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Warning for All Cryonicists


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#1 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 11 March 2007 - 03:43 AM


(First I am re-posting a letter written by former Alcor President Mike Darwin to Cryo-net. Following it are some of my comments) :





Our share of night to bear
Our share of morning
Our blank in bliss to fill
Our blank in scorning

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way!
Here a mist, there a mist,
Afterwards Day!

-- Emily Dickinson


Cryonics. What does the word bring to mind? What other words? What
images? What feelings? What people? For me there are a lifetime of words
and images, emotions and people. It is 1968 and I am 13-years-old. I have
just come home from school on a cold gray winter afternoon and I am
eagerly reaching into the mailbox through the fog of my breath hoping that
there will be another issue of Cryonics Reports there.

When do you date the start of cryonics? Is it 1962 when the first steps
to disseminate the idea were taken? Is it 1964 when Robert Ettinger's
book The Prospect of Immortality was commercially published? Or, was it
in 1967 when the idea seemed realized with the freezing of the first
man, Dr. James H. Bedford in Glendale , California ?

Those dates, or any others you choose, speak to both your knowledge and
your perception of history. Forty-three years have passed since 1964
45-years since 1962. Almost all of the men and women who created
cryonics were of the same ages most of you reading this are now mid-20s to
mid-40s. I, and perhaps a few others, were much younger when we were
seduced by the idea of a world without death. Cryonics was already a
central part of our world by 1968. It was a world we shared with people,
most of whom have grown old and died, or are dying. I use the word died
with painful deliberateness because if you go back in time, or simply
go to the pages of the cryonics newsletters and magazines of those days
and follow the histories of the people whose names appear there, you
will find that most are dead. Dead not cryopreserved, not cryogenically
interred, not even in cryonic suspension. To almost everyone who reads
this they are just names now; the rich details of who they
were are gone, presumably forever.

When I (very rarely these days) walk amongst the cryonicists of the
present I am haunted by the familiarity of it all. Your voices, your
faces, your words, your dreams, your expectations, they are really no
different than those of the dead who preceded you and who wanted what you
want, and expected what you expect. I see them in you and you in them
because it is impossible to do otherwise. And so, I make a prediction: most
of those cryonicists around you now will also pass away into death, and
in so doing will forever take a part of you with them. This is a
fearsome thing to say, but it is true, because whether the Singularity'
comes tomorrow, or there is control of aging in 30 years, most of those now
living will die. This is so because chance as much as choice decides
who lives and who dies. Neither is omnipotent, but each has its
undeniable and inescapable role. Plan as carefully as you will, but understand
that the real world is a dynamic and unpredictable engine of
destruction. The best laid plans of men are oft for naught and we
are still men. Do not forget that we are still mortal.

It is early in January of 1964 and in Huntington Beach , California a
35-year-old housewife named Marcelon Johnson has just finished filling
out her cryonics paperwork, paid her first cryonic society dues, and
dropped her application for a Medic-Alert bracelet in the mail. She has
six children and a busy, happy, life which has just gotten better because
she now believes, for the first time, that she might never have to die.
She is haunted by the death of her mother who was in her mid-50s when
she succumbed to Alzheimer's disease. She does not want to die that way,
or any other way, for that matter.

Within a year Marcelon Johnson, or Marce as she is known to her
friends, would become increasingly involved in cryonics. By March of 1967, 3
months after Dr. Bedford began the journey which he continues to this
day, Marce Johnson was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Cryonics Society
of California (CSC). She opened her home to cryonics meetings and
catered them superbly. She answered countless information requests and filled
countless orders for books and literature. On October 11, 1974 Marce
reluctantly accepted the Presidency of CSC, not suspecting that she had
stepped into a nightmare that would go on for almost eight years. Russ
Stanley, who had welcomed Marce to her first cryonics meeting on
September 30th in 1966, had been frozen (or so it seemed) for 6 years. Two of
the other pioneering CSC members whom she had met and befriended were
also (presumed) in cryonic suspension at CSC's Cryonic Interment
Facility in Chatsworth, CA.

In the 45 years she has been actively involved in cryonics I have never
heard anyone say a bad thing about Marce Johnson. That is an
extraordinary achievement for anyone involved in cryonics, but it is made all the
more extraordinary by the fact that Marce was the de facto President of
CSC when it came to light in 1979 that all of the patients in the
Chatsworth facility had been allowed to thaw and decompose. No, Marce had no
complicity in that horror beyond that of being loyal and trusting. The
very qualities that made Marce an exceptional human being, her
readiness to help, her willingness to trust the words of a friend and
colleague, and her quiet and nearly unshakeable loyalty had set her up to be in
the crosshairs of the litigation and enmity that followed.

The very public disintegration of CSC was not only financially costly
to Marce and her husband Walt (not to mention their 6 children), it was
a deep personal humiliation and loss. Three of the people who had
welcomed her into cryonics were now gone lost to a gruesome and
disgraceful fate. There was no immortality for them; in fact, there was not even
the dignity of a decent burial. Many of the people who were cohorts of
Marce at that time walked away from cryonics and never looked back
and most of them are dead now, or are beyond help in nursing homes, or
dependent upon their indifferent children. I have watched as those who
died passed, and I have spoken with those who remain, helpless and dying.
Chatsworth was not a pretty business.

