IV.  The Remaking’s ‘HEALING FIREWORKS’ as summed up by 'fireworks' pundits in eight famous examples (51-58) they claimed to have found embedded in mj lorenzo’s famous Remaking trip itself

51.  an utterly drastic and immediate, previously-unplanned, total change of life style

Mj lorenzo, as ‘fireworks pundits’ claimed with increasing confidence and vocal and writing volume over the years, demonstrated again and again in his Remaking book that to accomplish a major attitude change of the magnitude needed by Mortimer Lorenzo (and by Mortimer more than anyone else in the world, perhaps), shocking ‘FIREWORKS’ of all kinds had been most necessary. By the time his year-long ordeal was over, said they, Mortimer had been subjected to a ‘soul-blitzing array of drastic measures’. And it was impossible to argue, they maintained with furious obstinacy, that his Remaking treatment ever could have come off with such complete success, had every last one of these eight ‘extreme healing fireworks’ not been used.

Several of the very most extreme fireworks, however, like lightning electrocution, the fireworks experts did not recommend for 'general consumption' or ‘general psychotherapeutic practice’; of course; since they had been extremely dangerous -- and massive -- interventions. But no knowledgeable follower of mj lorenzo could be found from the Pacific to the Atlantic, going in either direction, who regretted that any one of these extreme interventions had been resorted to, in the rare and special case of their hero.

Mj lorenzo’s eight ‘extreme healing fireworks’, they said, had included an utterly drastic and immediate, previously-unplanned, total change of life style, including the designing of a revolutionary and very individualized year-long self-treatment program aimed at complete restructuring of personality. In mj’s case this was his ‘remaking’ year, the whole year that constituted the Remaking Cure trip. And within that year, more specifically, had been included additionally the seven kinds of 'healing fireworks' which follow:

52.  electrocution by lightning, or ‘nature’s shock therapy’

That was how Dr. Lorenzo enjoyed referring to it through the years: 'nature's shock therapy'; and, scientifically speaking, its value lay, he would say, in ‘disrupting neuronal circuitry from previously inescapable ruts’, though this was a type of ‘healilng fireworks’ he could not recommend for others in general, since lightning ‘killed too many of its subjects’.

53.  total temporary erasure of grey matter intellect

Intellect was the source of the repetitive self-defeating thinking that had caused and kept feeding depression. In other words, ‘unnatural’ intellect had created the need for major attitude change in the first place. But erasure of intellect was a fireworks ‘treatment method not recommended for others’ either, due to its presumed dangerousness and a lack of clinical knowledge as to how to bring it about deliberately in a controlled clinical setting. Erasure of mj’s intellect had occurred fortuitously after a combination of traumatic physical events and no one knew exactly how to reproduce such a thing in other people.

54.  exhortative sermons or sermon-like rants

These could be either in person or on the page; and they resembled in style and format the type which the subject, Mortimer Lorenzo, had grown up on. Except that: such performances, for him, now had to be revolutionary in content and punctuated with shocking comic book expletives or street fight shouts. The shocking juxtaposition of elements, once again, was intended to disrupt unhealthy brain circuits. The shouting was not appropriate for a 1970 Methodist church service in the U.S.A. but once an appropriate treatment venue was found, this intervention could easily be recommended and re-designed in individualized ways so as to be useful for helping other Mortimers around the world.

55.  threats of death and/or physical violence combined with messages of love

Recommendable in mj’s case not because this emotionally brutal approach was a little kindlier than electroshock therapy, but because such a ‘mind-blowing combination of contradictory messages’, again – hopefully – might help shock the nervous system out of its habitual ‘sick’ electrochemical grooves into brand new channels that might be more workable, mouldable, malleable, practicable and alive. Use of such an extreme form of ‘tough love’ in general had to be weighed very carefully, however, since in many situations it might violate laws, constitutions, peace conventions, humanitarian rights and so forth, not to mention religious and moral tenets. Therefore, recommending it for anyone other than mj lorenzo, to practice on himself, became a ‘sticky wicket’, as the ‘healing fireworks’ Remaking punditry school cautioned.

