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amormundi.blogspot.com]
jimf said...
Larry Johnson, in _Frozen_, talks about the Venturists
and their property at the Creekside Lodge in Arizona:
(p. 150)"
"The Creekside Lodge was off Arizona Route 69, in the township
of Mayer, outside Prescott, Arizona. Prescott was a pretty little
city known for its hiking trails and Old West history. The
area was greener and hillier than the surrounding desert.
[David] Pizer was one of those prominent Alcorians who believed
some sort of Armageddon was coming. Pizer, however, was actively
preparing for it, building a survivalist community of cryonicists
that was remote and secluded, yet only an hour and a half away
from Alcor's dewars.
From what I gathered that weekend, Pizer's Creekside Lodge was
one part survivalist camp, one part religious cult compound, and
one part travel motel. When the place wasn't closed down for
an Alcor training session or cryonics soiree, families rented
cabins by the night. Since the full name of the place was
the "Creekside Preserve," some Alcorians punned on the double
meaning of the word and called it "The Preserve" (using the
word as it pertained to a natural habitat, and also as it related
to cryonic cold storage).
Pizer and his followers, though, referred to the compound as
Ventureville, which was in itself pretty creepy. Pizer lived there
with his wife and John Grigg, his most dedicated disciple. Grigg
was the manager of the Creekside Lodge, but his main function,
as far as I could tell, was to worship the ground Pizer walked
on.
On his Web site, Pizer referred to himself as "El Patron." Charles
told me he had started out as a car upholstery salesman or something.
After spending a weekend there, though, I believed David Pizer
was basically a cult leader.
Pizer had formed his own religion, originally called the Church
of Venturism, then renamed the Society for Venturism (though it
remained, on the books, a religion).
Mike Perry was a big pal of Pizer's and an ordained minister in the church.
He provided wedding services. This was no joke. I don't think I would
have opted to be married by a man who had removed his own testicles
with a razor and then intentionally severed the nerves to his
penis. Father Mike wasn't someone I'd send my confused teenage
son to for counseling.
Pizer's followers called themselves Venturists. I had met a few
of them at that Alcorian meeting at the Barnes & Noble in
Santa Monica, California. Back then they had struck me as very
intense and focused young men. Whereas some other Alcorians
enjoyed the sci-fi, flying-car mystique of cryonics, the Venturists
took it much more seriously.
Spending time with them on their own turf, so to speak, I realized
that they considered themselves frontiersmen. More than just the
outdoor types, they were survivalists. I saw cases upon cases of
canned food and water stored around Ventureville, and vast
amounts of medical supplies. . .
11:37 AM jimf said...
During my weekend stay, at night, the Venturists gathered around
a fire pit -- after sharing dinner in a large common dining room --
and talked in antigovernment slurs about federal law enforcement
and how President Bush was too soft on crime. American society
was breaking down, they said. Some explained to me that they
felt fortunate to have found David Pizer, the great man who would
lead them into a new civilization after this one inevitably
fell into ruins. Several Venturists spoke to me in clear
terms of preparing for a "holocaust." In truth, these men scared
me. They struck me as malcontents looking for something to
belong to, loners looking for a father figure and, God help them,
they though they'd found it in David Pizer.
The Venturists had a Web site that I came across later. In their
"Bylaws" section, one of the "primary objectives and purposes"
they listed was "To furnish a friendly, supportive community for
persons who wish to act rationally to bring about the abolition
of death and the establishment of a free society of immortals."
Elsewhere, in their Web site's "About Us" section, they wrote
that they advocated respect and love for others, yet they were
"willing to defend others against danger. We must be ready to
put our lives on the line if necessary (as in the case, for
example, of a physical threat to a cryonics patient.)"
In conversation, they explained their beliefs to me a little
more aggressively. Venturism is essentially the pursuit of
physical immortality, they told me around that fire pit.
Since science and medicine could not guarantee physical
immortality yet, the Venturists turned to cryonics to suspend
them until medical technology caught up. To them, cryonic
suspension was the means by which they would live long enough --
that is, forever -- to bring about the advanced society
that their leader, Pizer, had envisioned. In my experience,
Alcorians were often arrogant, believing themselves to be
the smart ones. Talking to these young men, though, it seemed
that while many Alcor members hoped for a second life after
cryo-suspension, these Venturists expected it. Out of all
humanity, they believed they were the few who deserved
immortality, that it was their due. They were the chosen.
Jerry Lemler always seemed to be seeking followers but was
never charismatic enough to draw them. Pizer was another
story. Frankly, it terrifies me still to think what the
man seemed capable of. Pizer was one of the Alcorian leaders,
Charles told me, originally arrested during the Dora Kent
homicide investigation.
David Pizer pioneered a cryonics trust fund in which he was
leaving his money to his future self. If it worked out, with
interest, he'd have billions of dollars waiting for him
when he reanimated and he'd be, according to what he told
the _Wall Street Journal_, "the richest man in the world." . . .
11:39 AM jimf said...
Being on David Pizer's property gave me the creeps. There was
a real quaint, rustic, log-cabin feel to the place but at
the same time there were the stores of food, water, and
medical supplies that pointed to some darker preparedness.
When I mentioned the cases of food and water, Charles raised
his eyebrows and said, "Have you seen the weapons?"
These were the hardest-core true believers of the entire
hard-core cryonicist bunch. After seeing them fawn over El Patron,
I believe that to say they worshipped Pizer would not be
an exaggeration. And with what I would call a raging Messiah
complex, Pizer happily encouraged it. Pizer carried himself
like the father of a large family. His word was law. He
spoke with an air of infallibility and the Venturists hung
on his every word. When I dealt personally with the Branch
Davidians in Waco, I saw people under the control of a charismatic
leader, ready to kill or die for him. I saw that same look
in the eyes of the Venturists.
Like many other cryonicist leaders, Pizer dabbled in writing
science fiction. He had self-published a novel about a
man diagnosed with a terminal illness who was cryonically preserved
and then reanimated in the twenty-second century. Charles
told me that, sometimes, Pizer sat his followers down around
the fire and read his short stories to them. It made me
think that if only these zealous cryonics leaders had achieved
commercial success as writers, maybe they would have laid off
the dark obsessions, the way Hitler might never have caused
so much horrendous damage to humanity if he had found early
success as a painter.
In my estimation, after having seen both places beforehand,
Ventureville was another Waco waiting to happen. The only
difference between David Pizer and David Koresh was that
Pizer claimed his religion was based on science. Underneath it
all, though, it felt to me like his main objective was
simply to have militant, dedicated followers hanging on his
every word and command.
And then there was Pizer's personal fortune. He could fund
virtually anything his mind cooked up. Imagine was David Koresh
could have done with a $10 million bankroll.
When that weekend training session finished, I was relieved
to get the hell out of Ventureville.
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