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MAN'S WASTED EFFORTS Q: Can you please tell us what you think of us, and give us some idea of our weak points. In a game of cards it is easier for an onlooker to see what should be played than it is for the players. Your views would obviously be unbiased. In what direction should we progress to achieve happiness? A: You want to be happy, and think that material progress is the magic word which makes water spring from a rock. Neither worldly possessions nor knowledge can ensure a man s happiness. Knowledge is not an attribute of animals and yet they are happy as God made them. The savage in his habitat lives peacefully in spite of his poverty and ignorance. He would probably not exchange his discomforts and lack of knowledge for all the erudition of the scientist taking part in scientific discussions. True human happiness must rest on the understanding that it is God's will that man's destiny should be a glorious one, in obedience with the laws of the Creator and in love for his fellows. Of what avail are all his possessions and all his knowledge, his dominion over the forces of Nature, if he has no dominion over his own heart? Many scientists placed themselves above the world, and in their arrogance felt superior to other men. But they died, and their theories were subsequently disproved. They are remembered as individuals who thought they knew everything, but were deceived and did not even know themselves. Others became famous though the possession of worldly goods, but death destroyed their dominion and at the last moment they felt unhappier than anyone when they saw that they had lived in illusion. Nobody dies happily with science and money alone. However, those who showed their wisdom through love still live in men's hearts. They died happily having lived happily. Mary of Nazareth, Florence Nightingale, John the Baptist, still live on as true individuals, the light of their love illuminating the lives of many. Without doubt St. Francis of Assisi lived at so high a level that the scientists who designed the atomic bomb could not even hope to touch the soles of his feet. And yet he was not a learned man. There are men of great riches on Earth, yet they could not prevent their sons becoming thieves or murderers. Did riches bring happiness in such cases? A rich man may send his son to university to return a few years later with his diplomas, but can a diploma make a person good? Cannot lawyers also be thieves, and doctors murderers, and priests immoral? I maintain that a hungry father with a virtuous son would be happier than a rich father with a thieving or murderous son. Q: I realise that righteousness is superior to everything, but I would like to know, from our material point of view, excluding any ethical considerations, what the principal mistakes in our methods are, and how they might adversely affect our future. A: Nobody can divorce progress from its moral aspect. But since you wish to know of the effects, and not the cause, I will outline them to you: Humanity's great failing is never being able to walk without its eyes glued to the road it has already covered; it has thus become a pillar of salt like Lot's wife. Man is basically conservative and prefers to live in the memory of times that can never return rather than in the hope of a radiant future. He fears the day to come instead of helping the future and preparing its way. He expends an enormous amount of energy on things that cannot help him, and wastes precious time on futile things; for instance, he wastes money, teachers' and pupils' time, maintains buildings, uses up brainpower, all to teach dead languages which should have been buried long ago. Paper, ink, books, chalk and a thousand other things that could be put to a better use are used in teaching useless things. Instead of a dead language, why not teach the functioning of photosynthesis. It would be more worth while to know the meaning of potential gradient, or the functions of the body, rather than the declension of an ancient language. Rather than look into a most promising future, they prefer to live among the mummies of history, and try to resuscitate the past. There is a multitude of things which children never hear about, and which they may never come to hear about. Rather than teaching recitation, it would be better to show them how to grow onions and celery, or teach them that wheat, besides providing good food, can also be used for making vegetable oil, viscose, xylose, acetic acid, soap, alcohol, cellulose, syrup, textiles, fuel, etc., and that the stalks and leaves from which all these things are made should never be buried because they are unsuitable as fertiliser and are carriers of crop diseases. Teach them rather the meaning of the hydrogenous potential of the soil, how to correct acidity, what soil requires in the way of nitrogen, caesium, cobalt, sulphur, manganese and phosphorus. Show them that vegetable hormones can produce cabbage leaves ten feet high, and apples weighing several pounds. Children can forget the names of those who brought devastation to humanity, but they should never forget that it is possible to transform the light of the Sun, virtually without loss, into usable energy by passing it though a coal gas which unites with water to form formaldehyde; and that the oxidised aldehyde can turn sunlight into electric current. There is far greater beauty to be found in the saturation point of a solution than there is in the story of the destruction of Carthage. Millions of individuals die of cancer, whereas schools teach children the colours of national flags, offending the innate gregarious instinct of man which intuitively abhors the artificial barriers which economic power has erected in the world. Rather than dwell upon the word "China," they should learn more about caesium; instead of France, Brazil, U.S.A., U.S.S.R. they should learn more about the functions of nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and iron, teaching them that these elements, among others, produce proteins, and that they, in turn, linked to caesium molecules, make up the anti-cancerous elements normally contained in the liver. Tell them that these same proteins, when linked to cobalt molecules, combat anaemia and are known as vitamin B.12. Instead of sounding praises to the destructive power of an invader show