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From: "Eros" <Eros@Mt.Olympus>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.holysmoke,alt.talk.creationism,talk.origins
Subject: Religion: Harmless Superstitious Belief or Psychosis?
Date: 6 Feb 2001 03:52:03 -0500
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I came across this paper while rummaging around in my archives and I
remembered that someone in one of these groups recently asked a question
about the psychology of religion. The article is by psychotherapist Albert
Ellis and was first published in the late sixties. Today, the views
expressed by Ellis would probably be classed at best as "politically
incorrect" and at worst as religious discrimination. However I was impressed
with Ellis' scientific approach and how a lot of what he said had more than
a ring of truth about it. See what you think....
[Please note that the views expressed in the following article are not
necessarily the same as my own... close, but not the same. :) ]
The Psychosis of Religion (By Albert Ellis, Ph.D.Psychotherapy)
Before we can talk sensibly about religion... or almost anything else!... we
should give some kind of definition of what we are talking about. Let me,
therefore, start with what I think are some legitimate definitions of the
term religion. (other concepts of this term, of course, exist; but what I
am talking about when I use it is as follows;-
According to Webster's New Word Dictionary, religion is: "(1) belief in a
divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshipped as the
creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe; (2) expression of this belief in
conduct and ritual."
English and English, in their Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological and
Psychoanalytical Terms (1958), define religion as "a system of beliefs by
means of which individuals or a community put themselves in relation to god
or to a supernatural world and often to each other, and from which the
religious person derives a set of values by which to judge events in the
natural world."
The Columbia Encyclopedia notes that "when a man becomes conscious of a
power above and beyond the human, and recognizes a dependence of himself
upon that power, religion has become a factor in his being."
These, then are the definitions of religion which I accept and which I shall
have in mind as I discuss the religious viewpoint in this paper. Religion,
to me, must include some concept of a deity. When the term is used merely to
denote a system of beliefs, practices, or ethical values which are not
connected with any assumed higher power, then I believe it is used loosely
and confusingly... since such a nonsupernatural system of beliefs can more
accurately be described as a philosophy of life or a code of ethics, and it
is misleading to confuse a believer in this general kind of philosophy or
ethical code with a true religionist.
Every Atheist, in other words, has some kind of philosophy and some code of
ethics; and many Atheists, in fact, have much more rigorous life
philosophies and ethical systems than have most deists.
SOMEONE IS RELIGIOUS
It therefore seems silly to say that someone is religious because he (or
she) happens to be philosophic or ethical, and unless we rigorously use the
term religion to mean some kind of faith unfounded on fact, or dependency on
some assumed superhuman entities, we broaden the definition of the word so
greatly as to make it practically meaningless.
If religion is defined as man's dependence of a power above and beyond the
human, then as a psychotherapist, I find it to be exceptionally pernicious.
For the psychotherapist is normally dedicated to helping human beings in
general, and his patients in particular, to achieve certain goals of mental
health, and virtually all these goals are antithetical to a truly religious
viewpoint.
Let us look at the main psychotherapeutic goals. On the basis of twenty
years of clinical experience, and in basic agreement with most of my
professional colleagues (such as Brasten, 1961; Dreikurs, 1955; Fromm, 1955;
Goldstein 1954; Maslow, 1954, Rogers, 1957; and Thorne, 1961), I would say
that the psychotherapist tries to help his patients to be minimally anxious
and hostile; and to this end, he tries to help them to acquire the following
kind of personality traits:
1. Self-interest. The emotionally healthy individual should primarily be
true to himself and not masochistically sacrifice himself for others. His
kindness and consideration for others should be derived form the idea that
he himself wants to enjoy freedom form unnecessary pain and restriction, and
that he is only likely to do so by helping create a world in which the
rights of others, as well as his own, are not needlessly curtailed. ie. a
kind of selfishness)
2. Self-direction. He should assume responsibility for his own life, be
able independently to work out his own problems, and while at times wanting
or preferring the cooperation and help of others, not need their support for
his effectiveness and well-being.