Marce Johnson did not walk away. She joined Alcor, and at a very bad
time for Alcor in 1981, she quietly pulled me aside at a meeting and
asked me if I would assume the Presidency of Alcor. I didn't know Marce
very well then and I was completely taken aback. I was even more surprised
when Marce told me that she was asking this of me because she had seen
her cryonics organization fail before and she had not known what was
happening until it was too late. This time she was not going to stay
silent. So, it came to pass that I did become the President of Alcor later
that year, and it was largely due to the quiet initiative of Marce
Johnson.

Over the next ten years Marce hosted more Alcor meetings than anyone
else has before or since. She and her husband Walt were a dependable
source of contributions, and Marce would often make the hour-long drive
(often closer to 2 hours when the traffic was bad, which it not
infrequently was) from Huntington Beach to Fullerton to help with various
volunteer activities at Alcor. Her gentle, intellectual decency served as a
welcome beacon of normality and warmth at cryonics get-togethers that
were often marred by partisanship and extremes. Marce's home was one of
the least conveniently located in Southern California , but the meetings
she hosted there were among the best attended.

In 1985 Alcor faced a seemingly insurmountable crisis. For 7 years
Alcor had been the guest of Cryovita Laboratories in Fullerton , California
. Cryovita was the creation of cryonics pioneer Jerry Leaf and it was a
costly drain on Jerry and his family. Jerry not only paid the rent on
the facility in Fullerton , he covered all the other operating expenses
out of his pocket, including the liability insurance required by the
landlord. In the early 1980s the explosion of litigation in California
and elsewhere resulted in skyrocketing premiums for basic business
liability coverage. By 1985 coverage at any price was no longer available for
businesses with a high, or impossible to estimate degree of risk.
Alcor, and thus Cryovita, became uninsurable and with that came the
inevitable edict from the landlord to vacate the premises.

With the help of a long-time friend of Alcor, Reg Thatcher, a potential
solution was identified. A small park of industrial buildings was going
to be built in nearby Riverside , California with completion expected
in about 10 months. We negotiated with the landlord and began trying to
raise the impossible sum of $150,000 plus closing and other costs. I
had from April 4th to June 20th, 1986 to do just that a little over two
months. At $149,000 I stalled out. All the deep pockets had been tapped
and Alcor only had 75 members in April of 1986, and finding the
additional $5,000 in cash required to cover the closing costs appeared
hopeless. As it was, an additional $37,500 had already been pledged to cover
the 2-year note carried by the developer. When Marce heard of this
situation she quietly opened her and Walt's check book and wrote out a check
for $5,000.

In the years that followed, Marce was always there for cryonics and it
wasn't easy. She and Walt had to buy life insurance late in life and
the premiums were punishing, even for neuro. Sometime around 1997 Marce
asked me to meet her for lunch in Huntington Beach . That was an unusual
request, but one which I was happy to oblige. It was an unexpectedly
emotional and difficult meeting. As we sat in a little Italian restaurant
in an anonymous strip mall Marce repeated the story of her mother's
death and asked me to promise that I would not abandon her should such a
fate befall her. She told me a number of deeply personal things and she
asked me to dispose of some unfinished business should I outlive her.
It was easy to say yes. Marce was healthy and had every prospect of
living many years longer in good health. It takes extraordinary courage to
confront not only your own mortality, but also the prospect of closing
your life in the darkness of dementia. Nothing in my experience
of Marce as a relentlessly positive and optimistic person had prepared
me for that meeting.

In 2001 I was alerted by Joan O'Farrel of Critical Care Research that
Marce seemed both forgetful and inappropriate on the phone (Marce was,
as usual, doing volunteer work, this time for Critical Care Research
(CCR) and 21st Century Medicine). A call to Walt confirmed Joan's
suspicions and shortly thereafter Dr. Steve Harris and I visited Marce. Steve
did a thorough exam, including an assessment for Alzheimer's. Marce did
well on this assessment, but Steve suggested she go to the Memory
Clinic at UCLA for a more comprehensive evaluation. Shortly thereafter, I
left CCR and began what was unarguably the second most difficult period
in my life to date. I tried to call Walt and Marce over the following 2
years and always ended up getting Marce's voice on their answering
machine. In the chaos that was my life at that time I had neither the
inclination nor the ability, truth to tell, to worry about anyone but myself
and my partner. Finally, in 2003 Walt picked up the phone and we
talked. I learned that Marce had been placed in a nursing home some
months prior, and that she had moderately advanced Alzheimer's.

That news was devastating enough, but what followed shook me to the
core of my being. Walt told me that Marce no longer had cryonics
arrangements and that she was to be cremated. I visited Marce twice in the
subsequent months and found her still oriented enough to recognize me and
carry on a very basic conversation. From these two visits I learned that
Marce still believed she was going to be cryopreserved and that she
felt that she had done something wrong, perhaps by getting sick, which had
caused her cryonics friends to stop coming to see her. I learned that
Saul Kent had been down to see her and Walt and to try to get Walt to
reinstate Marce's arrangements, but to no avail. Walt had never been a
cryonicist and his concern was, understandably, with ensuring that Marce
got top quality nursing home care. Walt and Marce were confronted with
spend down in the face of monthly nursing home bills of over $5,000.
Medicare does not begin to cover these expenses until the
patient has $2,000 or less in total assets not even enough for
burial. Marce's and Walt's cryonics insurance policies had been cashed-out
and used for her nursing home care.

In the four years that have come and gone since then I have continued
to try to find some way to rescue Marce from this situation. Marce did
everything right, everything that cryonics organizations asked her to
do, including giving them ownership of her policy. Unfortunately, Marce
fell ill just as CryoCare was closing down and she never had the
opportunity to transfer her arrangements to the Cryonics Institute, or Alcor.

