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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which is available to all those who subscribe to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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Please don't call it a body
by Phil Spickler
21 Dec 00

       Well, the first thing I absolutely must do before proceeding any
further with the denoument is to declare Ed Dawson, in a declarative sense,
to be the Clown Prince of the IVy list.  Alas, I had certain ambitions in
that direction myself(s), but I gracefully submit that now that Ed has the
byte, or bit, between his diodes, we will not soon rein him in from his
delightful romp.  And so, speaking without a trace of metaphor, I hope to
spur him on.

         And now the Untruth Revealed: this falls on the Grade Chart as Minus
OT 8.  There are many other OT sections further south, but I am keeping them
in hiding until my esteemed friend Rowland Barkley saves up the vast amount
of money necessary to purchase them, only to find out that the advertised
result is attainable but extremely disagreeable :) (just kidding).

         I'm here to say at this time that we have incorrectly called the
human life form, in fact any life form, "body," or "a body, "or "that body,"
or "the body," or in other words "body."  Nor is the word "corpus" correct --
no, a real understanding of these life forms yields quite a different name,
namely "history book," or "the old history book."  And I'm about to tell you
why these "bodies" (I mean these life forms) should be called ""the history
book" or "a history book."  Then we could start saying things like "Say,
that's a really cute history book you've got there," or "What a strong
healthy history book hs has."

       Well, that's of course ridiculous, since considerations of health or
shape might be classified under aesthetics but miss the real importance by a
mile, since the real and greatest importance is to be found in the quality
and quantity of history packed into each and every life form.

        Dianetics, at its first and very best effort, suggested a good method
for opening up the history book and providing an opportunity to read or
experience some of its pages -- something that very few people have ever
consciously availed themselves of.  To quote a philosopher named Santayana
(the name is really unimportant) -- anyhow, some philosopher once said that
those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (That may not
be an exact quote, but it's a pretty good paraphrase.)

        Anyhow, you could say that's a pretty good motto for what Dianetics
and its engram theory were all about.  History is indeed a wonderful subject,
as most historians will point out, and even though it suffers from several
structural defects pertaining to reality and accuracy, etc. etc., it yet has
great value, and it's not difficult to imagine what our style of life would
be like without an ongoing record of creations and happenings to draw from.
Us "moderns" are continuously being surprised by historical discoveries that
yield valuable information and understanding beneficial to our "now."

        Therefore, it's nice to know that each one of us has at hand, in terms
of that thing that has come to be called "the body," possibly one of the most
amazing history books imaginable, without exaggeration.  Devising or divining
a method for reading or scanning or retrieving from this history book has
occupied the creative endeavors of a number of people, but inevitably, even
to the small degree that we are capable of tapping into or reading this
history book, the benefits, both individually and collectively, are enormous.

         It is possible, in theory if not in fact, that every bit of
information, organic and inorganic, that has ever existed could be found and
read in the pages of the human body/history book.  Furthermore, it is also
possible and well-recorded to find all the adventures of theta in its comings
and goings from the world of MEST and its biology, enough so that simply by
being in connection with one of these history books one can get extremely
confused, epecially if you're identified with the history book, as to the
who's who and the what's what of that which you are running into, depending
on whether you're reading the book or being the book.

          Backwards around 1952 I was involved with a group of early
Dianeticists and E-therapists and theosophists and Zen Buddhists and folks
who thought that Patanjali and the sutras were the last word, and what we
were working on at that time was to see just how far you could go with
cellular consciousness.  There were some pretty amazing outcomes which I
won't bore you with, but over the years I discovered that when I really
wanted to stun the peanut gallery, we would put some of this stuff to work on
a few people who would then perform in ways that regular folks didn't think
were humanly possible.

        Perhaps it's all for the best that us human beings don't take
advantage, let alone full advantage, of the historical potentials inherent in
our life forms, since just a little of that would probably change the way we
do business to the point where life as we know it on this planet and seem to
want it to be would cease to exist.

         And so the human body, history book if you will, remains for the most
part a great big secret that science is just beginning to tap the edges of,
and you could also say that for most folks it's a giant collection of
withholds and mysteries; and yet it sits close to us, brimming with this vast
potential, constantly underestimated and used at its lowest levels of
potential thoughout most lifetimes.   The End.

        -- Philidiotic