3. Tolerance. He should fully give other human beings the right to be
wrong; and while disliking or abhorring some of their behaviour, still not
blame them, as persons, for performing this dislikeable behaviour. He
should accept the fact that all humans are remarkably fallible, never
unrealistically expect them to be perfect, and refrain from despising or
punishing them when they make inevitable mistakes and errors.
4. Acceptance of uncertainty. The emotionally mature individual should
completely accept the fact that we live in a world of probability and
chance, where there are not, nor probably ever will be, any absolute
certainties, and should realize that it is not at all horrible, and
indeed... should embrace such a probabilistic, uncertain world as a healthy
mental challenge.
5. Flexibility. He should remain intellectually flexible, be open to change
at all times, and unbigotedly view the infinitely-varied people, ideas, and
things in the world around him.
6. Scientific thinking. He should be objective, rational and scientific;
and be able to apply the laws of logic and of scientific method not Only to
external people and events, but to himself and his interpersonal
relationships.
7. Commitment. He should be vitally absorbed in something outside of
himself, whether it be people, things, or ideas; and should preferably have
at least one major creative interest, as well as some outstanding human
involvement, which is highly important to him, and around which he
structures a good part of his life.
8. Risk-taking. The emotionally sound person should be able to take risks,
to ask himself what he really would like to do in life, and then to try to
do this, even though he has to risk defeat or failure. He should be
adventurous (though not necessarily foolhardy); be willing to try almost
anything once, just to see how he likes it; and look forward to some breaks
in his usual life routines.
9. Self-acceptance. He should normally be glad to be alive, and to like
himself just because he is alive, because he exists, and because he (as a
living being) invariably has some power to enjoy himself, to create
happiness and joy. He should not equate his worth or value to himself on
his extrinsic achievements, or on what others think of him, but on his
personal existence; on his ability to think, feel and act, and thereby to
make some kind of an interesting, absorbed life for himself.
These, then, are the kind of personality traits which a psychotherapist is
interested in helping his patients achieve and which he is also,
prophylactically interested in fostering in the lives of millions who will
never be his patients.
Now, does religion... by which again, I mean faith unfounded on fact, or
dependence on some supernatural deity... help human beings to achieve these
healthy traits and thereby to avoid becoming anxious, depressed, and
hostile?
The answer, of course, is that it doesn't help at all; and in most respects
it seriously sabotages mental health. For religion, first of all, is not
self-interest; it is god-interest.
The religious person must, by virtual definition, be so concerned with
whether or not his hypothesized god loves him, and whether he is doing the
right thing to continue to keep in this god's good graces, that he must, at
very best, put himself second and must sacrifice some of his most cherished
interests to appease this god. If, moreover, he is a member of any
organized religion, then he must choose his god's precepts first, those of
this church and it's clergy second, and his own views and preferences third.
NO VIEWS OF HIS OWN
In a sense, the religious person must have no real views of his own; and it
is presumptuous of him, in fact, to have any. In regard to sex/love
affairs, to marriage and family relations, to business, to politics, and to
virtually everything else that is important in his life, he must try to
discover what his god and his clergy would like him to do; and he must
primarily do their bidding.
Masochistic self-sacrifice is an integral part of almost all organized
religions: as shown, for example, in the various forms of ritualistic
self-deprivation that Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and other religionists
must continually undergo if they are to keep in good with their assumed
gods.
Masochism, indeed, stems from an individual deliberately inflicting pain on
himself in order that he may guiltlessly permit himself to experience some
kind of sexual or other pleasure; and the very essence of most organized
religions is the performance of masochistic, guilt-soothing rituals, by
which the religious individual gives himself permission to enjoy life.
Religiosity, to a large degree, essentially is masochism; and both are forms
of mental sickness.
In regard to self-direction, it can easily be seen from what just been said
that the religious person is by necessity dependant and other-directed
rather that independent and self-directed. If he is true to his religious
beliefs he must first bow down to his god; to the clergy of this god's
church; and third, to all the members of his religious sect, who are
eagle-eyedly watching him to see whether he defects an iota from the conduct
his god and his church define as "proper".
If religion, therefore, is largely masochism, it is even more dependency.
For a man to be a true believer and to be strong and independent is
impossible; religion and self-sufficiency are contradictory terms.
