Dice Man

by Luke Rhinehart

  “A second side effect is that a student does zany things, thus attracting attention to both himself and, inevitably, his psychotherapist.

  “Another thing is that during tertiary resistance the student is likely to try to kill the psychotherapist.”

  Dr. Rhinehart paused in his pacing in front of Dr. Peerman and, looking benevolently into Dr. Peerman’s averted eyes, said:

  “This should normally be avoided.”

  He resumed his pacing.

  “A fourth side effect is that the student insists that the therapist also make decisions by the die. If the therapist is honest in his options he’s likely to have to do something inconsistent with medical ethics. It must be admitted that the more medical ethics that the therapist tramples on, the more progress the patient makes.”

  Dr. Rhinehart stopped his pacing at the far end of the room, glanced at his wristwatch and then marched back along the table, looking solemnly into the faces of each of his judges as he passed.

  “Prognosis,” he went on. “You probably want to know about prognosis.

  “Students who enter dice therapy or our Dice Centers are usually normal, everyday, miserable Americans. About one out of five can’t get past pantspeeing and drops out of therapy within two weeks or leaves the Center unaffected. Another fifth succumb within two months to one of the periodic onsets of constipation. We’re less certain of this fraction since it’s possible that some of those who disappear from therapy and the Centers within those first months have actually liberated themselves and no longer need the therapist to continue their diceliving.

  “Of the two hundred and thirty-three students who have worked with the dice for more than two months and whom we questioned in a special survey, sixteen are now in mental institutions with little hope of ever being released.”

  “Good God,” exclaimed Dr. Cobblestone, retrieving his cane from the top of the table as if preparing to defend himself.

  “You’ll be glad to know, however, that one of these sixteen, although he’s been catatonic for six weeks, may, in fact, be totally cured on January 13 of next year. His last recorded dice decision six weeks ago resulted in his being ordered to go into a catatonic state and remain there for one year.”

  Dr. Rhinehart stopped in front of Dr. Cobblestone and smiled warmly at the bleak-faced old director.

  “It is my personal prediction that after the year is gone the student will undergo a ‘spontaneous remission’ of all his symptoms and thus be released a few decades thereafter.”

  The doctors behind the table were now staring openmouthed at Dr. Rhinehart.

  “The other fifteen inmates seem to be victims of the psychotic break, which is an obvious danger if the student is pushed too rapidly into sensitive areas of his life. In the majority of these cases, however, the therapist believes that the personality of the student improved considerably after the psychotic break.”

  Dr. Rhinehart glanced again briefly at his watch. He hurried on.

  “Of the remaining two hundred and seventeen patients surveyed who have stayed in dice therapy for more than two months, one hundred and twenty-four are still oscillating between bliss and breakdown; ninety seem to have achieved a stable level of high joy, and three are dead, having died in the line of duty. So to speak.”

  Dr. Rhinehart stopped in the center of the room, his back to Dr. Ecstein, and faced his five judges, a soft, serene smile on his face.

  “Such results are not all that could be hoped for,” he said, and after another pause, “but it should be noted that we have not with our method produced any well-adjusted miserable humans. All of our surviving dicestudents surveyed are completely maladjusted to the insane society. There is thus hope.” Dr. Rhinehart was beaming.

  “I see no reason to let him go on,” said Dr. Mann quietly, shrugging his right shoulder in an effort to dislodge Dr. Moon.

  “I think perhaps you’re right,” said Dr. Weinburger, neatening the crumpled papers in front of him.

  “Dice therapy and money,” Dr. Rhinehart said, and began his intent pacing again. “Since Freud’s pioneer work, not much has been done with the problem of money. As you gentlemen know, Freud associated money with excrement and argued shrewdly that ‘tightness’ was an effort to withhold excrement, to maintain, in his immortal phrase, ‘an Immaculate Anus.’ ”

  “Dr. Rhinehart,” interrupted Dr. Weinburger, “if you don’t mind, I think—”

  “Two more minutes,” said Dr. Rhinehart, glancing at his watch. “Freud postulated that a neurotic will find any outflow of money, excrement, time or energy a loss, a sullying of the soul, or, more precisely, the anus. Obviously any such effort to withhold is doomed to failure. As Erich Fromm has so acutely observed: ‘It is the tragedy inherent in the fate of man that he shit.’ ” Dr. Rhinehart’s eyes gleamed in his solemn face.

