History

(How We Got Together, Etc.)

Fred & Linda Chamberlain

June 2004

Mostly, it was a mutual orientation toward Objectivism and a love of the outdoors, plus a poem Fred had written that Linda had seen (without his knowing about it, "Two Minds").  This, along with our feeling that Cryonics was of utmost importance, gave us a feeling of great closeness.  Neither of our mates were in the least interested in cryonics, which may help to explain why we were carpooling that night, why they were not at the conference.  Fred, in attempting to sort out what that night meant, wrote a poem, "Green is the Color of my Love and my Life," and gave it to Linda within the next week.

Linda was on her way to an adventuresome project in Idaho, building a cabin in a remote canyon with her S/O.  Fred was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as one of its space program engineers, married with two children.  Thus, one evening's conversation and even Fred's poem ("Green is the Color of my Love and my Life")  was not enough to disturb our paths of life at that moment.

However, over the summer we exchanged letters, because of our mutual interests.  Those letters became more and more frequent and lengthy, because those interests were so important to us.  Part of what we came to realize was that as things stood, with partners who were not at all convinced that cryonics was reasonable, it was unlikely that either of us would be frozen in the event that we were suddenly to die.

The outcome of all of this was that after not having seen each other for over 100 days and nights, we joined our lives as partners in Ephrata, Washington, on September 13th, 1970.  It was not an easy decision.  Yet at that time, it seemed as if cryonics was the most important thing in the world.  Linda had even felt so strongly about it that she had told Bob Nelson (then the President of CSC) that if he could come up with just $200/month from CSC's budget, she would move into a tiny studio apartment (they cost less in those days) and devote all of her time to building CSC.

Now, together, CSC became our total focus.  We wrote the first detailed procedure manual for cryonics that had ever existed, through a little corporation we formed for the purpose of this (Manrise Corporation), and developed specialized equipment .  By the spring of 1971, we were prepared to give a presentation on this subject, complete with a working prototype of a perfusion system, at the Fourth National Conference On Cryonics in San Francisco.  Also, by then, we were legally married.

There were strong resistances to taking cryonics into high technology too quickly, within CSC, and there were other problems, including almost total secrecy as to how CSC's decisions were made and how it was organized and operated.  By the summer of 1971, these stresses were beginning to weaken our confidence in CSC, and we felt that we were forced to withdraw from it and pursue some other route.

Fred's father was a very fragile stroke victim, and had it not been for that, we would probably have joined those in the Bay Area (organized under Coleman Harris, M.D. as the Bay Area Cryonics Society) and proceeded more slowly.  In view of the urgency to provide for Fred's father, however, we formed Alcor early in 1972, and (through Manrise Corporation) assisted the Bay Area people to start Trans Time, Inc. (providing its first perfusion equipment by a contractual arrangement).

It was struggle to "go off on our own" and start a new cryonics society.  In the years that followed, CSC Members were exhorted to "stay away from Alcor", and we largely found people who were fascinated with cryonics through the Free Enterprise Institute (FEI), formed by Andrew J. Galambos and his associates.  Galambos was intrigued with the idea of preserving one's body after death, for strong ideological reasons, and had in effect promoted the idea of cryonics on a conceptual level throughout the Los Angeles area.

We focused very strongly on involvement with FEI and at the same time continued to build our relationships with two very promising young cryonicists, Gregory Fahy and an even younger, extremely energetic teenager who was later to adopt the name Mike Darwin (at the time, he was Mike Federowicz).  Mike moved to California and became the technological core of Alcor for over a year, during which he conducted the first organized research ever done in cryonics on a dedicated basis, supported by Manrise Corporation, and was (other than ourselves) the only basis on which anyone might have been suspended by Alcor at that time.

There was a falling out with FEI, in large measure due to the strong personality of Galambos and a clash with a key member of Alcor, and Alcor began to operate "outside FEI", but with increased difficulty.  Attempts to raise capital for continued research through a new corporation failed, and Mike Darwin returned to his home (Indianapolis, Indiana).  Alcor's President at that time was a physician (Allen McDaniels), who also felt the difficulties of building a fledgling cryonics society, very slowly, were too great.  Fred's father was suspended in the summer of 1976, the first "neuropreservation" ever, by the best we could bring to the table in the way of standby, transport and perfusion.

