studying the situation/triangle
(t) we are in together, there is
no possible way to form a picture of it , that
we can be certain is "true." From outside
t, another picture can be formed,
but this diminution essentially remains. I leave
the question open as to whether it is possible
to be in it and outside it at the same time. My
picture of t from within it, is
itself part of t, and my
(a's) picture of b's
picture of a's picture of
c's picture of t is
part of t and so is a's or
b's picture of b's
or a's or c's
picture of a or b's
picture (etc.) ... part of
t.3
Since
this stuff is too algebraic for most people to
follow, much less translate into the language of
lived experience, Ronnie regularly resorted to
real-life vignettes, selections from the fictional
works of de Beauvoir and Sartre, the plays of
Aristophanes, classical mythology and the
occasional case history to illustrate what goes on
between people. I was spellbound.
Unfortunately,
at the time, there was no way to make a photocopy
of the manuscript. But ten years later, in the
summer of 1999, I consulted the Laing-Archive at
Glasgow University Special Collections Department,
Hillhead Street, just a few hundred meters away
from Ruskin Place, where Ronnie and his first wife,
Ann, lived with their five Children from 1955-56.
There I found Version 8, 1988, titled: Lies of
Love and Love of Lies.4
Ronnie's opening inscription was the famous lyric
from the song "It's A Sin to Tell a Lie" by the
immortal Hoagie Carmichael:
Be
sure it's true, when you say "I love you." It's
a sin to tell a lie. Millions of hearts have
been broken, just because these words were
spoken.
The
manuscript consists of ten chapters. After
introducing his theme, in the first chapter, Ronnie
poses the question: What is going on? What is
happening? The second chapter concerns "Putting the
Devil into his Hell." Then a longer, third chapter,
which dwells on the proposition that God is a
jealous God, and themes like the crisis of
credibility, the credibility of crisis, and the
Nietzschean notion of "the human species as a
secret to itself." Next, in chapter four, he
examines the The Witches' Hammer or
Malleus Maleficarum, written by two Dominican
monks, Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Insitoris,
published in 1487 at the request of Pope Innocent
VIII as a handbook for the Inquisition. After
pondering the deep, but often unconscious dread men
cherish toward women, the root of medieval
misogyny, he abruptly shifts focus in chapter five
to address "The Transpersonal - Extrasensory
Intention."
Chapter
six deals with power issues. Then chapter seven,
"pour d'amour," consists of love poems by Ronnie.
The next two Chapters are titled: "Living the Lie,"
and, "Why Pretend?", followed by the final "Eros,
Love, Truth, Deception, Mystification, Sexual
Communion." The manuscript is 192 pages
long.
After
a delicious supper served by Marguerita, the four
of us sat quietly by candle light, sipping green
tea. Ronnie had offered me wine, but I declined. So
Ronnie lit his pipe, and leaning back comfortably
in his chair, told me how he had been approached by
the Dean of the Department of Medicine at Princeton
University. Would Ronnie accept a Professorship in
Psychiatry, should they formally invite him to take
a Distinguished Chair? He would not need to teach
undergraduates. Ronnie asked: what sort of
psychiatry did they expect him to teach? In the
light of their answer, he had now decided that, if
asked, he would undoubtedly decline. That was that.
Ronnie then gave us his overview of the psychiatric
profession in the USA. By his account, clinicians,
health insurance companies, and the
author/distributors of the DSM are routinely trying
to deceive and double-cross each other. Insincerity
is built into the system. When doctors can not fit
the pattern of patients complaints or experiences
into a pre-existing theoretical framework, they
give them "dual diagnoses," sometimes claiming to
cure "incurable" disorders and/or pathologizing
reasonably intact people in order to be reimbursed
for their services. As far as he was concerned,
these duplicitous dealings are profoundly immoral.
And to complicate matters, though they deceive one
another, to be sure, on another level, there is a
certain complicity between them all, evidenced in
the enormous disparity between the story that the
mental health industry puts to the public, and what
really goes on behind the scenes. "Remember,"
Ronnie said, in an apparent reference to his
current professional isolation, "Galileo and his
rift with the Church and the Science
establishment."
