Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

Days,” we will continue to view with alarm the antics of the younger generation, and

we probably will still be after a cure for the common cold.

Notes : 1980

1. He’s still a freak but he’s all too common. There is a special circle in

Hell for the “Educators” who decided that the Three R’s really weren’t all that

important. Concerning our public schools today: Never have so many been paid so much

for so little. I thank whatever gods there be that I went to school so many years

ago that I had no choice but to be tightly disciplined in classes in which the

teachers did not hesitate to fail and to punish.

My first-grade class had 63 kids in it, one teacher, no assistant. Before

the end of the second semester all 63 could read.

Page 161

2. Many people seem to feel that the “Bridey Murphy” case has been

invalidated. Maybe so, maybe not-the investigative reporter who went to Ireland had

no special qualifications and the “disproof’ came from TIME magazine. TIME magazine

probably publishes many facts

but since its founding in the early 1920’s 1 have been on the spot eight or

nine times when something that wound up as a news story in TIME happened. Not

once-not once-did the TIME magazine story match what I saw and heard.

I have the “Bridey Murphy” recording and Bernstein’s book about it. I am not

an expert witness. . . but I fbund the recording highly interesting. To me it

sounded like

what it purported to be: regression under hypnosis to memory of a former existence.

Some years later I learned from an ethical hypnotherapist (i.e., he accepted

patients only by referrals from M.D.’s, his own doctorate being in psychology) that

regression to what seemed to be former lives was a commonplace among patients of

hypnotherapists- they discussed it among themselves but never published because they

were bound by much the same rule as physicians and priests taking confession.

I have no data to offer of my own. I decided many years back that I was too

busy with this life to fret about what happens afterwards. Long before 2001 1 will

know. . . or I will know nothing whatever because my universe has ceased to exist.

3. Anyone today who simply brushes off ESP phenomena as being ridiculous is

either pigheaded or ignorant. But I do not expect controlled telepathy by 2001; that

is sheer fiction, intended to permit me to get in that bit about Tchaka, et al.

4. I lifted this “Man is a wild animal” thesis bodily from Charles Galton

Darwin (grandson of the author of THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES) in his book THE NEXT

MILLION YEARS, Doubleday, 1953. lam simply giving credit; I shan’t elaborate here.

But THE NEXT MILLION YEARS is a follow-on to THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES and is, in my

opinion, one of most important works of this century. It has not been a popular

book-but I seem to recall that his grandfather’s seminal work wasn’t too popular,

either.

FOREWORD

This polemic was first published on Saturday 12 April 1958. Thereafter it

was printed many other places and reprints of it were widely circulated inside and

outside the science fiction community, inside and outside this country.

It brought down on me the strongest and most emotional adverse criticism I

have ever experienced-not to my surprise.

After more than twenty years my “misdeed” seems to have been largely

forgotten, or perhaps forgiven. But I do not ask to be forgiven and I do not want it

to be forgotten. So I now republish it in permanent form. I have not consulted my

editor or my publisher; each is free to denounce my opinions here expressed-but is

not free to refuse this item while accepting the rest of this book.

A few specific details below are outdated by new technology-e.g.,

earthquakes can now be distinguished with certainty (we hope) from nuclear

explosions, while other aspects of detection and inspection grow more complex.

Technical details change; basic principles do not.

“Supreme excellence in war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

-Sun Tzu, ca. 350 B.C.

The Soviet Union is highly skilled at this-and so are the Chinese leaders.