The Book of Immortality

by Adam Leith Gollner

  Mark Raymond Collins’s website explains that he’s hidden notes and images and $2 bills beneath tables in hotels and restaurants all over the world. He describes himself as a “consultant to experts.” Alongside his longevity-research financing activities, he co-owns a vodka brand, RND Vodka (“five percent of profits go to science education”). The Santa Barbara Independent quoted him as saying he would love to make “vodka from stem cells.” The Montecito Journal has written about his Mark Twain–inspired campaign to have the word very excised from the English language. He prefers other words. Ergo, for example. He considers ergo to be a “caviar of a word.”

  In a follow-up e-mail, with the subject heading “The fountain of youth=mark r collins,” Nicole described him as “a very curious fellow” (a description that would have been just as apt without the adverbial emphasis). “He’s a really trippy guy,” she wrote, adding, “He is really into confessing things that some might find inappropriate.” She provided examples, but I felt it more appropriate to let Collins himself decide what confessions he wanted to share.

  Nicole arranged for the three of us to have dinner together. She and I met outside my hotel lobby and then headed to the restaurant. Nicole, in her twenties, gave a friendly, cultured, and stylish first impression. When asked about her double name, she confessed that her patronymic is actually Pierpont. I’d just driven down a street of that name. “Are you related to the Pierponts of Pierpont Avenue in Santa Barbara?” I inquired.

  “No,” she responded. “I’m related to the Pierponts who founded Yale and wrote ‘Jingle Bells.’”

  Nicole worked in film production, shooting what she called “death video diaries”—recordings that allow elderly, infirm, or dying people to communicate messages to their descendants. Previously, she’d been a barista in a nearby café, where she’d encountered Mark Collins. He came in for coffee often and chatted openly about his work administering antiaging funding. He’d also been a customer at her mom’s antique store in nearby Summerland. “He bought a painting that looked like his son,” she reminisced. “Then Oprah came in to buy some lion statues. She requested that we paint them black.”

  Mark Collins had booked us a table at Sly’s, his favorite restaurant in Carpinteria. There was something sly about him as well. A healthy-looking, close-cropped gray-haired gentleman in a nice suit, Collins liked affecting a serious veneer that couldn’t quite conceal his default amiability and bemused good cheer. It was immediately clear that Collins belonged to a different category of prolongevist than the immortalists I’d encountered at the 2068 party. Not only was he handsome, insouciant, and well adjusted—he also wasn’t seeking physical immortality. “I reckon that I’m a skeptical optimist” was how he put it.

  As president of the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, Collins oversees a nine-figure endowment that fuels research into the biology of aging. They regularly give out five-year, $5 million grants to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and the Salk Institute. The scientists working under their aegis are the most important biologists in America on aging. All four of these institutions’ labs are named after Collins’s boss, Paul F. Glenn, who amassed his fortune as an investor and venture capitalist. “Paul’s successful,” as Collins put it. “Suffice it to say, he’s a wealthy man. He’s active in his trading.”

  Glenn’s consortium unites collaborative institutions working on advancing humanity’s understanding of aging—not defeating aging. They work using the peer review process, Collins underlined, not with speculative theoreticians. The research funded thus far had led to breakthroughs in lengthening mice life spans. But, he cautioned, putting on a faux-pedantic air, “going from a mouse to a marmoset is a huge leap.”

  Nicole brought up his penchant for leaving scraps of interesting information in specific places around the world. Collins said that he’d recently hidden a photo of himself alongside Jonas Salk in the Salk Institute.

  “What else do you hide?” I asked, hoping to find a scrap myself.

  “You know, notes, ideas, pictures. It’s another one of those ancient things that people do, like wanting to live forever. Whenever I stay in a hotel, I always write a little something in the Gideon Bibles.1 Thirteen years ago in a castle that had thirteen rooms, I put a card in volume thirteen of a green leather-bound series of books. If you’re interested, I’ll send you clues to their whereabouts.”

  I said I’d love that, then steered the conversation back to immortality. He immediately interjected, “I want to reiterate that our foundation is not part of the immortalism movement. Wanting to live forever is an interesting psychological phenomenon, but I personally don’t have mortality anxiety. Vanity defeats itself. You start down the Botox slope and you never get off. You go Mach two.” Here he pulled his face backward so his lips swelled into an imitation of a bad plastic-surgery job.

  “Have you met people who want to live forever?” I queried.

  “In my line of work?” he retorted ironically. “Our foundation runs antiaging research. I deal with everybody from run-of-the-mill, mainstream gerontologists to futurists who want to teleport themselves into machines. So, yes, immortalists solicit us all the time.”

  “What are they like?” Nicole demanded, wrinkling her nose slightly.

  “They’re the union of anxiety and narcissism. They’re all terrified of dying, and they simultaneously can’t hide their blatant self-motivation. They are unbelievably self-focused. It’s all ‘me me me, I want to live forever.’”

  The waiter took our orders. Nicole opted for local abalone—a mollusk I’d never eaten before—which the three of us shared as an appetizer.

