Keith Henson
Howard Keith Henson (b. 1942) is an American Electrical Engineer and writer on life extension, cryonics, memetics and Evolutionary psychology. He is also a founding member of the L5 Society, a lifetime member of the National Space Society, and an activist against the Church of Scientology.
Early Influences
Keith Henson grew up as an “army brat” attending seven schools before 7th grade. His father, Lt. Col. Howard W. Henson (1909-2001) was a decorated US Army officer who spent much of his career in Army Intelligence. Robert A. Heinlein was a powerful early influence. Henson graduated from Prescott High School shortly after his father retired. His degree in Electrical Engineering is from the University of Arizona.
Druid Days
Henson was known at the University of Arizona as one of the founders of the Druid Student Center, where a campus humor newspaper, The Frumious Bandersnatch,[1] was published in the late 1960s. (The Druids were also known for making UFOs. [2])
During much of this period, Henson worked at a geophysics company, mostly running induced polarization surveys in the western US and Peru. The company occasionally did seismic work that required explosives. Henson also programmed geophysical type cases and wrote data reduction programs for the company.
Analog Engineering
After graduation, Henson went to work for Burr Brown Research, now merged into Texas Instruments. While there, he worked on extremely low distortion quadrature oscillators and non-linear function modules--multipliers, vector adders and root-mean-square modules. His first patent was a design for a 4-quadrant log-antilog multiplier.
During this time Henson became familiar with the System dynamics work of Jay W. Forrester.
After Burr Brown, Henson worked for a company in Tucson, Arizona, where he was fired for refusing to certify an electronic module for a nuclear power plant that would not meet a required MTBF specification. (Failure of similar modules contributed to the partial melt down of the Fermi reactor near Detroit.)
He then set up his own company, Analog Precision Inc., producing specialized computer interface equipment and related industrial control devices.
L5 Society
In the mid-1970s Henson was introduced to the Space Colony work of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University, by the physicist Dr. Dan Jones [3], an occasional rock climbing partner of Henson. To promote these ideas, Henson and his then-wife, Carolyn Meinel, founded the L5 Society.
Henson co-wrote papers for three Space Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with Eric Drexler. Patents were issued on both subjects — vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.
In 1980, Henson testified before the United States Congress when the L5 Society successfully opposed the Moon Treaty. The society was represented by Leigh Ratiner (later a figure in the Inslaw proceedings). The experience eventually became an article by the name of "Star Laws," jointly written by Henson and Arel Lucas and published in Reason Magazine.
Cryonics
In 1985, as a result of being convinced by Eric Drexler that nanotechnology provided a route to make it work, Henson, his wife and their 2-year old daughter signed up with Alcor for cryonics. Following the Dora Kent problems [4], Henson became increasingly active. After Alcor had to freeze their chief surgeon, he learned enough surgery to put several cryonics patients on cardiac bypass. He also wrote a column for Alcor’s magazine for a few years.
In that same year, Henson moved to Silicon Valley, consulting for a number of firms, and was eventually debugging garbage collection software for the last stage of Project Xanadu. He was still working for the company that bought the Xanadu license when Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin tried to destroy the news group alt.religion.scientology (see Scientology versus The Internet).
Memetics
Henson's wife, Arel Lucas, was credited by Douglas Hofstadter in Metamagical Themas for suggesting the study of memes be called memetics. Henson wrote two articles on memes in 1987, one published in Analog, the other, Memes, MetaMemes and Politics, circulated on the internet before being printed.
Extropians
Henson participated in the difficult to find early Extropian news group, and was the memetics editor for Extropy Magazine when it was a paper publication.
Henson versus Scientology
Template:ScientologySeries Henson has become one of the focal points of the ongoing struggle between the Church of Scientology and its critics, often referred to as Scientology vs. the Internet. Henson is a staunch critic of Scientology, whose retaliation resulted in his being convicted under a California law for interfering with the civil rights of Scientologists. The jury was not permitted to hear key elements of Henson's defense, specifically that he was exercising his First Amendment right in criticizing what he deemed a dangerous cult, and convicted him of interfering with a religion (see California Penal Code, section 422.6). A fugitive from an arrest warrant in California, Henson moved to Canada and sought refugee status there. Henson believes his life would be threatened by Scientology if he returned to the United States to serve his sentence. The church, on the other hand, has repeatedly declared that Henson is a criminal and a terrorist. Henson became the first US citizen to have an application for refugee status accepted by Canadian authorities, something that many Vietnam-era draft dodgers had attempted without success. (Acceptance of the application doesn't mean that refugee status is granted; it merely means that the authorities agree to receive the application paperwork and undertake investigating the claims, rather than rejecting the papers without any further process.) He was given permission to live and work in Canada while his application was investigated, and he settled in Brantford, Ontario. He has since left Brantford; see details below.
According to LA Weekly, Henson worked in the 1970s for a geophysics company in Arizona. During that time, Henson arranged pyrotechnic parties in the desert "similar to Burning Man" (described in the book Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition by Ed Regis). Ken Hoden, the general manager of Golden Era (the Church of Scientology's film production facility), claimed Henson was a stalker with extensive background in explosives, and compared Henson to Timothy McVeigh. "Based on evidence we were able to collect off the Internet, his intention was to destroy [Golden Era Productions, the Church of Scientology's film production facility] utterly, to leave not one stone unturned." Riverside County Sheriff’s Detective Tony Greer, the lead investigator, said, "In reviewing all of the Internet postings I did not see any direct threat of violence towards the church or any personnel of the church."
