************************************************************************
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.
************************************************************************

Well, I'll be darned
by Phil Spickler
1 Feb 99

Hello, anyone!

Well, I'll be darned!  Given the information that's been coming onto 
the IVy list lately regarding NOTs, which I think is short for New 
Era Dianetics for OTs, I can see now that when I did NOTs back in 
1980, I failed to get one of the biggest and most important results 
of said rundown.  Had I but known at the time, I would have asked for 
my money back, or even worse. That's right -- according to the latest 
information about this, I should have gotten a nice healthy case of 
cancer, and here I am, a paltry 19 years later, and I still haven't 
gotten what I paid for.  Of course, at the time, no one knew that 
cancer was one of the things one could look forward to if one did 
NOTs, and another fringe benefit I've just been apprised of is I 
failed to lose my former ability to manifest as a single-unit being 
capable of pushing around a meat body.  Over the last 19 years I've 
known quite a few people who did NOTs at different times, and many of 
them have failed to get the full value for their monies paid.  Now I 
personally have nothing against cancer, even though I hear tell that 
it's gotten a bad name among human beings, but, in the face of humans 
losing almost all of their former natural predators, cancer still 
seems to be effective to some small degree in paring down the human 
race, which, given the population projections, needs everything that 
cancer and other predators yet to come could possibly give us if our 
numbers aren't to reach the point where you'll feel like a sardine, 
there'll be so many people at the old swimming hole when you make 
your way down there for a dip.

Coming back to NOTs for a moment, I think, depending on how good you 
are in the use of basic auditing techniques, particularly the comm 
cycle, with high emphasis on the fundamental ability to acknowledge 
Life, you sure can have a lot of fun with this procedure if you treat 
it as another relatively good way to clean things up in and around 
your local location, but not to be carried to the point where you 
succeed, or try to succeed, in as-ising everything and anything that 
could ever be called "you."  That definitely puts a pretty heavy 
strain on the notion of human havingness, and probably gets into that 
interesting and somewhat mysterious area called "the protective 
mechanism of the mind" and the warnings that exist to keep people 
from violating that mechanism.  I fear that those who become obsessed 
with reaching the end of the journey rather than the enjoyment of the 
voyage, the unfinished trip, the Way (with a capital W if you will) 
will ignore these words, and those of other older and most wiser 
beings, the results giving the apparency of personal or group 
catastrophe.  It's my hope that if Frank Gordon is not involved in 
much more seemly matters, he might take it upon himself to briefly 
descend from the beauties of his celestial abode and favor us less 
fortunate listers with his thoughts and knowledge concerning the 
notion of the protective mechanism of the mind.

If you understand the tech of NOTs, the theory behind it, and get 
pretty good at auditing it, it's one of the niftiest ways to clear up 
the kinds of case that bedevil most of us with their permanence and 
solidity, since it gives one direct access to the correct ownership 
of these pesky things that can make life and human behavior so grim 
and unfortunate, and sometimes downright unendurable.  It also is in 
keeping with the Buddhist notion of working on the great question of 
finding out what you are not.  Again, this is a cautionary path, and 
one should take responsibility for knowing what its ultimate 
conclusion would be before getting there.

At this point let me install a disclaimer, which is to say, if you're 
silly enough to have wasted your time in reading this report so far, 
please be assured that what you've been reading may not be ultimate 
truth :-), and that I am a well-known and notorious liar, and that 
even that statement could be a lie.  But anyway, I trust that those 
who read will certainly check to see how their indicators are on what 
is being said, and to what degree, lesser or greater, these things be 
true for you, or at least the majority of that which makes up "you," 
and not try to enforce any of it on the rest.

Vincent van Gogh, who wisely did not achieve fame and fortune while 
still alive, wrote many letters to his brother, and showed himself to 
be quite a philosopher, not just one of the most amazing artists that 
the world has ever seen.  And in one of Vincent's letters to his 
brother Theo, he talked a bit about illness and death, and said that 
he imagined that the great and wonderful illnesses that mankind is 
heir to should not be seen as tragic unpleasantnesses that should be 
eradicated once and for all from humankind, but rather should be seen 
as a first-class ticket to the stars and infinite life.

Long pause.

Coming back to NOTs and cancer, there is a viewpoint from which it 
might be said that if NOTs could dependably produce cancer, it could 
probably and equally produce its cure.  It's a little bit like 
alcohol -- the right amount of it can make you feel pretty fine and 
thin the blood and open your arteries and create relaxation and 
camaraderie, if used judiciously.  However, if you suddenly slug down 
about a quart of the stuff, it'll kill you, if you catch my drift and 
this analogy to NOTs.

Just the other day I got into an argument with a good friend about 
which one of us was the oldest thetan, and it finally came down to 
"Well, let's see your birth certificate."  Well, anyway, according to 
my birth certificate, I've been a thetan for about as long as I can 
remember.  So I got to wondering if we should have a contest to see 
who's the oldest thetan on the IVy list, and what are some of the 
telltale signs that differentiate an old thetan from a baby thetan. 
Once again I'll look forward to hearing from anyone who feels 
qualified to speak on these matters -- actually, even unqualified to 
speak on these matters, which should include a certain amount of our 
readership. Meantime, in my spare time, I'm going to do some more 
NOTs to see if I can do whatever it takes to produce cancer in this 
body, and by carefully documenting this research, I shall then 
proceed to cure it, at which point every medical association on 
planet Earth will put out a contract to  have my life and findings 
destroyed, since the worst piece of information that could ever 
arrive for modern medicine would be a dependable and inexpensive cure 
for cancer which just about anybody could perform.  Some of you out 
there may say in a perplexed tone of voice, "You mean to tell me that 
all those great big hospitals and all those doctors and other 
health-care professionals that work day and night to help treat and 
alleviate the ravages of this disease wouldn't be overjoyed to see it 
disappear from Earth?"  Yes, I'm here to tell you that this would not 
be the case, any more than Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology, 
and all of its latter-day offshoot groups would be overjoyed to find 
out that there were no more aberrated folks.

Anyway, to get serious again for just a moment, and now that that 
moment's passed to get silly and humorous and lighthearted once 
again, I'd like to end this missive with the thought that, just like 
it takes a heap of livin' to make a house a home, it takes a heap of 
lies (second postulates) to give the Static a life to live.  QED, and 
highest tokens of affinity and acknowledgment -- I remain, your most 
obedient Muse, Phil