Law 31 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 31
CONTROL THE OPTIONS: GET OTHERS TO PLAY WITH THE CARDS YOU DEAL
JUDGMENT
The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose. Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of a dilemma: They are gored
wherever they turn.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW I
From early in his reign, Ivan IV, later known as Ivan the Terrible, had to confront an unpleasant reality: The country desperately needed reform, but he lacked the power to push it through. The greatest limit to his authority came from the boyars, the Russian princely class that dominated the country and terrorized the peasantry.
In 1553, at the age of twenty-three, Ivan fell ill. Lying in bed, nearing death, he asked the boyars to swear allegiance to his son as the new czar. Some hesitated, some even refused. Then and there Ivan saw he had no power over the boyars. He recovered from his illness, but he never forgot the lesson: The boyars were out to destroy him. And indeed in the years to come, many of the most powerful of them defected to Russia’s main enemies, Poland and Lithuania, where they plotted their return and the
overthrow of the czar. Even one of Ivan’s closest friends, Prince Andrey Kurbski, suddenly turned against him, defecting to Lithuania in 1564, and becoming the strongest of Ivan’s enemies.
When Kurbski began raising troops for an invasion, the royal dynasty seemed suddenly more precarious than ever. With émigré nobles fomenting invasion from the west, Tartars bearing down from the east, and the boyars stirring up trouble within the country, Russia’s vast size made it a nightmare to defend.
In whatever direction Ivan struck, he would leave himself
vulnerable on the other side. Only if he had absolute power could he deal with this many-headed Hydra. And he had no such power.
Ivan brooded until the morning of December 3, 1564, when the citizens of Moscow awoke to a strange sight. Hundreds of sleds filled the square before the Kremlin, loaded with the czar’s treasures and with provisions for the entire court. They watched in disbelief as the czar and his court boarded the sleds and left town. Without explaining why, he established himself in a
village south of Moscow. For an entire month a kind of terror gripped the capital, for the Muscovites feared that Ivan had abandoned them to the bloodthirsty boyars. Shops closed up and riotous mobs gathered daily.
Finally, on January 3 of 1565, a letter arrived from the czar, explaining that he could no longer bear the boyars’ betrayals and had decided to abdicate once and for all.
The German Chancellor Bismarck, enraged at the constant criticisms from Rudolf Virchow (the German pathologist and liberal politician), had his seconds call upon the scientist to challenge him to a duel.
“As the challenged party, I have the choice of weapons,” said Virchow,
“and I choose these.” He held aloft two large and apparently identical sausages.
“One of these,” he went on,
“is infected with deadly germs; the orher is perfectly sound. Let His Excellency decide which one he wishes to eat, and I will eat the other.”
Almost immediately the message came back that the chancellor had decided to cancel the duel.
THE LITTLE BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES, CLIFTON FADIMAN,
ED., 1985
Read aloud in public, the letter had a startling effect: Merchants and commoners blamed the boyars for Ivan’s decision, and took to the streets, terrifying the nobility with their fury. Soon a group of delegates representing the church, the princes, and the people made the journey to Ivan’s village, and begged the czar, in the name of the holy land of Russia, to return to the throne. Ivan listened but would not change his mind. After days of hearing their pleas, however, he offered his subjects a choice: Either they grant him absolute powers to govern as he pleased, with no
interference from the boyars, or they find a new leader. Faced with a choice between civil war and the acceptance of despotic
power, almost every sector of Russian society “opted” for a strong czar, calling for Ivan’s return to Moscow and the restoration of law and order.
In February, with much celebration, Ivan returned to Moscow. The Russians could no longer complain if he behaved dictatorially—they had given him this power themselves.
Interpretation
Ivan the Terrible faced a terrible dilemma: To give in to the boyars would lead to certain destruction, but civil war would bring a different kind of ruin. Even if Ivan came out of such a war on top, the country would be devastated and its divisions would be stronger than ever. His weapon of choice in the past had been to make a bold, offensive move. Now, however, that kind of move would turn against him—the more boldly he confronted his enemies, the worse the reactions he would spark.
The main weakness of a show of force is that it stirs up resentment and eventually leads to a response that eats at your authority. Ivan, immensely creative in the use of power, saw clearly that the only path to the kind of victory he wanted was a false withdrawal. He would not force the country over to his position, he would give it “options”: either his abdication, and
certain anarchy, or his accession to absolute power. To back up his move, he made it clear that he preferred to abdicate:
“Call my bluff,” he said,
“and watch what happens.” No one called his bluff. By withdrawing for just a month, he showed the country a glimpse of the nightmares that would follow his abdication—Tartar invasions, civil war, ruin. (All of these did eventually come to pass after Ivan’s death, in the infamous “Time of the Troubles.”)
Withdrawal and disappearance are classic ways of controlling the
options. You give people a sense of how things will fall apart without you, and you offer them a “choice”: I stay away and you suffer the consequences, or I return under circumstances that I dictate. In this method of controlling people’s options, they choose the option that gives you power
because the alternative is just too unpleasant. You force their hand, but indirectly: They seem to have a choice. Whenever people feel they have a choice, they walk into your trap that much more easily.
THE LIAR
Once upon a time there was a king of Armenia, who, being of a curious turn of mind and in need of some new diversion, sent his heralds throughout the land to make the following proclamation: “Hear this! Whatever man among you can prove himself the most outrageous liar in Armenia shall receive an apple made of pure gold from the hands of His Majesty the King!” People began to swarm to the palace from every town and hamlet in the country,
people of all ranks and conditions, princes, merchants, farmers, priests, rich and poor, tall and short, fat and thin. There was no lack of liars in the land, and each one told his tale to the king. A ruler, however, has heard practically every sort of lie, and none of those now told him convinced the king that he had listened to the best of them. The king was beginning to grow tired of his new sport and was thinking of calling the whole contest off without declaring a winner, when there appeared before him a poor, ragged man, carrying a large earthenware pitcher under his arm. “What can I do for you?” asked His Majesty.
“Sire!” said the poor man, slightly bewildered.
“Surely you remember? You owe me a pot of gold, and I have
come to collect it.” “You are a perfect liar, sir!’ exclaimed the king “I owe you no money” “A perfect liar, am I?” said the poor man. “Then give me the golden apple!” The king, realizing that the man was trying to trick him, started to hedge.
”No. no! You are not a liar!” ”Then give me the pot of gold you owe me, sire.” said the man.
The king saw the dilemma, He handed over the golden apple.
ARMENIAN FOLK-TALES AND FABLES, RETOLD BY CHARLES
DOWNING, 1993
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW II
As a seventeenth-century French courtesan, Ninon de Lenclos found that her life had certain pleasures. Her lovers came from royalty and aristocracy, and they paid her well, entertained her with their wit and intellect, satisfied her rather demanding sensual needs, and treated her almost as an equal.
Such a life was infinitely preferable to marriage. In 1643, however, Ninon’s mother died suddenly, leaving her, at the age of twenty-three, totally alone in the world—no family, no dowry, nothing to fall back upon. A kind of panic overtook her and she entered a convent, turning her back on her illustrious lovers. A year later she left the convent and moved to Lyons. When she finally reappeared in Paris, in 1648, lovers and suitors flocked to
her door in greater numbers than ever before, for she was the wittiest and most spirited courtesan of the time and her presence had been greatly missed.
Ninon’s followers quickly discovered, however, that she had changed her old way of doing things, and had set up a new system of options. The dukes, seigneurs, and princes who wanted to pay for her services could continue to do so, but they were no longer in control—she would sleep with them when she wanted, according to her whim. All their money bought them was a
possibility. If it was her pleasure to sleep with them only once a month, so be it. Those who did not want to be what Ninon called a payeur could join the large and growing group of men she called her martyrs—men who visited her apartment principally for her friendship, her biting wit, her lute-playing, and the company of the most vibrant minds of the period, including Molière, La Rochefoucauld, and Saint-Évremond. The martyrs, too, however, entertained a possibility: She would regularly select from them a
favori, a man who would become her lover without having to pay, and to whom she would abandon herself completely for as long as she so desired —a week, a few months, rarely longer. A payeur could not become a favori, but a martyr had no guarantee of becoming one, and indeed could remain disappointed for an entire lifetime. The poet Charleval, for example, never enjoyed Ninon’s favors, but never stopped coming to visit—he did not want to do without her company.
As word of this system reached polite French society, Ninon became the object of intense hostility. Her reversal of the position of the courtesan scandalized the queen mother and her court. Much to their horror, however, it did not discourage her male suitors—indeed it only increased their numbers and intensified their desire. It became an honor to be a payeur,
helping Ninon to maintain her lifestyle and her glittering salon,
accompanying her sometimes to the theater, and sleeping with her when she chose. Even more distinguished were the martyrs, enjoying her company without paying for it and maintaining the hope, however remote, of some day becoming her favori. That possibility spurred on many a young nobleman, as word spread that none among the courtesans could surpass Ninon in the art of love. And so the married and the single, the old and the young, entered her web and chose one of the two options presented to them, both of which amply satisfied her.
Interpretation
The life of the courtesan entailed the possibility of a power that was denied a married woman, but it also had obvious perils. The man who paid for the courtesan’s services in essence owned her, determining when he could possess her and when, later on, he would abandon her. As she grew older, her options narrowed, as fewer men chose her. To avoid a life of poverty she had to amass her fortune while she was young. The courtesan’s legendary greed, then, reflected a practical necessity, yet also lessened her
allure, since the illusion of being desired is important to men, who are often alienated if their partner is too interested in their money. As the courtesan aged, then, she faced a most difficult fate. Ninon de Lenclos had a horror of any kind of dependence. She early on tasted a kind of equality with her lovers, and she would not settle into a system that left her such distasteful options. Strangely enough, the system she devised in its place seemed to satisfy her suitors as much as it did her. The payeurs may have had to pay, but the fact that Ninon would only sleep
with them when she wanted to gave them a thrill unavailable with every other courtesan: She was yielding out of her own desire. The martyrs’ avoidance of the taint of having to pay gave them a sense of superiority; as members of Ninon’s fraternity of admirers, they also might some day experience the ultimate pleasure of being her favori. Finally, Ninon did not force her suitors into either category. They could “choose” which side they
preferred—a freedom that left them a vestige of masculine pride.
