Click arrow to get back to main contents page.ISSN 0964-5659
Volume 5 no 41. First published October 1993. ISSN 0964-5659.
Emmortalis Black Flag Priorities for Cryonics Research Book Review: Project Mind
Letters: Gene Therapy, Psychiatric medication, Subject of cryonics, time
An ESP Speculation - C-Time Super-Centenarians Are Made Not Born Cryonics and Cranks Why Immortalists Should Support Terra Libra The Time Travel Tourist Industry A Trust That Lasts Forever? Emortalism
by Douglas Skrecky
In the year 1900 few would have predicted many of the events which subsequently unfolded
during the 20th century, such as the rise and fall of world communism, the impact of the
automobile on society, or the existence of devices such as Walkmans, VCRs or home computers.
Like its predecessor the 21st century is going to hold some unexpected surprises. One of these
will likely be the rise of a world wide movement which we shall provisionally term emortalism.
What does emortalism stand for? It means Eventually MORTAL. We are quite close now to
understanding the basic ageing mechanisms. When this understanding is complete ageing will
become optional and individuals who choose to do without it will become the first of the
"emortals". This is not the same as becoming immortal as death always hunts those who are alive
and even youthful individuals in the peak of health are occasionally felled by cancer or by
accident. There presently exist many examples of emortalism. A sequoia tree is emortal as it's
living tissues do not undergo any ageing process, but it is not immortal since rot of the dead
heartwood eventually renders it structurally unsound so that it then topples and dies. Some cold
blooded animals such as rockfish also appear not to age.1
Certain tissues even in humans do not deteriorate with time. For instance the age related
phenomena of increased mitochondrial production of free radicals occurs only in terminally
differentiated cell types.2 Thus it appears that all rapidly dividing stem cell types are immune to
the ravages of ageing and not just those involved in reproduction. For example bone marrow cells
from old animals have been found to be just as vigorous as those from young animals.3 Thus the
change from the mortal to the emortal state may not be such a large jump after all. During the
20th century the average lifespan doubled due to a decrease in disease associated mortality.
Virtually all those now over 65 years of age owe their continued existence solely to the medical
advances which occurred during the 20th century. The 21st century may see a similar increase in
lifespan as the barrier posed by ageing is itself broken so that mortality rates of the elders (us?) are
lowered to levels similar to those characterizing young adults.
1 New Models for New Perspectives in the Biology of Senescence 625-634 Vol.12 1991 Neurobiology of Ageing
2 An Update on the Mitochondrial-DNA Mutation Hypothesis of Cell Ageing 209-216 Vol.275 1992 Mutation Research
3 Ultimate Erythropoietic Repopulating Abilities of Fetal, Young Adult and Old Adult Cells
Compared Using Repeated Irradiation 759-771 Vol.160 1984 Journal of Experimental Medicine
BLACK FLAG
by Yvan Bozzonetti.
In Periastron July issue, Dr. Donaldson writes about all the things allowed by the current
technologies (and exploited in animal experiments) but denied to human longevity applications on
the ground of law, ethics and so on.
Longevity Report 40, the August issue, comes to me with a flyer about Terra Libra, an idea about
world freedom. But what is freedom without a territory to express it outside the constrains of
current states?
Without new continents to discover, and space too costly to go, old ships in international waters
remain the only option for activities banned by state laws or religious morals. Think for example
about this:
Human longevity is tailored to fit the life expectancy of our ancestors facing predation by sabre
tooted tigers. That was the true world some millions years ago. Now, we know from fly
experiments, than more copies of genes generating anti-oxidizing agents may expand life
expectancy two or three times more than what we know today. Genosys Biotechnologies Inc.
(140 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4GF) sells any genes on request in a set of
"vectors", able to transplant them into mammal cells. Well, genetic engineering on adult
human subjects is not allowed, so don't dream about life extension and your second hundred
anniversary. It's not for you! It is technologically possible, but not allowed, - it runs against THE
moral imperative.
Another example? Some frogs can survive ice hard freezing of their bodies because in cold
conditions their cells accumulate 180 times more glucose sugar than the normal state. The
protective effect on membranes and molecules inside the cells, allows deep freezing of exterior
fluids. At a colder temperature, the inside of the cell solidifies and an organelle known as the
centrosome is destroyed. Without it, a cell can't sense the other ones and divides without restraint
as a cancer transformed tissue. Taxol from the yew tree Taxus brevifolia allows the centrosomes
to overcome the cold crisis. Both the taxol gene and the frog glucose control genetic system
could be mapped, sequenced, copied and transferred to potential cryonics patients.
Unfortunately, this form of revisable cryonics in once more forbidden by law and morals: it
is an alteration of God's creation. Think: with that activity, you would count in your ancestries
a frog and a Californian tree!
A last example: You may think there is no solution to a pandemic such AIDS. There is a solution:
Suppress human cell markers, recognized by viruses, and graft a gene set from other distant
species, rodents, birds, fishes and so on. without any more (from the molecular point of view)
human beings, the epidemic will die out.
But what becomes THE superior species if we start to mix and use genes from any plants and
animals? Well, I have no moral nor particular interest in the present day human genetic stock. So
why not put the black flag on a ship outside the 12 mile limit and do here everything we can't on
land?
At the estuary of the Danube river there is a large set of good ships without use, ready to be sold
for a low price. From Black Sea to black flag, there is only one step.
Such a platform would be the operational basis for a full set of new biotechnology enterprises and
the place to get cures denied on land. Outside my own pocket, I have found $10,000 to start such
an activity, this is only 5 to 7 % of the full starting cost, are there any other potential investors? I
assume no one will reveal themselves, at least before the project is fully financed, when there is no
more needs for them.
Here, I start to look at what seems to be another issue, without links with the preceding subject.
Cryonics remains a costly way to buy some hope in tomorrow. Few people have the money to put
on the table. The classical way around this is to buy life insurance, a lump of money ready to
arouse many appetites when the time comes to use it for its intended purpose. And what if you are
too old or not in good health, or if, as I find in some insurance services, "We are sorry, we can't
make such a contract, we work only on honest activities, we don't do such swindling".
A solution would be to allow payment on a long period, from ten to forty years for example. After
some part of the full sum would be paid, say 10 to 15%, the cryonics contract could be executed
if anyone agree to continue payments on a monthly basis. The contract will become definitive for
unlimited conservation, only at the completion of the required sum. Because the major cost of
cryonics comes from liquid nitrogen refilling, there is no point to ask for a sum providing enough
interests to sustain that activity when there is a monthly earning. Some of it needs only to be
diverted towards current operations, a small overload indeed.
