A lot of people, they come to the Spiritual Work Community for the first time with selfless and noble ambitions about working in the service of the Absolute, and, before two or three hours have passed, they've already fully realized the importance of self study—of "getting to know the manifestations of their own machine"—not for any "Spiritual Work" reason, but for sheer self-defense.

Then there are some people who seem to have already done quite a lot of that work before showing up and who, consequently, aren't faced with the almost overwhelming task of learning, from scratch, the "manifestations of their machine."

Scott falls into neither of these categories.

When he first showed up at Dataville, he didn't have any manifestations. He had a suitcase and he had an organic machine but it didn't have any manifestations and it was right there in the driveway and nobody knew what to do!

Luckily, it was a warm day and Rudy, thinking quickly (which come to think of it, was another odd thing that happened that day) led Scott to the fire hydrant that stood in front of the house and got Scott to start learning the "manifestations" of the fire hydrant. When we brought him in that evening he was already very good at it, which gave us all hope.

First thing next morning, Rudy took him down the street a block and a half and left him in front of a mailbox for the rest of the day—to learn the "manifestations" of the mailbox. (The neighborhood was the sort of neighborhood that by and large, was tolerant of that sort of behavior. Most of them didn't even notice it.)

It turned out to be a busy day for the mailbox and, by the time Rudy brought him lunch, Scott had already learned how to open and close his mouth. (Who knows how he managed to eat before this.)

So Rudy embarked on a program whereby he would take Scott somewhere different every day so that he could gradually build up a repertoire of manifestations.

After covering all the inanimate objects in the neighborhood, Rudy graduated Scott to living things—trees, flowers, bushes—that sort of thing until finally, one day, he felt Scott was ready to practice the manifestations of actual living people, starting, of course, with Brigitte D. and working up the vibration scale, through Adelheid B., past Kay W., all the way up to Tommy J. (which as we all know is as high as you can go on the vibration scale without disappearing altogether).

Scott now seems to have settled in comfortably at about the same level as the hillbilly's wife whose said to her one day, as she was frying up a "mess a grits" on the griddle, "Yew mite want to move yer foot a mite, Maw. Yer standin' on a live coal." And she responded, "Yeah? Which foot, Paw?" The main difference is that, had Scott been Maw, he wouldn't have said anything.

Had he been Paw, he still wouldn't have said anything.

No, Scott relies on head nods to communicate. He's got about as many head nods as an Eskimo has words for snow…and nobody can tell the difference between any of them.

Check out this dialogue that took place between Scott and Julia one day at lunch at Dataville.

"Scott," says Julia, "was it communicated to you that there was a problem with the printing of the auction mailing?"

Scott makes no perceptible response.

"Scott?" presses Julia.

This time Scott makes a slight movement of his head in an indeterminate direction—a movement that was perceptible to Rudy and myself, who have had more practice than most at detecting motion in Scott's sector of the labyrinth, and very likely would have been perceptible to members of Scott's family from Minnesota, had they been there, but was not perceptible to anyone else at the table and certainly not to Julia.

"Scott?" she says a third time.

"Mmmmmm," mumbles Scott, gazing at his plate, indicating that:

(a) it had been communicated to him

(b) it had not been communicated to him

(c) he heard someone say his name.

"Was it communicated to you that there was a problem with the printing of the auction mailing?"

"What?" says Scott.

"Was it communicated to you that there was a problem with the printing of the auction mailing?" says Julia, for the third time a second time.

"A problem," repeats Scott, continuing to gaze at his plate.

(People begin leaving the table on one pretext or another at this point.)

"Yes, apparently the blue was not acceptable," continues Julia, starting to look like a junior high school guidance counselor about to get a headache.

"The blue," repeats Scott, holding steady.

"Yes. It wasn't dark enough."

"Dark enough," says Scott, still gazing at his plate.

"Not dark enough," says Julia, now looking more like a novice probation officer with a headache already.

Well, if it works don't fix it, eh Scott?

Scott originally got interested in the work after his sister hit him on the head with a frying pan one day for not listening intently enough to his father's friends' fishing stories. It was at the precise moment that the iron of the frying pan his sister was wielding made contact with his head, that the experiences of innumerable previous lifetimes simultaneously impinged themselves on Scott's consciousness and the normally abnormally high surface electrical resistance of his skin plummeted to near zero and he realized with a blinding flash of insight that there might be more to life than not listening to fishing stories.

Now he spends eighteen to twenty hours a day in the press room. Sixteen to eighteen of these hours he spends kicking the press with his bare feet…as I did before him…as Chris did before me…as Wayne did before Chris. (Actually, to be completely accurate, I didn't use my bare feet, while Chris employed a type of flying drop kick, not at all easy to do in the confined space of the press room. Wayne, I understand, fainted whenever possible, rather than resort to actual violence.)

The press room, by the way, is a low ceiling'd room about ten feet square, lit by a fluorescent light that wavers in cool weather. There's one small window which is completely blocked off by an air conditioner that doesn't work very well. That's when the door is open (which it must be if you plan on breathing while you're in there).

Mind you, opening the door doesn't help a whole lot. Mainly what it does is make it hotter inside there in the summer and colder in the spring (which are the only two seasons there are in this part of California). Nevertheless, stark though the picture may appear, it beats getting hit on the head with a frying pan—and getting hit on the head with a frying pan beats listening to Scott's father's friends' fishing stories.

Scott's tried them all.

"Printing is better," he says.

Printing certainly sounds better. For one thing, you can go up to the house during the breaks and watch Nancy C. jump up and down in one spot in a magnificent impersonation of a person caught deep in the grip of useless rage and then suddenly switch, pick up the phone, and say in an ever-so-sweet and melodious voice, "Helloooo, may I help you?"

Entertainment like this doesn't come cheap, although you have to be an enthusiast to appreciate it, I suppose. In any case, it's always nice to see someone else in a useless rage at an inanimate object, for a change, even if the inanimate object happens to be yourself.

During his breaks Scott still practices new manifestations, mostly upstairs these days, as he's been using the television set for inspiration lately. One of these days we'll plug it in for him.

--Parker Dickson