NOTE: This is the working version of my childhood self-study, covering approximately my first twenty-three months. By “working version” I mean it is a kind of workbook, unabridged and unpolished – a gathering together of my and my mother’s memories, my analyses, hypotheses, and theories, and other pertinent information regarding my unusual early development.
At present, I do not know how much of this working version should and can be included in a published version, although I do see some value in publishing it in its workbook form, because the way my mind functions is the very subject of this study, and how I go about the study itself, how I build the structure of the study and restate and integrate and refine, may be of interest, as a further window into the mind that this study is about. In that sense, publishing as is would carry the theme of the study into the form of the book. On the other hand, the information may be easier for the reader to assim¬ilate if it is somewhat reorganized and trimmed. The economics of publishing may also require a trimmed version.
Whatever approach is taken on publication, people’s real names have been used in this private version of my study, but I do not want these to be published, as this would violate the privacy of many unsuspecting persons who may not want to appear in a book for whatever reason. I see no purpose in publishing the real names. Yet I do want those names to be written in this private volume to make a fully accurate record. On one hand, I do not know what will become of a published version of this work – whether it will become widely enough read to get tabloid atten¬tion, for example, and be subjected to the distortions of half-baked research as the seekers after the sensational hunt down the people mentioned in my books. I know that my claims may have great appeal to sensationalists, but that the careful observations of interrelationships would not. Sensationalists don’t cater to the kind of audience that cares to think as carefully about things as my work requires. I might have to put up with a tabloid sideshow regardless of any precautions I take, but I think I should spare the unsuspecting participants in my book any contact with the cheaper creatures of the press. Also, especially from volume II on up, I will express negative perceptions of certain people which I do not want to stick them with in public. These were my perceptions and evaluations as a young child of these people, and it would be cruel and pointless to subject them publicly to those evaluations now. Such little things can be harmful to someone if he or she is going through a very bad and trying time in life. I don’t want to drop the last straw on anyone.
On the other hand, I am writing what will be, to almost everyone, a controversial work, and one that I consider to be important. And I do not like the idea of hiding
anything from those who are serious about understanding and evaluating what I have to say. I don’t know what the knowledge contexts of the interested parties will be, and therefore, I cannot predict every single question that will arise or what facts from my background will be helpful as leads to answering those questions. It may be that knowing the real names would in no case be relevant to hunting down some verifying information or other, but the names are facts from my life, and I’m not going to try to guess whether leaving them out will make an inconvenience to some careful, serious researcher who may find a good reason to track down a real person, in person or on record. Such a researcher would also give pseudonyms in place of real names in a published work, unless given permission to use the real ones, and would be unlikely to harass a person who declined to be inter¬viewed. And the serious researcher would be more likely to be fair and give more thought to his conclusions than someone writing for the purpose of sensationalism.
The general reading public does not need to know the real names of the real people in my book, but by writing the real names in the private version I can easily make them available to researchers who wish to check records or make other checks on my information. The published version will make potentially interested professionals aware of my work, and on contacting me they can then read the more comprehensive private version. Thus the comprehensive version exists and is available to those who have an honorable, serious purpose.
I realize that this is not an absolutely safe method of protecting privacy, but I’m not going to close off all access to the private names in my history, as if I’ve got something to cover up, just so I can seal off all possible access by the underbelly of today’s journalism. My attempt to record the whole truth and nothing but the truth will exist in my private volumes, and I will make it available to those I judge to be honorable. You are only welcome to read this private version if you promise not to reveal the real names it contains to anyone that I have not authorized to read it. That is the agreement I require for someone to read this private, unpublished version of my study.