Date: Wed, 30 Aug 95 15:43:58 EST
From: Terry Colvin
Reply to: GENERALLYWEIRD Distribution List
Subject: Trepanning
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Subject:
Author: FringeWare Daily at smtp
Date: 29/8/1995 9:07 PM
>>
>> THE PEOPLE WITH HOLES IN THEIR HEADS
>> Amanda Fielding lives in a charming flat looking over London's
>> river with her companion, Joey Mellen, and their infant son,
>> Rock. She is a successful painter, and she and Joey have an art
>> gallery in a fashionable street of the King's Road. Another of
>> her talents is for politics. At the last two General Elections
>> she stood for Parliament in Chelsea, more than doubling her vote
>> on the second occasion from 49 to 139. It does not sound much,
>> but the cause for which she stands is unfamiliar and lacks obvious
>> appeal. Fielding and her voters demand that trepanning operations
>> be made freely available on the National Health. Trepanation
>> means cutting a hole in your skull.
>>
>> The founder of the trepanation movement is a Dutch savant, Dr.
>> Bart Hughes. In 1962 he made a discovery which his followers
>> proclaim as the most significant in modern times. One's state
>> and degree of consciousness, he realized, are related to the
>> volume of blood in the brain. According to his theory of evolution,
>> the adoption of an upright stance brought certain benefits to the
>> human race, but it caused the flow of blood through the head to be
>> limited by gravity, thus reducing the range of human consciousness.
>> Certain parts of the brain ceased or reduced their functions while
>> others, particularly those parts relating to speech and reasoning,
>> became emphasized in compensation. One can redress the balance by
>> a number of methods, such as standing on one's head, jumping from
>> a hot bath into a cold one, or the use of drugs; but the wider
>> consciousness thus obtained is only temporary. Bart Hughes shared
>> the common goal of mystics and poets in all ages: he wanted to
>> achieve permanently the higher level of vision, which he associated
>> with an increased volume of blood in the capillaries of the brain.
>>
>> The higher state of mind he sought was that of childhood. Babies
>> are born with skulls unsealed, and it is not until one is an adult
>> that the bony carapace is formed which completely encloses the
>> membranes surrounding the brain and inhibits their pulsations in
>> response to heartbeats. In consequence, the adult loses touch with
>> the dreams, imagination and intense perceptions of the child. His
>> mental balance becomes upset by egoism and neuroses. To cure these
>> problems, first in himself and then for the whole world, Dr. Hughes
>> returned his cranium to something like the condition of infancy by
>> cutting out a small disc of bone with an electric drill.
>> Experiencing immediate beneficial effects from this operation, he
>> began preaching to anyone who would listen to the doctrine of
>> trepanation. By liberating his brain from its total imprisonment
>> in his skull, he claimed to have restored its pulsations, increased
>> the volume of blood in it and acquired a more complete, satisfying
>> state of consciousness than grown-up people normally enjoy. The
>> medical and legal authorities reacted to Hughes's discovery with
>> horror and rewarded him with a spell in a Dutch lunatic asylum.
>>
>> Joseph Mellen met Bart Hughes in 1965 in Ibiza and quickly became
>> his leading, or rather one and only, disciple. Years later he wrote
>> a book called _Bore Hole_, the contents of which are summarized in
>> its opening sentence: 'This is the story of how I came to drill a
>> hole in my skull to get permanently high.' . . . (a few paragraphs
>> detail Joseph Mellen's early experiments with LSD, and how he finds
>> out about Bart Hughes.) The time came when Joey felt he had preached
>> enough and that he now had to act. He did not agree with
>> Holingshead that the third eye was merely a figure of speech,
>> believing in its physical attainment through self-trepanation.
>> Support for this can be found in archaeology. Skulls of ancient
>> people all over the world give evidence that their owners were skill
>> fully trepanned during their lifetimes, and many of these appear to
>> have been of noble or priestly castes. The medical practice of
>> trepanation was continued up to the present century in treatment of
>> madness, the hole in the skull being seen as a way of relieving
>> pressure on the brain or letting out the devils that possessed it.
>> By his scientific explanation of the reasons for the operation, Bart
>> Hughes had removed it from the area of superstition, and Joey Mellen
>> proposed to be the second person to perform it on himself in the
>> interest of enlightenment.
>>
>> Bart had become a close friend of Amanda Fielding, and they went
>> off to Amsterdam together while Joey took care of Amanda's flat.
>> This was the opportunity he had been waiting for to bore a hole in
>> his head.
>>
>> The most gripping passages in _Bore Hole_ describe his various
>> attempts to complete the operation. They are also extremely gruesome,
>> and those who lack medical curiosity would do well to read no further.
>> Yet to those who might contemplate trepanation for and by themselves,
>> Joey's experiences are a salutary warning. It should be emphasized
>> that neither he, Bart nor Amanda has ever recommended people to
>> follow their example by performing their own operations. For years
>> they have been looking for doctors who would understand their theories
>> and would agree to trepan volunteer patients as a form of therapy.
>> Strangely enough, not one member of the medical profession has been
>> converted.
>>
>> In a surgical store Joey found a trepan instrument, a kind of auger
>> or cork-screw designed to be worked by hand. It was much cheaper and,
>> Joey felt, more sensitive than an electric drill. Its main feature was
>> a metal spike, surrounded by a ring of saw-teeth. The spike was meant
>> to be driven into the skull, holding the trepan steady until the
>> revolving saw made a groove, after which it could be retracted. If all
>> went well, the saw-band should remove a disc of bone and expose the
>> brain.