Assume for example we need $40,000 for a cryonics contract on forty years or $1,000 a year. If
the "cryonics right" is used after 20 years, there will be for example 20 annual $1,100 payments to
be done by some relative of the "cryonicised" person or some established fund. The $100 overcost
is affected to the nitrogen current operations.
If there are some particular economic difficulties, the annual spending could be suspended for an
accepted period if the current nitrogen expanses are covered. Who will accept this kind of
contract? The first to do so will take over nearly all the cryonics potential market.
A new cryonics organization can take the move, but current ones can also enter in the field more
swiftly. What is the risk? if there is no completed payment, there is no indefinite conservation and
so, no financial burden. That may look more risky for the buyer than a full payment at start, but
may be no more than the life insurance option.
Looking at a recent New Scientist issue, I found an article about Dr. Fahy's researches: he hopes
to have a reversible cryoprotectant for single organ conservation and revival at the end of the
year. To go to full body conservation seems then relatively simple, even if some problems remain,
for example at the centrosome level. It may be time to promote largely cryonics technology and
put it on an affordable basis in the market.
As any naysayer will rightfully point out, even a reversible, affordable cryonics technology will
preserve a dead corpse. Simply, it doesn't decay any more. The main task shifts then to rejuvenate
old biochemical systems, something falling mostly to the genetic engineering domain. What
remains for us are the legal problems. We are then back to the science made on a "pirate ship"
using a modern form of the old black flag, for example a flag of convenience.
Because the new cryonics financing scheme will generate a large sum of money not in immediate
needs, it could form the basic investment of the start-up new biotechnology industries. Well, some
of them would fall but the winner will more than compensate for the lost.
At that point, only the first investment for buying the ship is not solved. To buy some of the
Danube ships is not particularly costly, at least for what they are.
Assume 10,000 contributors recruited at no cost spent on the project $100 each, all financial
problems would be solved. The main difficulty is to find 10,000 motivated donators, that is,
educated people in that domain. But the difficulty holds its own solution: the real need is to
inform and educate a sufficient group. The $100 from each participant may be a mere course fee.
The August issue of Scientific American features the story of a Louisiana professor having found
15,000 would-be students for an e-mail course delivered on Internet. Why don't do the same thing
for cryonics and longevity?
If no one wants to take the first step, I accept to pay for an Internet link and maintain a Bulletin
Board System facility on my computer so that anybody with a PC and a modem can work on the
project on line. Off line contributions on DOS disks is possible too. If the project gets started, any
contribution will be paid as an author share. Who will move in? (see also page 10 -ed)
Priorities for Cryonics
by Klaus Reinhard
Recently I have seen several suggestions for research in cryonics, for example for minor improvements in freezing techniques or for storage near -136oC. Unfortunately, in my opinion these suggestions do not meet the actually important problems:
1. delay between deanimation and begin of suspension
2. back-up techniques for cryonically suspended patients
3. freezing damage
To 1.:
This is a very serious problem, as the warm autolysis beginning immediately after deanimation
leads even after less than two hours to the dissolution of important structures1, while the freezing
causes only displacement and cracking of structures. That does not mean that all hope is lost after
delays, because the brain structures are highly redundant. But the autolytic damage is probably
much more difficult to repair than the freezing damage. Many cryonics patients, even key persons
of the movement like Jerry Leaf and John Erfurt, have experienced long delays. Unexpected death
happens very often. Therefore it is most important to develop pulse monitor and alarm devices
and to set up organizational structures which can help the patient quickly in case of an unexpected
death.
1 To 2.:
If you look at human history, you will find that the periods of freedom and peace were rare.
Totalitarianism and wars were more frequent. At present it seems that most people have learned
from history. But the risk of major catastrophes in the future remains high. That is no reason to
give up. Despite the many catastrophes in the past the human civilization have had over long
periods an ongoing technical and economic progress. The logical consequences of this trend
continued into the future are the colonization of space and the conquest of death. But that will
help you only if your brain structure survives. In case of a political or economic catastrophe your
cryonics organization should be able to preserve you chemically, to enclose you in a time capsule
and to store or bury you on a secure, possibly hidden place. The chemical preservation can be
done by using formaldehyde or much better by desiccation2. The time capsule can be built of
stainless steel or titanium. The cryonics organizations have such an emergency option in their
contracts.
But it is not clear whether they are actually prepared for it. The preparations should be done as
soon as possible because a catastrophe can come without a long warning. The First World War
began suddenly in a relatively golden era with increasing wealth and increasing freedom for most
people. You may ask why I have made cryonic arrangements at all. This is because my life is very
important for me and it is not certain that a major catastrophe will happen. Furthermore there is
no organization for chemical preservation, and preservation at ultra-low temperatures is the best
way from the technical point of view. In the present political situation cryonic suspension is also
more secure from the social point of view because there are many more people who would fight
for a liquid nitrogen patient than for a chemically preserved patient. But the risk of an economic
or political catastrophe which makes maintaining patients in liquid nitrogen impossible is so high,
that the cryonics organizations should be prepared for it.
To 3.:
Naturally it would great if we could freeze patients without damage. But that needs many years of
expensive research, if it is at all possible without nanotechnology. While for 1 and 2 it is only
necessary to make existing devices for pulse monitoring or desiccation usable for our purposes.
Therefore we should at first concentrate here. Cryobiologists say that most damage occurs
between -15oC and -60oC3. Thus the damage below -130oC seems to be a minor matter. We
should not invest too much time and money in this before substantial progress is reached in the
critical area between -15oC and -60oC.
References:
1. Autolytische submikroskopisehe Zellveranderungen im Cortex cerebelli der weien Ratte. E. Winkelmann Journal f. Hirnforschung. 1964
2. See Douglas Shrecky's articles in Canadian Cryonics News and Longevity Report
3. Freezing of Living Cells. Peter Mazur: Am.J.Physiol. 247 (1984)
Book Review: PROJECT MIND
David S. Devor
The 1993 book above is subtitled The Conscious Conquest of Man and Matter Through
Accelerated Thought. Author is T. Kun; publisher is Unimedia Publishing, P.O. Box 247, Indian
Rocks Beach FL 34635. Soft cover, 304 pages (including a 60 page appendix and 20 pages of
glossary, references and index); priced at $14.95 plus $2.50 shipping ($4.50 foreign). ISBN
#1-880646-02-1.
Project Mind, the book, is a declared attempt to introduce, justify and recruit "allies" for Project
Mind, the project, described by the publisher as "... a utopian concept soliciting active participants
for a unique kind of creativity "think tank" whose result would be such material abundance and
well-being that mankind would be free to fulfill its infinite potential." A publisher's flyer also says,
"The author claims to have found the key to the cosmic riddle and declares open war on death and
taxes."
