DIACYBERSEMNETIMANTICS

from Fancyclopedia 2

The most universal psychological cure-all in humanity's spiritual pharmacopeias. Theobald Mackerel introduced it at the Norwescon as a takeoff on Cybernetics, General Semantics, and Dianetics, the latter just introduced to a staggered fandom earlier that year. Mackerel displayed a Chaotic Inferential at the con; it was seven feet tall, and consisted of a life-sized figure nailed by wrists and feet to an ankh (made of two beams and an automobile tire). The figure was draped in a white sheet and crowned with a wreath of blackberry vines. It was a therapeutic object, the inventor explained; by hanging various objects (a shoe, a whiskey bottle, a female leg [plaster], a wooden rifle) on one arm of the figure and signs (Sex, Free Enterprise, National Defense) on the other, the visualizer could abstract at various levels and thereby transfer his sins to the Chaotic Inferential. Dianetics was ranked as "a discovery equal to that of fire" by L Ron Hubbard, but Mackerel concluded that Diacybersemnetimantics was more important to the human race than fire.