Such is the power of giving people a choice, or rather the illusion of one, for they are playing with cards you have dealt them. Where the alternatives set up by Ivan the Terrible involved a certain risk—one option would have led to his losing his power—Ninon created a situation in which every option redounded to her favor. From the payeurs she received the money she needed to run her salon. And from the martyrs she gained the ultimate in
power: She could surround herself with a bevy of admirers, a harem from which to choose her lovers.
The system, though, depended on one critical factor: the possibility, however remote, that a martyr could become a favori. The illusion that riches, glory, or sensual satisfaction may someday fall into your victim’s lap is an irresistible carrot to include in your list of choices. That hope, however slim, will make men accept the most ridiculous situations, because it leaves
them the all-important option of a dream. The illusion of choice, married to the possibility of future good fortune, will lure the most stubborn sucker into your glittering web.
J. P. Morgan Sr. once told a jeweler of his acquaintance that he was interested in buying a pearl scarf-pin. Just a few weeks later, the jeweler happened upon a magnificent pearl. He had it mounted in an appropriate setting and sent it to Morgan, together with a bill for $5,000. The following day the package was returned. Morgan’s accompanying note read:
“I like the pin, but I don’t like the price. If you will accept the enclosed check for $4,000, please send back the box with the seal unbroken.”
The enraged jeweler refused the check and dismissed the messenger in disgust. He opened up the box to reclaim the unwanted pin, only to find that it had been removed. In its place was a check for $5,000.
THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES. CLIFTON FADIMAN,
ED.. 1985
KEYS TO POWER
Words like “freedom,” “options,” and “choice” evoke a power of possibility far beyond the reality of the benefits they entail. When examined closely, the choices we have—in the marketplace, in elections, in our jobs—tend to have noticeable limitations: They are often a matter of a choice simply between A and B, with the rest of the alphabet out of the picture. Yet as
long as the faintest mirage of choice flickers on, we rarely focus on the missing options. We “choose” to believe that the game is fair, and that we have our freedom. We prefer not to think too much about the depth of our liberty to choose. This unwillingness to probe the smallness of our choices stems from the fact that too much freedom creates a kind of anxiety. The phrase “unlimited options” sounds infinitely promising, but unlimited options would actually paralyze us and cloud our ability to choose. Our limited range of choices comforts us. This supplies the clever and cunning with enormous opportunities for
deception. For people who are choosing between alternatives find it hard to believe they are being manipulated or deceived; they cannot see that you are allowing them a small amount of free will in exchange for a much more powerful imposition of your own will. Setting up a narrow range of choices, then, should always be a part of your deceptions. There is a saying: If you can get the bird to walk into the cage on its own, it will sing that much more prettily.
The following are among the most common forms of “controlling the options”:
Color the Choices. This was a favored technique of Henry Kissinger. As President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, Kissinger considered himself better informed than his boss, and believed that in most situations he could make the best decision on his own. But if he tried to determine policy, he would offend or perhaps enrage a notoriously insecure man. So Kissinger
would propose three or four choices of action for each situation, and would present them in such a way that the one he preferred always seemed the best solution compared to the others. Time after time, Nixon fell for the bait, never suspecting that he was moving where Kissinger pushed him. This is an excellent device to use on the insecure master.
Force the Resister. One of the main problems faced by Dr. Milton H. Erickson, a pioneer of hypnosis therapy in the 1950s, was the relapse. His patients might seem to be recovering rapidly, but their apparent susceptibility to the therapy masked a deep resistance: They would soon relapse into old habits, blame the doctor, and stop coming to see him.
To avoid this, Erickson began ordering some patients to have a relapse, to make themselves feel as bad as when they first came in—to go back to square one. Faced with this option, the patients would usually “choose” to avoid the relapse—which, of course, was what Erickson really wanted.
This is a good technique to use on children and other willful people who enjoy doing the opposite of what you ask them to: Push them to “choose” what you want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.
Alter the Playing Field. In the 1860s, John D. Rockefeller set out to create an oil monopoly. If he tried to buy up the smaller oil companies they would figure out what he was doing and fight back. Instead, he began secretly buying up the railway companies that transported the oil. When he then attempted to take over a particular company, and met with resistance, he reminded them of their dependence on the rails. Refusing them shipping, or
simply raising their fees, could ruin their business. Rockefeller altered the playing field so that the only options the small oil producers had were the ones he gave them.
In this tactic your opponents know their hand is being forced, but it doesn’t matter. The technique is effective against those who resist at all costs.
The Shrinking Options. The late-nineteenth-century art dealer Ambroise Vollard perfected this technique.
Customers would come to Vollard’s shop to see some Cézannes. He would show three paintings, neglect to mention a price, and pretend to doze off. The visitors would have to leave without deciding. They would usually come back the next day to see the paintings again, but this time Vollard would pull out less interesting works, pretending he thought they were the same ones. The baffled customers would look at the new offerings, leave to think them over, and return yet again.
Once again the same thing would happen: Vollard would show paintings of lesser quality still. Finally the buyers would realize they had better grab what he was showing them, because tomorrow they would have to settle for something worse, perhaps at even higher prices.
A variation on this technique is to raise the price every time the buyer hesitates and another day goes by. This is an excellent negotiating ploy to use on the chronically indecisive, who will fall for the idea that they are getting a better deal today than if they wait till tomorrow.
The Weak Man on the Precipice. The weak are the easiest to maneuver by controlling their options. Cardinal de Retz, the great seventeenth-century provocateur, served as an unofficial assistant to the Duke of Orléans, who was notoriously indecisive. It was a constant struggle to convince the duke to take action—he would hem and haw, weigh the options, and wait till the last moment, giving everyone around him an ulcer.
But Retz discovered a way to handle him: He would describe all sorts of dangers, exaggerating them as much as possible, until the duke saw a yawning abyss in every direction except one: the one Retz was pushing him to take.
This tactic is similar to “Color the Choices,” but with the weak you have to be more aggressive. Work on their emotions—use fear and terror to propel them into action. Try reason and they will always find a way to procrastinate.
Brothers in Crime. This is a classic con-artist technique: You attract your victims to some criminal scheme, creating a bond of blood and guilt between you. They participate in your deception, commit a crime (or think they do—see the story of Sam Geezil in Law 3), and are easily manipulated.
Serge Stavisky, the great French con artist of the 1920s, so entangled the government in his scams and swindles that the state did not dare to prosecute him, and “chose” to leave him alone. It is often wise to implicate in your deceptions the very person who can do you the most harm if you fail. Their involvement can be subtle—even a hint of their involvement will
narrow their options and buy their silence.
The Horns of a Dilemma. This idea was demonstrated by General William Sherman’s infamous march through Georgia during the American Civil War. Although the Confederates knew what direction Sherman was heading in, they never knew if he would attack from the left or the right, for he divided his army into two wings—and if the rebels retreated from one wing they found themselves facing the other.
This is a classic trial lawyer’s technique: The lawyer leads the witnesses to decide between two possible explanations of an event, both of which poke a hole in their story. They have to answer the lawyer’s questions, but whatever they say they hurt
themselves. The key to this move is to strike quickly: Deny the victim the time to think of an escape. As they wriggle between the horns of the dilemma, they dig their own grave.
Understand: In your struggles with your rivals, it will often be necessary for you to hurt them. And if you are clearly the agent of their punishment, expect a counterattack—expect revenge. If, however, they seem to themselves to be the agents of their own misfortune, they will submit quietly. When Ivan left Moscow for his rural village, the citizens asking him to return agreed to his demand for absolute power. Over the years to come, they resented him less for the terror he unleashed on the country, because, after all, they had granted him his power themselves. This is why it is always good to allow your victims their choice of poison, and to cloak your involvement in providing it to them as far as possible.
Image: The Horns of the Bull. The bull backs you into the corner with its horns—not a single horn, which you might be able to escape, but a pair of horns that trap you within their hold. Run right or run left—either way you move into their piercing ends and are gored.
Authority: For the wounds and every other evil that men inflict upon themselves spontaneously, and of their own choice, are in the long run less painful than those inflicted by others.
(Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527)
REVERSAL
Controlling the options has one main purpose: to disguise yourself as the agent of power and punishment. The tactic works best, then, for those whose power is fragile, and who cannot operate too openly without incurring suspicion, resentment, and anger. Even as a general rule, however, it is rarely wise to be seen as exerting power directly and forcefully, no matter how secure or strong you are. It is usually more elegant and more effective to give people the illusion of choice.
On the other hand, by limiting other people’s options you sometimes limit your own. There are situations in which it is to your advantage to allow your rivals a large degree of freedom: As you watch them operate, you give yourself rich opportunities to spy, gather information, and plan your deceptions. The nineteenth-century banker James Rothschild liked this method: He felt that if he tried to control his opponents’ movements, he lost the chance to observe their strategy and plan a more effective course. The more freedom he allowed them in the short term, the more forcefully he could act against them in the long run.

Law 30 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 30
MAKE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS SEEM EFFORTLESS
JUDGMENT
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work—it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.
KANO TANNYU, MASTER ARTIST
Date Masamune once sent for Tannyu to decorate a pair of gold screens seven feet high. The artist said he thought black-and-white sketches would suit them, and went home again after considering them carefully. The next morning he came early and made a large quantity of ink into which he dipped a horseshoe he had brought with him, and then proceeded to make impressions of this all over one of the screens. Then, with a large brush, he
drew a number of lines across them. Meanwhile Masamune had come in to watch his work, and at this he could contain his irritation no longer, and muttering,
“What a beastly mess!” he strode away to his own apartments. The retainers told Tannyu he was in a very bad temper indeed. “He shouldn’t look on while I am at work, then,” replied the painter,
“he should wait till it is finished.” Then he took up a smaller brush and dashed in touches here and there, and as he did so the prints of the horse-shoe turned into crabs, while the big broad strokes became rushes. He then turned to the other screen and splashed drops of ink all over it, and when he had added a few brush-strokes here and there they became a flight of swallows over
willow trees.
When Masamune saw the finished work he was as overjoyed at
the artist’s skill as he had previously been annoyed at the apparent mess he was making of the screens.
CHA-NO-YU: THE JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY A. L. SADLER, 1962
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW I
The Japanese tea ceremony called Cha-no-yu (“Hot Water for Tea”) has origins in ancient times, but it reached its peak of refinement in the sixteenth century under its most renowned practitioner, Sen no Rikyu. Although not from a noble family, Rikyu rose to great power, becoming the preferred tea master of the Emperor Hideyoshi, and an important adviser on aesthetic and even political matters. For Rikyu, the secret of success consisted in appearing natural, concealing the effort behind one’s work.
