John Wilcock: An LP for the Id

February 11, 1959, Vol. IV, No. 16

By John Wilcock

In case any of you have been laboring under the naïve misapprehension that if you don't have money you can't be analyzed, let me introduce you to a California outfit called Freedom Records. (Despite its name it has nothing to do with Howard Fast, Paul Robeson, or broadcasts by the Voice of America.)

ANALYZE YOURSELF! Learn to face secret fears, guilt, compulsion! CREATE IDEAL "YOU"! Recreate yourself in your own desired image! CORRECT WEAKNESSES! Become able to deal with undesirable traits!

That's the sales talk of Freedom Records, as presented on a neatly printed folder, in text lavishly sprinkled with strident punctuation. Freedom's operating base is Box 3065, Hollywood 28, but its appeal is to anybody who seeks "the insights that will change your life." Providing you can cough up 10 bucks ("plus 40 cents tax for California residents").

"We believe that consistent use of the record will eventually bring you as many benefits as you could gain from $5,000-worth of successful psychoanalysis," says Freedom's prospectus hopefully.

There are two sides to every question, and Freedom's record is no exception. We won't dwell on the first part of the record—"the Basic Freedom Method"—but the flip side (if you'll pardon the expression) brings us: "The On Being Stopped Technique."

Your betrothed calls and breaks your engagement. You might "agree" that forever after you would not become involved emotionally. You are stopped. If you are like the average person, you have hundreds of "stops" in your life. Side Two of this record shows you that the important ones are similar in this respect: in each stop at the moment of shock YOU HELD YOUR BREATH!"

Me, I'm positively blue in the face.

[Each weekday morning, we post an excerpt from another issue of the Voice, going in order from our oldest archives. Visit our Clip Job archive page to see excerpts back to 1956.]