Article: It Probably Has Not Occurred to the Field… (1953)

I am not, and will never pretend to be, a philosopher. The task of a philosopher is to go off and philosophize. Philosophers normally philosophize all the years of their lives, and in the books of philosophers all the absurdities and wisdoms of men can be found. My entrance into this field of better minds was a forced one: I had a feeling that man ought to progress. It was with astonishment that I discovered that man, for all his prate of science, psychotherapy, all his yap of mysticism and philosophy in general, did not even vaguely know how to improve himself. Those systems of improvement which were in existence were actually control operations and were harmful to the individuals who practiced them. I was an expert in hypnotism and mysticism, mostly for my own amusement and not as any preconceived plan. To these things I combined a knowledge of the material universe found in nuclear physics to bring man up to a level where he could operate as a culture instead of the pigpen-type of civilization in which he laughingly believes himself to be progressing.¹

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