  “Obviously the old therapies couldn’t solve this dilemma. Whereas conventional psychoanalysis sees the desire for an Immaculate Anus as neurotic and counterproductive, we maintain that the desire, like all desires, is good, and causes trouble only when followed too consistently. The individual must come to embrace, in effect, both the Immaculate Anus and the excreted lumps of turd.”

  He was standing in front of Dr. Cobblestone and leaned on the table in front of him with both immaculately tailored arms. “We look not for moderation in the excretory functions, but a joyful variety: a random alteration, as it were, of constipation and diarrhea, with, I suppose, sporadic bursts of regularity.”

  “Dr. Rhinehart, please—” said Dr. Cobblestone.

  “Figuratively speaking, of course. In curing a man of compulsive worry about money we begin by giving him simple dice exercises which require him to spend or not spend small amounts of money at the whim of a Die and which make him let the Die determine how the money is spent. Slowly but surely we increase the stakes.”

  “That’s all,” said Dr. Weinburger, standing and confronting Dr. Rhinehart, who moved over and stopped opposite him. “You’ve had your say; we’ve heard enough.”

  Dr. Rhinehart glanced at his watch and then pulled a die from his pocket and glanced at it.

  “You’ll never get him to stop,” said Dr. Mann quietly.

  “I guess I’m done,” said Dr. Rhinehart, and he walked back and resumed his seat. Dr. Ecstein was smiling at the floor.

  Dr. Weinburger again made motions of trying to neaten up the pile of crumpled papers in front of him and cleared his throat noisily.

  “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I suppose while Dr. Rhinehart is still here I ought to ask if any of you have any questions for him before we proceed to the vote.” He looked nervously first to his right where Dr. Peerman was grinning sickly and Dr. Cobblestone was staring sternly at the head of his cane between his legs. Neither responded. Dr. Weinburger then looked nervously to his left where Dr. Moon, his breath coming in even harsher and more uneven gasps than earlier, was beginning a slow arc from Dr. Mann toward the chairman.

  Dr. Mann said very quietly:

  “He’s inhuman.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Dr. Weinburger.

  “The man is no longer human.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Dr. Weinburger stood up. “Then if there are no further questions, I must ask Dr. Rhinehart to leave the room so that we may proceed to a vote on the issue before us.”

  “I’m inhuman you say?” said Dr. Rhinehart quietly, remaining in his chair next to Dr. Ecstein. “Big deal, I’m inhuman. But with the human pattern such as it is these days can the word inhuman constitute an insult? Considered in the light of normal, everyday, garden-variety human cruelty in the marketplace, the ghetto, the family, in war, your inhuman refers to the abnormality of my actions, not their level of moral depravity.”

  “Dr. Rhinehart,” Dr. Weinburger interrupted, still standing, “would you please—”

  “Come on, I’ve only been talking nonsense an hour. Give me a chance.”

  He stared wordlessly at Dr. Weinburger until the chairman slowly
lowered himself into his chair.

  “The suffering our dice-dictated actions causes is clearly nothing as compared man for man to that caused by rational, civilized man. Dicepeople are amateurs at evil. What seems to disturb you guys is that others are sometimes manipulated or hurt not by an ego-motivated me but by a dice-motivated me. It’s the seeming gratuity of the occasional suffering we cause that shocks. You prefer purposeful, consistent, solidly structured suffering. The idea that we create love because the dice order us to, that we express love, that we feel love, all because of accident, shatters the fabric of your illusions about the nature of man.”