Recently, Dave Pizer of the Venturists stepped forward to organize a
fund raising effort for Marce. Dave believed, as I did, that the primary
obstacle to getting Marce cryopreservation arrangements was money, not
any unwillingness on Walt's part. A few days ago Walt confirmed this by
consenting to have Marce cryopreserved at CI when the time comes. CI
graciously agreed to accept Marce as a member and her future now rests on
the ability of the Venturists to raise the $35,000 required to cover
CI's costs and to transport Marce to CI from Southern California .

Of the twenty or so people who attended that original LES meeting at
the home of Russ Stanley in 1966, only Marce Johnson and Robert Nelson
remain alive. The others have all perished, some at Chatsworth, some
later. Nothing can be done for them, but Marce endures, and she still has
some chance of rescue. Marce's situation is now extremely tenuous. She
has been moved to a highly skilled nursing facility a short distance
from her home in Huntington Beach . Death could come at any time.

Marce asked me to help her, to stand by her, and to never abandon her.
The burden of that ready and unreservedly made commitment has proved
far heavier than I ever imagined possible. I ask you, on behalf of all
that Marce has done to make cryonics possible for you, to please, please
help her.

Mike Darwin
March 8, 2007


If you would like to help, please make your check or money order to
The Venturists and mail it to: The Venturists, C/O The Creekside
Lodge, 11255 State Route 69, Mayer Arizona 86333.

Also, feel welcome to pass Mike's article to friends or to reproduce
it in other cryonics' forums.
Thank you for your financial help and other support.

David Pizer, for the Society for Venturism.

(Overseas, please airmail money order in U.S. funds. All
contributions to The Venturists for this project are tax decuctable. If for some
reason the suspension is not done, all money will be returned to
contributors.)

Edited by wing_girl, 11 March 2007 - 04:52 AM.


#2 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 11 March 2007 - 04:03 AM

I personally would only marry (and only have) a cryonicist, as I feel they have the same interest in having a 'chance' in mind...

Secondly-- I bought life insurance when I was 25, I can leave 20 times my preservation costs at Alcor, to my children. I purchased whole life vs. term, so it would eventually be paid off and I'd never have problems making a pymt. (It is cheaper to purchase when you are young! I am 31 now and do not have to pay into my Universal Whole life anymore. I'm purchasing the same policy for the man I married Dec. 06 who is 30, and I'll have to make pymts for a lot longer--yet his price is way less than someone only 10 years older. Rudy Hoffman is helping me set this up, and found a very competitive policy, he for now at least, knows more about providing for cryonics than any other insurance provider--others can help too, but you can always contact more than one for quotes ;) )

Thirdly I'm raising my children with cryonics as a possibility-- they even defended their beliefs to a hard question asking Barbara Walters for the upcoming special we'll be in. (and I wrote a book for them--hope you get a chance to read it, and share it with other pre-teen, early teen "21stCenturyKids" http://www.imminst.o...=0, it is at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/)

Finally, what did I learn from this story--other than we now have a debt to pay to those who paved the way for us to have the chances we have--other than I will be helping financially even though I'm on a tight budget? Why did I post a warning? Well hopefully if you have read through this far and you are not a cryonicist, but are planning on being one--you'll have some great ideas. If you are already signed up with SA/CI, CI, Alcor, ACS/CI , then you will strongly consider end of life care coverage--it too is affordable when you are young. It costs less than life insurance and it will pay for nursing home costs--so you don't have to use all your life insurance policies. It is something that I have considered doing, always thought it sounded like a good idea--and it is now a goal of mine to accomplish before this year is through.

#3 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 06:16 PM

Marce died two days ago and was not cryo-preserved. Her daughter called Saul Kent. I'm hoping Mike Darwin will attempt to pursue preservation, depending on how she's been stored the past two days. Marce's husband entered into hospice and is still there, he entered in before she passed away. This is very sad, and I'm quite upset right now--she did so much. I'm hoping something can be done.

#4 Heliotrope

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 06:43 PM

Marce died two days ago and was not cryo-preserved. Her daughter called Saul Kent. I'm hoping Mike Darwin will attempt to pursue preservation, depending on how she's been stored the past two days. Marce's husband entered into hospice and is still there, he entered in before she passed away. This is very sad, and I'm quite upset right now--she did so much. I'm hoping something can be done.



isn't this similar w/ Chris heward? chris died and not cryo-suspended?

#5 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 23 January 2009 - 07:17 PM

Very different, Chris Heward did not want to be cryo-preserved, nor did he spend decades of his life promoting and volunteering for the cryonics community. Close friends of Chris who are cryonicists spent a lot of time trying to talk him into it, he was pretty convinced that it wouldn't work, he made that decision in the early 90's or so, from what I've heard--and never really changed his stance, even recently when people close to him implored him to give it a chance.

Marce always expected to be preserved, she was a signed member.

#6 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 01:53 AM

It may be that she is already cremated, this hits me very hard--my heart is heavy and all my children have sworn to get me preserved, pretty much no matter the circumstance of my death.

#7 advancedatheist

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 02:07 AM

Dave Pizer told me about Marce this afternoon. I had some peripheral involvement in trying to raise money for Marce's cryosuspension, considering that I donated $320 to the Venturists for her and I have the responsibility of depositing the other donations into the Venturists' bank account as well.

I met Marce two or three times at some Alcor meetings in the early 1990's after I moved to California, though I can't say we ever became really acquainted. When she left Alcor with some other disaffected cryonicists to form CryoCare (now defunct), I stayed with Alcor and I had no further opportunity to get to know her better.