Tolerance again, is a trait that the firm religionist cannot possibly
possess. eg. "I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt have no other gods
before me!", saith Jehovah. Which means in plain English, that whatever any
given god and his clergy believe must be absolutely, positively true; and
whatever any other person or group believes must be absolutely, positive
false.
Democracy, permissiveness, and the acceptance of human fallibility are quite
alien to the real religionist... since he can only believe that the creeds
and commands of his particular deity should, ought, and must be obeyed, and
that anyone who disobeys them is patently a knave.
Religion, with its definitional absolutes, can never rest with the concept
of an individual's wrong doing or making mistakes, but must inevitably add
to this the notion of his sinning and of his deserving to be punished for
his sins. For, if it is merely desirable for you to refrain from harming
others or committing other misdeeds, as any non-religious code of ethics
will inform you that it is, then if you make a mistake and do commit some
misdeeds, you are merely a wrong-doer, or one who is doing an undesirable
deed and who should try to correct himself and do less wrong in the future.
But if it is god-given, absolute law that you shall not, must not do a wrong
act, and actually do it, you are then a mean, miserable sinner, a worthless
being, and must severely punish yourself (perhaps eternally, in hell) for
being a wrong-doer, being a fallible human.
Religion, then, by setting up absolute, god-given standards, must make you
self-deprecating and dehumanized when you err; and must lead you to despise
and dehumanize others when they act badly. This kind of absolutistic,
perfectionistic thinking is the prime creator of the two most corroding of
human emotions: anxiety and hostility.
If one of the prerequisites for emotional health is acceptance of
uncertainty, then religion is obviously the unhealthiest state imaginable,
since its prime reason for being is to enable the religionist to believe a
mystical certainty.
Just because life is so uncertain, and because millions of people think that
they cannot take its vicissitudes, they invent absolutistic gods, and
thereby pretend that there is some final, invariant answer to things.
Patently, these people are fooling themselves... and instead of healthfully
admitting that they do not need certainty, but can live comfortably in this
often disorderly world, they stubbornly protect their neurotic beliefs by
insisting that there must be the kind of certainty that they foolishly
believe that they need.
This is like a child's believing that he must have a kindly father in order
to survive; and then, when his father is unkindly, or perhaps has died and
is nonexistent, he dreams up a father (who may be a neighbor, a movie star,
or a pure figment of his imagination) and he insists that this dream-father
actually exists.
The trait of flexibility, which is so essential to proper emotional
functioning, is also blocked and sabotaged by religious belief. For the
person who dogmatically believes in god, and who sustains this belief with a
faith unfounded in fact, which a true religious person of course must,
clearly is not open to change and is necessarily bigoted.
If, for example, his Scriptures or his church, tell him he shalt not even
covet his neighbor's wife... let alone have actual adulterous relations with
her!... he cannot ask himself, "Why should I not lust after this women, as
long as I don't intend to do anything about my desire for her? What is
really wrong about that?" For his god and his church have spoken; and
there is no appeal from this arbitrary authority, once he has brought
himself to accept it.
Any time, in fact, anyone unempirically establishes a god or a set of
religious postulates which have a superhuman origin, he can thereafter use
no empirical evidence whatever to question the dictates of this god or those
postulates, since they are (by definition) beyond scientific validation.
The best he can do, if he wants to change any rules that stem from his
religion, is to change the religion itself. Otherwise, he is stuck with the
absolutistic axioms, and their logical corollaries, that he himself has
initially accepted on faith. We may therefore note again that, just as
religion is masochism, other-directedness, intolerance, and refusal to
accept uncertainty, it also is mental and emotional inflexibility.
In regard to scientific thinking, it practically goes without saying that
this kind of cerebration is quite antithetical to religiosity. The main
canon of the scientific method... as Ayer (1947), Carnap (1953), Reichenbach
(1953), and a host of other modern philosophers of science have pointed
out... is that, at least in some final analysis, or in principle, all
theories be confirmable by some form of human experience, some empirical
referent. But all religions which are worthy of the name contend that their
superhuman entities cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, felt, or
otherwise humanly experienced, and that their gods and their principles are
therefore distinctly beyond science.