Fred's father was stored under contract at Trans Time, Inc.,  Alcor's Board of Directors was expanded and its methods of electing Directors were changed to those in use at present, recognizing that its initial emphasis on leadership by those committed to rescue was too demanding to be stable.  Difficulties of growth, the arrival of Jerry Leaf on the cryonics scene, and the merger of Manrise Corporation with Trans Time, Inc. several years later were part of the changes that finally gave the two of us the feeling that we could "let others take over" and we did the thing we had vowed to each other that we would do eventually, when we first got together, and that was "leave Los Angeles and move to the mountains".

Originally, it was to be Estes Park, Colorado.  We had visited this tiny town in the first two weeks we were together and resolved that we would someday "start a bookstore devoted to life extension there".  However, by the time we could leave Los Angeles (1979), we had made Lake Tahoe our favorite getaway and moved there instead.  It was a risky thing, because we were still "wet behind the ears" real estate agents, and it didn't take very long to find that we were not competitive sales people.

Linda filled in for the property manager at the real estate office we were affiliated with while that person had a baby, and by the time that manager returned, we had managed to find a third partner to start a new property management business (Paradise Rentals).  Putting every last dime into it and working like dogs (cleaning the vacation rentals ourselves, until we grew to a point where cleaning people could be hired), and borrowing more from relatives, we finally made a go of it, paid off the debts, and stabilized ourselves.

Life extension was not forgotten, and there were both bright and dark sides to it.  On the dark side, the Cryonics Society of California (CSC) had irresponsibly thawed out all of its patients in 1976 (it was a good thing we had parted ways with it four years before that happened).  In the course of lawsuits by the relatives, for "desecration of remains", we were (during the pretrial period) dragged into the lawsuit on the basis of our earlier connections with the organization.  In particular, false statements under oath by CSC's President (Bob Nelson) were made, to the effect that the two of us had still been active in CSC at the time of the patient's compromise.

A compounding effect of that was the allegation that if this were the case, Alcor and Trans Time as well were alter egos of CSC, and should be named as defendants (it never came to that; we resigned from both of those organizations as Directors, to help protect them).  The damages sought were $80,000,000.00, so this was no small-time lawsuit.  We were released from the trial, but only after legal expenses that took us to the brink of bankruptcy.

More recently, Bob Nelson published a recap of CSC history that whitewashed much of the dark side of it's history.  Responding to this by a web page, a link to which was published in the Immortalist Society's magazine, we critiqued this article, adding our own perspectives. (link)

The bright side of the life extension picture was that we became the hosts for an annual "Lake Tahoe Life Extension Festival".  It started because as part of the merger of Manrise Corporation with Trans Time, Inc., Linda became a Director of Trans Time, Inc. as well as Alcor .  We were driving to the (San Francisco) Bay Area for monthly Trans Time meetings, and the suggestion was made that both the Bay Area Cryonics Society and Trans Time, Inc. hold a monthly meeting at Lake Tahoe, on Labor Day, 1979.  The word got out and people came from all over the country.  By the second year, it was bigger.

Linda's Mother attended one of the Festivals, and (with Linda's urging) joined Alcor and maintained arrangements for several years.  Then, she developed terminal cancer that had been unsuspected until the last moment.  Alcor mobilized a highly supported remote standby for that.  Both Jerry Leaf and Mike Darwin were on hand for nearly a week in Sonoma, California, as Arlene Fried went through the final stages of a deliberate dehydration on her part, with Hospice support.

The outcome was a very high-viability suspension for the time, the best of its kind at that date.  The results were reported at a Conference at Asilomar held only a few months later, by the Lake Tahoe Life Extension Festival.  It was an experimental thing for the traditional Lake Tahoe Festival to be held at another location, but the event was a great success, and in many ways paved the way for the Alcor Conference held there many years later (in the year 2000).

The two of us for many years had been writing short stories, mainly about cryonics, published as "LifeQuest", and exploring issues related with reanimation, through an organization to be named "LifePact".   Linda's initial article on this subject was Introduction to LifePact.

In the fall of 1989, Fred made a presentation at a CI (Cryonics Institute) Conference on the subject of reanimation (New Directions In Cryonics ).    In this way, throughout our years at Lake Tahoe, our focus remained on life extension.  If Linda's mom hadn't been suspended in 1990, we might still be there.

The suspension of Linda's mom, however, made us acutely aware of the passage of time and our limited lifespan.  For this and many other reasons, we sold Paradise Rentals in 1991 and set out to find a new way of being more involved in life extension.  The first year was spent driving around the country in an old motor home, during which time we visited many cryonicists.  Later, we spend about a year in Northern California, beginning to acquire an education we thought could take us toward neuroscience as a career.  At the time, there were too many political tensions between ourselves and those in control of Alcor for us to be able to make any kind of contribution there.

That separation did not last.  In 1993, concerned that Alcor was in danger of political chaos, Hugh Hixon persuaded us to become involved with Alcor's activities and in the fall of that year, amidst much turmoil, Fred was elected as an Alcor Director, and we accompanied Alcor in its move to Arizona.  After several years of living nearby in Payson, AZ, starting to build a life for ourselves there, Steve Bridge resigned as the President of Alcor and the two of us offered to become full time contributors (taking on the jobs of President and Suspension Manager).

Alcor was in a difficult position when we came on board in 1993, as to maintaining pace with technology advances and paying for its staff at the same time, so a Life Membership program was initiated and a supporting corporation was formed to take over the responsibilities for suspension services (BioTransport, Inc.), following the patterns established earlier by Manrise Corporation, Trans Time, Inc., and Cryovita Corporation (Jerry Leaf's start-up cryonics provider organization).  Many difficulties in raising capital and finding the right mix of people led to the subsidiary for cell storage (Cells4Life, Inc.), and failure to raise capital finally forced both corporations into a defunct state.

The two of us had signed for all of the unsecured debt and leases of equipment in both of these corporations (BioTransport, Inc. and Cells4Life, Inc.).  In the collapse of these and in the context of an unresolved dispute with Alcor over reimbursement of BioTransport, Inc. for expenses incurred in launching Alcor's vitrification program, we liquidated our life insurance policies for cryonics arrangements and finally had to file bankruptcy.  (As a result of Alcor retaining the equipment and informing the creditors that we had removed it, weight was added to the creditors pursuit of us and threatened legal action.)

The circumstances of Linda's forced resignation as President of Alcor only a few months after assuming this role, together with our failure to resolve financial matters with Alcor as mentioned above, finally led to our joining CI, and beginning the process of working out suspension arrangements anew.  (For further insights on "why" we felt there was no alternative for us but to permanently sever our ties with Alcor, a webpage for that was generated and is on line at the following Link.)

As this is written (all of the above was composed in 1984), we are still sorting out how to best continue our quest for life extension, the thing that brought us together in the first place.  Our wedding vows (from a ceremony on December 12, 2002) best capture our present outlook and commitment to each other. 

UPDATE

Ben Best, President of the Cryonics Institute, after our joining with CI, composed an entry on our history in cryonics and posted it on Wikipedia.  As of the date posted we think this is a fairly objective and balanced synopsis.  More recently, we have become intrigued with the activities of Terasem, which is pursuing avenues of development far beyond what we perceived at the time of Linda's article on LifePact, more than two decades earlier.  It's activities with regard to CyBeRev are extremely thoughtful and innovative.

On a broader scale, the pursuit of transhumanism  has found a home in virtual reality, in Second Life's world, at a place called Extropia.  We're working on a site there where the LifeQuest stories and other things related to cryonics may find a place in the minds and hearts of those whose goal is to transcend the present limitations of present day society and the biological drives that have so much to do with the difficulties that abound there.  In that connection, we cannot help mentioning the works of Howard Bloom, in his books The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, where he looks deeply into how life has "networked" in a societal way ever since its dawn, and what kinds of difficulties must be overcome in transforming society's evolution.

Competitive dominance and natural selection by the shedding of all except the strongest individuals has brought us to where we are today.  Now, it is important to move toward fundamental growth of cooperation and synergism, as articulated beautifully on the About Extropia page.  We hope we can make a positive contribution to this direction of growth.  

[We watch the below series so often that the story would be incomplete, without this note:]

All thirteen of these episodes are magnificent works of art in themselves, but it's deeper than that.  There's a science-based philosophical perspective that is unmatched in all of human culture, as far as we're concerned.  Deep absorbing this in our minds and hearts is a great part of the reason we keep coming back to these videos.

We've watched this entire series many dozens of times.  If tired, we fall asleep to it.  It restores us.  Read the reviews at the links below!  [Cosmos is virtually a "world standard" for people who take science seriously.  In a paperback edition, the back cover says, "A #1 best seller in a dozen countries, with 5 million copies sold in 80 nations.  COSMOS is the bestselling science book every published in the English Language.  70 weeks on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list."]