We have only one shot at this, people. If you want cryotransport, arrange for it ASAP.

#8 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 03:08 AM

It may be that she is already cremated, this hits me very hard--my heart is heavy and all my children have sworn to get me preserved, pretty much no matter the circumstance of my death.


What makes you think that she has been cremated???

A short while ago I e-mailed the following to 3 people who are in a position to help save Marce.

Hi (edit3T),
What is the status of Marce Johnson? Shannon Posted the following at Immortality Institute.

Marce died two days ago and was not cryo-preserved. Her daughter called Saul Kent. I'm hoping Mike Darwin will attempt to pursue preservation, depending on how she's been stored the past two days. Marce's husband entered into hospice and is still there, he entered in before she passed away. This is very sad, and I'm quite upset right now--she did so much. I'm hoping something can be done.

If some effort has been made to preserve her and it is just a matter of money to get her to liquid nitrogen, what is the cash shortfall? We can make an appeal to my donors and attempt to raid my fund to cover up to 12 grand with my donors permission of course. I am willing to throw her that life line if that will change the outcome for Marce.



Live Long and Well
William C. O'Rights
The First Immortal


Edited by thefirstimmortal, 24 January 2009 - 03:11 AM.


#9 eternaltraveler

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 04:13 AM

I'm a little concerned that if she had moderately advanced Alzheimer's in 2001 then she may have been beyond saving long before her heart stopped beating. Though I obviously don't know nearly enough about the specifics of her condition to make a definitive judgment in that regard.

#10 advancedatheist

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 04:20 AM

I'm a little concerned that if she had moderately advanced Alzheimer's in 2001 then she may have been beyond saving long before her heart stopped beating. Though I obviously don't know nearly enough about the specifics of her condition to make a definitive judgment in that regard.


The perfect cryonics patient is a healthy ten year old who can walk into the lab and lie down on the table before the procedure. The rest of us have to take our chances, especially because almost everyone who lives long enough develops circulatory problems which interfere with getting a good perfusion of cryoprotectants through the brain.

Edited by advancedatheist, 24 January 2009 - 04:22 AM.


#11 forever freedom

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 04:38 AM

2 days have already passed? Could she have been preserved for those 2 days without irreversible damage already? Otherwise it's a lost cause..

#12 eternaltraveler

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 04:47 AM

I'm a little concerned that if she had moderately advanced Alzheimer's in 2001 then she may have been beyond saving long before her heart stopped beating. Though I obviously don't know nearly enough about the specifics of her condition to make a definitive judgment in that regard.


The perfect cryonics patient is a healthy ten year old who can walk into the lab and lie down on the table before the procedure. The rest of us have to take our chances, especially because almost everyone who lives long enough develops circulatory problems which interfere with getting a good perfusion of cryoprotectants through the brain.


There is a difference between a less than ideal 80 year old man with perhaps mild dementia, and very advanced alzheimers where the organic structure of the brain is very much destroyed. I'm not saying this has happened here. I don't have any idea what her specific medical condition was like before. I'm not as concerned about perfusion. If the information that made up the person was still there at even straight freezing should preserve it.

There are conditions where I wouldn't think it would be worth it for me to be suspended. If my head was run over by a steam roller, or I died of very advanced Alzheimer's. The only reason I brought it up was because as someone who is signed up I've put a lot of thought into issues like this for myself.

#13 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 05:06 AM

I'm a little concerned that if she had moderately advanced Alzheimer's in 2001 then she may have been beyond saving long before her heart stopped beating. Though I obviously don't know nearly enough about the specifics of her condition to make a definitive judgment in that regard.


Future technology may be able to reverse that damage and restore her memory. I do share your concerns about that. I worry about brain tumors because SCLC is known to migrate to the brain. Once it sets up in the spine, that's usually the next place it goes. People with SCLC have high rates of brain tumors and the longer one survives the higher the odds that it will happen.

#14 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 05:09 AM

2 days have already passed? Could she have been preserved for those 2 days without irreversible damage already? Otherwise it's a lost cause..


Absolutely, as long as there was some plan to save her. If they started a cool down procedures she could still be in good shape and could be saved. There have even been people who didn't even start cool down for 2 days and then got suspended.

#15 Prometheus

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 06:49 AM

If the information that made up the person was still there at even straight freezing should preserve it.

could you elaborate

There are conditions where I wouldn't think it would be worth it for me to be suspended. If my head was run over by a steam roller, or I died of very advanced Alzheimer's. The only reason I brought it up was because as someone who is signed up I've put a lot of thought into issues like this for myself.

it sounds like you've given it some thought.. as a medical student you must have a scientific rationale behind your conclusion regarding AD vs cryo. could you share?

#16 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 07:23 AM

it sounds like you've given it some thought.. as a medical student you must have a scientific rationale behind your conclusion regarding AD vs cryo. could you share?


Hi Dr. Manhattan,
I know you didn't address this to me, but I'm up late waiting back for a response from my e-mail inquiries about Marce. I thought I would throw my 2 cents in.

It’s not only imaginable, but rather likely, that within the next century we will learn to repair damaged cell structures molecule from damage even caused by AD, either through nanotechnology or some other scientific discipline from an infinite array of possibilities. The alternative for Marce being death, only cryonics offers her genuine hope, a realistic chance for revival, and rejuvenation. Such a prize, however likely or improbable one might believe its attainment, I believe Marce ought to be worthy of substantial investment in money and time to try to save her.

