Justin Thomas (psychologist)

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Justin Thomas (full name: Adam Keith Justin Thomas), age 82, is an American/Canadian who founded Label Liberation (TM) with a button reading "I'm a Person 1st... Label Liberation," and a Label Liberation Degree that people are able to award themselves freely. This degree allows people educated, uneducated, literate and illiterate to see themselves and others psychologically projection-free. Rather than staying "prisoners of the alphabet," every baby born can then reclaim our naked, emotionally unmasked, lie-free capacity to love and be loved, which we possess when we are still an illiterate genius, rather than being labelled in infancy as "brilliant" or "stupid," "lucky" or "unlucky" or whatever else pulls us into one groupthink pecking order or another, seeing ourselves as us versus them. We can free ourselves from the brainwashed indoctrinations to see each other as symbols rather than a label-free human being first.

Justin Thomas' Label Liberation Degree, available to anyone, educated, uneducated, literate or illiterate.

At age 20, Justin entered a foster home under arrangements from a new family doctor, Dr. Wolf Grobin, M.D. His foster father was Cecil Thomas, MBE, from Worcestershire, England, who worked for MI5 in Canada and the United States. Justin asked to see a psychiatrist at this time to understand why he could not read, write, or count and had been labelled incapable of learning. made a commitment to understand why, since we can inoculate against measles, and no one else was on a quest to also overcome hurting, hating, scapegoating at segregating. Dr. Michael D. Tuchtie, consulting psychiatrist to the Toronto Board of Education, encouraged Justin on this quest, describing his childhood history of abuse as "far more devastating than a concentration camp experience." When Justin asked, "How is that possible in 'Toronto the Good'?" Dr. Tuchtie replied, "In a concentration camp you know who the enemy is. You had no one to validate your reality and that is really crazy-making. Now, what do you want to do with your life?" Justin replied again, "I failed kindergarten once and grade one three times. I've been told by my parents and educators that I have no capacity for higher education." Dr. Tuchtie said, "Regardless, what do you want to do with your life?" Justin answered, "They are building bomb shelters. I'd like to understand what causes wars, prejudice, generation gaps, violence, alienation, depression, suicide, murder and all other crime." Dr. Tuchtie walked over to Justin, pointed at him, and said, "Do it!"

Justin travelled the world for eight-years with his foster father while still illiterate, asking everyone he met two questions: "Any suggestions as to how we can get to the core of human conflict?" and "What is the most hurtful thing that has ever happened to you?"

When Justin reached UCLA at age 28 in 1969, he met Colin Young, the professor of Theatre Arts, who was surprised that an illiterate person was interested in creating a theatre event "beyond comedy and tragedy," where audiences could learn enough in one monologue, song and dance show about psychology and psychiatry to become their own therapists and gurus, setting themselves projection-free from all duplicity. Justin was shocked when Colin congratulated him and announced that he would be accepted as a freshman at UCLA. In a panic, Justin went to the head of the counselling centre at UCLA, who told him that he could be enrolled at the Fernald Clinic School for children 11-16 with learning disorders, where he could attend classes in the morning and attend lectures at UCLA in any faculty during the afternoon. This was part of Justin's ongoing quest to probe barriers hindering human communication.

At the clinic school, each child was asked about a childhood event. The teachers would type the student's words and have them read it back to themselves the next day. Justin dictated, "My mother used to say, 'If you read, something will happen to you brain and you will die.'" When the teacher passed him the transcript of his words the next day, Justin resolved to avoid looking at the sheet of paper out of fear. The teacher noticed him repeating by memory and said to Justin, "Please look at the words as you read." Justin repeated and read the words, "If you read, something will happen to your brain and you will die," and instantly had an epiphany. The moment of sudden realization was that he had not died from reading, and that his mother had told a lie. He had been illiterate two seconds ago, and every baby born was also illiterate. It was therefore more honest to say that every baby is born naked, emotionally unmasked and lie free, and an illiterate genius, rather than being labelled as either "brilliant" or "stupid," "lucky" or "unlucky," "good" or "bad," etc. In that moment, Justin saw that we are all polarized into groupthink card game trances where we are taught that winners need losers for their own reflection. The breakthrough that UCLA faculty, including Dr. Carl Faber, celebrated, was that we can escape this card game trance by becoming like the Joker card in the deck, who experiences both losing and winning (in any order) and therefore transcends both to escape beyond every alphabet-branded border.

