If you have ever met Mike Perry in his office at Alcor or at his home, you will picture him surrounded by books. Although his background was in mathematics and computer science, Mike was fascinated by the history of cryonics and immortalism. He wrote dozens of articles on this history. Mike also wrote a regular Revival Update, other science news, and many other essays.
You will read about successes, failures, triumphs, and tragedies. Mike looked into the lives of cryonics pioneers such as Evan Cooper, Jerry Leaf, Dante Brunol, Jerry White, Robert Ettinger, and Curtis Henderson. He also explored the activities of early cryonics organizations in New York California, and elsewhere.
Many of his historical pieces go under the heading of “For the Record.” The total of all of Mike’s historical research would fill a thick book, or several. To make it easier to find and read these essays, I decided to compile a handy list. The task turned out to be too much for one blog piece. I worked back through issues of Cryonics magazine to 2009 and ended up with more than 50 historical essays. I also highlighted another 15 non-historical articles. I aim to complete my deep dive into Mike’s writing to create a comprehensive cryo-history archive.
In the meantime, you will find plenty to keep you learning about the history of cryonics and biostasis for a long time.
--Max More
Remembering Joe Hovey
Cryonics, 2024 Issue #2 Second Quarter
Steve Harris in Remembrance
Cryonics, 2024 Issue #1 First Quarter
More on Bredo Morstol
Cryonics, 2023 Issue #4 Fourth Quarter
Remembering Saul Kent
Cryonics, 2023 Issue #3 Third Quarter
Also here.
Search for the Logo of the Cryonics Society of New York
Biostasis.com, September 7, 2022
Evan Cooper: An Untold Story
Cryonics, 2023 Issue #2 Second Quarter
An Institutional History of Alcor
Cryonics, 2022 Issue #1 First Quarter
Alcor’s First Half Century
Cryonics 2021 Issue #3 Third Quarter
A Look Back: Attempts to Establish a Cryonics Community
Cryonics, 2021 Issue #2 Second Quarter
Jerry Leaf: Surgeon, and Cryonics Advocate
Cryonics, 2020 Issue #3 Third Quarter
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For the Record: Cryonics in New York: Years with Alcor, 1986-1994) Part Seven of an Ongoing Series
Cryonics, 2020 Issue #1 First Quarter
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For the Record: Cryonics and Public Skepticism: Meeting the Challenges to Our Credibility
Cryonics, 2019 Issue #4 Fourth Quarter
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For the Record: Cryonics Newsletters: Some Historical Highlights, Part 4a, Cryonics Society of Michigan, 1970-72.
Cryonics, 2019 Issue #3 Third Quarter
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Cryonics Newsletters: Some Historical Highlight, Part 3, Cryonics Society of California
Cryonics November/December 2018. Volume 39:6
For the Record: Cryonics Newsletters: Some Historical Highlights, Part 2b.
(Newsletters of the Cryonics Society of New York from 1969 to 1971.)
Cryonics, 2018 Issue #4 July-August
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For the Record: Cryonics Newsletters: Some Historical Highlights, Part 2a
(Newsletters of the Cryonics Society of New York 1966 to 1969)
Cryonics, 2018 Issue #3 May-June
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For the Record: Cryonics Newsletters: Some Historical Highlights.
(Evan Cooper’s Life Extension Foundation publications.)
Cryonics, 2018 Issue #1 January-February
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For the Record: The Price of Life: Isaac Asimov, Cryonics, and Human Death Extension
Cryonics, November/December 2017 (Cryonics 38-6 2017-06)
(How Isaac Asimov was asked by the publisher to comment on Ettinger’s The Prospect of Immortality, the edition expanded from his self-published version in 1962. A fascinating account of Asimov and his relation to cryonics ending with a sad death without cryopreservation.)
A Year of Jubilees: Some Important Cryonics Anniversaries
Cryonics, May/June 2017
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The first freezing, April 1966. Bedford. Fred Chamberlain II. Jery Leaf. Very interesting details about Jerry, who was an incredible pioneer and contributed massive advances in cryonics. (I remember him from my 1986 visit to California… driving to UCLA to do animal experiments. I wish I had been bold enough to ask him more about his life.)
Editor’s note: “The Meaning of Life Now and Yet to Come Over his lifetime, Mike Perry has contributed thousands of pages on the history of cryonics, life extension, and human enhancement. Starting this year, under the name of “For the Future” Mike will be writing a new series of articles that will provide a much-needed alternative to all the dystopian and pessimistic visions that characterize most contemporary fiction and non-fiction writing about technology and the future.”
Cryonics, 2017 Issue #1, January/February 2017. 38.1
For the Record: Cryonics in Europe: Some Historical Highlights
Cryonics, 2016 Issue #6, November/December 2017. 37.6
For the Record: The Cinematic Cryonicist: Four Documentary Videos, Early and Later
Cryonics, 2016, Issue #5. 37.5.
[Films/videos by CSNY, 1978 documentary, 2005 Alcor video.]
For the Record: The Cinematic Cryonicist: Two Early, Promotional Films from the New York Group
Cryonics, July/August 2016. 37.4.
