X-Message-Number: 6209
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:22:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Henson/Leary

> Message #6204
> From: 
> Subject: Who is "WalkerBill"?
> Date: Tue, 14 May 96 14:29:59 PDT

> I think the real problem Mike Darwin and Charles 
> Platt ran into is that Dr. Leary is very good at getting people to 
> feel good about themselves--and neither of them can stand that 
> feeling.  They bitched that Dr. Leary is hard to influence.  Well, 
> that's not news!

This statement suggests that I have some strange need to feel glum, and I
don't want Timothy Leary to cheer me up. What possible relevance does this
have to the specific problems and hazards of this case, already enumerated
in detail? Are you saying that the Leary "feelgood" approach to the dying
process--which seems to rule out cryonics from any provider--is in some
sense correct, while our approach of trying to provide standby on a
legally safe and rational basis is somehow flawed? In that case, are you
agreeing with Leary's antipathy toward cryonics? Or are you agreeing with
Alcor's David Cosenza who suggested that the Platt/Darwin team somehow
turned Leary against cryonics? This doesn't make sense either, since you
have also stated that Leary is hard to influence in any way.

Frankly, Keith, you seem a bit confused.

>     If Dr. Leary did not want 24-hr. nursing care, the sensible thing 
> to do would have been to train the people who are living there. 

The people in that house, as you are well aware, do not live according to 
any fixed schedule and work on the general principle, "If it feels good, 
do it." None of them even noticed--for more than 24 hours--when Timothy 
Leary fell out of bed and inflicted a 2-inch gash on his forehead. They 
also allowed him to set fire to his bedroom with a cigarette. The idea of 
training them to provide 24-hour nursing is ludicrous.

> If he 
> would not go for TPN, that's *his* decision.  If he won't put up with 
> an instruments on him, use a motion detector. 

Hey, great idea! In fact, via your wife, we asked you if you could devise 
a simple circuit to sound an alarm in the event of no movements from the 
patient after more than 30 minutes. Such a device would be useful not 
just for CryoCare, but also for Alcor. What ever happened to that idea?

> Work *around* the 
> problems, don't just throw up your hands in disgust!  If you can't 
> deal with the problems, call in people who can and *swap* the standby, 
> equipment, don't make a big scene ripping it out.

There was no big scene. If you had been there, you would have seen that
nobody cared about the departure of the equipment. No one even asked why
we were taking it. And after Mike went back in and explained, he was
literally applauded by Timothy Leary, who subsequently said to me (on two
occasions) he hoped there were no hard feelings on either side. I think 
he and the people at his house were happy to see the equipment go. They 
had already tried to hide it by piling heaps of hippie memorabilia and 
doper paraphernalia on top of it, to conceal its "morbid" purpose.

As for calling in people who might be able to address the problems, on 
the day before we removed the equipment I spoke at length to Steve Bridge 
asking if Alcor would be any better at coping than we were. He said he 
was doubtful. I subsequently asked him to raise the issue at the Alcor 
board meeting, three days later.

During the previous week we had also asked your wife to see if she could
help us at the house, since she has known TL for many years. She did come
to LA but was not willing or able to "sell" cryonics to the people at the
house. Clearly at that time we were having problems, and I'm sure you knew
about them. You could have offered to help yourself, Keith, bearing in
mind that you say you have known TL well for twenty years.

--Charles Platt


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