It is rare to encounter a book and especially a metaphysics/new age book that offers even one
truly new idea. This book seems to offer at least four:
1. Disparaging of the liklihood of phase-change, environmentalism or paradigm-shift coming to our rescue, it claims that the only way out of global crisis is through universal, "utopian abundance" to be created by a holistic, breakthrough-science which is the object of Project Mind, the project.
2. It argues that such abundance will, through the total devaluation of material possessions, eliminate all vestiges of materialism, wage-slavery, suffering, injustice, etc. and reveal the potential and destiny of everyone initiating a new age of "transparent, coherent and harmonious development" generative of omniscience, immortality and invulnerability.
3. The new breakthrough-science it proposes will be inspirational, "contemplative" and "vision-driven" - creatively connected to "higher reality" without need of laboratories and all the paraphernalia of conventional science. It claims to have the knowledge and methodology to accomplish this.
4. The book argues the existence of individuals that have yearned all their lives to unravel at least
one of nature's fundamental secrets. For reasons carefully explained, these individuals have a
special degree of integrity capable of making unprecedented efforts of "confrontative thought"
and "meditation" on "intractable scientific problems." This, it maintains, is possible because
individualising "essence-desire" that is latent in most of us as a result of having been compromised
by a neurosis endemic to humanity it calls "distraction," is operative in these individuals as the
motor of "Accelerated Thought." In the words of the author, "Accelerated Thought is a
high-energy mind process whereby realizations arrive second by second in rapid-fire sequence
rather than once a week, once a year or once in a lifetime as is typical with Eureka experiences.
Just as the Eureka experience provides brief moments of brilliant insight - the divine sparks of
genius and inspiration that have fuelled the sudden advances in scientific progress until now -
Accelerated Thought will provide sustained creative vision. This will establish an ongoing link
with higher consciousness, producing a powerful cosmic current channelled through essence from
a higher dimension."
While the author is coherent in his presentation of what he calls "the essence theory of reality" and
even walks us through the conscious unfolding of the various stages of accelerated thought, the
difficulty of this book seems to lie in its very novelty. While the author draws liberally from
popular literature (quoting authors from Woody Allen through Arthur Koestler all the way to Ayn
Rand), to illustrate his points he also draws from sources that are somewhat more esoteric
including Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Theon, Brunton, Tesla, Ashlag and others. And while references
to spirituality and "perennial philosophy" are mainly restricted to the appendix, many of this
book's arguments derive their force from this field which is not accessible to everyone.
In all fairness to the author, he does not make spirituality a condition for understanding his book
or even for participating in his project. He even goes as far as to point out what he considers to be
the shortcomings of classic spirituality which he takes to task for having failed to confront the
enigma of material restriction as the prime source of human corruption and suffering, and thus in
failing to appeal to the mass of modern men.
This book will appeal to anyone who still dreams of throwing off the yoke of limitation so characteristic of life as we know it and who has not despaired of finding a practical rational for realizing that dream. Confirmation of the validity of the project and the theory will have to await its implementation.
Letters
From Mr Yvan Bozzonetti
I have spent some time reading about the life of J.Y. Cousteau. One or two of his remarks suggest
that he may be interested in immortalism.
Is anyone interested in doing a short course on the use of biological reagents to sequence and map
plant DNA? The course provides notes and a free kit. I would be willing to pay the fee for
anyone willing and able to attend if I could have the notes and kit afterwards.
If we can find interesting genes in some plants, I have an address where one can get a full
sequence of it. Then we could make copies included in a vector for insertion into mammal DNA.
If my astronomy business takes off, I hope to buy in one or two years time my own aluminising
facility. It requires a low pressure chamber, which could also be used for a freeze drying business.
I have found some deconvolution software for distorted astronomical pictures. I may be able to
use it to clear distorted tridimensional nuclear resonance pictures made with powerful but unequal
magnetic fields. The more powerful the field, the more detail in the pictures. The objective is to
get "brain reading" at the 10nm molecular scale.
Editorial Comments:
I seem to recall some mention being made of the possibility of Dr Cousteau having immortalist
leanings.
Hopefully someone may come forward for the DNA course. A pity that Mr Bozzonetti did not
say where and when it is, but his article in this issue may give a clue!
Obviously caution is needed on two levels with regards to making hybrid plant/animals. One is the
legal aspects - it may be necessary to relocate to a third world country which hasn't passed a law
against it. The other, and more important one, is to take sensible precautions that the experiments
don't go wrong and realise the doomsday scenarios of the meddling do gooders that seem so
opposed to this sort of thing!
From Mrs Joy Cass
I am on a six week medication course. It seems to have good results so far. Another interesting
experience!
Reply
We look forward to hearing about it in due course.
From Dr John Walford
What is the "subject" of cryonics or the church? As far as I know the church in East Anglia still
has not answered its Lent study question what on Earth is the church for? It has left the answers
diverging and disunited.
Isn't the subject (underlying purpose) of both cryonics and the church improvement? In Ettinger's
words, "being better in all respects", or in the New Testament phrase "having life abundantly".
The practical physics of manipulating time has yet to be discovered. Could it be that in
"condemning" time we would be trying to manipulate it?
Condemn - to pronounce guilty, to sentence to punishment or imprisonment, to reject as unfit - dictionary
Or is it that we are condemned by times brief? Are we guilty of ignoring our time relation,
sentenced to imprisonment by inherited biological limitations rejected as unfit as alas our news
media reports remind us.
Is the booklet A Brief Condemnation of Time in need of articles? Could I contribute to the
"Cryonics and Problem of Time" debate? Is it still open?
Does NeoTech send copies of its mailings to Senators? Their mailings couldn't apparently answer
my question about its application to resolve more of America's problems.
Reply:
The main purpose of the booklet A Brief Condemnation of Time is to make people think of time
differently. With time as it exists, many people get angry with each other when really it is the one
way single line nature of time that is the problem. A good way of illustrating this is the saying
"You cannot please all the people all the time." If it were possible to control time in the manner
one sometimes sees on Star Trek one could finish one task before starting another and disappoint
no one. With linear time, one is often forced to displease one person in order to satisfy another.
A Brief Condemnation of Time seeks to suggest that the creation of the universe as it is with a
single linear time track is not the optimum, and as humanity is a species which seeks to change its
environment, maybe one day we could change that too.
At the moment the only way physics hints that it may be possible is by lining up 50 or so neutron
stars into a rotating cylinder and flying round it in a space ship. This is hardly practical for day to
day life! Maybe one day space colonists may try it, but it is really a bit fanciful to say the least.
However it is pretty remarkable that it is even possible for serious physicists to even consider time
manipulation as a thought experiment.
The fact that the universe supports time manipulation is suggested by quantum mechanics' Many
Worlds theory. As unlikely as quantum mechanics sounds, it is the basic theory for the operation
of electronic equipment, and it has not been found lacking so far.
