Psychiana No. 12 [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:20 Unknown Speaker: Before introducing Doctor Robinson and the psyche, a program, I’d like to relate a little experience, which I had the other day. I was having lunch in with a friend of mine, a chap who was a rather consistent churchgoer. He said I was listening to the radio and heard the Doctor Robinson program to begin with. I confess I listened simply because I heard your voice.

00:00:23:22 - 00:00:48:25 Unknown Speaker: Finally, Doctor Robinson himself came on. What he said startled me at first, but he presented his facts so clearly, so sanely, so intelligently that now. Well, I don’t know. Anyhow, I sent for his outline of psychiatry, and I’m going to read it thoroughly. Maybe I won’t agree with him entirely. Maybe I will, but I’ll admit this much. He must have something.

00:00:48:28 - 00:01:08:16 Unknown Speaker: So I’ve been thinking about what my friend said. Any man who has evolved a philosophy which in the short space of a few years has swept around the world, whose message has been received so favorably that there is scarcely an auditorium large enough to accommodate the people flocking to hear him. Must have something, must be worth listening to.

00:01:08:19 - 00:01:17:00 Unknown Speaker: And I’m sure you agree with me. I’m sure you’re waiting right now to follow our guide to Doctor Robinson’s home.

00:01:17:02 - 00:02:24:19 Unknown Speaker: Once again, we are in Doctor Robinson’s study in Moscow, Idaho. It is a pleasant, comfortable room this study, and as we lean back in our chairs, Doctor Robinson at the console of a magnificent pipe organ, plays for us softly at first. And then, as he becomes rapt in the mood of the music, the strange well.

00:02:24:22 - 00:02:31:12 Unknown Speaker: First, I think, Doctor Robinson. That calls for an encore.

00:02:31:14 - 00:02:46:02 Frank Bruce Robinson: Well, perhaps, but not just yet. If I remember correctly, the last time we met, you had a question to ask, and I put you off because our time was short. Suppose we have that question right now, if you haven’t forgotten it.

00:02:46:07 - 00:02:59:15 Unknown Speaker: Oh, I haven’t forgotten it is simply this in view of the fact that so many hundreds of thousands believe the story of Jesus Christ. Don’t you think it would be kinder to them not to expose it?

00:02:59:17 - 00:03:26:04 Frank Bruce Robinson: My answer to that question is most emphatically no. For truth can never be known through falsehood, and I cannot. How many millions of people believe a certain story? If that story is not true, no lasting good can ever come from it. And the sooner the story is exposed or destroyed, the better it will be for us all. If people’s religious feelings are hurt because they have a false belief, then that is just too bad.

00:03:26:07 - 00:03:48:12 Frank Bruce Robinson: But there are millions of people in this United States of ours who have no religious belief of any kind. And it is to those millions that my message is directed. I am not interested in taking any member from any church, because I realize the foolishness of an attempt like that. It just couldn’t be done. And I have neither the time nor the inclination to try to do it.

00:03:48:14 - 00:03:56:20 Frank Bruce Robinson: So I direct my message to the millions who have no religious beliefs, or who are not satisfied with the one they have.

00:03:56:22 - 00:04:05:18 Unknown Speaker: I think that is a very laudable and sensible attitude today, and certainly proves that you are not trying to upset anyone’s religious beliefs.

00:04:05:25 - 00:04:25:13 Frank Bruce Robinson: I certainly am not. The different church organizations come to the man on the street who has no religious beliefs, and they present to him a story which they claim is the true story of God. Now the man on the street did not ask that organization to come to him, yet they come and they insist that he believe that story.

00:04:25:15 - 00:04:48:21 Frank Bruce Robinson: Now I am doing the same thing, and I have the same right to do it. But I do not insist that people believe me. They can prove my philosophy. I come to these millions of people who have no religious belief of any kind, and I offer them one. Now it so happens that the religious philosophy I offer them is fundamentally different from the one offered by the religious or religious organizations.

00:04:48:21 - 00:04:52:16 Frank Bruce Robinson: Excuse me. Yet I have the same right to offer it.

00:04:52:18 - 00:04:57:05 Unknown Speaker: In a few words, Doctor Robinson, just what is this difference?

00:04:57:08 - 00:05:22:01 Frank Bruce Robinson: The God taught by the church is manifested only through one man, whose life was lived in a mass of miracles and miraculous happenings, and all that sort of thing. But the God I preach manifests his power, his presence, and his love to all alike, regardless of whether they believe any man made church tradition or not. The history of the other teachings discloses a horrible stream of blood behind it.

00:05:22:03 - 00:05:55:16 Frank Bruce Robinson: Hundreds of thousands of people have been brutally murdered for their religious beliefs. Men have been torn limb from limb. They have been burned at the stake and eyes have been gouged out. All in the name of the God of the Christian church. But nothing like that can happen with my definition of God. For to me, God is an operating spiritual law which created this universe in the first place, and which moment by moment sustains it by spiritual law, which in the final analysis is but natural law.

00:05:55:18 - 00:05:58:14 Unknown Speaker: And you differ with the story of these miracles.

00:05:58:16 - 00:06:31:22 Frank Bruce Robinson: I certainly do. The great God of the universe did not cause the sun to stand still, in order that a bloody slaughter of his enemies might be made more complete. He did not strike 50,000 men, women and children dead for attempting to look into a little box called the Ark in which he lived. No, no, that story is pagan and heathen superstition, and it has its origin in a pagan land which gave to the world every story of a supernatural revealed religion it has ever known.

00:06:31:25 - 00:06:40:17 Unknown Speaker: But we were originally speaking of the New Testament, the story of Jesus Christ. How do you differ with that story?

