BY SHERRY VELAZQUEZ
I’ve never been a fan of the scare tactics but I have never been intrigued like I was in this museum tour at Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum on 6616 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles. With a mixture of history and terror, this will surely make the goosebumps come out.
Owned and operated by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) and associated with the Church of Scientology, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death was opened on December of 2005. The museum is dedicated to criticize the psychiatrist industry and to bring psychiatry under the law. Psychiatry: an Industry of Death contains a variety of displays and exhibits that highlight physical psychiatric treatments, such as restraints, psychoactive drugs, shock therapy, and psychosurgery with which psychiatrists have attempted to treat mental problems.
Coming here for a tour may be a bit time consuming.The entire tour may take about an hour to an hour and a half. Luckily, not many people know about this museum and there will not be crowds big enough to hold up any part of the tour.
For the tour, you are greeted at the front desk. It looks a little like a doctor’s office at first. A very kind man introduces himself and gives some background on the musuem, how it started, what their motto is and how they are doing present day. From there on, you read a quote from Dante’s “Inferno.” After reading the quote, you are guided into a room with a row of three benches and a television in the middle. However, this is not an ordinary room with padded walls and two huge safety doors, you realize you are in a psychiatric ward. From here on, there’s no turning back. With an obscure shape, the tour begins at one station where the lights are dim, and you begin to feel frightened. As you go through each station, you can read small plaques intended for informational use on certain things, and there is also videos to click on for extra background information if you’d like.
Through the stations, real life stories of people who have suffered from these psychiatric medications and of people who are said to have been under these medications and have done horrible things or have gone through terrible things are featured on this tour. From famous movie stars to ordinary people, many of them have stories to tell.
Although there is no one chasing you around scary mazes or running after you with a chainsaw, we see the real cruelties of the world and of history as well.
Rating: C-
Address: 6616 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Phone: (323) 467-4242
Web Address: www.cchr.org