Early Life

Justin's childhood and adolescence were marked by ongoing verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, committed by multiple members of his biological family and others. His mother, who had Munchhausen Syndrome by proxy, indoctrinated Justin to believe he was mentally challenged and incapable of learning, and worked to convince others that her son was handicapped. As a result, Justin did not properly learn to read or write until age 28, and did not complete elementary or secondary education until adulthood. This history of abuse and lack of formal education proved to be formative in Justin's life goals and eclectic style of research. At age 20, Justin escaped his biological family and was placed in a foster home. Justin's foster father traveled frequently, which gave Justin an opportunity to visit many countries and meet many people from all walks of life. During this period, Justin began interviewing people informally on their ideas for overcoming human conflict, and their past emotional hurts. He believed that the information in these interviews could allow anyone to "probe the barriers hindering human communication to get to the core of human conflict."

Development of Label Liberation Philosophy

Educational Breakthrough

In 1969, at age 28, Justin was referred to the University of California Los Angeles' Fernald Clinic School by special permission to help him learn to read and write. Justin was also given permission to sit in on lectures at UCLA after faculty members became impressed with his ambitions to develop his social science research. Learning to read transcriptions of his own spoken words at the clinic school led Justin to a sudden breakthrough: he realized that he was able to learn, and that his parents' indoctrination that he was mentally challenged was false.

A key insight that followed this breakthrough was Justin's assertion that, since the labels imposed onto Justin were false, all other social labels that are imposed onto people, or which people impose on themselves, are similarly artificial. Justin proposed that "every baby born comes out of the womb naked, with no emotional masks and no lies, fully capable of loving and being loved" and can be considered an "illiterate genius." All negative psychological and social attributes that people experience stem from the identities and labels imprinted upon them as babies when their parents or caregivers project their own impressions, psychological conditions, and expectations onto them. Remembering that every person is born without labels and with unlimited potential is the crucial step that any person can take to overcome all the labels in their lives, to once again become a person first, and achieve what Justin Thomas calls Label Liberation.

Justin claims that this process can allow people to overcome personal, familial and other interpersonal issues by allowing them to recognize and overcome all psychological projections, and thereby improve the ways they see themselves and others around them.

Early Presentations at UCLA

Justin's discovery of Label Liberation was received with enthusiasm by faculty and researchers at UCLA and in Los Angeles, including psychologist Dr. Carl Faber and members of the Human Potential Movement such as Fritz Perls. Faber and others referred to Justin's epiphany as "hundreds of years ahead of its time."

Justin began presenting his discovery in the form of lectures and avant-garde one-person shows, with the aim of providing audiences with enough psychological and spiritual insight to become their own therapists and their own gurus. After receiving significant positive responses from these presentations at UCLA and elsewhere, Justin took these presentations to other cities.

Label Liberation

Label Liberation is an original initiative inviting all of humanity to step back from learned prejudgements that constrict us into groupthink pecking orders, which create scapegoating due to unprocessed hate. Justin was forbidden to read and count and labelled "retarded" by his biological parents. He failed kindergarten once and grade one three times in childhood, being told that he had no capacity for higher education. All creativity that he expressed was ridiculed and undermined by both parents. Each of those parents had been rejected by their parents in childhood and watched their respective siblings be glorified. His mother was labelled "the devil and the jinx" for not being born a boy to replace a dead son, while another was called, "the beautiful, clever one," and a half-sister was called "the angel, the diamond, good as gold, the most wonderful person to walk the face of this earth." Justin's father was called "the dumb nothing" in his family, while his father's brother was called "the brilliant one" and set to be a millionaire as a tax accountant. Justin observed that his parents had publicly numbed their feelings toward their glorified siblings and were obsequious to everyone, except at home, where they privately showed a violent, sadistic personality, needing someone to place lower on the pecking order than them. Justin was called "the scum of the earth," being told by his mother: "If you read, something will happen to your brain and you will die;" "Just looking at you makes me want to puke," and "If you ever tell our family's secrets, I'm going to have you murdered." Knowing his great-grandparents in his childhood, Justin saw how his grandparents also were polarized; one glorified as "sweet, happy-go-lucky" and one vilified as "the sour lemon." The Sour Lemon would make a ritual of giving everyone in the family jars of the sweetest raspberry syrup each year, while the "sweet, happy-go-lucky" one received from every family member a glass jar of the sourest lemon candies that she would suck on from morning to night.

