Science Can Be Perverted!

   It appears that The Prisoner, during his former life, believed in Doctor Jacob Seltzman and his mind transference experiments. It might well be that he understood the medical application such a technique would have, under certain conditions of course. So much so, that ZM73 took it upon himself to lose Professor Seltzman to both sides. It may never have crossed his mind that one day that very same mind transference would be used on him. Such was the desire for either side, indeed both sides, to find Professor Seltzman. And seeing as ZM73 was the last person to see Professor Seltzman…………
    Number 2 explained to the Colonel in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ about how the mind transference works, commencing with the Amnesia room.
    “We call this our amnesia room, rather proud of it. With it we can erase the memory to any point in time we choose. This man you see was extremely co-operative, he told all we wanted to know in three days, with hardly any persuasion. So now we wipe out any unhappy memories of The Village, then put him back into circulation to gather more information. And this is the Seltzman machine, let me give you a dummy run.”
    You see it’s as Number 6 said, oh no not him the other one, “The trouble with science is, it can be perverted.” And all in the name of information gathering. And what makes information so important? Information is power!
   That’s why ZM73 was so keen to keep Professor Seltzman’s whereabouts a secret. He didn’t want either side getting their hands on a Seltzman machine. And yet they were able to obtain one anyway! It’s a little like the way Bo-Peep described at his trial, how the Prisoner had obtained a radio in ‘Dance of The Dead.’ “He had no radio of his own, there’s no radio he could have borrowed, so when acquiring one…….”
   I know in the end Number 6 was pleased with himself that Professor Seltzman had managed to escape The Village in a body perhaps not to his liking, the Colonels, and that he was then free to conduct his experiments in peace. But The Village administration still had a Seltzman machine, and were also in possession of the reversal process, even though they didn’t seem to be aware of it. So they were able to carry on with their need to acquire more and more information, from any source they desire, even to the point of breaking the security of any nation of their choosing.

Be seeing you