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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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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