One day Rikyu and his son went to an acquaintance’s house for a tea ceremony. On the way in, the son remarked that the lovely antique-looking gate at their host’s house gave it an evocatively lonely appearance.
“I don’t think so,” replied his father,
“it looks as though it had been brought from some mountain temple a long way off, and as if the labor required to import
it must have cost a lot of money.”
If the owner of the house had put this much effort into one gate, it would show in his tea ceremony—and indeed Sen no Rikyu had to leave the ceremony early, unable to endure the affectation and effort it inadvertently revealed.
On another evening, while having tea at a friend’s house, Rikyu saw his host go outside, hold up a lantern in the darkness, cut a lemon off a tree, and bring it in. This charmed Rikyu—the host needed a relish for the dish he was serving, and had spontaneously gone outside to get one. But when the man offered the lemon with some Osaka rice cake, Rikyu realized that he had planned the cutting of the lemon all along, to go with this expensive delicacy.
The gesture no longer seemed spontaneous—it was a way for the
host to prove his cleverness. He had accidentally revealed how hard he was trying. Having seen enough, Rikyu politely declined the cake, excused himself, and left.
Emperor Hideyoshi once planned to visit Rikyu for a tea ceremony. On the night before he was to come, snow began to fall. Thinking quickly, Rikyu laid round cushions that fit exactly on each of the stepping-stones that led through the garden to his house. Just before dawn, he rose, saw that it had stopped snowing, and carefully removed the cushions. When Hideyoshi arrived, he marveled at the simple beauty of the sight—the
perfectly round stepping stones, unencumbered by snow—and noticed how it called no attention to the manner in which Rikyu had accomplished it, but only to the polite gesture itself.
After Sen no Rikyu died, his ideas had a profound influence on the
practice of the tea ceremony. The Tokugawa shogun Yorinobu, son of the great Emperor Ieyasu, was a student of Rikyu’s teachings. In his garden he had a stone lantern made by a famous master, and Lord Sakai Tadakatsu asked if he could come by one day to see it. Yorinobu replied that he would be honored, and commanded his gardeners to put everything in order for the
visit. These gardeners, unfamiliar with the precepts of Cha-no-yu, thought the stone lantern misshapen, its windows being too small for the present taste. They had a local workman enlarge the windows.
A few days before Lord Sakai’s visit, Yorinobu toured the garden. When he saw the altered windows he exploded with rage, ready to impale on his sword the fool who had ruined the lantern, upsetting its natural grace and destroying the whole purpose of Lord Sakai’s visit.
When Yorinobu calmed down, however, he remembered that he had originally bought two of the lanterns, and that the second was in his garden on the island of Kishu. At great expense, he hired a whale boat and the finest rowers he could find, ordering them to bring the lantern to him within two days—a difficult feat at best. But the sailors rowed day and night, and with the luck of a good wind they arrived just in time.
To Yorinobu’s delight, this stone lantern was more magnificent than the first, for it had stood untouched for twenty years in a bamboo thicket, acquiring a brilliant antique appearance and a delicate covering of moss. When Lord Sakai arrived, later that same day, he was awed by the lantern, which was more magnificent than he had imagined—so graceful and at one with the elements. Fortunately he had no idea what time and effort it had cost Yorinobu to create this sublime effect.
THE WRESTLING MASTER
There was once a wrestling master who was versed in 360 feints and holds. He took a special liking to one of his pupils, to whom he taught 359 of them over a period of time. Somehow he never got around to the last trick. As months went by the young man became so proficient in the art that he bested everyone who dared to face him in the ring. He was so proud of his prowess that one day he boasted before the sultan that he could readily whip his master, were it not out of respect for his age and gratitude for his tutelage.
The sultan became incensed at this irreverence and ordered an immediate match with the royal court in attendance. At the gong the youth barged forward with a lusty yell, only to be confronted with the unfamiliar 360th feint. The master seized his former
pupil, lifted him high above his head, and flung him crashing to the ground. The sultan and the assembly let out a loud cheer. When the sultan asked the master how he was able to overcome such a strong opponent, the master confessed that he had reserved a secret technique for himself for just such a contingency. Then he related the lamentation of a master of archery, who taught everything he knew. “No one has learned archery from me,” the poor fellow complained, “who has not tried to use me as a butt in the end.”
A STORY OF SAADI, AS TOLD IN THE CRAFT OF POWER, R.G. H.
SIU, 1979
Interpretation
To Sen no Rikyu, the sudden appearance of something naturally, almost accidentally graceful was the height of beauty. This beauty came without warning and seemed effortless.
Nature created such things by its own laws and processes, but men had to create their effects through labor and contrivance. And when they showed the effort of producing the effect, the effect was spoiled. The gate came from too far away, the cutting of the lemon looked contrived. You will often have to use tricks and ingenuity to create your effects—the cushions in the snow, the men rowing all night—but your audience must never suspect the work or the thinking that has gone into them. Nature does
not reveal its tricks, and what imitates nature by appearing effortless approximates nature’s power.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW II
The great escape artist Harry Houdini once advertised his act as “The Impossible Possible.” And indeed those who witnessed his dramatic escapes felt that what he did onstage contradicted commonsense ideas of human capacity.
One evening in 1904, an audience of 4,000 Londoners filled a theater to watch Houdini accept a challenge: to escape from a pair of manacles billed as the strongest ever invented. They contained six sets of locks and nine tumblers in each cuff; a Birmingham maker had spent five years constructing them. Experts who examined them said they had never seen anything so intricate, and this intricacy was thought to make them impossible to escape. The crowd watched the experts secure the manacles on Houdini’s wrists. Then the escape artist entered a black cabinet on stage. The minutes went by; the more time passed, the more certain it seemed that these manacles would be the first to defeat him. At one point he emerged from the cabinet, and asked that the cuffs be temporarily removed so that he could take off
his coat—it was hot inside. The challengers refused, suspecting his request was a trick to find out how the locks worked. Undeterred, and without using his hands, Houdini managed to lift the coat over his shoulders, turn it inside out, remove a penknife from his vest pocket with his teeth, and, by moving his head, cut the coat off his arms. Freed from the coat, he stepped back into
the cabinet, the audience roaring with approval at his grace and dexterity.
Finally, having kept the audience waiting long enough, Houdini emerged from the cabinet a second time, now with his hands free, the manacles raised high in triumph. To this day no one knows how he managed the escape. Although he had taken close to an hour to free himself, he had never looked concerned, had shown no sign of doubt. Indeed it seemed by the end that he had drawn out the escape as a way to heighten the drama, to make
the audience worry—for there was no other sign that the performance had been anything but easy. The complaint about the heat was equally part of the act. The spectators of this and other Houdini performances must have felt he was toying with them: These manacles are nothing, he seemed to say, I could have freed myself a lot sooner, and from a lot worse.
Over the years, Houdini escaped from the chained carcass of an
embalmed “sea monster” (a half octopus, half whalelike beast that had beached near Boston); he had himself sealed inside an enormous envelope from which he emerged without breaking the paper; he passed through brick walls; he wriggled free from straitjackets while dangling high in the air; he leaped from bridges into icy waters, his hands manacled and his legs in chains; he had himself submerged in glass cases full of water, hands padlocked, while the audience watched in amazement as he worked himself free, struggling for close to an hour apparently without breathing. Each time he seemed to court certain death yet survived with superhuman aplomb.
Meanwhile, he said nothing about his methods, gave no clues as to how he accomplished any of his tricks—he left his audiences and critics speculating, his power and reputation enhanced by their struggles with the inexplicable. Perhaps the most baffling trick of all was making a tenthousand-pound elephant disappear before an audience’s eyes, a feat he repeated on stage for over nineteen weeks. No one has ever really explained how he did this, for in the auditorium where he performed the trick, there was simply nowhere for an elephant to hide.
The effortlessness of Houdini’s escapes led some to think he used occult forces, his superior psychic abilities giving him special control over his body. But a German escape artist named Kleppini claimed to know Houdini’s secret: He simply used elaborate gadgets. Kleppini also claimed to have defeated Houdini in a handcuff challenge in Holland. Houdini did not mind all kinds of speculation floating around about his methods, but he would not tolerate an outright lie, and in 1902 he challenged Kleppini to a handcuff duel. Kleppini accepted. Through a spy, he found out the secret word to unlock a pair of French combination-lock
cuffs that Houdini liked to use. His plan was to choose these cuffs to escape from onstage.
This would definitively debunk Houdini—his “genius” simply lay in his use of mechanical gadgets. On the night of the challenge, just as Kleppini had planned, Houdini offered him a choice of cuffs and he selected the ones with the combination lock. He was even able to disappear with them behind a screen to make a quick test, and reemerged seconds later, confident of victory.
Acting as if he sensed fraud, Houdini refused to lock Kleppini in the cuffs. The two men argued and began to fight, even wrestling with each other onstage. After a few minutes of this, an apparently angry, frustrated Houdini gave up and locked Kleppini in the cuffs. For the next few minutes Kleppini strained to get free. Something was wrong—minutes earlier he had opened the cuffs behind the screen; now the same code no longer worked.
He sweated, racking his brains. Hours went by, the audience left, and finally an exhausted and humiliated Kleppini gave up and asked to be released.
The cuffs that Kleppini himself had opened behind the screen with the word “C-L-E-F-S” (French for “keys”) now clicked open only with the word “F-R-A-U-D.” Kleppini never figured out how Houdini had accomplished this uncanny feat.
Keep the extent of your abilities unknown. The wise man does not allow his knowledge and abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honored by all. He allows you to know them but not to comprehend them. No one must know the extent of his abilities, lest he be disappointed. No one ever has an opportunity of fathoming him entirely. For guesses and doubts
about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great.
BALTASAR GRACIÁN. 1601-1658
Interpretation
Although we do not know for certain how Houdini accomplished many of his most ingenious escapes, one thing is clear: It was not the occult, or any kind of magic, that gave him his powers, but hard work and endless practice, all of which he carefully concealed from the world. Houdini never left anything to chance—day and night he studied the workings of locks, researched centuries-old sleight-of-hand tricks, pored over books on
mechanics, whatever he could use. Every moment not spent researching he spent working his body, keeping himself exceptionally limber, and learning how to control his muscles and his breathing.
Early on in Houdini’s career, an old Japanese performer whom he toured with taught him an ancient trick: how to swallow an ivory ball, then bring it back up. He practiced this endlessly with a small peeled potato tied to a string—up and down he would manipulate the potato with his throat muscles, until they were strong enough to move it without the string.
The organizers of the London handcuff challenge had searched Houdini’s body thoroughly beforehand, but no one could check the inside of his throat, where he could have concealed small tools to help him escape. Even so, Kleppini was fundamentally wrong: It was not Houdini’s tools but his practice, work, and research that made his escapes possible.
Kleppini, in fact, was completely outwitted by Houdini, who set the whole thing up. He let his opponent learn the code to the French cuffs, then baited him into choosing those cuffs onstage. Then, during the two men’s tussle, the dexterous Houdini was able to change the code to “F-R-A-U-D.” He had spent weeks practicing this trick, but the audience saw none of the sweat and toil behind the scenes. Nor was Houdini ever nervous; he induced
nervousness in others. (He deliberately dragged out the time it would take to escape, as a way of heightening the drama, and making the audience squirm.) His escapes from death, always graceful and easy, made him look like a superman.
As a person of power, you must research and practice endlessly before appearing in public, onstage or anywhere else. Never expose the sweat and labor behind your poise. Some think such exposure will demonstrate their diligence and honesty, but it actually just makes them look weaker—as if anyone who practiced and worked at it could do what they had done, or as if
they weren’t really up to the job. Keep your effort and your tricks to yourself and you seem to have the grace and ease of a god. One never sees the source of a god’s power revealed; one only sees its effects.
A line [of poetry] will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Adam’s Curse, William Buller Yeats, 1865-1939
KEYS TO POWER
Humanity’s first notions of power came from primitive encounters with nature—the flash of lightning in the sky, a sudden flood, the speed and ferocity of a wild animal. These forces required no thinking, no planning— they awed us by their sudden appearance, their gracefulness, and their power over life and death. And this remains the kind of power we have always wanted to imitate. Through science and technology we have recreated the speed and sublime power of nature, but something is missing: Our machines are noisy and jerky, they reveal their effort. Even the very best creations of technology cannot root out our admiration for things that move easily and effortlessly. The power of children to bend us to their will comes from a kind of seductive charm that we feel in the presence of a creature less reflective and more graceful than we are. We cannot return to
such a state, but if we can create the appearance of this kind of ease, we elicit in others the kind of primitive awe that nature has always evoked in humankind.
One of the first European writers to expound on this principle came from that most unnatural of environments, the Renaissance court. In The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528, Baldassare Castiglione describes the highly elaborate and codified manners of the perfect court citizen. And yet, Castiglione explains, the courtier must execute these gestures with what he calls sprezzatura, the capacity to make the difficult seem easy. He urges the courtier to “practice in all things a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.”
We all admire the achievement of some unusual feat, but if it is
accomplished naturally and gracefully, our admiration increases tenfold —“whereas ... to labor at what one is doing and ... to make bones over it, shows an extreme lack of grace and causes everything, whatever its worth, to be discounted.”
Much of the idea of sprezzatura came from the world of art. All the great Renaissance artists carefully kept their works under wraps. Only the finished masterpiece could be shown to the public. Michelangelo forbade even popes to view his work in process. A Renaissance artist was always careful to keep his studios shut to patrons and public alike, not out of fear of
imitation, but because to see the making of the works would mar the magic of their effect, and their studied atmosphere of ease and natural beauty. The Renaissance painter Vasari, also the first great art critic, ridiculed the work of Paolo Uccello, who was obsessed with the laws of perspective. The effort Uccello spent on improving the appearance of perspective was too obvious in his work—it made his paintings ugly and labored, overwhelmed
by the effort of their effects. We have the same response when we watch performers who put too much effort into their act: Seeing them trying so hard breaks the illusion. It also makes us uncomfortable. Calm, graceful performers, on the other hand, set us at ease, creating the illusion that they are not acting but being natural and themselves, even when everything they are doing involves labor and practice.
The idea of sprezzatura is relevant to all forms of power, for power depends vitally on appearances and the illusions you create. Your public actions are like artworks: They must have visual appeal, must create anticipation, even entertain. When you reveal the inner workings of your creation, you become just one more mortal among others. What is understandable is not awe-inspiring—we tell ourselves we could do as well if we had the money and time. Avoid the temptation of showing how clever
you are—it is far more clever to conceal the mechanisms of your
cleverness.
Talleyrand’s application of this concept to his daily life greatly enhanced the aura of power that surrounded him. He never liked to work too hard, so he made others do the work for him—the spying, the research, the detailed analyses. With all this labor at his disposal, he himself never seemed to strain. When his spies revealed that a certain event was about to take place, he would talk in social conversation as if he sensed its imminence. The
result was that people thought he was clairvoyant. His short pithy
statements and witticisms always seemed to summarize a situation perfectly, but they were based on much research and thought. To those in government, including Napoleon himself, Talleyrand gave the impression of immense power—an effect entirely dependent on the apparent ease with which he accomplished his feats.
There is another reason for concealing your shortcuts and tricks: When you let this information out, you give people ideas they can use against you.
You lose the advantages of keeping silent. We tend to want the world to know what we have done—we want our vanity gratified by having our hard work and cleverness applauded, and we may even want sympathy for the hours it has taken to reach our point of artistry. Learn to control this propensity to blab, for its effect is often the opposite of what you expected.
Remember: The more mystery surrounds your actions, the more awesome your power seems. You appear to be the only one who can do what you do —and the appearance of having an exclusive gift is immensely powerful.
Finally, because you achieve your accomplishments with grace and ease, people believe that you could always do more if you tried harder. This elicits not only admiration but a touch of fear. Your powers are untapped— no one can fathom their limits.
Image: The Racehorse. From up close we would see the strain, the effort to control the horse, the labored, painful breathing. But from the distance where we sit and watch, it is all gracefulness, flying through the air. Keep others at a distance and they will only see the ease with which you move.
Authority: For whatever action [nonchalance] accompanies, no matter how trivial it is, it not only reveals the skill of the person doing it but also very often causes it to be considered far greater than it really is. This is because it makes the onlookers believe that a man who performs well with so much facility must possess even greater skill than he does.
(Baldassare Castiglione, 1478-1529)
REVERSAL
The secrecy with which you surround your actions must seem lighthearted in spirit. A zeal to conceal your work creates an unpleasant, almost paranoiac impression: you are taking the game too seriously. Houdini was careful to make the concealment of his tricks seem a game, all part of the show.
Never show your work until it is finished, but if you put too much
effort into keeping it under wraps you will be like the painter Pontormo, who spent the last years of his life hiding his frescoes from the public eye and only succeeded in driving himself mad. Always keep your sense of humor about yourself.
There are also times when revealing the inner workings of your projects can prove worthwhile. It all depends on your audience’s taste, and on the times in which you operate. P. T. Barnum recognized that his public wanted to feel involved in his shows, and that understanding his tricks delighted them, partly, perhaps, because implicitly debunking people who kept their sources of power hidden from the masses appealed to America’s democratic
spirit. The public also appreciated the showman’s humor and honesty.
Barnum took this to the extreme of publicizing his own humbuggery in his popular autobiography, written when his career was at its height.
As long as the partial disclosure of tricks and techniques is carefully planned, rather than the result of an uncontrollable need to blab, it is the ultimate in cleverness. It gives the audience the illusion of being superior and involved, even while much of what you do remains concealed from them

Law 28 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 28
ENTER ACTION WITH BOLDNESS
JUDGMENT
If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.
THE TWO ADVENTURERS
The path of pleasure never leads to glory! The prodigious achievements of Hercules were the result of high adventure, and though there is little, either in fable or history, to show that he had any rivals, still it is recorded that a knight errant, in company with a fellow adventurer, sought his fortune in a romantic country.
He had not traveled far when his companion observed a
post, on which was written the following inscription:
“Brave adventurer, if you have a desire to discover that which has never been seen by any knight errant, you have only to pass this torrent, and then take in your arms an elephant of stone and carry it in one breath to the summit of this mountain, whose noble head seems blended with the sky.”
“But,” said the knight’s companion,
“the water may be deep as well as rapid, and though, notwithstanding, we should pass it, why should we be encumbered with the elephant? What a ridiculous undertaking!” And philosophically and with nice calculation,
he observed that the elephant might be carried four steps;
but for conveying it to the top of the mountain in one breath, that was not in the power of a mortal, unless it should be the dwarf figure of an elephant, fit only to be placed on the top of a stick;
and then what honor would there be in such an adventure? “There is,” said he,
“some deception in this writing. It is an enigma only fit to amuse a child. I shall therefore leave you and your elephant.”
The reasoner then departed; but the adventurous man rushed with his eyes closed across the water; neither depth nor violence prevented him.
and according to the inscription he saw the elephant lying on the opposite bank. He took it and carried it to the top of the hill, where he saw a town. A shriek from the elephant alarmed the people of the city, who rose in arms; but the adventurer, nothing daunted, was determined to die a hero. The people, however, were awed by his presence, and he was astonished to hear them
proclaim him successor to their king, who had recently died. Great
enterprises are only achieved by adventurous spirits. They who calculate with too great nicety every difficulty and obstacle which is likely to lie in their way, lose that time in hesitation, which the more daring seize and render available to the loftiest purposes.
FABLES, JEAN DE LA FONTAINE, 1621-1695
BOLDNESS AND HESITATION: A Brief Psychological Comparison
Boldness and hesitation elicit very different psychological responses in their targets: Hesitation puts obstacles in your path, boldness eliminates them.
Once you understand this, you will find it essential to overcome your natural timidity and practice the art of audacity. The following are among the most pronounced psychological effects of boldness and timidity. The Bolder the Lie the Better. We all have weaknesses, and our efforts are never perfect. But entering action with boldness has the magical effect of hiding our deficiencies. Con artists know that the bolder the lie, the more
convincing it becomes. The sheer audacity of the story makes it more credible, distracting attention from its inconsistencies. When putting together a con or entering any kind of negotiation, go further than you planned. Ask for the moon and you will be surprised how often you get it.
Lions Circle the Hesitant Prey. People have a sixth sense for the
weaknesses of others. If, in a first encounter, you demonstrate your willingness to compromise, back down, and retreat, you bring out the lion even in people who are not necessarily bloodthirsty. Everything depends on perception, and once you are seen as the kind of person who quickly goes on the defensive, who is willing to negotiate and be amenable, you will be pushed around without mercy.
Boldness Strikes Fear; Fear Creates Authority. The bold move makes you seem larger and more powerful than you are. If it comes suddenly, with the stealth and swiftness of a snake, it inspires that much more fear. By intimidating with a bold move, you establish a precedent: in every subsequent encounter, people will be on the defensive, in terror of your next strike.
Going Halfway with Half a Heart Digs the Deeper Grave. If you enter an action with less than total confidence, you set up obstacles in your own path. When a problem arises you will grow confused, seeing options where there are none and inadvertently creating more problems still. Retreating from the hunter, the timid hare scurries more easily into his snares.
Hesitation Creates Gaps, Boldness Obliterates Them. When you take time to think, to hem and haw, you create a gap that allows others time to think as well. Your timidity infects people with awkward energy, elicits embarrassment. Doubt springs up on all sides.
Boldness destroys such gaps. The swiftness of the move and the energy of the action leave others no space to doubt and worry.
In seduction, hesitation is fatal—it makes your victim conscious of your intentions. The bold move crowns seduction with triumph: It leaves no time for reflection.
Audacity Separates You from the Herd. Boldness gives you presence and makes you seem larger than life. The timid fade into the wallpaper, the bold draw attention, and what draws attention draws power. We cannot keep our eyes off the audacious—we cannot wait to see their next bold move.
OBSERVANCES OF THE LAW
Observance I
In May of 1925, five of the most successful dealers in the French scrapmetal business found themselves invited to an “official” but “highly confidential” meeting with the deputy director general of the Ministry of Post and Telegraphs at the Hotel Crillon, then the most luxurious hotel in Paris. When the businessmen arrived, it was the director general himself, a Monsieur Lustig, who met them in a swank suite on the top floor. The businessmen had no idea why they had been summoned to this meeting, and they were bursting with curiosity. After drinks,
the director explained. “Gentlemen,” he said,
“this is an urgent matter that requires complete secrecy. The government is going to have to tear down the Eiffel Tower.”
The dealers listened in stunned silence as the director explained
that the tower, as recently reported in the news, desperately needed repairs. It had originally been meant as a temporary structure (for the Exposition of 1889), its maintenance costs had soared over the years, and now, in a time of a fiscal crisis, the government would have to spend millions to fix it. Many Parisians considered the Eiffel Tower an eyesore and would be delighted to see it go. Over time, even the tourists would forget about it—it would live on in photographs and postcards.
“Gentlemen,” Lustig said,
“you are all invited to make the government an offer for the Eiffel Tower.”
He gave the businessmen sheets of government stationery filled with figures, such as the tonnage of the tower’s metal. Their eyes popped as they calculated how much they could make from the scrap. Then Lustig led them to a waiting limo, which brought them to the Eiffel Tower. Flashing an official badge, he guided them through the area, spicing his tour with amusing anecdotes. At the end of the visit he thanked them and asked them to have their offers delivered to his suite within four days.
Several days after the offers were submitted, one of the five, a Monsieur P., received notice that his bid was the winner, and that to secure the sale he should come to the suite at the hotel within two days, bearing a certified check for more than 250,000 francs (the equivalent today of about $1,000,000)—a quarter of the total price. On delivery of the check, he would receive the documents confirming his ownership of the Eiffel Tower.
Monsieur P. was excited—he would go down in history as the man who had bought and torn down the infamous landmark. But by the time he arrived at the suite, check in hand, he was beginning to have doubts about the whole affair.
Why meet in a hotel instead of a government building?
Why hadn’t he heard from other officials?
Was this a hoax, a scam?
As he listened to Lustig discuss the arrangements for the scrapping of the tower, he hesitated, and contemplated backing out.
Suddenly, however, he realized that the director had changed his tone. Instead of talking about the tower, he was complaining about his low salary, about his wife’s desire for a fur coat, about how galling it was to work hard and be unappreciated. It dawned on Monsieur P. that this high government official was asking for a bribe. The effect on him, though, was not outrage but relief. Now he was sure that Lustig was for real, since in all of his previous encounters with French bureaucrats, they had inevitably asked for a little greasing of the palm. His confidence restored, Monsieur P. slipped the director several thousand francs in bills, then handed him the certified check. In return he received the documentation, including an impressivelooking bill of sale. He left the hotel, dreaming of the profits and fame to come.
Over the next few days, however, as Monsieur P. waited for
correspondence from the government, he began to realize that something was amiss. A few telephone calls made it clear that there was no deputy director general Lustig,
and there were no plans to destroy the Eiffel Tower:
He had been bilked of over 250,000 francs! Monsieur P. never went to the police. He knew what kind of reputation he would get if word got out that he had fallen for one of the most absurdly audacious cons in history. Besides the public humiliation, it would have been business suicide.
Interpretation
Had Count Victor Lustig, con artist extraordinaire, tried to sell the Arc de Triomphe, a bridge over the Seine, a statue of Balzac, no one would have believed him. But the Eiffel Tower was just too large, too improbable to be part of a con job. In fact it was so improbable that Lustig was able to return to Paris six months later and “resell” the Eiffel Tower to a different scrapiron dealer, and for a higher price—a sum in francs equivalent today to over
$1,500,000!
Largeness of scale deceives the human eye. It distracts and awes us, and is so self-evident that we cannot imagine there is any illusion or deception afoot. Arm yourself with bigness and boldness—stretch your deceptions as far as they will go and then go further. If you sense that the sucker has suspicions, do as the intrepid Lustig did: Instead of backing down, or lowering his price, he simply raised his price higher, by asking for and getting a bribe. Asking for more puts the other person on the defensive, cuts
out the nibbling effect of compromise and doubt, and overwhelms with its boldness.
Always set to work without misgivings on the score of imprudence. Fear of failure in the mind of a performer is, for an onlooker, already evidence of failure.... Actions are dangerous when there is doubt as to their wisdom; it would be safer to do nothing.
BALTASAR GRACIÁN, 1601-1658
THE STORY OF HUH SAENG
In a lowly thatched cottage in the Namsan Valley there lived a poor couple, Mr. and Mrs. Huh Saeng. The husband confined himself for seven years and only read books in his cold room.... One day his wife, all in tears, said to him: “Look here, my good man! What is the use of all your book reading? I have spent my youth in washing and sewing for other people and yet I have
no spare jacket or skirt to wear and I have had no food to eat during the past three days. I am hungry and cold. I can stand it no more!” ...
Hearing these words, the middle-aged scholar closed his book... rose to his feet and... without saying another word, he went out of doors.... Arriving in the heart of the city, he slopped a passing gentleman.
“Hello, my friend! Who is the richest man in town?” “Poor countryman! Don’t you know Byôn-ssi, the millionaire? His glittering tile-roofed house pierced by twelve gates is just
over there.” Huh Saeng bent his steps to the rich man’s house. Having entered the big gate, he flung the guest-room door open and addressed the host:“I need 10,000 yang for capital for my commercial business and I want you to lend me the money.” “Alright, sir. Where shall I send the money?”
“To the Ansông Market in care of a commission merchant.”
“Very well. sir. I will draw on Kim, who does the biggest commission business in the Ansông Market. You’ll get the money there.”
“Good-bye. sir.”
When Huh Saeng was gone, all the other guests in the room asked Byôn-ssi why he gave so much money to a beggarlike stranger whose family name was unknown to him. But the rich man replied with a triumphant face: “Even though he was in ragged clothes, he spoke clearly to the point without betraying shame or inferiority, unlike common people who want to borrow
money for a bad debt. Such a man as he is either mad or self-confident in doing business. But judging from his dauntless eyes and booming voice he is an uncommon man with a superhuman brain, worthy of my trust. I know money and I know men. Money often makes a man small, but a man like him makes big money. I am only glad to have helped a big man do big business.”
BEHIND THE SCENES OF ROYAL PALACES IN KOREA, HA TAEHUNG, 1983
Observance II
On his deathbed in 1533, Vasily III, the Grand Duke of Moscow and ruler of a semi-united Russia, proclaimed his three-year-old son, Ivan IV, as his successor. He appointed his young wife, Helena, as regent until Ivan reached his majority and could rule on his own. The aristocracy—the boyars—secretly rejoiced: For years the dukes of Moscow had been trying to extend their authority over the boyars’ turf. With Vasily dead, his heir a mere three years old, and a young woman in charge of the dukedom, the boyars would be able to roll back the dukes’ gains, wrest control of the
state, and humiliate the royal family.
Aware of these dangers, young Helena turned to her trusted friend Prince Ivan Obolensky to help her rule. But after five years as regent she suddenly died—poisoned by a member of the Shuisky family, the most fearsome boyar clan. The Shuisky princes seized control of the government and threw Obolensky in prison, where he starved to death. At the age of eight, Ivan was now a despised orphan, and any boyar or family member who took an
interest in him was immediately banished or killed. And so Ivan roamed the palace, hungry, ill clothed, and often in hiding from the Shuiskys, who treated him roughly when they saw him. On some days they would search him out, clothe him in royal robes, hand him a scepter, and set him on the throne—a kind of mock ritual in which they lampooned his royal pretensions. Then they would shoo him away. One evening several of them chased the Metropolitan—the head of the Russian church—through the palace, and he sought refuge in Ivan’s room; the boy watched in horror as the Shuiskys entered, hurled insults, and beat the
Metropolitan mercilessly.
Ivan had one friend in the palace, a boyar named Vorontsov who
consoled and advised him. One day, however, as he, Vorontsov, and the newest Metropolitan conferred in the palace refectory, several Shuiskys burst in, beat up Uorontsov, and insulted the Metropolitan by tearing and treading on his robes. Then they banished Vorontsov from Moscow.
Throughout all this Ivan maintained a strict silence. To the boyars it seemed that their plan had worked: The young man had turned into a terrified and obedient idiot. They could ignore him now, even leave him alone. But on the evening of December 29, 1543, Ivan, now thirteen, asked Prince Andrei Shuisky to come to his room. When the prince arrived, the room was filled with palace guards. Young Ivan then pointed his finger at Andrei and ordered the guards to arrest him, have him killed, and throw his body to the bloodhounds in the royal kennel. Over the next few days Ivan
had all of Andrei’s close associates arrested and banished. Caught off-guard by his sudden boldness, the boyars now stood in mortal terror of this youth, the future Ivan the Terrible, who had planned and waited for five years to execute this one swift and bold act that would secure his power for decades to come.
Interpretation
The world is full of boyars — men who despise you, fear your ambition, and jealously guard their shrinking realms of power. You need to establish your authority and gain respect, but the moment the boyars sense your growing boldness, they will act to thwart you.
This is how Ivan met such a situation: He lay low, showing neither ambition nor discontent. He waited, and when the time came he brought the palace guards over to his side. The guards had come to hate the cruel Shuiskys. Once they agreed to Ivan’s plan, he struck with the swiftness of a snake, pointing his finger at Shuisky
and giving him no time to react.
Negotiate with a boyar and you create opportunities for him. A small compromise becomes the toehold he needs to tear you apart. The sudden bold move, without discussion or warning, obliterates these toeholds, and builds your authority. You terrify doubters and despisers and gain the confidence of the many who admire and glorify those who act boldly.
Observance III
In 1514 the twenty-two-year-old Pietro Aretino was working as a lowly assistant scullion to a wealthy Roman family. He had ambitions of greatness as a writer, to enflame the world with his name, but how could a mere lackey hope to realize such dreams?
That year Pope Leo X received from the king of Portugal an embassy that included many gifts, most prominent among them a great elephant, the first in Rome since imperial times. The pontiff adored this elephant and showered it with attention and gifts. But despite his love and care, the elephant, which was called Hanno, became deathly ill. The pope summoned doctors, who administered a five-hundred-pound purgative to the elephant,
but all to no avail. The animal died and the pope went into mourning.
To console himself he summoned the great painter Raphael and ordered him to create a life-sized painting of Hanno above the animal’s tomb, bearing the inscription, “What nature took away, Raphael has with his art restored.”
Over the next few days, a pamphlet circulated throughout Rome that caused great merriment and laughter.
Entitled “The Last Will and Testament of the Elephant Hanno,”
it read, in part,
“To my heir the Cardinal Santa Croce, I give my knees, so that he can imitate my genuflections.... To my heir Cardinal Santi Quattro, I give my jaws, so that he can more readily devour all of Christ’s revenues.... To my heir Cardinal Medici, I give my ears, so that he can hear everyone’s doings....”
To Cardinal Grassi, who had a reputation for lechery, the elephant bequeathed the appropriate, oversized part of his own anatomy.
On and on the anonymous pamphlet went, sparing none of the great in Rome, not even the pope. With each one it took aim at their best-known weakness.
The pamphlet ended with verse, “See to it that Aretino is your
friend / For he is a bad enemy to have. / His words alone could ruin the high pope / So God guard everyone from his tongue.”
Interpretation
With one short pamphlet, Aretino, son of a poor shoemaker and a servant himself, hurled himself to fame. Everyone in Rome rushed to find out who this daring young man was. Even the pope, amused by his audacity, sought him out and ended up giving him a job in the papal service. Over the years he came to be known as the “Scourge of Princes,” and his biting tongue earned him the respect and fear of the great, from the king of France to the
Hapsburg emperor.
Fear, which always magnifies objects, gives a body to all their fancies, which takes for its form whatever they conceive to exist in their enemies’ thoughts; so that fearful persons seldom fail to fall into real inconveniences, occasioned by imaginary dangers.... And the duke, whose predominant character was to be always full of fear and of distrust, was, of all men I have ever seen, the most capable of falling into false steps, by the dread he had of falling into them; being in that like unto hares.
CARDINAL DE RETZ, 1613-1679
The Aretino strategy is simple: When you are as small and obscure as David was, you must find a Goliath to attack. The larger the target, the more attention you gain. The bolder the attack, the more you stand out from the crowd, and the more admiration you earn. Society is full of those who think daring thoughts but lack the guts to print and publicize them.
Voice what the
public feels—the expression of shared feelings is always powerful. Search out the most prominent target possible and sling your boldest shot. The world will enjoy the spectacle, and will honor the underdog—you, that is— with glory and power.
THE BOY AND THE NETTLE
A boy playing in the fields got stung by a nettle. He ran home to his mother, telling her that he had but touched that nasty weed, and it had stung him.
“It was just your touching it, my boy,” said the mother,
“that caused it to sting you; the next time you meddle with a nettle, grasp it tightly, and it will do you no hurt.”
Do boldly what you do at all.
FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
KEYS TO POWER
Most of us are timid. We want to avoid tension and conflict and we want to be liked by all. We may contemplate a bold action but we rarely bring it to life. We are terrified of the consequences, of what others might think of us, of the hostility we will stir up if we dare go beyond our usual place. Although we may disguise our timidity as a concern for others, a desire not to hurt or offend them, in fact it is the opposite—we are really selfabsorbed, worried about ourselves and how others perceive us. Boldness, on the other hand, is outer-directed, and often makes people feel more at ease, since it is less self-conscious and less repressed.
This can be seen most clearly in seduction. All great seducers succeed through effrontery. Casanova’s boldness was not revealed in a daring approach to the woman he desired, or in intrepid words to flatter her; it consisted in his ability to surrender himself to her completely and to make her believe he would do anything for her, even risk his life, which in fact he
sometimes did. The woman on whom he lavished this attention understood that he held nothing back from her. This was infinitely more flattering than compliments. At no point during the seduction would he show hesitation or doubt, simply because he never felt it.
Part of the charm of being seduced is that it makes us feel engulfed, temporarily outside of ourselves and the usual doubts that permeate our lives. The moment the seducer hesitates, the charm is broken, because we become aware of the process, of their deliberate effort to seduce us, of their self-consciousness. Boldness directs attention outward and keeps the illusion alive. It never induces awkwardness or embarrassment. And so we
admire the bold, and prefer to be around them, because their self-confidence infects us and draws us outside our own realm of inwardness and reflection.
HOW TO BE VICTORIOUS IN LOVE
But with those who have made an impression upon your heart, I have noticed that you are timid. This quality might affect a bourgeoise, but you must attack the heart of a woman of the world with other weapons.... I tell you on behalf of women: there is not one of us who does not prefer a little rough handling to too much consideration. Men lose through blundering more hearts than virtue saves. The more timidity a lover shows with us the
more it concerns our pride to goad him on; the more respect he has for our resistance, the more respect we demand of him.
We would willingly say to you men: “Ah, in pity’s name do not suppose us to be so very virtuous; you are forcing us to have too much of it....”
We are continually struggling to hide the fact that we have permitted ourselves to be loved. Put a woman in a position to say that she has yielded only to a species of violence, or to surprise: persuade her that you do not undervalue her, and I will answer for her heart....A little more boldness on your part would put you both at your ease. Do you remember what M. de la Rochefoucauld told you lately: “A reasonable man in love may act like a madman, but he should not and cannot act like an idiot.”
LIFE, LETTERS, AND EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY OF NINON DE
LENCLOS, NINON DE LENCLOS, 1620-1705
Few are born bold. Even Napoleon had to cultivate the habit on the battlefield, where he knew it was a matter of life and death. In social settings he was awkward and timid, but he overcame this and practiced boldness in every part of his life because he saw its tremendous power, how it could literally enlarge a man (even one who, like Napoleon, was in fact conspicuously small). We also see this change in Ivan the Terrible: A harmless boy suddenly transforms himself into a powerful young man who commands authority, simply by pointing a finger and taking bold action.
You must practice and develop your boldness. You will often find uses for it. The best place to begin is often the delicate world of negotiation, particularly those discussions in which you are asked to set your own price. How often we put ourselves down by asking for too little. When Christopher Columbus proposed that the Spanish court finance his voyage to the Americas, he also made the insanely bold demand that he be called “Grand Admiral of the Ocean.” The court agreed. The price he set was the price he received—he demanded to be treated with respect, and so he was.
Henry Kissinger too knew that in negotiation, bold demands work better than starting off with piecemeal concessions and trying to meet the other person halfway. Set your value high, and then, as Count Lustig did, set it higher.
Understand: If boldness is not natural, neither is timidity. It is an acquired habit, picked up out of a desire to avoid conflict. If timidity has taken hold of you, then, root it out. Your fears of the consequences of a bold action are way out of proportion to reality, and in fact the consequences of timidity are worse. Your value is lowered and you create a self-fulfilling cycle of doubt
and disaster. Remember: The problems created by an audacious move can be disguised, even remedied, by more and greater audacity.
Image: The Lion and the Hare. The lion creates no gaps in his way—his movements are too swift, his jaws too quick and powerful. The timid hare will do anything to escape danger, but in its haste to retreat and flee, it backs into traps, hops smack into its enemies’ jaws.
Authority: I certainly think that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, for fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force; and it can be seen that she lets herself be overcome by the bold rather than by those who proceed coldly. And therefore, like a woman, she is always a friend to the young, because they are less cautious, fiercer, and master her with greater audacity.
(Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469- 1527)
REVERSAL
Boldness should never be the strategy behind all of your actions. It is a tactical instrument, to be used at the right moment. Plan and think ahead, and make the final element the bold move that will bring you success. In other words, since boldness is a learned response, it is also one that you learn to control and utilize at will. To go through life armed only with audacity would be tiring and also fatal. You would offend too many people, as is proven by those who cannot control their boldness. One such person was Lola Montez; her audacity brought her triumphs and led to her
seduction of the king of Bavaria. But since she could never rein in her boldness, it also led to her downfall—in Bavaria, in England, wherever she turned. It crossed the border between boldness and the appearance of cruelty, even insanity. Ivan the Terrible suffered the same fate: When the power of boldness brought him success, he stuck to it, to the point where it became a lifelong pattern of violence and sadism. He lost the ability to tell when boldness was appropriate and when it was not.
Timidity has no place in the realm of power; you will often benefit, however, by being able to feign it. At that point, of course, it is no longer timidity but an offensive weapon: You are luring people in with your show of shyness, all the better to pounce on them boldly later.

Law 29 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 29
PLAN ALL THE WAY TO THE END
JUDGMENT
The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.
TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW
In 1510 a ship set out from the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) for Venezuela, where it was to rescue a besieged Spanish colony. Several miles out of port, a stowaway climbed out of a provision chest: Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a noble Spaniard who had come to the New World in search of gold but had fallen into debt and had escaped his creditors by hiding in the chest. There are very few men—and they are the exceptions—who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment.
CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, 1780-1831
Balboa had been obsessed with gold ever since Columbus had returned to Spain from his voyages with tales of a fabulous but as yet undiscovered kingdom called El Dorado. Balboa was one of the first adventurers to come in search of Columbus’s land of gold, and he had decided from the beginning that he would be the one to find it, through sheer audacity and single-mindedness. Now that he was free of his creditors, nothing would stop him.
Unfortunately the ship’s owner, a wealthy jurist named Francisco Fer nández de Enciso, was furious when told of the stowaway, and he ordered that Balboa be left on the first island they came across. Before they found any island, however, Enciso received news that the colony he was to rescue had been abandoned. This was Balboa’s chance. He told the sailors of his previous voyages to Panama, and of the rumors he had heard of gold in the area. The excited sailors convinced Enciso to spare Balboa’s life, and to
establish a colony in Panama. Weeks later they named their new settlement “Darien.”
Darien’s first governor was Enciso, but Balboa was not a man to let others steal the initiative. He campaigned against Enciso among the sailors, who eventually made it clear that they preferred him as governor. Enciso fled to Spain, fearing for his life. Months later, when a representative of the Spanish crown arrived to establish himself as the new, official governor of
Darien, he was turned away. On his return voyage to Spain, this man drowned; the drowning was accidental, but under Spanish law, Balboa had murdered the governor and usurped his position.
Balboa’s bravado had got him out of scrapes before, but now his hopes of wealth and glory seemed doomed. To lay claim to El Dorado, should he discover it, he would need the approval of the Spanish king—which, as an outlaw, he would never receive. There was only one solution. Panamanian Indians had told Balboa of a vast ocean on the other side of the Central American isthmus, and had said that by traveling south upon this western coast, he would reach a fabulous land of gold, called by a name that to his
ears sounded like “Biru.” Balboa decided he would cross the treacherous jungles of Panama and become the first European to bathe his feet in this new ocean. From there he would march on El Dorado. If he did this on Spain’s behalf, he would obtain the eternal gratitude of the king, and would secure his own reprieve—only he had to act before Spanish authorities came to arrest him.
THE TWO FROGS
Two frogs dwelt in the same pool. The pool being dried up under the summer’s heat, they left it, and set out together to seek another home. As they went along they chanced to pass a deep well, amply supplied with water,
on seeing which one of the frogs said to the other:
“Let us descend and make our abode in this well, it will furnish us with shelter and food.”
The other replied with greater caution: “But suppose the water should fail us, how can we get out again from so great a depth?” Do nothing without a regard to the consequences.
FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
In 1513, then, Balboa set out, with 190 soldiers. Halfway across the isthmus (some ninety miles wide at that point), only sixty soldiers remained, many having succumbed to the harsh conditions—the bloodsucking insects, the torrential rainfall, fever. Finally, from a mountaintop, Balboa became the first European to lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean. Days later he marched in his armor into its waters, bearing the banner of Castile and claiming all its seas, lands, and islands in the name of the Spanish
throne.
Look to the end, no matter what it is you are considering. Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness, and then utterly ruins him.
THE HISTORIES, HERODOTUS, FIFTH CENTURY B.C.
Indians from the area greeted Balboa with gold, jewels, and precious pearls, the like of which he had never seen. When he asked where these had come from, the Indians pointed south, to the land of the Incas. But Balboa had only a few soldiers left. For the moment, he decided, he should return to Darien, send the jewels and gold to Spain as a token of good will, and ask for a large army to aid him in the conquest of El Dorado. When news reached Spain of Balboa’s bold crossing of the isthmus, his
discovery of the western ocean, and his planned conquest of El Dorado, the former criminal became a hero. He was instantly proclaimed governor of the new land. But before the king and queen received word of his discovery, they had already sent a dozen ships, under the command of a man named Pedro Arias Dávila, “Pedrarias,” with orders to arrest Balboa for murder
and to take command of the colony. By the time Pedrarias arrived in Panama, he had learned that Balboa had been pardoned, and that he was to share the governorship with the former outlaw.
All the same, Balboa felt uneasy. Gold was his dream, El Dorado his only desire. In pursuit of this goal he had nearly died many times over, and to share the wealth and glory with a newcomer would be intolerable. He also soon discovered that Pedrarias was a jealous, bitter man, and equally unhappy with the situation. Once again, the only solution for Balboa was to seize the initiative by proposing to cross the jungle with a larger army,
carrying ship-building materials and tools. Once on the Pacific coast, he would create an armada with which to conquer the Incas. Surprisingly enough, Pedrarias agreed to the plan—perhaps sensing it would never work. Hundreds died in this second march through the jungle, and the timber they carried rotted in the torrential rains. Balboa, as usual, was undaunted—no power in the world could thwart his plan—and on arriving at the Pacific he
began to cut down trees for new lumber. But the men remaining to him were too few and too weak to mount an invasion, and once again Balboa had to return to Darien. Pedrarias had in any case invited Balboa back to discuss a new plan, and on the outskirts of the settlement, the explorer was met by Francisco
Pizarro, an old friend who had accompanied him on his first crossing of the isthmus. But this was a trap: Leading one hundred soldiers, Pizarro surrounded his former friend, arrested him, and returned him to Pedrarias, who tried him on charges of rebellion. A few days later Balboa’s head fell into a basket, along with those of his most trusted followers. Years later Pizarro himself reached Peru, and Balboa’s deeds were forgotten.
THE KING, THE SUFI, AND THE SURGEON
In ancient times a king of Tartary was out walking with some of his noblemen. At the roadside was an abdal (a wandering Sufi), who cried out:
“Whoever will give me a hundred dinars, I will give him some good
advice.” The king stopped, and said: “Abdal, what is this good advice for a hundred dinars?”
“Sir,” answered the abdal,
“ order the sum to be given to me, and I will tell it you immediately.”
The king did so, expecting to hear something extraordinary.
The dervish said to him: “My advice is this:
Never begin anything until you have reflected what will be the end of it.” At this the nobles and everyone else present laughed, saying that the abdal had been wise to ask for his money in advance.
But the king said: “You have no reason to laugh at the good advice this abdal has given me. No one is unaware of the fact that we should think well before doing anything. But we are daily guilty of not remembering, and the consequences are evil. I very
much value this dervish’s advice. ”
The king decided to bear the advice always in his mind, and commanded it to be written in gold on the walls and even engraved on his silver plate. Not long afterward a plotter desired to kill the king. He bribed the royal surgeon with a promise of the prime ministership if he thrust a poisoned lancet into the king’s arm. When the time came to let some of the king’s blood, a silver basin was placed to catch the blood. Suddenly the surgeon
became aware of the words engraved upon it:
“Never begin anything until you have reflected what will be the end of it.” It was only then that he realized that if the plotter became king he could have the surgeon killed instantly, and would not need to fulfill his bargain. The king, seeing that the surgeon was now trembling, asked him what was wrong with hun. And so he confessed the truth, at that very moment. The plotter was seized; and the king sent for all the people who had been
present when the abdal gave his advice, and said to them: “Do you still laugh at the dervish?”
CARAVAN OF DREAMS, IDRIES SHAH, 1968
Interpretation
Most men are ruled by the heart, not the head. Their plans are vague, and when they meet obstacles they improvise. But improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end. Balboa had a dream of glory and wealth, and a vague plan to reach it. Yet his bold deeds, and his discovery of the Pacific, are largely forgotten, for he committed what in the world of power is the ultimate sin: He went part way, leaving the door open for others to take over. A real man of power would have had the prudence to see the dangers in the distance—the rivals who
would want to share in the conquests, the vultures that would hover once they heard the word “gold.” Balboa should have kept his knowledge of the Incas secret until after he had conquered Peru. Only then would his wealth, and his head, have been secure. Once Pedrarias arrived on the scene, a man of power and prudence would have schemed to kill or imprison him, and to
take over the army he had brought for the conquest of Peru. But Balboa was locked in the moment, always reacting emotionally, never thinking ahead.
What good is it to have the greatest dream in the world if others reap the benefits and the glory? Never lose your head over a vague, open-ended dream—plan to the end.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
In 1863 the Prussian premier Otto von Bismarck surveyed the chessboard of European power as it then stood. The main players were England, France, and Austria. Prussia itself was one of several states in the loosely allied German Federation. Austria, dominant member of the Federation, made sure that the other German states remained weak, divided and submissive.
Bismarck believed that Prussia was destined for something far greater than servant boy to Austria. This is how Bismarck played the game. His first move was to start a war with lowly Denmark, in order to recover the former Prussian lands of Schleswig-Holstein. He knew that these rumblings of Prussian independence might worry France and England, so he enlisted Austria in the war, claiming that he was recovering Schleswig-Holstein for their benefit. In a few months, after the war was decided, Bismarck demanded that the newly conquered lands be made part of Prussia. The Austrians of course were furious, but they compromised: First they agreed to give the Prussians Schleswig, and a year later they sold them Holstein. The world
began to see that Austria was weakening and that Prussia was on the rise. Bismarck’s next move was his boldest: In 1866 he convinced King William of Prussia to withdraw from the German Federation, and in doing so to go to war with Austria itself. King William’s wife, his son the crown prince, and the princes of the other German kingdoms vehemently opposed such a war. But Bismarck, undaunted, succeeded in forcing the conflict, and
Prussia’s superior army defeated the Austrians in the brutally short Seven Weeks War. The king and the Prussian generals then wanted to march on Vienna, taking as much land from Austria as possible. But Bismarck stopped them—now he presented himself as on the side of peace. The result was that he was able to conclude a treaty with Austria that granted Prussia and the other German states total autonomy. Bismarck could now position
Prussia as the dominant power in Germany and the head of a newly formed North German Confederation.