To believe in any of these religions, therefore, is to be unscientific at
least to some extent; and it could be contended that the more religious one
is, the less scientific one tends to be. Although a religious person need
not be entirely unscientific (as, for that matter, a raving maniac need not
be either), it is difficult to see how he could be perfectly scientific.
While a person may be both scientific and religious (as he may be at times
sensible and at other times foolish) it is doubtful if an individual's
attitude may simultaneously be truly pious and objective.
In regard to the trait of commitment, the religious individual may... for
once!... have some advantages. For if he is truly religious, he is
seriously committed to his god, his church, or his creed; and to some
extent, at least, he thereby acquires a major interest in life.
Religious commitment also frequently has its serious disadvantages, since it
tends to be obsessive-compulsive; and it may well interfere with other kinds
of healthy commitments... such as deep involvements in sex/love relations,
in scientific pursuits, and even in artistic endeavours. Moreover, it is a
commitment that is often motivated by guilt or hostility, and may serve as a
frenzied covering-up mechanism which masks, but does not really eliminate,
these underlying disturbed feelings. It is also the kind of commitment that
is based on falsehoods and illusions, and that therefore easily can be
shattered, thus plunging the previously committed individual into the depths
of disillusionment and despair.
Not all forms of commitment, in other words, are equally healthy. The grand
inquisitors of the medieval catholic church were utterly dedicated to their
"holy" work, and Hitler and many of his associates were, fanatically
committed to their Nazi doctrines. But this hardly proves that they were
emotionally healthy human beings.
When religious individuals are happily committed to faith, they often tend
to be fanatically and dogmatically committed in an obsessive-compulsive way
that itself is hardly desirable. Religious commitment may well be better
for a human being than no commitment to anything. But religion, to a large
degree, is fanaticism... which, in turn, is an obsessive-compulsive, rigid
form of holding to a viewpoint that invariably masks and provides a bulwark
for the underlying insecurity of the obsessed individual.
In regard to risk-taking, it should be obvious that the religious person is
highly determined not to be adventurous nor to take any of life's normal
risks. He strongly believes in unvalidatable assumptions precisely because
he does not want to risk following his own preferences and aims, but wants
the guarantee that some higher power will back him. 1
Enormously fearing failure, and falsely defining his own worth as a person
in terms of achievement, he sacrifices time, energy, and material goods and
pleasures to the worship of the assumed god, so that he can at least be sure
that this god loves and supports him. All religions worthy of the names are
distinctly inhibiting... which means, in effect, that the
religious person sells his soul, surrenders his own basic urges and
pleasures, so that he may feel comfortable with the heavenly helper that he
himself has invented.. Religion then, is needless inhibition.
Finally, in regard to self-acceptance, it should again be clear that the
religious devotee cannot possibly accept himself just because he is alive,
because he exists and has, by mere virtue of his aliveness, some power to
enjoy himself. Rather, he must make his self-acceptance utterly contingent
on the acceptance of his definitional god, the church and clergy who also
serve this god, and all other true believers in his religion.
If all these extrinsic persons and things accept him, he is able... and even
then only temporarily and with continued underlying anxiety... to accept
himself. Which means, of course, that he defines himself only through the
reflected appraisals of others and loses any real, existential self that he
might otherwise keep creating. Religion, for such an individual,
consequently is self-abasement and self-abnegation... as, of course,
virtually all the saints and mystics have clearly stated that it is.
If we summarize what we have just been saying, the conclusion seems
inescapable that religion is, on almost every conceivable count, directly
opposed to the goals of mental health... since it basically consists of
masochism, other-directness, intolerance, refusal to accept uncertainty,
unscientific thinking, needless inhibition, and self-abasement. In the one
area where religion has some advantages in terms of emotional hygiene...
that of encouraging hearty commitment to a cause or project in which the
person may be vitally absorbed... it even tends to sabotage this advantage
in two important ways:
(a) it drives most of its adherents to commit themselves to its tenets for
the wrong reasons... that is, to cover up instead of to face and rid
themselves of their basic insecurities; and...
(b) it encourages a fanatical, obsessive-compulsive kind of commitment that
is, in its own right, a form of mental illness.
If we want to look at the problems of human disturbance a little
differently, we may ask ourselves, "What are the irrational ideas which
people believe and through which they drive themselves into severe states of
emotional sickness?"