A Brief Condemnation of Time will serve a useful purpose if it gets people directing their anger at
the frustrations of living in linear time at time itself, an abstraction, rather than venting their anger
at each other, their children or their pets. It will have to be entertaining for people to buy it, read
it and use it.
Unfortunately there have been very few articles for it apart from the obviously humorous one
liners like "I'd love to contribute but I haven't got time."
If Dr Walford or anyone else would like to write articles for it they will be gratefully received and
included in it. Maybe one day it will appear. But at the moment there are only a couple of pages
filled.
From the Reviewers of New Hope International:
NHI is a reviews magazine of small press publications, available from 20, Wenerth Avenue, Gee
Cross, Hyde, SK14 5NL, UK.
by Mr John M. Peters Reviewing no 35
This slim newsletter discusses various aspects of cryogenic extension to life, along with articles on
alternative methods of disease control. All serious stuff as attested by the copious footnotes and
bibliographical lists. Worth trying if you have serious views on the future of mankind.
by Mr Neil K. Henderson Reviewing no 36
This eccentric newsletter mixes tips on Looking Good and Vitamin E May Prevent Brain Damage
with reports on millennia-spanning tree-like in New Zealand and Europe and much scientific
looking stuff about cryogenics. There is even news of PICS - a lonely hearts club for immortalists!
What disturbs me is the mag's raison d'etre. Surely there is something sad, even slightly sinister,
about this obsession with living forever. There's even an article about setting up a Reanimation
Fund in Liechtenstein so you can get your millions back (with interest) when they've cured death.
by Mr Paul McDonald Reviewing no 37
This newsletter on cryogenics and something called immortalism has an article on how to manage
your affairs while you're still dead so you'll be quids in when its time to take the crocodile clips off
your earlobes. Its an unlikely journal that seems to bizarre to be true. One correspondent writes "I
feel that Yvan Bozzonetti should explain why he prefers to drink photographic fluid to obtain
tocopherols when there is a perfectly good natural source in the soyabean." What are
tocopherols? Perhaps we should all drink photographic fluid to see what develops!
by Mr Dan Pugh Reviewing no 38
A strange mag containing articles on such varied matters as making a cold vaccine, permafrost burial, AIDS contaminated blood and the search for immortality by means of suspended animation and re-animation at an unspecified future time. Despite the apparently scientific jargon I couldn't believe the authors wholly serious. Individual personal immortality by the means here suggested strikes me as utter fantasy, not that science fiction hasn't been known to turn science into fact.An
ESP Speculation: C TIME.
by Yvan Bozzonetti
Douglas Skrecky in Longevity Report 40 wrote about vitamin mood effects. I think vitamin C at
least, induces some effect on brain function. After starting to take some large vitamin dose I found
I was often able to foretell the outcome of tossing up a coin with far more confidence than a mere
50% probability.
If the effect is real, it must have been noticed by many before. I am simply not aware of the
literature on the subject nor of any explanation.
Because neurons work at the limit of quantum systems, I assume the explanation resides in a
mundane quantum effect. My personal explanation runs somewhat as this:
Usually, outside epileptic cases, brain state is rest to zero every 1/t of a second. In that time, a
mental state is created and then destroyed. In the same way, the second quantification in physics
defines a so-called occupation number (designated N) made from a product of creation-annihilation operators, the larger the N value, the more there are creation-anihilations. N may be
expressed as the quantum equivalent of the so-called Hamiltonian operator H.
When H remains invariable with respect to time, it reduces to the simple classical energy.
Now, if something is introduced in the brain so that there is a neuron energetic build up, there will
be a classical information path resting on energy with the common 1/t s timing and another
quantum one: The quantum channel will use the time variable Hamiltonian and so a given N value
encompassing a large number of creation-anihilations. That is to say, the consciousness "instant"
in this information channel must encompass a large number of 1/t of a second basic cycle. Seen
from the classical channel, it must look like a prediction device. Am I right?
Who can comment on it?
Editorial Comment:
I was a little reluctant to publish this as ESP is largely discredited these days, especially amongst
immortalists. However in Longevity Report's policy of including new ideas, however I felt that it
is worthwhile to give this idea to the readership to test, as it is relatively easy to evaluate if you
have the time and inclination. Any comments will be appreciated.
The Atlantis Project
4132 S. Rainbow Boulevard Suite 388
Las Vegas
Nevada 89103
USA
This is another attempt to set up a free country in a world that is increasingly dominated by
lawyers, governments and other parasitic bureaucrats. Free details are available for the asking.
Please mention Longevity Report when writing, and they'll probably keep us up to date with news
items.
At present they offer a magazine and various promotional products, but the ultimate intent is to
create an offshore country built in shallow international waters. The steps being taken appear to
be serious and this could attract industrial support from enterprises requiring the freedom to work
unhindered to create real wealth.
In the UK, I am told, there are about as many people working in manufacturing as there are
unemployed, ie 3 million out of 56 million. Reduced premises costs and no bureaucracy costs or
taxes would be very encouraging for industrialists considering supporting the Atlantis Project.
Super-Centenarians
Edward Yarwood looks at the final stage of Mankind's Evolution, and the prospect of the Optimum Lifespan
And the Lord said, My Spirit shall
not always strive with Man, for that
he also is flesh : yet his days shall be
one hundred and twenty years
Genesis. 6:31
If youth were to end at 40 and old age begin at 90, instead of the 60 as it presently does in
Western culture, one would see a revolution of the whole human condition within a quarter
century. Gerontology has to urgently find some way of pushing youth further along the individual
existential continuum, and in doing so, putting senility on "hold"'. This is making not an augment
of the life span, but an extension of the health span.
Mankind today can only move forward in one way, via the conscious will and singularity of the
solitary human personality, confident in its idiosyncratic significance, for man in the mass is a
machine and machines don't possess consciousness.
A New Human Perspective In Nature
"It is customary these days to think that probably all the galaxies are not necessarily a dead loss,
but could have upon them life; that on many other planets beings in some respects similar to
ourselves are existing. That could be so. It may well be so. But it is just as likely that we are the
only conscious beings in the entire universe".2
In these words John Stewart Collis posits one of the major paradoxes hanging currently over the
whole destiny of Mankind. However, to my mind it would seem doubtful that nature would place
such an awesome burden upon a single species. We could wait for a million years for a true
answer to this dilemma. Today, Mankind is on the brink of a major shift in consciousness. This
shift must force upon the race the major leap in the dark of Man's entire history, in the assumption
that he is the evolutionary eye of the whole of creation. In doing so, it must shoulder
his responsibility as the conscious biological spearhead of the cosmos. So far in the human story,
the existential personal norm has been to die prematurely. As a life-form we have always died
before our time. This must now urgently change, as its the greatest inhibiting factor of the whole
of Mankind's future.