After
a welcome pause, he talked at length again about
The Lies of Love. As it was getting late,
Marguerita gave in to her fatigue and went to bed.
Ronnie and I sat quietly together. Our silences
became longer, interspersed with reflections on the
ineluctable intertwining of The Self and
Others, using each other's perspectives to
reflect on our own "positions of seeing." Within
the open field of visioning "the third," Ronnie and
I finally decided to call it a night.
Early
Sunday morning, I heard Ronnie up at seven o'
clock, carrying wood to the house, lighting the
fire and washing-up in the kitchen. After a bath, I
went upstairs, where an astonishing spectacle
greeted me. Ronnie had actually made breakfast for
us. "Are you ready for eggs? How would you like
your toast?" he asked. He was being a generous
host, something I had not experienced before, at
least not in this way. Laing was always a
remarkably good listener, provided he thought you
were sincere. But previously, in his study at Eton
Road, Ronnie would welcome guests with the offer of
drinks, and nothing more. During his last visit to
my home he tried to make some coffee. But he never
washed dishes or laid the table or gone in for any
kind of housekeeping. This was a rare Pentecost
Sunday indeed.
"Drinking
or not drinking alcohol makes no difference to me
now. I'm fine without it, and am going to stay that
way, till the end of my life," he said. A
year or so previously, Marguerita had given Ronnie
an ultimatum: either he stopped drinking or she
would return (with Charles) for New Zealand. Now
that all that was settled, he hoped that royalties
from The Lies of Love would be substantial
enough to buy his new family a house in Scotland,
where he wished to return, eventually. There he
would open a practice, see people, and of course
write.
After
breakfast, sitting comfortably with cups of coffee,
Ronnie told me that Bob Mullan, a sociologist, was
writing an authorized biography, using the taped
interviews Mullan and he had recently made.
Moreover, he told me, Brian Bates of Sussex
University was compiling an R. D. Laing
Reader. Mullan might also edit a selection of
Ronnie's journals, which were in Mullan's
safe-keeping at that time. During the day, Ronnie
wandered round the house, sat at the piano and
played, or rested in bed, all in a quiet, composed
sort of way. After one such rest, he asked: "Would
you like to go for a ride, to see our countryside
and perhaps visit Kitzbühel?" I replied, "Yes,
that would be charming." So off we went.
We
parked in Kitzbühel, bought cigarettes in a
small sidestreet restaurant, and proceeded to
wander about somewhat aimlessly. "No no," we
laughed, "we are not dependent on nicotine, but we
like it anyhow," looking into each other's eyes,
nodding knowingly from the knowledge of temptation
and sobriety. "There are at least two points of
view for any issue or situation," said Ronnie
reflectively, then added: "I don't feel very well,
not very embodied." He was still suffering from
dental surgery he had undergone several days
before. His teeth were a disaster. And come to
think of it, he did look a bit pale in his tweed
trousers, elegant Italian shoes, white cardigan and
dark blue shirt. Nevertheless, we danced on the
pavement while talking, exchanging amused glances,
and mimicking the movements of different
passersby.
Back
at the house, around 5 PM, Ronnie, now in a solemn
mood, lay down for a rest, returning shortly to
give us a spirited Mozart recital on the piano.
Afterwards, we devoured Marguerita's homemade apple
strudel, and Ronnie played with Charles, eventually
taking him to bed. Marguerita and I cleared the
table for tea. Ronnie reappeared. Charles was
asleep. I took that opportunity to relate my recent
dream about his death.5
The
dream went as follows:
Ronnie
Laing and Francis Huxley come to me one beautiful
afternoon. Apparently, it is time for Ronnie to
die. We assemble in my house. It is a peaceful
time. Ronnie lies down on a specially prepared bed,
which I inherited from my paternal grandparents,
which is situated in the middle of the room.
Francis lies down beside Ronnie, both of them
preparing to die. Their heads point West. Francis
lies on the northern side, Ronnie on the southern
of the bed. Their dying is a slow process that
takes all afternoon. There are no visible signs of
a struggle or of suffering. In fact, to my
surprise, it is an entirely peaceful
happening.