00:06:40:19 - 00:07:07:15 Frank Bruce Robinson: It is claimed by the disciples of Jesus Christ that he was of supernatural and divine origin, that he had a human being for a mother and a God for his father. That although he was woman conceived, he was deity begotten and molded in the human form. But comprehending in essence a full measure of the infinite Godhead, thus making him half human and half divine in his origin.

00:07:07:17 - 00:07:38:10 Frank Bruce Robinson: It is claimed that he was full on perfect God and perfect man, and while he was God. He was also the Son of God, and as such was sent down by his father to save a fallen and guilty world. And that time his mission pertained to the whole human race, and his inspired seers are made to declare that ultimately every nation, tongue, kindred, and people under heaven will acknowledge allegiance to his government and concede his right to reign and rule the world.

00:07:38:13 - 00:07:45:18 Frank Bruce Robinson: They tell us that every knee must bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

00:07:45:20 - 00:07:47:24 Unknown Speaker: And that has never happened.

00:07:47:27 - 00:08:17:25 Frank Bruce Robinson: No. Nor is it likely to be fulfilled. We do not observe that this claim to the infinite deity of Jesus Christ has been, or is likely to be, universally conceded. On the contrary, it is found that by a portion and the large portion of the people of even those nations now called Christians. This claim has been steadily and unswervingly controversy through the whole line of history, stretching through the nearly 2000 years which have elapsed since his advent to Earth.

00:08:17:27 - 00:08:44:07 Frank Bruce Robinson: Even some of those who are represented to have been personally acquainted with him. I some of his own brethren in the flesh. Children in the same household. Children of the same mother had the temerity to question the terribleness of his claim to a divine emanation. And when we extend our searches to other countries, we find this claim, so far from being conceded, is denied and contested by whole nations.

00:08:44:09 - 00:08:49:11 Frank Bruce Robinson: Upon other ground. It is met and confronted by rival claims.

00:08:49:14 - 00:08:52:25 Unknown Speaker: Well, what other grounds do you mean, doctor?

00:08:52:27 - 00:09:22:07 Frank Bruce Robinson: I mean that hundreds of millions of established believers in divine revelation, hundreds of millions of believers in the divine character and origin of religion reject the pretensions set up for Jesus Christ. They admit a messiah, but not the Messiah. These nations contend that the title is misplaced, which makes the man Christ Jesus the Savior of the world. They claim to have been honored with the birth of the true Savior among them.

00:09:22:09 - 00:09:41:28 Frank Bruce Robinson: And they defend this claim upon the ground. The priority of date. They aver that the advent of their Messiah was long prior to that of the Christians, and that this circumstance adjudicates for them a superiority of claim after having had the true Messiah born upon their soil.

00:09:42:00 - 00:09:48:29 Unknown Speaker: In other words, they claim a messiah of their own, born long before the time of the question. Messiah.

00:09:49:01 - 00:09:50:25 Frank Bruce Robinson: That is it. Exactly.

00:09:50:27 - 00:09:53:28 Unknown Speaker: Then there is more than one claim of this kind.

00:09:54:01 - 00:10:35:28 Frank Bruce Robinson: More than 20 claims of this kind. Claims of being invested with divine honor that is deified have come forward and presented themselves at the bar of the world with their credentials to contest the verdict of Christendom in having proclaim Jesus Christ the only son, and send of God. 20 Messiah’s saviors and sons of God, according to history or tradition, have in past times descended from heaven and taken upon themselves the form of men clothing themselves with human flesh and furnishing incontestable evidence of the divine origin by various miracles, marvelous works, and superlative virtues.

00:10:36:00 - 00:10:58:12 Frank Bruce Robinson: And finally, these 20 Jesus Christ, accepting their character for the name, laid the foundation for the salvation of the world, and ascended back to heaven. So you see, there is nothing new in the story of the Messiah of Christianity, nor has it any more logical arguments to support it than any of the 20 other similar stories.

00:10:58:15 - 00:11:05:23 Unknown Speaker: Well, doctor, you certainly have the knack of making things clear. And now I’d like to ask something else.

00:11:05:25 - 00:11:07:05 Frank Bruce Robinson: Another question.

00:11:07:07 - 00:11:10:28 Unknown Speaker: No. For the encore you promised us a while ago.

00:11:11:01 - 00:11:16:05 Frank Bruce Robinson: Yes, I believe I did promise an encore, didn’t they? Have you any particular selection?

00:11:16:07 - 00:11:18:17 Unknown Speaker: Yes, I’d like to hear. Smiling through.

00:11:18:19 - 00:11:24:23 Frank Bruce Robinson: All right. You shall have it.

00:11:24:25 - 00:11:59:03 Unknown With me.

00:11:59:05 - 00:12:09:14 Unknown For.

00:12:09:17 - 00:12:27:29 Unknown Speaker: Third.

00:12:28:01 - 00:12:36:19 Unknown And.

00:12:36:22 - 00:12:46:17 Unknown And.

00:12:46:19 - 00:13:18:07 Unknown You.

00:13:18:09 - 00:13:48:23 Unknown Speaker: Would you like to know more about that principle? That God law. Which Doctor Robinson spoke of? Would you like to learn how to apply it to your own life? Then send for a complete outline of Scheana, the outline of Doctor Robinson’s philosophy. There is no charge for this, nor will you be obligated in any way. Simply write a letter or postcard saying, send me a free copy of the outline of your philosophy and address your letter to doctor Frank Robinson.

00:13:49:00 - 00:14:30:10 Unknown Speaker: Care of the radio station to which you are listening. Or to Moscow, Idaho. If you write to Moscow, Idaho, including the address, the words Radio Department. We return you now to your local announcer, who will give you the time and date of Doctor Robinson’s next broadcast.