A Precis: "On Coincidence" and "Immortality"

Burroughs argues, in both essays, for the abandonment of the "dead dogma" of religion in favor of dreamful and artistic space exploration.
There is a social commentary to both essays, seemingly both heartfelt and, at least at times, sardonic or wry. In "On Coincidence," religion and to some degree academia (philosophy, sociology, and psychology, in particular) are under fire. "Immortality" remarks mostly upon scientific/medicinal ethics, capitalism, and, briefly, Christianity. Citations array from Korzybski's classroom to The Methusala Enzyme, from Plato's Republic to The Boulder Camera. Burroughs tampers with his citations, substituting words within quotes ("wrong" for "long", for example) and rewriting entire scenes or plots. His own writing, plot lines, metaphors, and citations cut into each other and clash without compromise.

“On Coincidence”:
Observes that characterizing the unexpected or hard to explain as coincidence is comforting. Coincidence adamantly relies on faith.
"All thinking is wishful."
Characterizations of truth are also volatile, but they vitalize statements.
Christ spoke the truth of "the non-dominant brain hemisphere."
Julian Jaynes: The voice of a priest-king was heard by all subjects until 1000 B.C.
Science induces voices through electrostimulation.
Arthur C. Clarke: Religious origins of language, absoluteness and the definite article
Korzybski: We are still in a "platonic cave."
Scientific truths: Impossibilities validated by "the human nervous system that made and recorded the measurements," black holes beyond the scope of truths and certainty
Magical truth: Will as reigning force, the Company's magic push or pull, "lightning usually strikes more than once in the same place," the "synchronicity" of daily life
A lesson in magical truth: "Your surroundings are your surroundings. They relate to you."
Creativity as prefatory space exploration, "leave the Word-God behind."

“Immortality”:
A fitful scenario of science fiction tangled in science fact. The facts are organ transplant, cloning, and the organ trafficking that actually takes place under regulation and in the black market; the fiction is a caricatural portrait of these facts, a grisly system of immortality.
"Mr. Rich Parts" is, at first, a horrible quilt of replaced body parts. Then transplant methodology is inverted, bodies are left intact, egos are taken out and inserted into new ones.
Morality is capitalism: the successful are right; the poor, the dead are wrong.
Mentase: the youth enzyme, stolen from the young to give to the old, without the enzyme the young age rapidly, a vampiric Mentase addiction results.
Egos are "helpful little visitors," the ego is a defensive reaction and a fallacy.
"Take fifty photos of the same person over an hour."
Cloning: "the end of the ego," human as artifact
"'The thought of human non-selfness is terrifying!'"
David Rorvik: Max and Dr. Darwin popping clones
The future is "increased flexibility, capacity for change and ultimately, mutation."
Dreams: a warm-blooded necessity, sexual, travel in time, "train the being for future conditions," art as waking life correlate.
"The human artifact is biologically designed for space travel."