ven if recovery was complete, was an msu- MENTAT ORGANIZATION 382 MENTAT ORGANIZATION perable impediment to progress to higher rank Recuperated fifth and sixth rank Mentats were reduced to appropriate junior levels Mentats were often haunted by fear of freezing, particularly those who labored alone, far from the protective support of the Order House or other senior Mentats Self-doubt attacked the solitary Mental with greater speed and force, and buyers were advsed to pro tect their investment bj abstaining from chrome criticism of their Mentats Several cases are known of Houses trying to freeze a rival s Mentat by feeding false data to undermine his confidence in his data base A dangerous strategy for avoiding self doubt was reliance on absolutes Mentats naturally preferred known parameters to help establish the limits of inference, and abso lutes could increase accuracy by reducing alternatives Besides lending a feeling of self-assurance, absolutes appealed to Mentals as shortcuts But the abuse of absolutes was easy and often unnoticed-hypotheses overlooked, options unexplored, fallacious infer ences based on wrong assumptions Playt vigorously countered overdependence on absolutes through exercises m conceived reah ty with radical differences, e g , a city without laws, tools designed for feet rather than hands, or a community without division of labor Such mental gymnastics promoted an awareness of the role of unconscious assumptions and absolutes in Mental thinking Sapho Addiction Addiction to Sapho, an energizing liquid extracted from Ecaz plants, was a trap to which S inflationists both in training and m the field were most susceptible Although Sapho amplified specu lation and extrapolation, it subjected its users to unpredictable outbursts of emotion or long periods of passivity The Mentat addict's teth argy led him to neglect the constant updating of information upon which his accuracy depended A measurable fallmg-off in reliability was a better indicator of Sapho addic Uon than its physical signs-rub) colored hps, a reddening of the skin-which could be concealed Rehabilitation was possible, but relapses into the habit were frequent Rhajia For Mentats Rhajia was the song of the sirens It was the total immersion of the Mentat in the inferential consciousness and even Albans and Playt usually so like minded disagreed on its nature Playt called it the Movement of Infinity, and regarded it as the final stage of the Order, a breaking of the chains of servitude to practicality but Albans thought it a death trap only 30 per cent of mentals who entered rhajia re awakened the other 70 percent became comatose and died Those surviving reported either no memories whatsoever or the most richly satisfying intellectual expenence of their lives Rumor had it that older Mentals near death would seek rhajia as the most pleasant passing a human could be blessed with Verbal Dependence Although not strict !y a dysfunction verbal depen