As a complex life form, Man is somewhat of a late comer in nature. Billions of years rolled by
before he arrived on the cosmic scheme. And as like as not, billions more will pass, if and when he
finally vacates the universe. Man might have been late in arriving, yet it would seem he has the
potentiality of a very long duration before him. For as a proto-conscious life form he is still very
young, having possibly existed in his present form for a mere five million years or so. Now, it is
intelligent to assume that such a species must have a life potentiality of at least a hundred million
years, so on that assumption, we can say, that all of us alive today, are in at the beginning.
The Other Half Of Evolution That Darwin Failed To Map
"Evolution must be gradual and much effort and new knowledge is required. Sociology, a
new-born science, must learn of biology, her older sister. Biology teaches us that in proportion
that the organisation becomes more complex, the consciousness of individuality develops, until a
point is reached at which individuality cannot be sacrificed to the community".3 Those words
were first written around 1905, in the first decade of the XXth Century. I am writing this in the
last. Elie Metchnikoff was one of the great pioneers on Man's path towards the
Optimum Lifespan. His life fell mostly in the nineteenth century, and as a longevist he was one of
the first to see that the longer lifespan was no longer an aspect of human vanity, but the very
linchpin of Mankind's future survival. Throughout this century a giant misunderstanding has hung
over the popular mind of the mass of the species that human evolution was complete, and it was
cartographed by Darwin and the Victorians, and there were no new maps to be made.
Man's evolution outlined by Darwin and his contemporaries, that of the biological, somatic,
material development, was but one creative half, of which the other is still awaiting completion.
This other aspect of Man's evolution is his psychological evolution, his development to maximum
consciousness. The first stage of Man's evolution was on the scale of the mass of the species. The
last and final stage has to be one of idiosyncrasy, on the level of individuality. As the quality of
consciousness cannot be imposed from without, but only via the utility of the human will
from within, the darling of creation is not Mankind but the solitary Homo Sapiens soul.
For most of this century human intelligence and consciousness has been running downhill. As Man
has become more dominated by his own technological innovations, life in the mass of the species
has taken on a trance-like quality. It is doubtful if longevity to the optimum degree will ever be a
possibility as a normality. One doesn't struggle to attain something that one can't see any meaning
in, and without an augmented consciousness a reason for living long will always evade Mankind in
the mass. The Optimum Lifespan is for this reason likely to always be the preserve of a minority.
Twentieth century democracy has striven to impose on Man an egalitarianism which in fact has no
true standing in reality. Each of us is a unique, unrepeatable phenomena in nature, and some
inevitably are more intelligent and gifted than others. The Optimum Lifespan will only be
attainable by resistance to the herd, for it will require a commitment and self-discipline that, by it's
very nature, will never be common.
The Counter Force of Demography
It's my essential view that each life-form has it's optimum duration of life programmed into it, but
in most cases we don't understand what this is. In the case of Man we do know that no human has
ever lived beyond the age of 120 years. Yet there is still no way of knowing if this is in fact the
maximum duration a human might attain.
For the first couple of million years on Earth, primitive Man rarely seems to have survived much
beyond the age of 20. In the first period of civilisation, the Greeks and the Romans attained a
mean lifespan of around 30 years, which then seems to have remained static almost up till the end
of the Middle Ages in Europe. Then suddenly in the last 150 years the human life potential
underwent a quantum leap, from an average duration in the Occidental world of 1800 of 40 years,
to that of around 80 years today. Around 1820 there were one billion humans alive on this planet.
It took the race over four million years to reach that first billion. To reach the second billion it
took just a hundred and ten years, to 1930, and a mere thirty years more to 1960 to triple
the original world population of 1820. Today we are more than six billion. This is what
is demographically referred to as the 'population explosion'.4
This inevitably begs the question of why, in such an overcrowded world, is one promulgating the
notion of extending the human lifespan to the optimum degree? This is bound to make for even a
greater density of population. First, I don't believe the world is over-crowded, the problem at
present being more the maldistribution of the species over the geographical surface of the planet
than an actual problem of numbers. Whole chunks of the earth are still uninhabited wastelands.
Further there is no way of foretelling if the global population will continue to augment over the
next century or so, but even if it should, I don't see that it would prove disastrous, even on the
basis of a demographical extrapolation of around 25 billion by the year 2100 AD.
There is of course the nature of an aspect of gamble in this. However if one assumes that the
progress of science is the essential prerogative of individual genius, and at present such a gifted
minority don't live long enough, or maintain their faculties for long enough, to tackle the
protracted and complex problems that beset the race, the danger of one day having a third or so of
the total human planetary population bestowed with an existential status of being green
super-centenarians, seems to me well worth the risk.
"The progress of humanity appears to us to be very slow, because we, the observers, are units of
the herd. Each one of us can make few observations. Our life is too short. Many experiments
should be conducted for a century at the least. Institutions should be established in such a way
that observations and experiments commenced by one scientist would not be interrupted by his
death. Such organisations are still unknown in the realm of science".5
Thus commented the great Franco-American biologist Alexis Carrel more than fifty years ago, on
what he saw as the requirements for a new science of Man. Little or nothing has changed in this
respect, because the consciousness and lifespan of the individual human has so far failed to keep
pace with the needs of the race. Politics and world organisations still think in decades, whereas as
most of the major problems of Mankind are only resolvable in centuries, if not millennia. This is a
short-sightedness which sooner or later will prove disastrous if the human utility span of life is
not extended, and with it a greater perspective, that will allow the race to cope with it's new status
in nature, not as a mere being of this dot of cosmic matter of Earth, but as a potential God-like
master amidst the sidereal immensities, the very eye of the universe.
The Hypnotised Billions
I'm aware of my seeming contradictions, when I state that we as a race are on the brink of a
revolution in consciousness, yet simultaneously holding the view that human consciousness is
running down. What I believe is happening is that for the past half century a massive bifurcation
has been slowly growing apace in the psychological nature of the species. Mankind in the mass,
especially in the present first world technological societies, has a lifestyle that day by day becomes
more trance-like and robotic. Mass Man is not interested in why he is alive, or what is the nature
and purpose of human existence, he spends a third of his life rehearsing for eternity in his bed, and
another four hours of each day watching his fellow human androids on a glass screen. The
majority don't require a greater consciousness as they've stopped thinking, and as such the very
concept is meaningless to them, everyday they further abdicate their feeble wills to the mass media
manipulators and ever encroaching powers of the world's States. In the majority not requiring to
evolve and will themselves toward their optimum duration of life, it gives greater imperatives for
the hyper alive minority to thus move forward with greater efficacy. A possible condition that
must inevitably result in a masses dichotomy of an evolutionary dynamic minority and an
evolutionary static majority, a condition which I view as the one that nature intends.