Hoden also claimed that Scientology's prosecution of Henson had nothing to do with Scientology's Fair Game policy, claiming that no such policy existed.[5] Twelve years before Hoden's statement, though, the appellate court had decided in Wollersheim v. the Church of Scientology that Fair Game was not a constitutionally protected "core practice" of Scientology, as the Church had claimed in that trial.
Henson entered the Scientology battle when it was at its most heated, in the mid-1990s. In 1996, many of Scientology's "secret writings" (see Scientology beliefs and practices) were released onto the Internet, and Scientology embarked on a massive worldwide campaign to keep them from being spread to the general public. Henson examined these writings, entitled New Era Dianetics (known as NOTS in Scientology, and to the organization's critics), and from his examination of these "secret" documents, he claimed that Scientology was committing medical fraud.
The NOTS documents, he said, contained detailed instructions for the treatment of physical ailments and illnesses through the use of Scientology practices. However, a Supreme Court decision in 1971 had declared that Scientology's writings were meant for "purely spiritual" purposes, and all Scientology books published since then have included disclaimers stating that Scientology's E-meter device "does nothing" and does not cure any physical ailments (United States v. Founding Church of Scientology et al., US District Court, District of Columbia 333 F. Supp. 357, July 30, 1971 [6]). The NOTS procedures, Henson claimed, were a violation of this decision. To prove his claim, Henson posted two pages from the NOTS documents onto the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology.
The Church of Scientology immediately threatened to sue Henson, but he did not back down from his claims. Immediately afterwards, Henson was served with a lawsuit by the church's legal arm, the Religious Technology Center, (RTC). Henson defended himself in order to avoid the massive legal costs incurred in a Scientology lawsuit (see Scientology and the Legal System). After a lengthy court battle involving massive amounts of paperwork, Henson was found guilty of copyright infringement. He was ordered to pay $75,000 in fines, an amount trumpeted by the church as the largest copyright damages award ever levied against an individual. (Critics of Scientology estimate that the organization spent a total of about $2 million in litigation against Henson.)
Henson declared bankruptcy in response to the judgement, though the church dogged him through every step of the filing process. Henson began protesting Scientology regularly, standing outside of Scientology's film studio, the Gold Base with a picket sign. The organization sought assistance from the authorities, and finally Henson was arrested and brought on trial for criminal charges.
He was charged with three misdemeanors by California Law: making terrorist threats, attempting to make terrorist threats and making threats to interfere with freedom to enjoy a constitutional privilege.
The jury verdict of the trial resulted in Henson being convicted of one of the three charges: "interfering with a religion." This charge carried a prison term of six months. On the other two charges, the jury did not agree.
Henson, who had been pursued relentlessly by the church since the original lawsuit over three years previous, stated his belief that if he went to prison, his life would be placed in jeopardy. Rather than serve his sentence, Henson chose to emigrate to Canada and apply for political asylum.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Henson's supporters on the USENET newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, claim his trial was biased, unfair and a mockery of justice. Henson was prohibited by the trial judge, for example, from arguing that copying documents for the purpose of criticism is fair use.[7]
Current status
Henson lived in Brantford, Ontario from 2001 to 2005 and worked as an electronics engineer. After spending three years there, Henson was finally notified that a decision had been reached on his application. He was instructed to appear in person at a meeting on September 14, 2005, to learn what the decision was. The implication was that a negative decision would result in his being deported back to the US by Canadian law enforcement.
"I'm not going to be shoved across the border into the hands of Scientologists," Henson said last week as he began packing. "I'll go to the border somewhere else, hand in my papers and disappear, preferably to a state where you can legitimately shoot bounty hunters."
Citing concern over his personal safety in such an event (since Scientology might find out the handover time and place), Henson chose to instead quietly leave Brantford the previous night. He notified the Canadian government by fax that he had left Canada of his own accord. His current location is unknown. [8]
Works
- Henson, H.K., and K.E. Drexler. Vapor-phase Fabrication of Massive Structures in Space, Space Manufacturing AIAA 1977
- Henson, H.K., and K.E. Drexler. Gas Entrained Solids: A Heat Transfer Fluid for Use in Space Space Manufacturing AIAA 1979
- H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: STAR LAWS Reason Magazine, Aug., 1982 [9]
- Henson, H.K.: Memes, L5 and the religion of the space colonies. L5 News, September 1985, pp. 5-8. [10]
- Henson, H.K.: More on Memes L5 News, June 1986 [11]
- Henson, H.Keith: MEMETICS AND THE MODULAR-MIND Analog August 1987 [12]
- Henson, Keith: "Memetics: The Science of Information Viruses". Whole Earth Review no. 57, 1987 [13]
- Henson, H. Keith: MegaScale Engineering and Nanotechnology, 1987 [14]
- Henson, H.Keith: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics , 1988 [15]
- H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: Memes, Evolution, and Creationism, 1989, [16]
- H. Keith Henson Green Rage [17]
- H. Keith Henson and Arel Lucas: A Theoretical Understanding, 1993 [18]
- Keith Henson Wogs at Cause--Car chases and other modern courtroom phenomena (adapted from the version published in Biased Journalism) [19]
- H. Keith Henson South of the Border at the Road Kill Cafe (Part 1) [20]
- Henson, H. Keith: Sex, Drugs, and Cults. An evolutionary psychology perspective on why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be done to mitigate the effects, The Human Nature Review 2002 Volume 2: 343-355 [21]
- H. Keith Henson Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War [22]
- Keith Henson quotes