  When Dr. Weinburger began to rise in his chair again Dr. Rhinehart simply raised his huge right arm and continued calmly:

  “But what’s this nature of man you’re so gung-ho to defend? Look at yourselves. Whatever happened to the real inventor in you? to the lover? or the adventurer? or the saint? or the woman? You killed them. Look at yourselves and ask: ‘Is this the Image of God in which man was created?’ ” Dr. Rhinehart looked from Peerman to Cobblestone to Weinburger to Moon to Mann. “Blasphemy. God creates, experiments, rides the wind. He doesn’t wallow in the accumulated feces of his past.”

  Dr. Rhinehart put two sheets of paper back into his briefcase and stood up.

  “I’m going now, and you can vote. But remember, you are all potentially chameleons of the spirit: and thus of all the illusions that rob men of their divinity the cruelest is to call the rocklike burdensome shell of ‘character’ and ‘individuality’ man’s greatest development. It’s like praising a boat for its anchor.”

  Dr. Rhinehart walked away alone to the door.

  “A genuine fool,” he said. “A few genuine fools. A few a generation, a few per nation. Until the discovery of the Die it was too much to ask.” With a final smile at Dr. Ecstein, he left the room.

  80

  A dedicated dicestudent asked Dr. Rhinehart: “What is the essence of diceliving?”

  Dr. Rhinehart answered him: “Diceliving is a lot of useless crap.”

  —fromThe Book of the Die

  81

  [Being a Special Die-Dictated Dramtization of the Judicial Deliberations of the Executive Committee of PANY as Recreated from the Tape Recording and Testimony of Dr. Jacob Ecstein.]

  For several moments the five members of the committee sat in silence, broken only by the harsh, uneven breathing of the sleeping Dr. Moon.Doctors Weinburger, Cobblestone and Mann were all staring at the door which had closed behind Dr. Rhinehart. Dr. Peerman broke the silence:

  “I believe we should conclude our business.”

  “Ah. Ah. Ah, yes,” said Dr. Weinburger. “The vote. We must have the vote. ” But he remained staring at the door. “Thank God, he’s insane,” he added.

  “The vote,” repeated Dr. Peerman in his shrill voice.

  “Yes, of course. We are now voting on Dr. Peerman’s motion that our committee expel Dr. Rhinehart for the reasons listed and request that the AMA consider taking action against him as well. Dr. Peerman?”

  “I cast my vote in favor of my motion,” he said solemnly to the chairman.

  “Dr. Cobblestone?”

  The old doctor was fingering nervously the cane held erect between his legs and staring blankly at the empty chair of Dr. Rhinehart.

  “I vote aye,” he said neutrally.

  “Two votes to condemn,” announced Dr. Weinburger. “Dr. Mann?”

  Dr. Mann shrugged his right shoulder violently and jarred Dr. Moon into a more or less vertical position, Moon’s eyes flaming open briefly and erratically.

  “I still think we ought to have asked Dr. Rhinehart quietly to resign,” said Dr. Mann. “I make a pro forma vote of no.”

  “I understand, Tim,” said Dr. Weinburger sympathetically, “And you, Dr. Moon?”

  Dr. Moon’s body was balanced erect, and his eyelids slowly rose, revealing the red coals of his dying eyes. His face looked as if it had suffered all the miseries of every human that had ever lived.

  “Dr. Moon, do you vote yes to the motion to expel this man we’ve been listening to, or do you vote no in order to permit him to continue?”

  Dr. Moon’s fierce red eyes seemed the only things alive in his wrinkled, ravaged face, but they were staring at nothing, or at the past or at everything. His mouth was open; he drooled.

  “Dr. Moon?” repeated Dr. Weinburger a third time.

  Slowly, so slowly that it must have taken thirty or forty seconds for him to complete the motion, Dr. Moon raised his two arms up over his head, feebly closed the palms of his hands into a half-fist, and then, mouth still open, dropped them with a crash onto the table in front of him.

  “NO!” he thundered.

  There was a shocked silence, broken only by the explosive gasps of Dr. Moon’s now totally sporadic breathing.

  “Would you care to explain your vote?” Dr. Weinburger asked gently after a while.

  Dr. Moon’s body was beginning to slump and slide toward Dr. Mann’s shoulder again and his fierce, all-seeing eyes were now only half-open.

  “My vote’s obvious,” he said weakly. “Get on with it.”

