X-Message-Number: 5071 Date: Mon, 30 Oct 95 13:40:00 From: Steve Bridge <> Subject: Committee for an Extended Lifespan To CryoNet >From Steve Bridge October 30, 1995 In response to: Message #5065 From: (David Stodolsky) Subject: Committee for an Extended Life Span Date: Sat, 28 Oct 95 20:54:49 +0100 >"As an amusing example of this type of phenomenon on a small scale >is the Texas cleric who ran the Committee for the Elimination of >Death from 1974 to 1978, attracting 200 members. In 1978 he >formed the Committee for an Extended Life Span, and its worldwide >membership was reported to exceed 300,000 people (membership >fees of $5 to $1,000) by early 1979." >Does anyone know anything about this organization? Bob Ettinger, Saul Kent, and I and some others will remember A. Stuart Otto, sometimes known as Brother Stuart. I do not know if Otto had formal religious training; but he was widely read in religion and philosophy. He was a subscriber and occasional correspondent to cryonics organizations in the 70's and early 80's, at which time he wrote that he was retiring from the public view. I haven't heard anything about him since. Otto seemed like a nice-enough fellow from his letters, although I would say that his vision of how to eliminate death was limited to nutrition and positive thinking. He seemed puzzled by the technology of cryonics, although he sympathized with the motivations. I believe he was a speaker at one or more of the cryonics/life extension conferences in the 1970's and some others here may have met him. I never met him. I don't know about the "300,000 membership" quoted above. I doubt that the figure ever got that high, even at $5.00 a membership. Benefits were mostly a newsletter and kind thoughts. I think the important observation of the quote is that more people seem to be interested in talking about a longer life span than in eliminating death. That certainly squares with my experience. Also, it seems true that many more people will become involved in "positive thinking" to combat death than in speculative, hard-to-prove technologies like cryonics. Not far from Alcor is a group currently named "People Forever." The group was known several years ago as "The Eternal Flame Foundation." The leadership is a triumvirate of a husband and wife and a third male partner, who charge exhorbitant sums for workshops and celebratory gatherings to think one's way to immortality. The proper mental state will bring on a "cellular reawakening" that will make the individual immortal. The leader wears a toupe' and his wife obviously has had plastic surgery, yet they attract hundreds to their conferences, their parking lot is always crowded, and their individual incomes are several hundred thousand dollars a year. Religions and cults make guarantees. Cryonics organizations don't. We require contracts and a deeper level of technical understanding. We make people face icky issues like neurosuspension, standby, perfusion, cracking, memory loss, nanomachines invading their bodies, loss of continuity, and the what-the-heck-is-identity-anyway problem. Soap and religion sell better than philosophy and always have. Maybe someday we'll have some soap to sell. I hope we can avoid becoming a religion. Steve Bridge Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5071