Ev Cooper and the Conference that Didn’t Happen
Cryonics, May/June 2016. 37.3
Charity Cases in Cryonics
Cryonics, March/April 2016. 37.2
[James Bedford, Luna Wilson, Frank and Janet Riley, James Swayze, William Constitution O’Rights, Kim Suozzi, Aaron Winborn, Elizabeth Pugliese]
Cryonics Under Fire: Meeting the Challenges of Hostile Scientists Then and Now
Cryonics, January/February 2016. 37.1
What Did Brunol Say? Notes from the Architect of the First Controlled Human Cryonics Preservations
Cryonics, May 2015. 36.05
Society for Venturism End Death Convention 2014, Part 2
Cryonics, March 2015. 36.03
Society for Venturism End Death Convention 2014, Part 1
Cryonics, January 2015. 36.02
Why Not? Cryopreservations That Might Have Been
Cryonics, January 2015. 36.01
Quintessence: Remembering Jerry White
Cryonics, November 2014. 35.11
Cryonics Patient Storage: A Brief History
Cryonics, September 2014. 35.09
The Prospect of Immortality at Age Fifty
Cryonics, June 2014. 35.06
Companion Animals at Alcor: Some Lessons from the Early Years
Cryonics, May 2014. 35.05
Remembering John Bull
Cryonics, April 2014/ 35.04
Russian Scientific Cosmism: A Prelude to Modern Immortalism
Cryonics, March 2014. 35.03
Carrying On: The Aftermath and Legacy of Early New York Cryonics
Cryonics, December 2013. 34.12
The High Price of Life on Hold: Sheskin’s Study and Other Reflections on Cryonics in New York
Cryonics, November 2013. 34.11
Mike’s opening comment: “Whaaat? the reader may ask. Yet another column on cryonics in New York?! Yes, indeed (and one more is planned after this!). But not without good reason, as I hope you will agree. New York, was, after all, an important early staging area for cryonics, and its history has important lessons to teach, besides being just downright interesting.”
Protocols in Cryonics: Prehistory and Early History
Cryonics, September 2013
Cryonics in New York: Decline, Tragedy, and Twilight: 1969-1974 and Later
Cryonics, August 2013. 34.08
Cryonics in New York: Human Freezings and Other Events, 1968-1969
Cryonics, July 2013. 34.7
Cryonics in New York: Optimism Before the First Freezing, 1966-68
Cryonics, June 2013. 34.6
Daoist Roots of Immortalism: A Protoscience of Prolongevity
Cryonics, May 2013.
Cryonics in New York: How it Started
Cryonics, April 2013. 34.4
Jean Finot: Prolongevity Advocate of the Early Twentieth Century
Cryonics, March 2013. 34.3
John Adolphus Etzler: Pioneer Prophet of Radical Abundance
Cryonics, February 2013. 34.2
Robert Ettinger: Some Brief Historical and Personal Notes
Cryonics, Fourth Quarter 2011. 32.4
Member Profile: R. Michael Perry, Ph.D
By Chana de Wolf
Impressions of Curtis Henderson
Cryonics, Third Quarter 2009
A Freezing Before Bedford’s
Biostasis.com, August 20, 2008
Historical Steps Toward the Scientific Conquest of Death
Biostasis.com, August 4, 2008
Selected non-historical articles
I tried to stay focused on history but also noted some non-historical articles by Mike.
Recent Advances in Dementia Diagnosis
Cryonics, 2023 Issue 1 First Quarter
A Mathematical Model of Infinite Survival
Cryonics, 2022 Issue #4 Fourth Quarter
Our Recent Heavy Caseload: How Often Can We Expect This?
Cryonics, 2022 Issue #4 Fourth Quarter
Mathematical Modeling of Immersion Fixation with Approximation to the Human Brain (with Aschwin de Wolf)
Cryonics, 2022 Issue #3. 43.3
Schrodinger’s Freezer and the Restoration of Lost Information: Some Consequences of an Interesting Variant of the Many Worlds Interpretation.
Cryonics, 2021 Issue #4 Fourth Quarter
Restoration without Recovery: Authentic De Novo Recreation of Lost Information in a Multiple-Worlds Setting.
Cryonics, 2021, Issue #, First Quarter
The S-MIX: A Measure of Ischemic Exposure
With Aschwin de Wolf
Cryonics, 2020 Issue #4 Fourth Quarter
Mathematics and Modeling in Cryonics: Some Historical Highlights (with Aschwin de Wolf)
Cryonics, 2020 Issue #2 Second Quarter
From Bad to Good: Victor Frankenstein and the Modern Quest for the Secrets of Life
Cryonics, 2019 Issue #2 Second Quarter
Contrastive Underdetermination Resolution, with Application to Cryonics Revival and Other Possibilities for Life after Clinical Death.
Cryonics, 2019 Issue #1 First Quarter
A Visit to Oregon Cryonics
Cryonics, 2018 Issue #5 September-October
Viability versus Inferability: A Plea to Consider an Option of Fixative-Stabilized Cryopreservation
Cryonics, 2018 Second Quarter
Scientific Divinitism: A Proposed Immortalist-Transhumanist Life Stance
Cryonics, September-October 2017. Volume 38.5
[Divinitism. “In short we hope to become godlike, to divinize. Divinitism thus seemed an appropriate label of what is herein advocated, as long as it is appreciated that “divinity” can exist in some distributed, naturalistic form without the necessity of extension to a supernatural or metempirical realm.”]
The Future of Sex: Some Contrasting Views
Cryonics, 2017 Issue #2 March-April. 38.2
Estimating and Forecasting Alcor Resource Requirements: Are Cases Random?
Cryonics, December 2015. 36.12
Review of The Transhumanist Reader
Cryonics, November 2013
Carrel and Lindbergh: Why Not Immortality?
Cryonics, October 2013
Bon Voyage Aido
Cryonics, November/December 2012. 33.6
Options for Brain-Threatening Disorders
Cryonics, First Quarter 2010
Is a Life Worth Starting? Some Personal Views
Biostasis.com, December 27, 2010
Review of ‘Better Never to Have Been’
Biostasis.com, December 20, 2010