Who was it who said, All that stands between us and eternal life is fear and gullibility? Dread of the unknown forges faith in the unknowable.

#17 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 09:47 AM

I have gotten confirmation that Marce Johnson was cremated.


Marce was directly cremated following her death on Tuesday; no embalming or delay, per the family's wishes. I have attached an MS Word document which is an obituary'' announcement explaining what happened and how it happened.

I have also included it in the body of this email. You may distribute it as you see fit.

Again, thank you for your concern.

Mike Darwin


For Immediate Release, Friday, 24 January, 2009

Date: 23 January, 2009

From: Mike Darwin



Marcelon Johnson Dies and is Not Cryopreserved



By Mike Darwin



Introduction

I have been informed that Marcelon (Marce) Johnson died on 01/21/2009, was cremated, and not cryopreserved.



I understand this information may come as a surprise and as a disturbing shock to many people, especially those who loved and knew Marce, as I did. I thus feel an obligation to explain how this happened and to provide some ‘closure’ to this story for the many people who helped, or tried to help, avert this catastrophe.



While Marce was alive I was unable to share the full story of what was happening. Now that she is dead and gone I believe it important – and the responsibble thing to do – to relate the story as best I know it.



I do not have access to my records here, so dates precise dates will be missing or supplied later in an amended account (if there is any interest).



A Brief History



Early in January of 1964 a 35-year-old Huntington Beach, California housewife named Marcelon Johnson finished filling out her cryonics paperwork, paid her first cryonic society dues, and dropped her application for a Medic-Alert bracelet in the mail. She had six children and a busy, happy, life which has just gotten better because she now believed, for the first time, that she might never have to die. She had been haunted by the death of her mother who was in her mid-50s when she succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. She did not want to die that way, or any other way, for that matter.

Within a year Marcelon Johnson, or “Marce� as was known to her friends, would become increasingly involved in cryonics. By March of 1967, 3 months after Dr. Bedford began the journey which he continues to this day, Marce Johnson was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Cryonics Society of California (CSC). She opened her home to cryonics meetings and catered them superbly. She answered countless information requests and filled countless orders for books and literature. On October 11, 1974 Marce reluctantly accepted the Presidency of CSC, not suspecting that she had stepped into a nightmare that would go on for almost eight years. Russ Stanley, who had welcomed Marce to her first cryonics meeting on September 30th in 1966, had been frozen (or so it seemed) for 6 years. Two of the other pioneering CSC members whom she had met and befriended were also (presumed) in “cryonic suspension� at CSC’s Cryonic Interment Facility in Chatsworth, CA.

In the 45 years was actively involved in cryonics I have never heard anyone say a bad thing about Marce Johnson. That was an extraordinary achievement for anyone involved in cryonics, but it was made all the more extraordinary by the fact that Marce was the de facto President of CSC when it came to light in 1979 that all of the patients in the Chatsworth facility had been allowed to thaw and decompose. No, Marce had no complicity in that horror beyond that of being loyal and trusting. The very qualities that made Marce an exceptional human beig: her readiness to help, her willingness to trust the words of a friend and colleague, and her quiet and nearly unshakeable loyalty had set her up to be in the crosshairs of the litigation and enmity that followed.

The very public disintegration of CSC was not only financially costly to Marce and her husband Walt (not to mention their 6 children), it was a deep personal humiliation and loss. Three of the people who had welcomed her into cryonics were now gone – lost to a gruesome annd disgraceful fate. There was no immortality for them; in fact, there was not even the dignity of a decent burial. Many of the people who were cohorts of Marce at that time walked away from cryonics and never looked back – and mostt of them are dead now, or are beyond help in nursing homes, or dependent upon their indifferent children. I have watched as those who died passed, and I have spoken with those who remain, helpless and dying. Chatsworth was not a pretty business.

Marce Johnson did not walk away. She joined Alcor, and at a very bad time for Alcor in 1981.
Over the next ten years Marce hosted more Alcor meetings than anyone else has before or since. She and her husband Walt were a dependable source of contributions, and Marce would often make the 2 hour drive (each way) from Huntington Beach to Fullerton to help with various volunteer activities at Alcor. Her gentle, intellectual decency served as a welcome beacon of normality and warmth at cryonics get-togethers that were often marred by partisanship and extremes. Marce’s home was one of the least conveniently located in Southern California, but the meetings she hosted there were among the best attended.

In 1985 Alcor faced a seemingly insurmountable crisis. For 7 years Alcor had been the guest of Cryovita Laboratories in Fullerton, California. Cryovita was the creation of cryonics pioneer Jerry Leaf and it was a costly drain on Jerry and his family. Jerry not only paid the rent on the facility in Fullerton, he covered all the other operating expenses out of his pocket, including the liability insurance required by the landlord. In the early 1980s the explosion of litigation in California and elsewhere resulted in skyrocketing premiums for basic business liability coverage. By 1985 coverage at any price was no longer available for businesses with a high, or impossible to estimate degree of risk. Alcor, and thus Cryovita, became uninsurable and with that came the inevitable edict from the landlord to vacate the premises.

With the help of a long-time friend of Alcor, Reg Thatcher, a potential solution was identified. A small park of industrial buildings was going to be built in nearby Riverside, California with completion expected in about 10 months. We negotiated with the landlord and began trying to raise the impossible sum of $150,000 plus closing and other costs. We had from April 4th to June 20th, 1986 to do just that – a litttle over two months. At $149,000 we stalled out. All the deep pockets had been tapped and the Life Extension Foundation was locked in a battle with the FDA for its survival, as well as for the personal freedom of Saul Kent and Bill Falloon, both of whom faced decades in prison. Alcor had approximately 100 members in 1986, and finding the additional $5,000 in cash required to cover the closing costs appeared hopeless. As it was, an additional $37,500 had already been pledged to cover the 2-year note carried by the developer. When Marce heard of this situation she quietly opened her and Walt’s check book and wrote out a check for $5,000.