  “I think denial is terrific,” Collins remarked. “I’m a heavy user. Everybody uses denial until they have to deal with their health issues. That’s when self-interest pops up. And I’m not against the selfish types—they could possibly come up with some solutions. It’ll sort itself out in Darwinian fashion.”

  “Who are some of the selfish types?” I pressed.

  “There’s a bunch of them. And I have nothing bad to say about any of them. It’s their message that bothers me. When Aubrey de Grey came to meet us, he started out by talking about death as an elective. I told him, ‘Look, if you want to interest people in this area—whether you’re just a me me me person or you genuinely want to benefit mankind—the first, most important thing is to have an unassailable mission statement. Something that no one is against.”

  “What would that be?”

  “‘Our goal is extending the healthful and productive years of life,’” he offered unhesitatingly. “What I always say is that we are trying to alleviate suffering and help public treasuries. That’s unassailable. Nobody can contest those aims. Stopping death is another question entirely. When people are told they might be able to live forever, their eyebrows go up and then they go silent. That’s where Aubrey and his gang go wrong: they take silence for approval.”

  On the topic of taking silence for approval, I relayed the contents of my conversation with de Grey about primate experimentation, including his highlighting of their inability to talk back.

  “That ape colony idea is just really, really weird,” Collins muttered. “What, are they going to be living coolers for organs? Or organ warmers? Or just used for experiments? It makes no sense. There’d for sure be some Ebola-level blowback, too.”

  “Every solution anyone comes up with always has unforeseen flaws and ramifications,” I ventured.

  Collins nodded as he took a sip of wine. “That’s certainly the case in longevity research.”

  “Does anyone else find it strange that Aubrey is one of the oldest-looking people alive?” Nicole chimed in. “I mean, the face of staying young forever is a grizzled long-beard.”

  “He got attention ’cause he’s fast on his feet and he looks like Rasputin,” Collins affirmed. “He’s a Roman candle who came out with six balls of flame. Plus even though he’s surrounded by Raelians and other space people, he’s very available for journalists. If yo
u e-mail him, he’ll answer you within five minutes, at any time of day or night.” That corroborated de Grey’s statement about doing interviews in his sleep.

  The abalone appetizer arrived. As the waiter set the platter of pearlescent shells on the table, Collins grimaced. The dish was garnished with a sprig of mint. “I hate garnish,” he snarled, removing it disdainfully. “No lettuce leaf, no orange twist, no little strawberry slices. I’m a no-bullshit guy. No garnish.”

  “You were speaking about immortalists,” I reminded him.

  “When you get to the hard-core nucleus of people obsessed with technical immortality,” Collins went on, “it’s a very small group. They’re kind of culty.”

  I told them how attendees at the 2068 party had spoken about “it” happening, meaning attaining immortality.

  “Yes!” chimed in Collins enthusiastically. “They always speak about ‘it.’ What is ‘it’? They say things like, ‘We are going to solve it.’ That two-letter word is the shortest euphemism. Ha! If that isn’t a fig leaf, I don’t know what is. Does it mean not dying?”

  “I think so, or finding a way to upload your mind onto a computer.”

  “Ah, yes, the Kurzweilians,” Collins sighed.

  “Is there no link between you and them?”

  “There is a link,” he allowed. “They’re the distal end of the instrument.”

  “Meaning you are both part of the same general movement, but they’re at a far remove?”

  “I’m a living human.” He pointed both hands toward himself, then extended them forward. “They are transhumanists. Kurzweil is intensely interested in an advanced form of pouring himself into the next version of himself, which could be a machine. He envisages making the transhumanist leap, whatever that is. I haven’t set that as an objective, but who knows what’s possible?”

  “Would the Glenn Foundation get involved with Kurzweil?” I asked.

  “Not on my watch,” Collins declared curtly.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know anyone doing scientific research into the field of transhumanism. Like maybe people really do know how to teleport and I just haven’t seen the papers yet. Until then, I have no way of knowing whether they’re onto something. There’s a lot of greed and misplaced trust in the immortality world. Whenever people are vulnerable, it’s a fertile territory for quackery. That’s why we always bring up the unassailable mission statement. We’re here to fight disease and help the treasury.”

  Our steaks arrived. By now, we’d had a couple of glasses of wine, and Collins seemed quite relaxed. He chided Nicole playfully for not calling him often enough. “Whenever you get the abalone urge, just give me a shout,” he told her. It felt like an appropriate moment to bring up Paul F. Glenn, the mysterious head of the foundation.

  The notion that human life spans are not fixed had fascinated Glenn since the early 1950s, Collins recounted. Glenn was inspired by an article in Parade magazine that suggested humans may one day be able to control aging through interventions on the molecular level. He’s trying to bankroll that hope into a reality.

  “Early on, people thought his interest in the field was odd,” Collins conceded. “Any attempts to study aging were considered to be the pursuit of bio-alchemy. That changed as science started revealing how various aspects of aging work. Now, of course, there’s widespread interest in longevity studies. Paul was ahead of his time.”

  “How is he perceived today?”