"Life is a series of outer events and inner states and they are always shifting and turning If we
stick at every point, then we are identified all the way round. We take everything personally, as
being ourselves, like the actor who takes every role he has to play as himself. Then we are indeed
asleep and being turned round like little wheels by the big wheel of life. When all traces of
individuality fail, collectivity grows. We have to struggle hard not to become only small wheels
driven by life".6
We are living in a period of history in which individuality is failing on all fronts as idiosyncratic
thought declines, in spite of the spasmodic collapse of socialist regimes, the basic political
tendency of our time is toward the Homo Sapiens ant hill, a social organism in which no
individuality is allowed. This is probably the greatest danger of our piece of history, beside which
the issues of population, the environment or even the prospect of nuclear war, are mere
bagatelles. In the event of a Huxley type human ant hill world the species would have run into a
cul-de-sac. If one takes the view, as many people do, that the meaning of human existence only
takes on an aspect of sanity when it is seen as an experiment of the life force in self-evolution, this
being the subject other half, the counterpart of the objective evolution defined by Darwin, then in
a prospect of a Huxlian Brave New World scenario, the species would have suffered evolutionary
death, as all socialistic ant type worlds are by their very nature, eternally static. (Continued in next
issue with A Time Haunted Race)
Bibliography & notes
1 This is a remarkable passage of the 1611 Bible. I wasn't until recently aware of it, until that is, I came across it accidentally in a rejuvenation advertisement in an 1840s issue of the Illustrated London News.
2 John Stewart Collis, Living With A Stranger: A Discourse on the Human Body. MacDonald and
Janes. London. 1978, p. 182.
3 Elie Metchnikoff, The Prolongation Of Life. Heiemann. New York. 1907. One of the first books of this century in which the prospect of the Optimum Lifespan was treated seriously.
4 Gordan Rattray Taylor. The Biological Time Bomb. World Publishing. New York. 1968. A fascinating work covering most biological issues, including the prospect of immortality. After a quarter century still highly relevant.
5 Dr. Alexis Carrel. Man The Unknown. New York. 1935. A work of remarkable insights, in fact one of the epoch making works of the XXth century, in many ways a precursor of Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomena of Man, by a very similar type of mind, a truly great book.
6 Maurice Nicoll. Psychological Commentaries On The Teaching Of Gurdjieff & Ouspensky.
Vincent Stuart. London. 1952. One of the most important works on the psychology of man's
future evolution to have been published in the last fifty years.
Cryonics and Cranks
by Chrissie Loveday
I was recently interviewed by one of the women's monthly magazines, as being one of the few
women who have signed up for cryonic suspension in Great Britain. Actually, it would be more
correct to say, one of the few prepared to talk about it. It seems that people are reticent to talk on
the subject, in case they may be considered to be cranks. Even their jobs might be in danger,
should anyone found out about their intentions. These ladies are, it seems, doctors and solicitors,
or similar professions. Interesting that being a crank should be considered as job threatening. I do
remember when being a vegetarian was being a crank ... the very successful vegetarian restaurants
were even called "Cranks"! I wonder if after all my years spent in education, I may now be
unemployable because I have decided to choose freezing rather than burning or rotting when my
time comes?
It was interesting that one of the first questions was, "Don't you think you are being selfish?"
My answer was "not particularly and isn't everyone selfish to some extent?"
I have thought about this since. I am not really sure what is selfish and what isn't. One might
say it is selfish to live in a house when people all over the world don't have a house. I like making
clothes for myself, but isn't it selfish to do so when I could be helping an elderly or sick person to
clean or do some gardening? It is almost suggesting that anything we have is selfish, if everyone
cannot share it or have similar things themselves. This is maybe a simplistic view of communism -
which obviously did not work. Perhaps that is the excuse for the "take-it" section of our society.
Perhaps the writer of the article would be willing to share everything she earns, rather than choose
to spend it on something she wants. Granted that there is no certainty of success in cryonic
suspension, but is everyone taking a holiday guaranteed enjoyment? Remember the thirty
thousand pound luxury trip made by a group with Alan Whicker? The complaints that were made
at times showed the participants were not always enjoying success.
I have not seen the finished magazine article yet. My guess is that it will be fairly damning
about the whole subject. The tone of questioning and some of the questions themselves were a
little hostile. I suppose to most people, it is in the realms of science fiction and I was being treated
in the same way a witness to flying saucers might be ... a sort of benign idiot. To friends and
colleagues who know of my intentions, it is strange rather than plain stupid. People who know me
well are, perhaps, less surprised. I am not known for being totally conventional and this is just
another symptom. They are curious and I have been asked very many questions about it. One of
my sons thought it may be strange not to have a conventional funeral, but I pointed out that I'd
rather everyone had a party to celebrate the good things anyway!
I am still getting used to the idea, I suppose but I am gaining confidence in talking about
cryonic suspension. Obviously, I still have much to learn, but having decided that this is most
likely our one chance at life, extending it and trying to defeat the system by whatever way
possible, seems good sense and not at all cranky.
Why Immortalists Should Support
Terra Libra
by Frederick Mann
Personal Background
As Founder of Terra Libra, my personal background and philosophy will profoundly influence the
nature of Terra Libra. Eight years ago I was close to death. I suffered from chronic acid
indigestion, severe heart disease, cancer, early stages of arthritis, and recurring malaria attacks.
Then I discovered what I call "Superhealth Technology." I immediately started applying it. In 24
hours I cured my 20-year indigestion. In about three weeks all the heart problems (severe angina,
heart palpitations, dizzy spells) cleared up. Within about two months the arthritis disappeared.
After about 3 months I eliminated the malaria from my system. I had an operation to remove a
cancerous tumour. Since then there have been no further signs of cancer.
Today I am superhealthy and moderately fit. Phoenix has a mountain called Camelback. Some
time ago I ran/climbed up Camelback mountain in under 25 minutes - less than half my age in
years. I doubt if there are a hundred people in Phoenix who can do this. Most regular climbers,
half my age, are proud when they break 30 minutes!
Seven years ago I came across the notion of biological immortality. Death became unacceptable
to me. In 1961 I went to church for the last time. Suddenly I saw the priest as an unconscious
automatic robot spouting nonsense, with no idea what he was prattling about. During a few
minutes the religious superstitions just drained from my mind like dirty oil from a car. What a
relief! What a profound religious experience!
In 1972 I discovered the concept of individual freedom. I studied freedom extensively and learned
how to live free. I also discovered that, in the modern world, political superstition is vastly more
deadly than religious, superstition.