In the years that followed, Marce was always there for cryonics and it wasn’t easy. She and Walt had had to buy life insurance late in life and the premiums were punishing, even for neuro. Sometime around 1997 Marce asked me to meet her for lunch in Huntington Beach. That was an unusual request, but one which I was happy to oblige. It was an unexpectedly emotional and difficult meeting. As we sat in a little Italian restaurant in an anonymous strip mall Marce repeated the story of her mother’s death and asked me to promise that I would not abandon her should such a fate befall her. She told me a number of deeply personal things and she asked me to dispose of some unfinished business should I outlive her. It was easy to say yes. Marce was healthy and had every prospect of living many years longer in good health. It takes extraordinary courage to confront not only your own mortality, but also the prospect of closing your life in the darkness of dementia. Nothing in my experience of Marce as a relentlessly positive and optimistic person had prepared me for that meeting.

In 2001 I was alerted by Joan O’Farrel of Critical Care Research that Marce seemed both forgetful and inappropriate on the phone (Marce was, as usual, doing volunteer work, this time for Critical Care Research (CCR) and 21st Century Medicine). A call to Walt confirmed Joan’s suspicions and shortly thereafter Dr. Steve Harris and I visited Marce. Steve did a thorough exam, including an assessment for Alzheimer’s. Marce did well on this assessment, but Steve suggested she go to the Memory Clinic at UCLA for a more comprehensive evaluation. I tried to call Walt and Marce over the following 2 years and always ended up getting Marce’s voice on their answering machine. Finally, in 2003 Walt picked up the phone and we talked. I learned that Marce had been placed in a nursing home some months prior, and that she had moderately advanced Alzheimer’s.

That news was devastating enough, but what followed shook me to the core of my being. Walt told me that Marce no longer had cryonics arrangements and that she was to be cremated. I visited Marce twice in the subsequent months and found her still oriented enough to recognize me and carry on a very basic conversation. From these two visits I learned that Marce still believed she was going to be cryopreserved and that she felt that she had done something wrong, perhaps by getting sick, which had caused her cryonics friends to stop coming to see her. I learned that Saul Kent had been down to see her and Walt and to try to get Walt to reinstate Marce’s arrangements, but to no avail. Walt had never been a cryonicist and his concern was, understandably, with ensuring that Marce got top quality nursing home care. Walt and Marce were confronted with “spend downâ€� in the face of monthly nursing home bills of over $5,000. Medicare does not begin to cover these expenses until the patient has $2,000 or less in total assets – not even enough for burial. Marce’s and Walt’s cryonics insurance policies had been cashed-out and used for her nursing home care.

In the six years that have come and gone since then a number of people have continued to try to find some way to rescue Marce from this situation. Marce did everything right, everything that cryonics organizations asked her to do, including giving them ownership of her policy. Unfortunately, Marce fell ill just as CryoCare was closing down and she never had the opportunity to transfer her arrangements to the Cryonics Institute, or Alcor.

Dave Pizer of the Venturists stepped forward to organize a fund raising effort for Marce. Dave believed, as I did, that the primary obstacle to getting Marce cryopreservation arrangements was money, not any unwillingness on Walt’s part. days ago Walt confirmed this by consenting to have Marce cryopreserved at CI when the time comes. CI graciously agreed to accept Marce as a member and her future now rests on the ability of the Venturists to raise the $35,000 required to cover CI’s costs and to transport Marce to CI from Southern California.



The Rest of the Story



Unfortunately, shortly after the appeal for Marce detailed above was launched, Walt retracted his offer of cooperation and support. When Walt and I spoke about the efforts on Marce’s behalf he was warm, gracious, and cooperative. Because of the criticality of the matter (Marce’s potential life or death) I did something I have done only a few times in my adult life: I recorded the conversation between Walt and I without his knowledge. This was a legally permissible action since the call (on my end) was made in Arizona, which has no law prohibiting such recording. When I subsequently called Walt (about 2-weeks later) to set up arrangements for him to sign the CI paperwork in the presence of a notary (Walt had suggested that we do this at his bank, a branch of which was located “just around the corner� form his home) Walt stated he had changed his mind and that he had decided that Marce should not be cryopreserved and instead would be cremated, in keeping with his, and the rest of her family’s wishes. To say that I was both stunned and unprepared for this turn events was an understatement. When I asked to meet with Walt and other concerned members of the family, Walt said that, “he had said all he had to say� and hung up on me.



After lengthily consultation with Saul Kent, Dave Pizer, and a prominent scientist and cryonicist close to Marce and Walt (including playing the tape recording of the conversation between Walt and I), a decision was made to do the following things:



1) Attempt to arrange a meeting with Walt between Saul Kent and the cryonicist/scientist who had known Marce and Walt since his teenage years in Southern California and who could argue both scientifically, and on the basis of personal knowledge, that cryopreservation was warranted in Marce’s case and in her condition of advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

2) Contact Marce’s most influential (and sympathetic to cryonics) daughter and speak with her in detail about the situation and, if possible, enlist her support in the effort to change Walt’s decision.