56.  drastic and extreme sexual imagery causing visual and emotional shock

Such as that which Jack would offer Mortimer during the winter starting at Fort Smith. Useful because: such shocking imagery blasted Mortimer’s nervous system in a variety of electrochemical ways all at once that together might potentially help him out of his depressive-thinking rut. But again, recommending such an extreme measure for anyone else’s therapy but one’s own had to be a very, very ‘slippery wicked’, as the fireworks pundits punned (a bit facetiously).

In general, all fireworks no matter how seemingly mild had to be very carefully and delicately designed and attuned to the given individual. In mj lorenzo's case, they had been dictated by the intuition and instinct of Jack, who, fortunately, proved himself over time to be an astutely canny Remaking executor, i.e., therapy designer.

57.  actual physical roughness or even violence

In various imaginative but not deliberately cruel forms, in order to rearrange or realign nervous system molecules, and especially the human body's electrochemical ions – whether positively or negatively charged, whether inside or outside of human animal body tissue cells – into healthier and more natural patterns. The aim and hope being: to jive ALL of the mind-body’s electricity with the earth’s lines of force, let’s say, or with the force of another natural-animal-healthy person, or with the healthy intuitive Jack-part of one’s own personality makeup, meaning, in short, with persons and makeups already properly aligned with nature, especially the earth’s lines of force. Caring passionate sex often served here too, as The Remaking would come to show it did Mortimer when he got to Ft. Chipewyan. Or: in the case of the public at large, a punch in the face between two boys. Whereas in general, all-out war belonged at the very bottom of the list of acceptable forms of physical roughness or violence, a list which could be imagined to be quite long, fortunately, since there were so many ways (short of war) to shake a person up physically, i.e., electro-chemically, even so many nice ways, loving sex being only one example of the nice ones (and sex always had to be voluntary on both sides). But again, pushing such caring roughness and/or violence on anyone other than one’s own self was a ‘whippet sticker’ (as the pun ditzies kidded). It had to be considered very circumspectly before it could be proposed at all for recommendation to others as a kind of psychic healing therapy.

58.  drastic-attitude-change date-fixings

Tied into anticipated drastic events occurring in nature or elsewhere, for the purpose of creating future mental shock points – such as northern Canada’s highly dramatic ‘spring Break-Up’¹– around which to construct a group of planned drastic life changes that might hopefully disrupt nervous system circuits. This kind of therapeutic firework could easily be recommended for anyone needing to be shaken loose from a sick groove.

And potentially there were many others as well. What about the winter solstice? Or either of the equinoxes? Certain Mesoamerican peoples used planetary alignment to set a time for planting in the spring, planting being a change in behavior and attitude for the whole people. And the ancient Hebrews (and modern Jews) used (and still use) a certain meticulously defined spring lunar phase to set a time for celebrating the Passover each year, another attitude and behavior change intended for a whole people, not just for one individual; and a traditional date-fixing which explains why the modern Christian holiday of Easter has a different date from year to year. And Easter, similarly, is designed to be an attitude- and behavior-changer for a whole people, not just one person; just as Christmas is; or Ramadan.

But in a similar way, an individual could set a date or name a holiday upon which their own personal life would change, and could define the changes that were going to be made. Many people have made New Year's resolutions, of course, but then have broken them when no one was looking. For this reason, it worked better for Mortimer that his Spring Break-Up date-fixing, as we shall see, was tied to another person's behavior and attitude change, Dlune's: they were going to make a major change together, like getting married and going on a honeymoon trip up the Peace River. Dlune was less likely than Mortimer to renege on that resolution; and that fact along with other planned major reallocations of energy would help Mortimer stick to the drastic-attitude-change, when the time came for it at spring Break-Up.

¹  The date-fixing which established a connection between northern Canada’s spring break-up and mj lorenzo’s own anticipated personal Break-Up, and the result of that date-fixing,  is described at the end of Part II and beginning of Part III of The Remaking. The date-fixing is first announced in the Cryptic Triptique which Mortimer writes down in early November and sends off to his parents later, in his Fort Smith papers (section I, subsection 80).