  Dr. Weinburger stood up with a dignified smile on his face.

  “The vote on the motion to expel Dr. Rhinehart being tied at two to two, the chairman is obliged to cast his vote to break the tie.” He paused briefly and poked formally at the crumpled papers in front of him. “I vote yes. Consequently, by a vote of three to two, Dr. Rhinehart is expelled from PANY. A letter will be sent to—”

  “Point of order,” came Dr. Moon’s weak voice, his eyes now open just a slit, as if permitting people only the tiniest of glances into his red inferno.

  “Beg pardon?” said the surprised chairman.

  “‘Cording to our bylaws … man presenting charges’ gainst colleague can’t … vote … on motion to accept … charges.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand—”

  “Created bylaw m’self in thirty-one,” continued Dr. Moon with a gasp. He seemed to be trying to push himself away from Dr. Mann’s shoulder but lacked the strength. “Peerman brought charges. Peerman can’t vote.”

  No one spoke. There was only the hoarse explosive rattle of Dr. Moon’s occasional breath.

  Dr. Mann finally said in a very quiet voice:

  “In that case the vote is two to two.”

  “Vote’s two to one for acquittal,” said Dr. Moon and, after a desperate, hollow, rattling intake of air, he finished:

  “Chairman of committee can’t vote except to break ties.”

  “Dr. Moon, sir,” said Dr. Weinburger weakly, bracing himself against the table to keep himself from fainting. “Could you please consider changing your vote or at least explaining it?”

  The red coals of Dr. Moon’s dying eyes blazed forth one last time from the face which looked as if it had suffered all the miseries of every human that had ever lived.

  “ ‘M’ vote’s obvious,” he said.

  Dr. Weinburger began recrumpling the papers which he had finished neatening in front of him.

  “Dr. Moon, sir,” he said again weakly. “Would you consider changing your vote in order to … simplify … to simplify … Dr. Moon, sir… . Dr. Moon!”

  But the silence in the room was total.

  Was total.

  82

  The Die is my shepherd; I shall not want;

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, I lie;

  He leadeth me beside the still waters, I swim.

  He destroyeth my soul:

  He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness

  For randomness sake.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil: for Chance is with me;

  Thy two sacred cubes they comfort me.

  Thou preparest a table before me

  In the presence of mine enemies:

  Thou anointest my head with oil;

  My cup runneth over.

 
; Surely goodness and mercy and evil and cruelty shall follow me

  All the days of my life:

  And I will dwell in the house of Chance for ever.

  —fromThe Book of the Die

  83

  Dr. Moon’s death in the line of duty was greeted with mixed reviews in the psychiatric world as was my momentary escape from the fate I so obviously deserved. I quietly resigned from PANY (having avoided condemnation), but Dr. Weinburger wrote a letter to the president of the AMA and that august body summoned me to appear before the AMA’s prestigious Committee on Medical Ethics; my removal from the elite sections of civilization thus resumed its slow, rational, bureaucratic course.

  Mr. Wipple congratulated me on my brilliant defense and stated that he was sure our troubles with the authorities were at an end.

  “You’ve learned moderation, Luke. You’ve learned the necessity and benefits of rational, discursive thought. With your leadership, we’re going to liberate the American people to the commonsense expression of multiplicity.”

  “Thank you, H. J. Thank you.”

  “And on Sunday, you just tell the American people where it’s at.”

  “We’ll see, H. J., we’ll see.”

  84

  RELIGION FOR OUR TIME

  presents

  [The camera pans from one figure to the next of the five people seated on the slightly raised stage in front of the fifty or so people in the audience.]

  Father John Wolfe, assistant professor of theology at Fordham University; Rabbi Eli Fishman, chairman of the Ecumenical Center for a More Unified Society; Dr. Eliot Dart, professor of psychology at Princeton University and noted atheist; and Dr. Lucius M. Rhinehart, psychiatrist and controversial founder of the Religion of the Die.

  “Welcome to another live, free, open, spontaneous and completely unrehearsed discussion in our series about Religion for Our Time. Our subject today: