By Jim Yount

From timetotime the notion that the practice of cryonics should be institutionalized as a religion is redebated. Actually, I have warmed up, as it were, to this notion as time has gone by. If religion is defined as a system of attitudes and beliefs about such things as life and death, then a religion based on spending time in the freezer fits the bill.

Yet from our coolcredo, many of the trappings of religion are missing. The future may be our paradise; the time in the icebox our purgatory or limbo; but where do we look for a cryonics devil?

Perhaps we can spot Cold Satan by his works. He will tempt us to do things that are clearly contrary to our best interests. When we become embroiled in a mudslinging contest with another cryonics group to the sure detriment of the entire movement, we are not to blame. Cold Satan made us do it.

If a cryonicist purchases three or four times the amount of insurance that is required to fund a cold sleep, then drops the policy later because he truly can’t afford to keep up the premium payments, it is not poor judgment. Blame it on the Cryonics Devil.

If we turn cryonics into the cult of the cold welcoming into the revival tent only those who share our narrowest political and cultural values, it has to be the work of the DeepFreeze Demon.

When we reject the concept that our task is to freeze people the best and quickest that we can and instead buy into the notion that some particular expensive and difficult procedure must be followed just so, it is the work of the Frigid Fiend.

Although you would not know if from reading the balance sheets of the various cryonics societies, there are a fair number of wealthy cryonicists. That fact is especially true here in Northern California where anyone with the sense to do nothing more than to buy a tract home and wait a few years can likely count (on paper) his bankroll down from at least a million.

It was no surprise when friends told me of a local cryonicist who could start his countdown considerably above that paltry million dollar mark. Yet he had never started a software firm, or manufactured computers or silicon chips; never took a dotcom public.

As a lad always on the lookout for ways to grow rich without really trying, I determined to learn the secrets of the wouldbecold multimillionaire. I called him up and invited myself over. He was gracious as could be, took me to lunch at a swanky eatery and unhesitantly picked up the tab.

I unrelentlessly gave my new friend the third degree, sparing no guile in prying out the secrets of his success. He was perfectly candid, telling me pretty much all the details of how he accumulated wealth. I was expecting to learn that he had followed a formula such as buying fixerupper homes, splashing on some paint, and selling them at a profit. No, he hadn’t done that. As close as I could tell, although he had made most of his fortune in real estate, he had never done the same thing twice!

He had bought and sold apartment houses at a profit, bought land and built houses, done a small subdivision once. Some of the time he had put his own labor into his projects, other times he had relied on other people doing all of the work. His latest project was to build a ministorage center to provide space for all of us to keep the cheap foreignmade paraphernalia we are all accumulating at such a rapid pace.

I was most disappointed because he had no secret that could be readily transferred to an eager student such as me. Just the same, there were several little secrets that I came away with. For one thing, he had turned what is a time of financial devastation to most people into an opportunity. When he went through a divorce he was able to maintain a civil relationship with his exwife to the extent that not only did the couple maintain the real estate holdings that they had built up during their marriage, they partnered together for several additional deals, thus parleying their equity into additional leveraged investments.

Also, each investment had been made very carefully, with my friend rejecting many ideas; some of the ideas would have worked out well, but others would have proven to be lemons. There was also apparent care given to manage each of his assets in turn. Although no two were exactly alike, each was sheparded diligently in its turn.

My friend takes a somewhat similar approach to his plans to live forever (and if not forever at least a good long time). Besides his cryonics arrangements, he has a routine of strenuous exercise; a program of fun recreational exercise often spent on the golf course, and follows a program of dietary supplements through the Life Extension Foundation. He talked about his experience with youth hormone which he ultimately gave up, and the fact that at many years my senior he routinely does fifty pullups a day.

Are there lessons to be learned by American Cryonics Society or the Immortalist Society from this sturdy individual? We can emulate the practice of careful stewardship. We can take advantage of opportunities as they are presented to us, rather than looking for a formula. We can practice sequential diversification in both investment of money and in volunteer time.

Perhaps the hardest lesson to copy is that of maintaining a productive relationship even after divorce. Yet there are clearly parallels in business relationships that turn sour. In such times, can we keep our "eyes on the prize" as did the man who never does the same thing twice? And what is the prize? A little thing called immortality.

The occasion of the recent suspension of an ACS member from Florida (reported in The Immortalist) prompted us to submit the trust to two of our attorneys to get a review of any possible problems, and to solicit ideas for ways to improve upon the ACS model trust for future cryonics cases. The trust is written in such a way to give us reasonable latitude to institute changes even after the member who set up the trust is coldly in his cryostat.

ACS members have the option of establishing a trust themselves, or to provide instructions in their paperwork for ACS to setup a trust (or a dedicated fund within ACS) to benefit the member after deanimation. We routinely review and update our forms package at year’s end, which review was just completed. There are a number of sets of forms available for ACS suspension members depending upon the individual situation.

For example, one set of forms establishes a health care agent who is empowered to make suspension arrangements for the member. This approach might be particularly useful for a member who has a trusted friend that is dedicated to cryonics and where the member is concerned that his relatives may act to interfere with his suspension plans. A description of the forms packages is available through ACS. We send the forms packages to any interested party, but request a donation to defray costs for nonmembers. They are free to all ACS members. Immortalist Society members may also participate in the ACS suspension program by paying dues to both IS and ACS.