Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

I don't know, everything else is so fascinating I just don't seem to have the old get-up-and-go anymore.'

Dr. Rhinehart placed the paper back on his chair and resumed his pacing.

`Of course, it takes a while for our students to reach this level of freedom. At first they often cast the dice and think: "Now I must have the willpower to do it" That's bad. The illusion that an ego controls or has "willpower" must be abandoned. The student's got to see his relation to the dice first as that of a baby in a rubber raft on a flooded river: each motion of the river is pleasant; he doesn't need to know where he's going or when, if ever, he'll arrive. Motion is all. And then he's got to reach the point where he and the Die are each playing with one another. It's not that the person has gained equality with the Die, it's that the human vessel is now so infused with the Spirit of the Die that it's become in effect a Sacred Vehicle, a Second Cube. The student has become Die.'

Dr. Rhinehart stopped pacing for the moment and looked intently at his listeners. He had become increasingly excited by what he was saying and five doctors behind the table had begun staring at him with increasing awe, except for Dr. Moon, who was still settled in openmouthed sleep against Dr. Mann.

`Actually, I may be going too fast for you' Dr. Rhinehart began again. `Maybe I should tell you about some of our dice exercises. Emotional roulette, for example. The student lists six possible emotions, lets a die choose one and then expresses that emotion as dramatically as he can for at least two minutes. It's probably the most useful of the dice exercises, letting the student express all kinds of long-suppressed emotions which he usually doesn't even know he has. Roger Meters reports that a dice-student of his found after ten minutes of a dice-dictated love for a specific person that he remained in love; in fact, the student has since married her.'

Dr. Rhinehart paused in his pacing to smile benevolently at Dr. Weinburger.

'Let's see, in the Horatio Alger-Huck Finn game,' he went on, `a die determines at regular intervals whether the student is to work hard, achieve and be fantastically productive or to goof off and laze around and do nothing. It's good in this exercise to have the intervals very short: the absurdity of hard work is nicely alternated with absurdity of trying to laze around and do nothing.'

'Dr. Rhinehart,' interrupted Dr. Weinburger, squeezing the crumpled papers in his fist. `It would -'

'Wait! Wait! Russian roulette. We've got two versions. In one the student creates from three to six unpleasant options and casts a die to see which if any he has to do. In the second, he creates one extremely challenging option - say, quitting a job, insulting a mother or husband, robbing a bank, murder and gives it a long-shot chance of being chosen.

`This second form of Russian roulette is one of our best dice exercises. Dr. Rhineholt Budweir cured what seemed to be a hopeless case of death anxiety by every morning taking out a revolver loaded with one live cartridge, spinning the cylinder, placing the barrel at his temple and casting two dice. If they came up snake eyes, he pulled the trigger. The odds each morning were thus two hundred and sixteen to one against his death.

`From the moment he discovered the dice exercise Dr. Budweir's death anxiety disappeared; he felt a lightness such as he hadn't experienced since his earliest childhood. His sudden death last week at the age of twenty-nine is a tragic loss.'

As he looked from one doctor to another, Dr. Rhinehart's eyes glittered behind his glasses. He continued.

`Then there's Exercise K - named in honor of the eminent German-American researcher, Dr. Abraham Krum.'

Dr. Rhinehart smiled at Dr. Mann. `The student lists six optional roles or selves he might adopt for periods varying from a few minutes to a week or more. Exercise K is the key to a successful dicelife. The student who practices this daily for an hour or two, or each week for a whole day, is on his way to becoming a full-blooded diceperson.

`Families and friends assume, of course, that the student is on the road to insanity and that his therapist is already there, but ignoring doubt and ridicule is a necessary part of becoming a diceperson. Dr. Fumm tells me that a student of his expanded Exercise K hour by hour until he had gone from an hour a day to twenty-three hours a day, varying who he was every day of the week - except Sunday, which he reserved for rest. At first his friends and family were hysterical 'with fear and rage, but once he'd explained to them what he was doing they began to adjust. At the end of a few months his wife and children would simply ask him at breakfast each morning who he was and make the necessary accommodations. Since among his many roles he was Saint Simeon Stylites, Greta Garbo, a three year-old child and Jack the Ripper, the members of his family deserve a lot of credit for their psychological maturity. May they rest in peace: Dr. Rhinehart stopped pacing and looked, solemn and sincere, directly at Dr. Mann.

Dr. Mann stared back blankly; then his face flushed. Scowling at the floor briefly, Dr. Rhinehart resumed his pacing.

`As you can see,' he said, `like all potent medications dice therapy has certain not-so-hot side effects.

`For example, the student usually gets the idea that the dice ought to determine whether he stays in therapy or not. Since he gives the option a lot of chances, the dice sooner or later order him to leave therapy. Sometimes they tell him to return: And then leave again. Sometimes they tell him to pay his therapy bill, sometimes not. It must be admitted that dice students are, as patients, a little unreliable. You'll be happy to know, however, that the more unreliable a student becomes, the closer he probably is to total cure.

`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 student 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 are usually normal, everyday, miserable Americans. About one out of five can't get past pants-peeing and drops out of therapy within two weeks. 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 within those first months have actually liberated themselves and no longer need the therapist to continue their dice-living.

`Of the thirty-three students who have worked with the dice for more than two months, six 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 six, although he's been catatonic for six weeks, may, in fact, be totally cured on May 13th 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.'