3) No attempt would be made to use the court system or other legal coercive mechanisms to challenge Walt’s or the family’s decision in this matter. Since both Marce’s husband, her many children, and her other relatives were not supportive of cryonics or were opposed, it was deemed by Saul Kent, and Dave Pizer, that litigation would prove not only fruitless, but possibly counterproductive.

4) Considerations in making the decision not to take coercive action(s) were that Walt was himself dying (he is currently in hospice care) raising the possibility that he might not outlive Marce opening another opportunity to revisit the matter with her children. Other considerations were that there was no funding for such an effort and approaches to several attorneys who might work pro bono (or provide advice gratis), yielded no offers of help and the uniform opinion that litigation would be unsuccessful and costly. [ It probably also should be noted that one similar such effort in the past proved a financially costly failure.]



Saul Kent argued that public disclosure of this turn of events would damage the fundraising effort for Marce and that the most conservative course of action was to proceed with efforts to rescue her until all hope was gone; in other words until she was dead and disposition was completed. Most involved agreed that this was the most conservative course of action to pursue.



This sad outcome has now been realized.



My own heartbreak knowns no words, and although I expected this outcome for many months, it is still difficult to bear.



Marce lived her life without bitterness or anger, and with malice towards none. Those who knew her will understand this and will hopefully also understand that I honor her here by saying simply that I will miss her and that, as is the case with so many others I’ve loved and lost, I will neither forget, nor stop looking for ways, however remote in possibility or in time, to somehow recover her.



Information for Contributors



For those who contributed to the effort to help Marce, please contact the Society for Venturism c/o Dave Pizer: pizerdavid@yahoo.com or at:



The Venturists

C/O The Creekside Lodge

11255 State Route 69

Mayer Arizona 86333


Marcelon Johnson at her home in Huntington Beach, CA in 1976

Attached Files



#18 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 06:12 PM

Yes, I received confirmation of her immediate cremation after death late last night. Really words can't describe how sad this is for me, I'm committed as a Venturist to do more. We didn't know what facility she was in, didn't know her husband was in hospice, didn't contact her daughter who had MPA. More could have, and should have been done. Time is a tricky thing, people thinking they have "enough of it". They still have time to get to everything on their to-do list...

#19 eternaltraveler

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 06:17 PM

Yes, I received confirmation of her immediate cremation after death late last night


terrible. I agree. =(

#20 eternaltraveler

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 06:55 PM

If the information that made up the person was still there at even straight freezing should preserve it.


could you elaborate


Ice formation as we know is very disruptive to micro-structure of something like our brains. However, though we certainly couldn't come anywhere close to reviving a person straight frozen today (and kept at sufficiently low temperature), the information is probably not lost. Imagine a jig saw puzzle with all the pieces separated from each other but in just about the right place, this is somewhat analogous to a straight freeze (you can find electron micrographs of straight frozen brain tissue and vitrified brain tissue on alcor's website somewhere). Advanced nanotechnology may be able to put the pieces back together, or at least record the information and boot it up on another substrate. Vitrification keeps the puzzle tightly together except in areas of poor perfusion with only the occasional macro scale crack forming at liquid nitrogen temperatures.

it sounds like you've given it some thought.. as a medical student you must have a scientific rationale behind your conclusion regarding AD vs cryo. could you share?


I do have some reasons to believe as I've stated. In addition to the very large degree of cortical atrophy (which leads to loss of higher reasoning), there is also a very large degree of atrophy and cell loss in such areas as the hippocampus (key to memory), and the Cingulate gyrus (again important in memory and emotion). As well as general neuronal loss to some degree all over.

Alzheimer's disease relatively spares the medulla, pons, and mid brain, which are responsible for the brain's control of breathing and other basic functions needed to keep a person alive. The result, especially with the degree of medical care such patients get today, is that patients can live a fairly long time, allowing the disease to claim more and more of their brains. They only rarely die as a direct result of the disease. It is more often due to something like bedsores that become infected (as in the advanced state they are completely vegetative), or pneumonia.

Based on the above I think that many of the structures that hold memory and who we are would simply be gone before clinical death, and no degree of repair would be likely to restore them. You'd probably end up with some like like a clone of the person if they were successfully revived. This is by no means definitive, and I am open to being proven wrong.

Edited by elrond, 24 January 2009 - 06:58 PM.


#21 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 07:37 PM

It is still hard for me to accept. A lot of effort went into helping her, in the end it was a lack of support by her family. The hostile wife phenomena needs to be hostile family phenomena--it goes both ways.

#22 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 07:42 PM

If her dementia was caused by plaque blocking access to memories or the ability to connect in a rational way, removing those plaques could enable a brains information to be rescued. I not think that just because a person has Alzheimer's that they should not be cryonically preserved. Even now we are making advances in treatment of dementia, and we should not second guess what medicine in a few hundred years will be capable of.

#23 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 07:58 PM

A lot of effort went into helping her, in the end it was a lack of support by her family.


That's very polite of you Shannon, I would not have been so gracious. The family straight up disrespected Marces wishes as what to do with her body. I didn’t know this was a legal issue involving a legal challenge. Had I but known, I could have outlined a legal case and presented a challenge. Marce might have been able to be saved.