them that heavy hydrogen is one of the main causes of cancer when it gets into a cell, and that caesium has the ability to strip it of an electron making it into ordinary innocuous hydrogen. Show them, statistically, that cancer generally affects children who have not yet reached fertility, or old people who have passed it, that sex is thus a defence mechanism of the body, and that these hormones should not be wasted for the mere satisfaction of instincts. Teach them that instead of drinks it would be preferable to take an extract of liver with enzymes, since these elements cause cancer to recede. It surprises me that humanity, not having discovered a cure for tuberculosis, should learn rhetoric and dissertation at school. These things should be pastimes for people who do not have diseases to worry about that bring misery to millions of people. It is as though 'someone in mortal agony should begin to study the metre of Alexandrine verses.. But all the above put together are not as serious as humanity's main fault: the dispersal of his forces to an alarming degree. I cannot quote the exact statistics for the world, or even for your country, but we can make an approximation. There are about 50 million people in Brazil. About 30 million of these are children too young to take part in the productive life of the country, another 10 million are women, which leaves 10 million men. In the latter figure one must include the retired and the unproductive, beggars, lepers, consumptives, lunatics, invalids, the blind, thieves, prisoners and the unemployed. A large proportion of work is in unproductive, speculative undertakings, such as wholesalers, retailers, advertising men, estate agents, stockbrokers, lawyers, bankers. Others are employed in the police, army, navy, air force, magistrature, diplomatic and civil service, etc. This leaves barely a million productive men employed in agriculture and industry. We would also have to be sure that this agriculture is productive in the true sense of the word, and that the industries are the ones that the country really needs. In any case, even supposing that all the men were productive, we would still only have 2 million out of a total of 50 million, that is to say, one man working for every twenty-five people, which is absurd when we consider that this individual who does the work for the other twenty-five generally does so without mechanical aids, by the sweat of his brow, so that the others can maintain their standard of living. Of the million or so who take part in agriculture, many work against the better interests of society, growing tobacco and stimulants, or are engaged in the fattening up of animals which impoverish the land and subsequently poison man with their meat. We could say almost the same for those employed in industry. There is nothing wrong with factories, their chimneys are, in a sense, lungs getting rid of carbon dioxide from the central organism. But man does little to put them to proper use. Factories are by no means always built to solve fundamental problems. The great majority are engaged in making cosmetics, jewels, useless trinkets for women, endless handbags, ridiculous hats, novelties, nail varnish, shoes which hurt the feet and ruin the carriage, stockings which offer no protection, cigars to poison the body, chewing gum, footballs, pistols and sporting guns, munitions, alcoholic drinks and other stimulants; yet there are countless useful and necessary things which could be mass produced, such as building material, medicaments, synthetic vegetable hormones, machines for producing energy, electronic stoves, concentrated foodstuffs for distressed populations, philosophical and scientific books, plastic shoes, surgical and orthopaedic instruments, fertilisers, mechanical harvesters and sowers, insecticides, prefabricated houses, indestructible furniture, prospecting instruments, nitrogen plant, etc. But let us leave aside all this wasted effort and see how you make use of the work of these 2 million men who are at least doing something. The annual budget estimates for your country must be somewhere about 6.5 billion cruzeiros. Of this sum, about 4.25 billion are spent on the armed forces, and about 1.25 billion on civil service, the judiciary, state loans, government expenditure, foreign ministry, electoral machinery, official journeys, banquets, etc. The small remainder is used for beneficial purposes, such as education, public health and agriculture. Imagine if all this money were ploughed into the construction of roads, schools, hospitals, churches, research institutes, sanitation, new industries, housing schemes, shelter, medicaments, transportation, etc. Imagine if this vast number of non-productive people were to be diverted into new productive enterprises. Even then everything is not covered by the federal budget. What about State expenditure? Have you checked the amount of money spent on local governments, public service, police, etc? How many police are there in your State alone? The expenditure on horses alone which are kept for parades would go a long way to feeding and sheltering the hungry who walk the streets in the heat and in the rain. It is ironical that in a society in which its people can suffer from hunger and cold, horses should be given balanced rations and covered with good woollen blankets. Is a police force necessary? Yes, it is necessary. It is the necessity of having a policed state that Rousseau spoke of. But if it is necessary, it is only because men have made it indispensable. If a people waste their productivity on bad things, misery results from their irresponsibility. If there were an abundance, no one would think of killing or robbing. Human passions are stirred up by money because money gives rise to arguments, to profit, the voracity of financiers, and to ruthlessness. If there is a robbery, it is not, with certain exceptions, because the thief enjoys the crime, but because he feels robbed by society which denied him the right to have his own house,to till the land without paying rent, and to fully enjoy the liberty which Nature gives instinctingly. The waste of fuel under the present system is alarming. Cars, which could carry several people, are usually driven by one person who, in the majority of cases, is merely amusing himself, whereas the person who is working has no means of transport. The avid desire