EXPLORING THE QUESTION
After exploring this question for many years, and developing a new form of
psychotherapy which is specifically directed at quickly unearthing and
challenging the main irrational ideas which make people neurotic and
psychotic, I have found that these ideas may be categorized under a few
major headings (Ellis, 1962; Ellis and Harper, 1961a, 1961b). Here, for
example, are five irrational notions, all or some of which are strongly held
by practically every seriously disturbed person; here, along with these
notions, are the connections between these and commonly held religious
beliefs.
Irrational idea No. 1 is the idea that it is a dire necessity for an adult
to be loved or approved of by all the significant figures in his/her life.
This idea is bolstered by the religious philosophy that if you cannot get
certain people to love or approve of you, you can always fall back on god's
love. The thought, however, that it is quite possible for you to live
comfortably in the world whether or not other people accept you, is quite
foreign to both emotionally disturbed people and religionists.
Irrational idea No.2 is the idea that you must be thoroughly competent,
adequate, and achieving in all possible respects, otherwise you are
worthless. The religionists say that no, you need not be competent and
achieving, and in fact can be thoroughly inadequate... as long as god loves
you and you are a member in good standing of the church. But this means, of
course, that you must be a competent and achieving religionist... else you
are no damned good.
Irrational idea No.3 is the notion that certain people are bad, wicked, and
villainous and that they should be severely blamed and punished for their
sins. This is the ethical basis, of course, of virtually all true
religions. The concepts of guilt, blaming, and sin are, in fact, almost
synonymous with that of revealed religion.
Irrational idea No. 4 is the belief that it is horrible, terrible, and
catastrophic when things are not going the way you would like them to go.
This idea, again, is the very core of religiosity, since the religious
person invariably believes that just because he cannot stand being
frustrated, and just because he must keep worrying about things turning out
badly, he needs a supreme deity to supervise his thoughts and deeds and to
protect him from anxiety and frustrations.
Irrational idea No. 5 is the idea that human unhappiness is externally
caused and that people have little or no ability to control their sorrows or
rid themselves of their negative feelings. Once again, this notion is the
essence of religion, since real religions invariably teach you that only by
trusting in god and relying on praying to him will you be able to control
your sorrows of counteract your negative emotions.
Similarly, if we had time to review all the other major irrational ideas
that lead humans to become and to remain emotionally disturbed, we could
quickly find that they are coextensive with, or are strongly encouraged by,
religious tenets.
If you think about the matter carefully, you will see this close connection
between mental illness and religion is inevitable and invariant, since
neurosis of psychosis is something of a high-class name for childishness or
dependency; and religion, when correctly used, is little more than a synonym
for dependency.
In the final analysis, then, religion is neurosis. This is why I remarked,
at a symposium on sin and psychotherapy held by the American Psychological
Association a few years ago, that from a mental health standpoint Voltaire's
famous dictum should be reversed: for if there were a god, it would be
necessary to uninvent him.
If the thesis of this article is correct, religion goes hand in hand with
the basic irrational beliefs of human beings. These keep them dependant,
anxious, and hostile, and thereby create and maintain their neuroses and
psychoses. What then is the role of psychotherapy in dealing with the
religious views of disturbed patients? Obviously, the sane and effective
psychotherapist should not... as many contemporary psychoanalytic Jungian,
client-centered, and existentialist therapists have contended he should...
go along with the patients' religious orientation and try to help these
patients live successfully with their religions, for this is equivalent to
trying to help them live successfully with their emotional illness.
EXCLUSIVE HOMOSEXUALITY
If a man is fearfully fixated on exclusive homosexuality, or obsessively
engaged in hating his boss, or compulsively dependant on the love of his
mother, no sensible psychotherapist would try to enable him to retain his
crippling neurotic symptoms and still lead a happy life.
The effective therapist, instead, would, of course, try to help this man
live successfully without his symptoms... and to this end would keep
hammering away at the basic irrational philosophies of life which cause the
patient to manufacture and to hang on to his manifestations of emotional
illness.