Both
my friends have passed away and now lie dead in
front of me. I take a piece of vinegar soaked veil,
put it on Francis' forehead, put some sage leaves
on his face, and cover both of the departed with a
quilt. I know that Francis has only escorted Ronnie
and doesn't himself want to die. Evening comes.
Night arrives. Dawn makes her appearance, and with
her comes the noble goddess Artemis to help bring
Francis back to life. She tenderly removes the sage
leaves, and when she lifts up the vinegar-veil,
Francis moves for the first time. As he has been
with the Dead, we have to do everything very
slowly. Gradually, his soul is awakening by the
bright morning light. He sits up on the bed's edge,
letting his long legs dangle. Supported by Artemis,
he learns to walk again, step by step. He is on his
way to a fresh identity. Artemis sings and chants,
mixing soft, familiar melodies with a strict, and
to me, unknown liturgy. Both she and I read,
alternatingly, some carefully chosen passages from
Francis' own books. We want to remind him of his
former self, voicing episodes of his insight and
creativity, in order to create parallels to the
here and now. Then we suddenly find ourselves in
Huxley's flat in London which happens to be next
door to my house. Artemis and Francis go out for a
meal, while I return home to find Ronnie's dead
body still there, now in a coffin. My helpmate is
cleaning the room and tidying up our
home.
After
listening to my dream quietly, and without comment,
Ronnie replied with stories of two near-death
experiences that occurred since 1986. Oh, by the
way, did I know that David Cooper died in 1986?
(Who else had died since then, we wondered?) First
Ronnie, then Marguerita, told the story of the
second near-death experience, when Ronnie almost
crossed the threshold of this life. As he recalled,
he felt as if he were on teetering on the edge,
pondering whether to surrender to death, or to come
back into this life again. At the time, both
options seemed equally valid. There was gripping
music, reminiscent of Bach, emanating from the side
of death. On life's side, on the other hand, there
was loud screaming: in fact, Marguerita, who was
howling for his return. With every ounce of energy
she possessed, she begged him to opt for life.
Eventually, as she recalled, she reached him, and
felt the tide turning, bringing Ronnie back. Yet,
she observed wryly, "I' ve never seen Ronnie
angrier than the first two weeks after he came
back." Ronnie laughed, as did we all. What a huge
release of tension! Now other vivid stories and
ideas were exchanged, interweaving with one
another. Did I know Moody's work on near death
phenomena? Ronnie was booked at a conference
entitled "Apocalyptic Courage" on August 3-8, 1989,
in Denver, Colorado, where Raymond Moody, author of
Life After Life was giving a paper (Moody,
1988). Ronnie's talk was entitled: "The Eye of the
Needle is Here and Now," but he was not certain if
he was up to it. Despite the hectic itinerary of
the preceding year, he said he did not relish the
prospect of long distance travel anymore. Yet, he
did promise Diethart Jaehning, Chairman of the
Conference, that he would come.
It
was well into the morning hours when Ronnie and
Marguerita crept to bed, while I resumed reading
The Lies of Love, finishing it, finally,
with burning eyes and a deep, irrepressible yawn,
at about 3 AM. Content, and full of thoughts, I
went to sleep.
But
not for long. Ronnie roused me early, at the
pre-arranged time, as we wanted to talk about our
book project before I took the train home. After a
fine breakfast (prepared by Ronnie) and a brief
time out for some photographs, we settled down on
the sofa. We began the first draft of an outline
for our joint effort, promising to send each other
our subsequent revisions in the weeks ahead. Ronnie
then drove me to the train station. On the
platform, he gave me the customary "shaman's hug,"
and we said a loud "cheers" to "50/50," as we
called our project. We promised to stay in touch,
and to visit each other soon. I waved from, and he
to, the slowly rolling train. The last I saw Ronnie
in the flesh he was walking toward the car, waving
at me with both arms, disappearing abruptly as the
train gathered speed. I received the following
letter from Marguerita on June 14, 1989:
Dear
Theo,
Thank
you for sending the photos - they are very nice
- and for your lovely letters. I am writing to
let you know we are to be here longer than
originally thought - until December at least and
your company was so delightful that I would like
to invite you whenever you feel like dropping in
for a weekend or whatever. When I told Ronnie
that I was writing to you he mentioned to remind
you about the idea of editing a book 50/50 ...
and also to send you his very best wishes. All
the very best for now to you and to your family,
with love, Marguerita.