  “As an augmenter. Until relatively recently, his vision wasn’t seen as realizable. ‘It’ is now considered to some extent doable, and to some extent desirable. There’s a spectrum of attitudes towards that.”

  I wondered what he meant by “it” in Paul’s case. Was he speaking about prolonging life—or full immortality? What lay behind that unassailable mission statement? I tried broaching the question obliquely. “If Paul could envision the best possible outcome of his financing of research, what would it be?”

  “That’s dicey to answer.” There was a long pause. Then: “Death would be elective.”

  “Has he said that?” I asked casually.

  “No. It’s an inference. Paul doesn’t say outrageous things.”

  “Do you think ‘it’ will happen?”

  “What is ‘it’?” Mark threw up his hands.

  “What you just said: death as an elective. That you choose whether to die or not.”

  “I haven’t any idea. Do I think it’s possible? I don’t even know. Some people are convinced it’s probable, some think it’s impossible and undesirable. There’s no proof to be had. You’re either running towards it, away from it, or standing still. I’m standing still.”

  “Do you think there will be increasingly effective interventions?”

  “I’m standing still. We want to alleviate suffering and help public treasuries.”

  “Unassailable. But how will you help public treasuries? What does that mean?”

  “It’s very simple. Our foundation’s aim is to help people live long illness-free lives. We want to counteract the slow descent into senility, to eliminate age-related diseases so you can live healthy and then die quickly. If you keep people out of old-age homes and hospitals, you save money. The country’s aging population will result in treasury-breaking health-care costs unless something changes. We should be more worried about aging than dying. Growing old and infirm is the problem. What’s to fear about being dead? It’s the getting there that we’re trying to affect.”

  * * *

  After dinner, Nicole had an appointment in Los Angeles, so she suggested I meet up with some friends of hers that evening. A group of seven or eight of them were having drinks at a bar in Santa Barbara, and I decided to join them for a nightcap. Nicole’s good friend Paris texted me with directions to a small country-western lounge.

  When I arrived, Paris greeted me warmly and introduced me to the group, all in their midtwenties. Paris’s Australian boyfriend, Nic (which he pronounced Neeque), looked a bit like Emilio Estevez, blond and beachy. Next to him sat another Aussie, Josh, whose raven locks were complemented by a psychoanalyst’s mustache and goatee. His girlfriend’s name was Sophie. A couple of others were with them as well, but I ended up spending most of my face time with that foursome. Paris explained to the group how Nicole had contacted me after reading my first book.

  “Josh and I also work in books and film,” said Nic.

  When I asked in what capacity, Josh shot Nic a sharp look and deadpanned, “Sorry, we can’t tell you.”

  I laughed, thinking they were joking. Neither of them smiled.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes, really,” insisted Josh solemnly.

  “Hmm. Secretive,” I suggested, not yet realizing how true that statement was. Nicole later explained that Nic and Josh were part of the creative team behind the self-help movement based on The Secret. The book, which solipsistically claims we just need to want things in order to get them, was written by an Australian woman, but her company works with a whole team, including Nic and Josh. Coincidentally, the two of them began as magicians doing street-magic performances in Australia.

  “I used to do illusions for crowds,” Nic told me. “It’s all autosuggestion, sending thoughts elsewhere.”

  Magic, in its essence, is the basis of The Secret: before acting on something, we first desire it. If we don’t believe it can come true, we rarely pursue it. But is it magical to believe that fate can be affected by our thoughts, or simply human hubris? What’s the difference between destiny and the law of attraction? I tried to strike up a conversation with them about immortality.

  “Im-mor-tality?” drawled Nic, nonchalantly feigning disinterest. “In Sufism, they spin to attain immortality. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a certain direction that you have to spin in, in order to maximize the eternal benefits.”

  “Counterclockwise?” I offered, spinning my index finger.

  “Depends on where you are,” he reprimanded.

 
“And where you’re measuring it from,” I countered.

  “It’s all interrelated,” Nic mused, clearly comfortable inhabiting enigmatic utterances. “It all corresponds, it all just is. It is all only one moment.”

  He asked if I’d come across the teachings of Mony Vital, PhD, a California-based breatharian who leads seminars on becoming a physical immortal. His book Ageless Living: Freedom from the Culture of Death contends that people just need to stop believing in death for death to become unreal. “To start with, you have to discard all death beliefs from your body. You have to deprogram your body: physically, mentally, and emotionally. You have to get the beliefs of death out of every cell.”

  I asked Nic if his “books and film” company had approached Mony Vital.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nic answered, gazing into the distance.

  “But the company you work for is developing an immortality story?”

  “No. Maybe. The company I work for is thinking of taking a TV-audience perspective on it.”

  “So maybe it’s for television?” I said sarcastically.

  “We don’t do television.” He folded his arms, relishing the confusion.

  “But you just said—”

  “It’s an expression,” he snapped. “I said a TV audience. See the difference? Not TV—for a TV audience.”

  “So whatever it is we’re speaking about is aimed at a mass audience?”

  “You could say that, sure.”

  “Moving pictures?” I attempted, not quite sure how this conversation had gotten so convoluted.