So will the therapist, if he himself is not too sick or gutless, attack his
patient's religiosity. Not only will he show this patient that he is
religious... meaning, as we previously noted, that he is masochistic,
other-directed, intolerant, unable to accept uncertainty, unscientific,
needlessly inhibited, self-abasing, and fanatic... but he will also quite
vigorously and forcefully question, challenge, and attack the patient's
irrational beliefs that support these disturbed traits.
This is what is done in my own system of psychotherapy, which is called
rational-emotive psychotherapy. Where other systems of therapy largely try
to give the patient insight into the origins of his self-defeating beliefs
(as, for example, the Freudians do) or try to help him accept himself with
his self-sabotaging behaviour (as the existential and client-centered
therapists do), in rational therapy we give him insight and accept him in
spite of his failings... but we also, and I think more importantly, clearly
show him how he keeps maintaining his early-acquired irrationalities by
indoctrinating himself over and over with nonsensical internalized sentences
which sustain this nonsense, and show him how he can concretely challenge
and contradict these internalized philosophies, by logically parsing and
analyzing them, and by convincing himself that he must give up if he is to
regain emotional health.
Rational-emotive psychotherapy, in other words, goes distinctly beyond the
usual insight-producing and patient-accepting methods of treatment in that
it actively depropagandizes the patient and teaches him how the highly
irrational and essentially superstitious and religious beliefs that he
acquired from his parents and his culture can be thoroughly combated until
they are truly non-existent.
THE DISTURBED INDIVIDUAL
RT, as rational therapy is called for short, literally teaches the disturbed
individual how he can apply the methods of scientific thinking to himself
and his personal relationships with others, and it usually does so with many
fewer sessions of psychotherapy than the more conventional psychoanalytic
methods that other schools use. It is, however, an unusually depth-centered
and thorough-going form of treatment, in that it is not interested in
symptom removal or in release of feelings, but in an extensive and intensive
reorganization of the patient's basic philosophy of life. While valuing the
patient himself and his inalienable, existential right to happiness, it
vigorously and most directly attacks his self-sabotaging values and his
self-repeated irrational internal verbalizations which uphold these. This
is not the place to give the details of the theory and practice of
rational-emotive psychotherapy, since they may be found in my book, "Reason
and Emotion in Psychotherapy".
Not that RT is the only method of helping human beings to change their
fundamental irrational and superstitious ideas about themselves, others and
the world. Various other depropagandizing techniques, including books,
lectures, and works of literature, as well as other modes of psychotherapy,
can also be most useful in this respect. The main point is, however, that
the vast majority of people in contemporary society are basically irrational
and religious in their thinking and feeling... and hence are more or less
emotionally sick.
All true believers in any kind of orthodoxy... whether it be religion,
political, social, or even artistic orthodoxy... are distinctly disturbed,
since they are obviously rigid, fanatic, and dependant individuals (Hoffer,
1951). And many liberal religionists of various groups are distinctly less,
but still quite definitely, emotionally childish. For that, again, is what
all manner of religion essentially is... childish dependency. And that is
what effective psychotherapy, along with all the other healing arts and
informative sciences, must continue uncompromisingly to unmask and
eradicate.
REFERENCES
Ayer, A.J., Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover Publications, 1947.
Brasten, Leif J., The Main Theories of Existentialism from the View-point of
a Psychotherapist. Mental Hygiene, 196l,45,10-17.
Carnap, Rudolf, Testability and Meaning. In Feigl, H., and M. Brodbeck,
eds., Readings in the Philosophy of Science. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953.
Dreikurs, Rudolf, The Adlerian Approach on the Changing Scope of Psychiatry.
Chicago: author, 1955.
Ellis, Albert, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart,
1962.
Ellis, Albert and Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living.
Englewoods-Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961.
Fromm, Erich, The Sane Society, New York: Rinehart, 1955.
Hoffer, Eric, The True Believer, New Yorkr Harper, 1951.
Maslov, A.H., Motivation and Personality, New York: Harper, 1954.
Reichenbach, Hans, The Verifiability Theory of Meaning. In Feigl,H., and M.
Brodbeck, eds.,Readings in the Philosophy of Science. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953.
Rogers, Carl R. The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic
Personality Change, Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1957, 21, 459-461.
Sunyata
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