Government
Government consists of human beings. When people say "government is necessary to do X
(whatever)," what they really say is that, "Human Beings are necessary to do X (whatever)."
Logically, the above two sentences completely demolish all arguments for government - all
political superstition. However, this is too simple for most people to grasp! The major
"but"-responses to the above are handled in various Terra Libra Reports.
Terra Libra
Terra Libra is a worldwide free country that extends across national borders. It is an
information-based country. Terra Libra is not a charity or altruistic institution. We don't appeal
for funds. We do sell products and services that enable people to enjoy more freedom - in the
widest interpretation of the word. The people of Terra Libra are Free Sovereign Citizens.
Terra Libra does not attempt to change any existing political systems. We simply create free
viable alternatives. We say to people, "Come try our games. You might like them. They may
prove profitable to you. If you don't like your doctor, try Superhealth." Terra Libra is so designed
that we need only a succession of small steps to advance. To expand rapidly, all we need are
people like you to join us and help spread the message. You can profit handsomely by helping us.
Political Superstition
You begin to shift some of your activities into the freedom of Terra Libra. You cleanse your mind
of whatever political superstition may remain. In my opinion, political superstition is a much
greater threat to life than religious superstition. Political superstition is essentially a belief in
slavery. As Herbert Spencer said, "Slavery hasn't been abolished; it has been nationalized."
Government owns people therefore tells them what they may and may not do. In general,
churches don't use violence or violent threats to interfere with cryonics; governments do.
In my opinion, freedom - and rendering the death machines called "government" irrelevant - is
essential to immortality. Maybe the Venturist project to confront and combat religious
superstition should be expanded to also tackle political superstition. Consider that the latter may
be a variant of the former. The religious believer believes that "God has magical powers." The
political believer believes that "Government has magical powers." But in the modern world the
latter is more deadly - they operate huge military killing machines.
Support for Terra Libra
One of the first people I sent Terra Libra materials to responded: "Your organization is what I
have been looking for, or hoping one day to create. After saying "WOW" after just about every
paragraph in your TLO1 report, I had to start this letter to you, even before completing your
resource guide. I can't believe that you're already doing many of the things that I have been
thinking of, but you are much farther along than I. Of course I would like to work with you and
your organisation."
The expansion of Terra Libra will greatly increase the prospects for immortality. To get involved,
email fm1@amug.org and mention Longevity Report.
As you will discover in the Terra Libra reports, political power depends on the support of the
victims. Once the victims withdraw their support, political power vanishes. This phenomenon
made it possible for Gandhi to defeat the British Empire without firing a shot. Because of this
phenomenon it was impossible for the armed might of East Germany bolstered by 300,000
Russian troops to keep the Berlin wall standing. This phenomenon also brought about the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
Terra Libra brings about a huge shift of power from the politician and bureaucrat to the
individual. Terra Libra also reduces and eventually eliminates the shift of resources from
individual to the politician and bureaucrat. We individuals will use these resources to bring about
immortality.
The Time Travel
by Charles Applebye
The past is for the history books. The present is for living. The future is for the future. We can
relive the past and prelive the future through books, films and story telling. But we cannot visit
the past, only the future.
At last, science appears to be offering us the possibility of visiting the future through the use of
suspended animation and reanimation; loosely referred to as Cryonics. By tapping the results of
mainstream research, development and discovery, a variety of techniques are being proposed to
achieve suspended animation and reanimation. There is no doubt that, given time, efficient and
successful methods will be developed to achieve these aims.
It is likely that these techniques will be employed for space travel to far off planets and stars and
to save people with incurable conditions by deferring their awakening until a cure has been found.
But however laudable, logical or self-indulgent are the motives for someone to submit to
Cryonics, the result will always be the same. They will have the perception that they have
travelled forward in time. Indeed, the most logical objective of such a major and, at present, risky
venture must be to see the future. To cure the incurable for instance is only worthwhile if the
patient wishes to see the future.
Once people become convinced that the Cryonic process works without too much risk or side-effects, the apparent time travel aspect would appeal to more and more people. A market will
develop akin to the travel industry for those inquisitive enough about the future to wish to forgo
some of the present. A lifestyle that centred on double-dipping into future time periods on a
magical mystery time tour would be a dream come true for many of us. One can envisage groups
of people undertaking the journey together to share the experience and to give one another
support in a changed world where the assumed threshold of knowledge is on an altogether higher
or different plain.
But there is likely to be great resistance to such a time tourist industry developing. People need to
understand that they purchase a one-way ticket to the future and that there is unlikely to be a
ticket office at the other end. The chilling (pun) irreversibility of the process may be too much for
the faint hearted to bear. Also, those left behind will never know whether the dream had taken
place or whether some future catastrophe had sabotaged the whole process. Would it, therefore,
ever catch on?
The answer to this question is probably, yes. The imagined reward for the individual with a thirst
for knowledge and prolonged life is so great that many will, I am sure, come forward at the
appropriate time. This will be the case even if there is no proof that the process works. Like many
religions and their variations on life after death, to take the sting out of death is very appealing.
However, the rewards of the experience are equally likely to be reaped initially by those of the
future who capitalise on the situation where people from the past keep popping up with their own
stories to tell. I can already see the holovision chat shows with the history books being rewritten
by us! The phrase "It wasn't like that, I was there" could catch on.
Is all this time travel? I think not. If you cannot come back to where you started and tell of your
experiences the Cryonic experience does not qualify as time travel. There needs to be a reference
point to return to for the Cryonic experience to be anything more than apparent time shifting. If,
however, it is time travel, then we travel in time every night when we dream. Dream on baby and
come to the future with me!
A Trust that Lasts Forever
Brian W. Haines
There are two perils we are told that are unavoidable; death and Taxes. They loom heavily upon
the waking hours of those possessed of the treasures of life. The indigent, the sick and weary of
the third world have no such worries, death comes as a glorious relief to a painful existence where
material gain was never in prospect.
The defeat of death is not imminent yet much has progressed to push the frontiers towards a
realistic expectation of life to 114 years and a probability of 124 within the next few decades.
Much of the discussion at the British Association Science Festival was centred around the social
problems attendant upon the burdens which would lie upon the younger generation who would
have to support the increasing numbers of older people.
Taxes can be avoided. Around the world are "safe havens" known generally as "off-shore" islands
where money can be deposited in the secure knowledge it will remain hidden from the attentions
of the Income Tax Inspectors. Such places are well known, Liechtenstein, Jersey, Switzerland,
Monaco, Isle of Man, and many of the West Indian Islands. What is not so generally well known
is that such Countries as Great Britain and the United States are also "Tax havens". The reason is
such Tax havens are always for non-nationals, the majority of people who are seeking a refugee
for their funds are the nationals of the developed Western world, but the rich of the less
developed countries have a greater incentive to find alternative ways to preserve their wealth due
to the poor conditions in their native lands.
The simplest way not to pay tax is not to declare your income. The more sophisticated way is to
put it where it cannot be found. Various methods of doing this have been devised over the years.
The comments upon the relationship between life death and taxes are however not without some
practical interest. Tax is a burden, on the other hand the Country needs an income to support the
services provided to the population. Money of itself lying in a fund cannot do anything. Money
has to be put back into the economy to work. We have not yet reached the stage where robots
will perform all the functions of manufacture and distribution, it is left to people to produce the
wealth of the nation. Under the present regime of retirement at around the age of 65 and an
increasing consumer base of older people who are not part of the work force, the services will
collapse. Any scheme, however clever, which does not give money back to the State must
inevitably lead to a breakdown of the system.
One reason Britain offers Tax-free residence to rich foreigners is that it believes, either rightly or
wrongly, that money deposited here contributes to the economy by being invested by the banks in
a diversity of business. All those businesses pay tax. There are some, mainly the left wing, who do
not believe this theory to be correct.
Of interest to the rich and powerful, and those who believe all tax to be a bad thing publicity
emanating from the United States for a "Pure Trust Package." It is designed according to the
advertisers to protect your assets against all forms of loss, either by taxation or dishonesty. There
is the added advantage you can act as an agent and sell the system to others. It is claimed to arise
in the Common Law of private contract.
The benefits of the Pure Trust are laid out in some considerable detail. They amount in effect to a
way of organising all your assets anywhere in the world so that nobody except yourself has access
to your private funds. You are not expected to place your funds in the hands of the advertisers,
what you buy is the knowledge of how your funds can be protected.
So far so good. The question then is what do you get for your money. The answer is laid out in
the application, you get a video containing the benefits of the plan plus a quantity of material
giving a history of Trusts and numerous case histories of Trust concepts. The main thrust of the
paper work is an explanation of how an organisation called the Commonwealth Trust Company
can protect your money and assets for you. Somewhat surprisingly you do not receive information
upon how to set up a system for yourself, you are however encouraged to act as agent to sell the
work of the Trust Company.
A Trust is no more than what it says. It is trusting some-one else to do something. If you have a
lot of money you can put it in a sock under the bed and trust some-one else to take it out when
you need it. If you should be afraid of burglars you can put it in a Bank and appoint a person to
draw upon the money for you. That is a Trust. It is not though the legal concept of a Trust.
The legal definition of a Trust is a "relation or association between one person or persons on the
one hand and another person or persons on the other hand, based upon confidence, by which
property is vested in or held by the one person, on behalf of and for the benefit of another".
No special form of words is necessary to set up a Trust, if that intention is shown or can be
inferred. There are three qualities. Such words as are used must be imperative, the subject matter
of the Trust must be certain, the objects or the persons intended to have the benefit of the Trust
must be certain.
It is obviously a fact that in the event of a dispute about the Trust the law will consider it and
decree whether it is a trust or not. In other words, ultimately a Trust is something that can be
recognised by law. Clearly if everything about the Trust is outside the law, then it cannot be a
Trust. To make this more precise, putting all your money in a safe deposit and keeping the key
yourself, is not a Trust. More elaborate arrangements which are essentially the same thing are not
trusts. A Trust requires you pass the ownership of your property into the hands of some-one
else.
At this point it is as well to restate a matter upon which many people become confused. There is
no universal basic law in the world. The law of one Country is not the same as the law of another
Country. The laws of each State are individual to it. Neither are the laws particularly logical, they
are made for sociological reasons rather than moral reasons. What is legal in one Country may
well be illegal in the neighbouring Country. In the matter of Tax laws, these are so idiosyncratic as
to defy all common sense. In Britain for instance they change every year, and sometimes every six
months. It is doubtful if the Almighty could devise a universal scheme that protected funds from
taxes at all levels in every Country.
Both Britain and the United States, and the various ex-colonial countries that formed part of the
British Empire have what is called a "Common Law" system of laws. Other Countries have
Codes, many based upon the Code Napoleon or earlier Roman law. The Common law is derived
from a series of Court judgments dating from an era before Parliament enacted Statute law.
Statute as a rule encompasses the Common law and codifies it. In areas where no Statute has been
passed the only law is the Common law.
In looking at the sales literature this history of the law must be kept in mind in order to make an
informed decision upon the viability of the plan as it might apply to your situation.
In the matter of trusts generally these are well known to the law. United States law is deeply
rooted in the English Common law system (not incidentally in the Scottish which followed Roman
Law). In medieval times the lawyers devised a trust called at that time a Use in order to preserve
land for their clients. This was defeated by Statute called the Statute of Uses. The lawyers
countered this by a Use upon a Use. From then on Trust law became very complicated. Because
the concept was based upon morality and trust, the law was implemented in the Courts of Equity
administered by the Chancellor who based decisions upon the principles of conscience and not
legal precedent. In the fullness of time, the Courts of Equity came into conflict with the Courts of
Common law leading ultimately to the famous pronouncement that "where there is a conflict
between Equity and Common Law, Equity shall prevail."
Every student of law regards the law of trusts, which comes under the general title of Equity, with
fear and trembling horror. It is an area of law fraught with difficulty and traps for the unwary. It
has a very long and tortuous history. No-one should be advised to set up a trust or place money in
one without the fullest understanding of what they are doing.
It of course for everyone to make up their own minds. Can there really be such a foolproof
system? Who actually administers your assets when you are dead? Who is this gold-plated
trustee? Where does your capital lie? How do you know the law will not be changed, or
that the Company will not go out of business?
The publicity does not give any hint of the answers to these and some rather important other
questions. For instance, How many of these Pure Trusts are already up and running? Where are
the guarantees any of it does work and your assets are safe? What is the track record of the
organisation. How indeed does it differ from many of the offers made by such firms as Allied
Dunbar and numerous schemes run by Insurance Companies, or even recall what Mr. Maxwell did
for his employees. There is a further matter of registration under the new controls over investment
advice.
The real problem with any such tax avoidance scheme is not the probity of the salesmen, it is the
sheer lack of proof it works. Those who sell the Secret of Life may be convinced they are right,
this does not mean they are or are anywhere near it.
Trusts require you to hand all control over your assets and money to some-one else. You may
have a life interest in the fund but your real control has gone. The Common law is not a magic
area which preserves all your rights at the expense of the State. The Common law is the law of
the land as much as any other, it is only part of the story.
Beware, here is a horrible warning, you only find out about the secret of life when you are dead, and then it is too late. (Unless you were a Name at Lloyds, they found out the hard way during their lifetime that copper bottomed investment does not always work).
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