At the
end of June, I sent Ronnie my first revision of our
proposal, and he replied with a longish letter on
August 1st:
Dear
Theo,
I
woke up with rather a start today, that a month
has passed since your letter and notes. They are
very welcome and take us far along the road we
want to go ...
As
for the book:
1.
The Politics of Truth has a good ring to
it. I think we can live with that until/if
something else occurs to us that supersedes it
along the way ...
4.
in general, I like your thoughts for the book. I
would want contributors to commit themselves to
an actual examination of the work of
R.D.L.-specifically, not vague programmatic
manifestos.
e.g.
(a) The shift of perspective - all through from
the Kraepelin interview in The Divided
Self to the carefully worded relevant part of
Intro. to Sanity, Madness & the
Family to the point by point contrasting
vignettes in The Facts of Life to the
complete de-anchoring from "clinical"
co-ordinates in the vignettes in The Voice
of Experience.
(b)
The focus on person-person
conjuction-disjunction as the unacknowledged
cleavage/ Spaltung in the I-Thou non-actualized
ontologically possible human connection; again
present from beginning of my oeuvre, to now
...
(c)
The actual data in the work. The presentation of
actual metanoiac transformations and modulations
of experience which - sometimes, not always as
indicated in The Politics of Experience,
seems to have a healing value. This metaphor of
a "journey" has been persistently treated with
scorn and contempt.
(d)
The theoretical and practical study of social
context . Reason and Violence via Sartre,
Oxford Companion of Mind article, Phoenix
Arizona articles.
(e)
The "look," the way of seeing, as constitutions
of what is seen etc., who sees whom
how.
(f)
Interpersonal Perception.
(g)
Phenomenology anchored, manifested in actual
situations.
(h)
Praxis and process. I went into this in detail
in my Burghölzli talk this year - they all
seemed completely bemused, but, this time, very
respectful etc.
That
is, I think we should get participants. very
explicit, and in no way reluctant agreement to
address specific issues (theoretical and
practical) thematized in the oeuvre of
R.D.Laing.
We
should go over these themata together, name
them, and make sure they "cover" most of the
territory. Both Bob Mullan (biographer) and
Brian Bates could be useful here. We might
contrive to get us all in the same place at the
same time ...
Publication
1992 ...
So
- don't take so long to answer as I
have!
Love,
from Marguerita, Charles, and me, to you, and
Heidemarie, Dimitrij, Anatol, and
Raphael.
Ronnie6
I
answered this detailed outline, with a proposed
date to meet for face discussions. But late at
night, on the 23rd of August 1989, I came home from
choir practice, having just rehearsed "The Song of
the Sun," by St. Francis of Assisi. There were
candles lit all around our house. Heidemarie placed
them there, after Francis Huxley had called in my
absence, saying: "Terrible news, Ronnie is dead."
After conversations with Francis Huxley, Jutta
Laing and Adrian Laing, we retired with streaming
eyes and aching hearts.
The
following day, the St. Galler Tagblatt asked
me for an obituary, which I provided in the form of
a telephone interview with the news editor,
Eleonore Baumberger. She created the following
headline on page two: "It Does Not Disturb Me, To
Be a Human Being."7
There, I noted that, contrary to popular belief,
Ronnie Laing was no utopian, and did not have a
ready made formula for a better society. The
principal thing for him was love, and to live
together, acknowledging and accepting our inner
demons, and those of others. What disturbed him was
that we live in a society which makes living in
this mode of love and acceptance very difficult.
Laing knew how psychiatrists frequently fear a
stark, authentic encounter with the confusion and
inner turmoil of their patients. A genuine therapy
always touches one's own soul.
Ronnie
Laing once dreamt of a football match where, as he
put it, "I am both sides." It only ends when
"the game turns into a dance."8
|
![Colloquia Topics Index [link]](../colloqui2.gif){kind=small}