for profit and business create a demand for petrol, oil, tyres, etc. If the structure of society were changed, the traffic that now blocks the roads in the rush hour would disappear, leading to economy in both fuel and vehicles. Man could work less than a year in his whole life, and yet live better than the richest man on Earth. But for human society, even progress is dangerous. If automation is developed, men will die of hunger owing to unemployment. Yet even the manual labour that men do today could be done by obedient and indefatigable electronic brains. These "robots" could plough, sow, spread insecticide and fertilisers, prune and reap. If they sensed an ailing plant, they would be able to judge whether it should be treated or whether it constituted a danger for other plants and should be uprooted. These "robots' could be developed to a point where they would be able to drive vehicles automatically without danger of collision or accident, they could pilot planes with safety, informing base about any possible defects, and taking steps to repair them in full flight. They could be used to measure metabolism and act as doctors supplying restorative energy. For less than the amount of money that is spent. on smoking every year, you could do away with cancer; for a tenth of the money spent on drinks you can banish leprosy from the face of the Earth, and tuberculosis would no longer be a subject for statistics. Control of the atmosphere could regulate the climate avoiding natural catastrophes, and saving crops. Electric cells could be placed in streets to absorb all irritating noises. Education could be changed. Naturally, any radical change would involve the dismissal of teachers which in the present world situation would mean that they would suffer serious privation. Today most people spend the best part of their lives, from the age of seven until about thirty, poring over books, and at the end of this, they are chagrined to find that they have learned nothing, and still have a long way to go. A lifetime is too short to learn everything. However, using hypnosis in a truly scientific spirit, the whole scope of education could be changed. In a few hours a child could master a whole subject which at present takes the better part of its youth to master. Further, he would do so with great accuracy. It would be sufficient to put a child into a controlled hypnotic sleep, with the help of a drug such as canabissativa, or a combination of chloroform and morphia, administered at intervals with a psychologist at hand to dictate all the material to be learned. This could be carried out on a large scale with thousands of pupils at once, making use of headphones. It would be easier, more convenient, and cheaper, and it would not bore a child with long lectures, it would not be subject to the shortcomings of the teachers, and other disadvantages of the present system. Pupils could go to college early, sleep and come back with a scientific degree in their pockets. Do you think this is too short a time to learn so much? Surely a teacher would not be able to dictate enough in that time. The spirit pays no heed to the concepts of time and space, an eternity can be condensed into a second, or a second can be made into an eternity. One could create the system of rapid transmission. Human thought waves work on a band of about 5mm wavelength. If electrical messages were sent within this band in successive waves, the whole of human knowledge could be transmitted in a very short time. The same method could be used to do away with atavistic tendencies and criminal tendencies. In hypnotic sleep the mind becomes receptive and ready to learn and profit by sound teaching. One could go further and break down the barrier between the conscious and the subconscious. However, this would require considerable technique which could only be mastered in time, as there is a risk of the concept of time disappearing from the mind altogether. Prisons could be emptied, in the first place by deleting criminal tendencies from the human mind so that no further malefactors would come into being, and in the second because those with criminal tendencies already would be re-educated. by the hypnotic process and reintegrated into society. With its framework changed, society would overcome the moral prejudices which dog its steps. Man would overcome death and old age would no longer exist on Earth. Q: How do we overcome death? A: In order to overcome death, one needs to know the fundamentals of life. It is the spirit which gives life to the body, and is bound magnetically to the body. The current flowing through a solenoid gives rise to a magnetic field which draws the iron core into the coil. Any field must have a centre to act as a vehide for the lines of force which it generates. Once it has attracted the iron, the solenoid can be turned in any direction without the core falling out. No visible bond is holding it, only lines of force, several thousand to the square inch, which are not visible to the naked eye. The relationship between spirit and the body is similar to that between the solenoid and the iron core. The body corresponds to the solenoid and its current can be measured with an encephalograph; the spirit represents the iron core. If the magnetic field made by the body is interrupted, or its lines of force broken, or if the electric current which feeds it stops flowing, then the spirit is freed. This is death. However, if the lesion which gave rise to the interruption could be cured by suitable apparatus, the field would be restored, and the spirit, if we called it back, would return and unite with matter, falling again into the restored magnetic field. For this, one would use human or vegetable ectoplasm which would cure the injured part. Death is therefore a defect which can be overcome. I do not mean to say that man could live eternally, but he could get as far as making Methuselah envious. He did not live longer because the Flood swallowed him up, but if mankind were good, the forces of Nature, instead of destroying man would continue to preserve his life. I have told you what I think from the material point of view, but I could tell you much more from the spiritual point of view, exploring avenues which science, up to the present, has not even dreamed of. You showed a preference for the material point of view. You got what you asked for.