#24 JediMasterLucia

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 11:23 PM

I didn't know this woman, but it's sad she isn't cryopreserved :(

#25 Prometheus

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Posted 24 January 2009 - 11:48 PM

If the information that made up the person was still there at even straight freezing should preserve it.


could you elaborate


Ice formation as we know is very disruptive to micro-structure of something like our brains. However, though we certainly couldn't come anywhere close to reviving a person straight frozen today (and kept at sufficiently low temperature), the information is probably not lost. Imagine a jig saw puzzle with all the pieces separated from each other but in just about the right place, this is somewhat analogous to a straight freeze (you can find electron micrographs of straight frozen brain tissue and vitrified brain tissue on alcor's website somewhere). Advanced nanotechnology may be able to put the pieces back together, or at least record the information and boot it up on another substrate. Vitrification keeps the puzzle tightly together except in areas of poor perfusion with only the occasional macro scale crack forming at liquid nitrogen temperatures.

ok..

it sounds like you've given it some thought.. as a medical student you must have a scientific rationale behind your conclusion regarding AD vs cryo. could you share?


I do have some reasons to believe as I've stated. In addition to the very large degree of cortical atrophy (which leads to loss of higher reasoning), there is also a very large degree of atrophy and cell loss in such areas as the hippocampus (key to memory), and the Cingulate gyrus (again important in memory and emotion). As well as general neuronal loss to some degree all over.

Alzheimer's disease relatively spares the medulla, pons, and mid brain, which are responsible for the brain's control of breathing and other basic functions needed to keep a person alive. The result, especially with the degree of medical care such patients get today, is that patients can live a fairly long time, allowing the disease to claim more and more of their brains. They only rarely die as a direct result of the disease. It is more often due to something like bedsores that become infected (as in the advanced state they are completely vegetative), or pneumonia.

Based on the above I think that many of the structures that hold memory and who we are would simply be gone before clinical death, and no degree of repair would be likely to restore them. You'd probably end up with some like like a clone of the person if they were successfully revived. This is by no means definitive, and I am open to being proven wrong.

Makes sense.. I would hope even in advanced AD, there would be sufficient residual personality encoded in the remaining brain structures to warrant reanimation... If nano can repair a straight freeze, you would think that it may also be able to extrapolate some networks from what's left..

#26 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 25 January 2009 - 01:14 AM

Thank you for the message you sent out William, it should speak volumes to everyone as to your character--that you would have helped get Marce preserved if the problem was a lack of money, by giving out of the funds donated to you if the donors were ok with it.

I'd say the only silver lining in this affair, is that now William I'm relieved for the first time that you will be preserved. I'm now confident that the funds will be raised, we are already at $22,460.00 with the funds that have been donated and matched by ImmInst, as well as the donations to Marce that have been transferred to your account--they too are being matched as they are donations to your cryopreservation. We still need to raise the rest of it -- and if anyone has donated to Marce I urge them to transfer to the William O'Rights Fund. Just email and say you want your donation transferred pizerdavid@yahoo.com. I transferred the two hundred I'd donated to Marce, to William's fund today.

I'll be talking with Ben Best tonight, and will get more details to you Wililam--I'm assuming at this point that as soon as the full CI funds are raised he'll be taking over working with you--to make sure your POA is in order, transportation, suspension etc.

#27 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 25 January 2009 - 02:48 AM

Thank you for the message you sent out William, it should speak volumes to everyone as to your character--that you would have helped get Marce preserved if the problem was a lack of money, by giving out of the funds donated to you if the donors were ok with it.


I had already stated publicaly several months ago that I would be willing to see the Venturist fund go to Marce if she passed away before I did. I believe you will find that I posted that somewhere here as well. In my world, your word is your bond and you give your word power by adhering to it. Capisce?

I’ll will be responding to the the rest of your post in my thread CI or Die at some point.

#28 thefirstimmortal

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Posted 25 January 2009 - 06:12 AM

This is what I said several months ago. Say what you mean, mean what you say.

Last night read up on Marce Johnson. After reading Mike Darwin’s open letter requesting help for Marce, I shut down my computer, sat there in deep thought for several hours.

Marce Johnson poses a deep moral dilemma for me. Marce Johnson is a life long member of the cryonics community; she clearly is one of the pioneers of the movement. She through no fault of her own lost her funding simply because she fell I’ll and her health gobbled up her resources. There is currently a fund raising effort going on to help save her. If we start a fundraiser for me, that will compete for dollars that might otherwise go to Marce. I think it goes without saying that Marce is far more deserving of the cryonics community dollars than I am.

What happens if for instance Marce has let’s say 25,000 in her fund and there is 10,000 in a fund for me. Total dollars would be enough to save Marce, but split up, Marce wouldn’t make it. I do want to get cryonically suspended if I can’t beat this cancer, but I’m not jazzed about doing it at the cost of potentially snuffing out Marce’s life. I’m making it known that any dollars raised for my suspension should be made available to Marce should she pass before I do.



#29 Luna

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Posted 25 January 2009 - 08:19 AM

This story is very sad and it is a shame that families sometimes are the ones to prevent some of the most precious of our wishes :(
Wish it would have ended differently!

#30 kurt9

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Posted 27 January 2009 - 11:26 PM

Yes, I received confirmation of her immediate cremation after death late last night. Really words can't describe how sad this is for me, I'm committed as a Venturist to do more. We didn't know what facility she was in, didn't know her husband was in hospice, didn't contact her daughter who had MPA. More could have, and should have been done. Time is a tricky thing, people thinking they have "enough of it". They still have time to get to everything on their to-do list...


Can any say what exactly was Walt's objection to Marce's cryopreservation was? If money was not the issue, then what was the issue? Perhaps Mike could comment on this.

I've heard a lot about the hostile family member phenomenon with regards to cryonics. I was under the impression that the primary motivation for this was money. If it is not money, then what is it?




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