Jack McClelland of McClelland and Stewart published Justin's original book in 1979, writing for the back jacket:

Brutalized and written off as an idiot in childhood, Justin Thomas entered first grade at the age of [twenty-eight]. Today, at thirty-nine, he is hailed as a literary genius: poet, playwright, artist, composer, philosopher, therapist, and guru’s guru. This is his life, as few lives are told, a true and daringly naked odyssey that will shock, amuse and enlighten as it probes the startling potential of the human mind.

One-Person Show and International Tour

Justin moved to Toronto and further developed his presentations with help from The National Film Board of Canada. His presentations began attracting a great deal of attention when he spoke at the University of Toronto, leading to a series of sold-out shows at Toronto's Hummingbird Centre. Justin would give his theatre presentations in a costume based on the Joker card from a deck of playing cards - the Joker card was an inspirational figure to Justin, since it is both discarded and highly valued depending on the game being played, and therefore transcends the dichotomy of winning and losing. People could therefore look to the Joker as an inspiration to leave the card game-like existence in which many people live - constantly competing and being labelled as either lucky or unlucky, a winner or a loser - and instead embrace a non-dualistic, transcendental way of being. After being interviewed by various television and radio stations, Justin began receiving thousands of letters requesting more information on Label Liberation.

Justin's presentations attracted the attention of Dr. Omond Solandt, who was then the Chancellor of the University of Toronto. Dr. Solandt was the world’s leading expert on atomic and chemical warfare, as well as the lead military consultant to the United States, Canada and Britain. Having seen some of the publicity at U of T's campus about Label Liberation, Dr. Solandt approached Justin and proposed a world tour to present Label Liberation. Solandt had resolved to promote and achieve world peace, as described in a CBC Television interview, and believed that Justin's approach, would also free people to embrace a more peaceful existence and prevent the threat of nuclear war.

The presentation was brought to London, England for a series of shows at the Roundhouse in November 1971. These presentations attracted very positive reviews from audiences and coverage in the London Observer. One audience member in London contacted Justin to say that he "was no longer a Nazi" after experiencing Justin's breakthrough presentation.

Justin was invited to give his show at the Théâtre des Nations in Paris at the end of 1971, where it was presented with simultaneous translation. Filmmaker Federico Fellini heard of Justin's theatre work and invited him to Rome, where the filmmaker proposed making a film about Justin's life, discoveries and work.

Trauma and Retreat from Public Life

Justin's research was celebrated when presented at UCLA and in Toronto, London, Paris, and Rome, until 1972. At that time, Dr. Omond Solandt, the preeminent military defence expert for the United States, Canada and Great Britain, an eminent authority on atomic and chemical warfare, and Chancellor of the University of Toronto, heard Justin speak to faculty at U of T about Label Liberation. Dr. Solandt arranged for Justin to travel to every country in the world, under sponsorship from the governments of the USA, Canada and Britain. What happened to interrupt this presentation is now being presented in a new tell-all book, working title "Dancing Backwards Through the Alphabet." If presented worldwide in 1972, as planned, it was clear that it would have promoted greater international cooperation and understanding, leading people to reclaim everyone's birthright's full capacity to love and be loved, and celebrate, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, our inborn audacity to experience life through the eyes of inner 20/20 vision, seeing one another projection-free, knowing the reality of escaping all polarizing, bluffing, card game trances which we were all indoctrinated into.

Having propelled ourselves as a card game Joker to have a power-and-ego-transcending Label Liberation rebirth right here on earth, we automatically, fearlessly improvise and recognize every baby born's priceless worth. Hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges are seen as the Emperor's and Empress' blind, hypnotized, duplicitous idolatry where one baby is glorified and another is vilified, until we put all alphabets from the beginning of history in the palm of our hand, and by blowing all the letters away, ask ourselves, "What do I have in my palm now?" If we say, "Nothing," or "An empty palm," we can realize that we are wrong -- we don't have nothing, we have Label Liberation, and in essence, we are fundamentally atoms and space, dancing backwards through the alphabet in a cosmic embrace. When we escape everyone's superior versus inferior groupthink, pecking order brainwashing, that expects us to exist and die when acting out scripted roles that keep us duplicitous, we have no hate for those who need to dictate and fear being able to spontaneously relate. One laying-all-our-cards-on-the-table, stop-acting class with one another, can free anyone to be sisters and brothers from another mother.

References

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