#summum

Sightings – S1E11 – Cryonics and Mummification – August 21st, 1992

“Is it possible to cheat death? Can we be brought back to life months, even years after dying? There are scientists betting on the fact that one day, death won’t be permanent – and some people are taking the biggest gamble of their lives: they’re being frozen and mummified in a quest for immortality.”

“Cryonics is an experimental process – and it’s experimental because we don’t know what the outcome is going to be. We have a different opinion on where you draw a line between life and death…”

“I think it’s misleading to people. I think it’s giving some false hopes, at least at this point…”

“Bring me back, I don’t care how. Bring me back into the future. I want to be there, I want to witness this, I want to be able to get out of this freezing suspension or whatever they put me into to get me back, I want to be able to stand there and say ‘Bill, you made it, you’re really there in the future’. If it really can be done, I’m looking at immortality.”

This segment details cryonics, the pseudoscience that was faddishly popular in the 80s-90s (enough to make it into a episode of Star Trek TNG, "The Neutral Zone"). Cryonics is a interesting pseudoscience because its unverifiability is baked right in: cryonics companies never promise it will happen, just that they might be able to preserve your body to a time where science can revive you. They spin it as, explicitly, a gamble and not a promise. It should be noted that while Alcor, the company profiled herein, still exists, many cryonics companies have closed over their years, with their bodies being thawed and "disposed of". You also don't see cryonics brought up often by death-averse rich people these days, since they've moved onto *checks notes* wondering if stealing blood from the young can keep them immortal? Yeah let's go back to freezing them

This story takes a sudden swerve into discussing mummification as a "proven" means of preserving a body. They talk to John A. Chew, a mortuary sciences professor who was director of the Institute for Funeral Service Education and Anatomy at Lynn University before his death in 2016, so a valid expert witness on mummification there. They also talk to...the head of a new religion movement called Summum that practiced modern mummification? A movement led by someone called "Amon Ra" here, but who apparently went by "Corky Ra"??? Corky Ra died in 2008 and was mummified. It doesn't seem like Summum is a cult or anything, and they're still around, mummifying people and pets.