>>
>> Joey's first attempt at self-trepanation was a fiasco. He had no prev-
>> ious medical experience, and the needles he had bought for administering
>> a local anesthetic to the crown of his head proved to be too thin and
>> crumpled up or broke. Next day he obtained some stouter needles, took
>> a tab of LSD to steady his nerves and set to in earnest. First he made
>> an incision to the bone, and then applied the trepan to his bared skull.
>> But the first part of the operation, driving the spike into the bone,
>> was impossible to accomplish.
>>
>> Joey described it as like trying to uncork a bottle from the inside.
>> He realized he needed help and telephoned Bart in Amsterdam, who
>> promised he would come over and assist at the next operation. This
>> plan was frustrated by the Home Office, which listed Dr. Hughes as an
>> undesirable visitor to Britain and barred his entry.
>>
>> Amanda agreed to take his place. Soon after her return to London she
>> helped Joey reopen the wound in his head and, by pressing the trepan
>> with all her might against his skull, managed to get the spike to take
>> hold and the saw-teeth to bite. Joey then took over at cranking the
>> saw. Once again he had swallowed some LSD. After a long period of
>> sawing, just as he was about to break through, he suddenly fainted.
>> Amanda called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital, where horrified
>> doctors told him that he was lucky to be alive and that if he had
>> drilled a fraction of an inch further he would have killed himself.
>>
>> The psychiatrists took a particular interest in his case, and a group
>> of them arranged to examine him. Before this could be done, he had to
>> appear in court on a charge of possessing a small amount of cannabis.
>> The magistrate demanded another psychiatrist's report and demanded him
>> for a week in prison.
>>
>> There followed a period of embarrassment as the rumor went round
>> London that Joey Mellen had trepanned himself, whereas in fact he had
>> failed to do so. As soon as possible, therefore, he prepared for a third
>> attempt.
>>
>> Proceeding as before, but now with the benefit of experience, he soon
>> found the groove from the previous operation and began to saw through
>> the sliver of bone separating him from enlightenment or, as the doctors
>> had predicted, instant death. What followed is best quoted from _Bore
>> Hole_.
>>
>> 'After some time there was an ominous sounding schlurp and the sound
>> of bubbling. I drew the trepan out and the gurgling continued. It
>> sounded like air bubbles running under the skull as they were pressed
>> out. I looked at the trepan and there was a bit of bone in it. At
>> last! On closer inspection I saw that the disc of bone was much deeper
>> on one side than on the other. Obviously the trepan had not been
>> straight and had gone through at one point only, then the piece of bone
>> had snapped off and come out. I was reluctant to start drilling again
>> for fear of damaging the brain membranes with the deeper part while I
>> was cutting through the rest or of breaking off a splinter. If only I
>> had an electric drill it would have been so much simpler. Amanda was
>> sure I was through. There seemed no other explanation for the
>> schlurping noises I decided to call it a day. At the time I thought
>> that any hole would do, no matter what size. I bandaged up my head and
>> cleared away the mess.' There was still doubt in his mind as to whether
>> he had really broken through and, if so, whether the hole was big enough
>> to restore pulsation to his brain. The operation had left him with a
>> feeling of wellbeing, but he realized that it could simply be from
>> relief at having ended it. To put the matter beyond doubt, he decided
>> to bore another hole at a new spot just above the hairline, this time
>> using an electric drill. In the spring of 1970, Amanda was in America
>> and Joey did the operation alone. He applied the drill to his forehead,
>> but after half and hour's work the electric cable burnt out. Once again
>> he was frustrated. An engineer in the flat below him was able to repair
>> the instrument and next day he set out to finish the job. 'This time I
>> was not in any doubt. The drill head went at least an inch deep through
>> the hole. A great gush of blood followed my withdrawal of the drill. In
>> the mirror I could see the blood in the hole rising and falling with the
>> pulsation of the brain.'
>>
>> The result was all he had hoped for. During the next four hours he
>> felt his spirits rising higher until he reached a state of freedom and
>> serenity which he claims, has been with him ever since. For some time
>> now he had been sharing a flat with Amanda, and when she came back from
>> America she immediately noticed the change in him. This encouraged her
>> to join him on the mental plane by doing her own trepanation. The
>> operation was carefully recorded. She had obtained a cine-camera, and
>> Joey stood by, filming, as she attacked her head with an electric drill.
>> The film shows her carefully at work, dressed in a blood-spattered white
>> robe. She shaves her head, makes an incision in her head with a scalpel
>> and calmly starts drilling. Blood spurts as she penetrates the skull.
>> She lays aside the drill and with a triumphant smile advances towards
>> Joey and the camera.
>>
>> Ever since, Joey and Amanda have lived and worked together in
>> harmony. From the business of buying old prints to color and resell,
>> they have progressed to ownership of the Pigeonhole Gallery and seem
>> reasonably prosperous. They have also started a family. There is
>> nothing apparently abnormal about them, and many of their old friends
>> agree in finding them even more pleasant and contented since their
>> operations. There is plenty of leisure in their lives, mingled with the
>> kind of activities they most enjoy. These of course include talking and
>> writing about trepanation. They have lectured widely in Europe and
>> America to groups of doctors and other interested people, showing the
>> film of Amanda's self-operation, entitled _Heartbeat in the Brain_. It
>> is generally received with awe, the sight of blood often causing people
>> to faint. At one showing in London a film critic described the audience
>> 'dropping off their seats one by one like ripe plums'. Yet it was not
>> designed to be gruesome. The soundtrack is of soothing music, and the
>> surgical scenes alternate with some delightful motion studies of
>> Amanda's pet pigeon, Birdie, as a symbol of peace and wisdom."
>
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