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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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Which came first, the sperm or the ovum?
by Phil Spickler
19 Jul 1998

Dear Friends,

Being in receipt of some super-fine comments and acknowledgments
concerning my poor offering re: the sperm-ovum sequence, I feel
somewhat compelled (probably by a hidden influence) to take some
electrons in hand and say a few more words as a postscript to said
article.  The question of which came first, the sperm or the ovum, is
of course a poor attempt at humor, but I think I would be on safe
ground if we pick up the thread of the human body and allowing for a
limited Darwinian premise, trace its history through time and space,
as something which Ron Hubbard called theta originally enlivened
small colonies of cells and, over the eons, with lots of efforts and
counter-efforts provided by Mother Nature and the universe, in the
form of cataclysm and catastrophe, eventually evolved the princely
organism that most of us possess called Homo sapiens.  Now my Latin
may fail me at this point, but I think Homo Sapiens means "Wise man."
Maybe this is not so far off the point, because man certainly at
times is capable of being wise if "wise" is defined as having the
ability  and the willingness to perceive, pose, and resolve problems
relating to personal and extra-dynamic survival.  L. Ron Hubbard, in
his most jocular early moods, in that lovely period between 1950 and
perhaps 1955, used to refer to humankind as "homo sap," and given the
shenanigans of the 20th century, that moniker did not seem too far
off the point.  Getting from Homo sap to Homo sapiens and possibly
even Homo novis seemed to be quite a big deal for Mr. Hubbard, but as
you can see, the intention got somewhat fershtunkt (which I think is
a Germano-Yiddish term for goofed up).  One of our favorite T-shirt
slogans goes, "Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of
it" -- well, there seems to be quite a bit of truth to that, and
anybody with even a modest interest in history won't have any trouble
finding wonderful examples of what happens when you take something
that's a lot of fun and organize the hell out of it.

As for the protoplasmic line that ultimately developed into the human
body, there's all kinds of good books about biological history, and
whether you agree with Darwin or not, he's certainly worth reading in
an understandable form, and Ron, in his book _History of Man, or,
What to Audit_, took what I think is a good shot at giving us some
interesting information about what was called the theta line and the
body line, even providing some data about when the two joined.  Now
Ron has come under quite a bit of criticism for saying things that
seemed to suggest a real dualism between theta and the material
universe, but if you one more time take out your old book of the
Scientology Axioms and carefully scrape off the two or three inches
of dust that you'll find on it, you will find somewhere an axiom that
goes something like this: "Life is a game wherein Theta the Static
solves the problems of Theta as MEST."  Be sure and word-clear the
heck out of that axiom, and clay demo it a bunch of times until you
feel pretty happy with your demo, whether you agree that it's an
axiom or not.  The funny thing about axioms is that they're supposed
to be self-evident truths, but in my deranged experience, damn few of
them are self-evident, at least to human consciousness. Thanks for
being out there and receiving -- I must get back to the sheep now, as
well as counting my alfalfa stems, before I go completely
unconscious.  All the best, Phil