The French and the English began to compare Bismarck to Attila the Hun, and to fear that he had designs on all of Europe. Once he had started on the path to conquest, there was no telling where he would stop. And, indeed, three years later Bismarck provoked a war with France. First he appeared to give his permission to France’s annexation of Belgium, then at the last moment he changed his mind. Playing a cat-and-mouse game, he infuriated the French emperor, Napoleon III, and stirred up his own king
against the French. To no one’s surprise, war broke out in 1870. The newly formed German federation enthusiastically joined in the war on France, and once again the Prussian military machine and its allies destroyed the enemy army in a matter of months. Although Bismarck opposed taking any French land, the generals convinced him that Alsace-Lorraine would become part of the federation. Now all of Europe feared the next move of the Prussian monster, led by Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor.” And in fact a year later Bismarck founded the German Empire, with the Prussian king as the newly crowned emperor and Bismarck himself a prince. But then something strange happened:
Bismarck instigated no more wars. And while the other European powers grabbed up land for colonies in other continents, he severely limited Germany’s colonial acquisitions. He did not want more land for Germany, but more security. For the rest of his life he struggled to maintain peace in Europe and to prevent further wars. Everybody assumed he had changed, mellowing with the years. They had failed to understand: This was the final move of his original plan. He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say.
WALTER BENJAMIN, 1892-1940
Interpretation
There is a simple reason why most men never know when to come off the attack: They form no concrete idea of their goal. Once they achieve victory they only hunger for more. To stop—to aim for a goal and then keep to it— seems almost inhuman, in fact; yet nothing is more critical to the maintenance of power. The person who goes too far in his triumphs creates a reaction that inevitably leads to a decline. The only solution is to plan for the long run. Foresee the future with as much clarity as the gods on Mount Olympus, who look through the clouds and see the ends of all things.
From the beginning of his career in politics, Bismarck had one goal: to form an independent German state led by Prussia. He instigated the war with Denmark not to conquer territory but to stir up Prussian nationalism and unite the country. He incited the war with Austria only to gain Prussian independence. (This was why he refused to grab Austrian territory.) And he fomented the war with France to unite the German kingdoms against a common enemy, and thus to prepare for the formation of a united Germany.
Once this was achieved, Bismarck stopped. He never let triumph go to his head, was never tempted by the siren call of more. He held the reins tightly, and whenever the generals, or the king, or the Prussian people demanded new conquests, he held them back.
Nothing would spoil the beauty of his creation, certainly not a false euphoria that pushed those around him to attempt to go past the end that he had so carefully planned.
Experience shows that, if one foresees from far away the designs to be undertaken, one can act with speed when the moment comes to execute them.
Cardinal Richelieu, 1585-1642
KEYS TO POWER
According to the cosmology of the ancient Greeks, the gods were thought to have complete vision into the future. They saw everything to come, right down to the intricate details. Men, on the other hand, were seen as victims of fate, trapped in the moment and their emotions, unable to see beyond immediate dangers. Those heroes, such as Odysseus, who were able to look
beyond the present and plan several steps ahead, seemed to defy fate, to approximate the gods in their ability to determine the future.
The comparison is still valid—those among us who think further ahead and patiently bring their plans to fruition seem to have a godlike power. Because most people are too imprisoned in the moment to plan with this kind of foresight, the ability to ignore immediate dangers and pleasures translates into power. It is the power of being able to overcome the natural human tendency to react to things as they happen, and instead to train oneself to step back, imagining the larger things taking shape beyond one’s
immediate vision. Most people believe that they are in fact aware of the future, that they are planning and thinking ahead.
They are usually deluded: What they are really doing is succumbing to their desires, to what they want the future to be. Their plans are vague, based on their imaginations rather than their reality. They may believe they are thinking all the way to the end, but they are really only focusing on the happy ending, and deluding themselves by the strength of their desire.
In 415 B.C., the ancient Athenians attacked Sicily, believing their
expedition would bring them riches, power, and a glorious ending to the sixteen-year Peloponnesian War. They did not consider the dangers of an invasion so far from home; they did not foresee that the Sicilians would fight all the harder since the battles were in their own homeland, or that all of Athens’s enemies would band together against them, or that war would break out on several fronts, stretching their forces way too thin. The Sicilian
expedition was a complete disaster, leading to the destruction of one of the greatest civilizations of all time. The Athenians were led into this disaster by their hearts, not their minds. They saw only the chance of glory, not the dangers that loomed in the distance.
Cardinal de Retz, the seventeenth-century Frenchman who prided himself on his insights into human schemes and why they mostly fail, analyzed this phenomenon. In the course of a rebellion he spearheaded against the French monarchy in 1651, the young king, Louis XIV, and his court had suddenly left Paris and established themselves in a palace outside the capital. The
presence of the king so close to the heart of the revolution had been a tremendous burden on the revolutionaries, and they breathed a sigh of relief. This later proved their downfall, however, since the court’s absence from Paris gave it much more room to maneuver. “The most ordinary cause of people’s mistakes,”
Cardinal de Retz later wrote, “is their being too much
frightened at the present danger, and not enough so at that which is remote.”
The dangers that are remote, that loom in the distance—if we can see them as they take shape, how many mistakes we avoid. How many plans we would instantly abort if we realized we were avoiding a small danger only to step into a larger one. So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do—the rash and foolish actions that you refrain from before they get you into trouble. Plan in detail before you act—do not let vague plans
lead you into trouble.
Will this have unintended consequences?
Will I stir up new enemies?
Will someone else take advantage of my labors?
Unhappy endings are much more common than happy ones—do not be swayed by the happy ending in your mind.
The French elections of 1848 came down to a struggle between LouisAdolphe Thiers, the man of order, and General Louis Eugène Cavaignac, the rabble-rouser of the right. When Thiers realized he was hopelessly behind in this high-stakes race, he searched desperately for a solution. His eye fell on Louis Bonaparte, grand-nephew of the great general Napoleon, and a lowly deputy in the parliament. This Bonaparte seemed a bit of an imbecile, but his name alone could get him elected in a country yearning for a strong ruler. He would be Thiers’s puppet and eventually would be pushed offstage. The first part of the plan worked to perfection, and Napoleon was elected by a large margin.
The problem was that Thiers had not foreseen one simple fact: This “imbecile” was in fact a man of enormous ambition.
Three years later he dissolved parliament, declared himself emperor, and ruled France for another eighteen years, much to the horror of Thiers and his party.
The ending is everything. It is the end of the action that determines who gets the glory, the money, the prize. Your conclusion must be crystal clear, and you must keep it constantly in mind. You must also figure out how to ward off the vultures circling overhead, trying to live off the carcass of your creation. And you must anticipate the many possible crises that will tempt
you to improvise. Bismarck overcame these dangers because he planned to the end, kept on course through every crisis, and never let others steal the glory.
Once he had reached his stated goal, he withdrew into his shell like a turtle. This kind of self-control is godlike.
When you see several steps ahead, and plan your moves all the way to the end, you will no longer be tempted by emotion or by the desire to improvise. Your clarity will rid you of the anxiety and vagueness that are the primary reasons why so many fail to conclude their actions successfully. You see the ending and you tolerate no deviation.
Image:
The Gods on Mount Olympus. Looking down on human actions from the clouds, they see in advance the endings of all the great dreams that lead to disaster and tragedy. And they laugh at our inability to see beyond the moment, and at how we delude ourselves.
Authority: How much easier it is never to get in than to get yourself out! We should act contrary to the reed which, when it first appears, throws up a long straight stem but afterwards, as though it were exhausted ... makes several dense knots, indicating that it no longer has its original vigor and drive. We must rather begin gently and coolly, saving our breath for the
encounter and our vigorous thrusts for finishing off the job. In their beginnings it is we who guide affairs and hold them in our power; but so often once they are set in motion, it is they which guide us and sweep us along.
(Montaigne, 1533-1592)
REVERSAL
It is a cliché among strategists that your plan must include alternatives and have a degree of flexibility. That is certainly true. If you are locked into a plan too rigidly, you will be unable to deal with sudden shifts of fortune. Once you have examined the future possibilities and decided on your target, you must build in alternatives and be open to new routes toward your goal.
Most people, however, lose less from overplanning and rigidity than from vagueness and a tendency to improvise constantly in the face of circumstance. There is no real purpose in contemplating a reversal to this Law, then, for no good can come from refusing to think far into the future and planning to the end. If you are clear- and far-thinking enough, you will understand that the future is uncertain, and that you must be open to adaptation. Only having a clear objective and a far-reaching plan allows you
that freedom.

What Comes Naturally by delphisdaughter

You don't have to know how to read or write when you're out with a fella in the pale moonlight. You don't have to look in a book to find what he thinks of the moon or what is on his mind. That comes naturally.

Law 27 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 27
PLAY ON PEOPLE’S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULTLIKE FOLLOWING
JUDGMENT
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise ; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.
THE SCIENCE OF CHARLATANISM, OR HOW TO CREATE A CULT IN FIVE EASY STEPS
In searching, as you must, for the methods that will gain you the most power for the least effort, you will find the creation of a cultlike following one of the most effective.
Having a large following opens up all sorts of possibilities for deception; not only will your followers worship you, they will defend you from your enemies and will voluntarily take on the work of enticing others to join your fledgling cult.
This kind of power will lift you to another realm: You will no longer have to struggle or use subterfuge to enforce your will. You are adored and can do no wrong. You might think it a gargantuan task to create such a following, but in fact it is fairly simple.
As humans, we have a desperate need to believe in something, anything. This makes us eminently gullible: We simply cannot
endure long periods of doubt, or of the emptiness that comes from a lack of something to believe in.
Dangle in front of us some new cause, elixir, getrich-quick scheme, or the latest technological trend or art movement and we leap from the water as one to take the bait. Look at history: The chronicles of the new trends and cults that have made a mass following for themselves could fill a library. After a few centuries, a few decades, a few years, a few months, they generally look ridiculous, but at the time they seem so attractive, so transcendental, so divine.
Always in a rush to believe in something, we will manufacture saints and faiths out of nothing. Do not let this gullibility go to waste: Make yourself the object of worship. Make people form a cult around you.
The great European charlatans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mastered the art of cultmaking. They lived, as we do now, in a time of transformation: Organized religion was on the wane, science on the rise.
People were desperate to rally around a new cause or faith. The charlatans had begun by peddling health elixirs and alchemic shortcuts to wealth. Moving quickly from town to town, they originally focused on small groups —until, by accident, they stumbled on a truth of human nature: The larger the group they gathered around themselves, the easier it was to deceive.
The charlatan would station himself on a high wooden platform (hence the term “mountebank”) and crowds would swarm around him. In a group setting, people were more emotional, less able to reason. Had the charlatan spoken to them individually, they might have found him ridiculous, but lost in a crowd they got caught up in a communal mood of rapt attention. It became impossible for them to find the distance to be skeptical. Any deficiencies in the charlatan’s ideas were hidden by the zeal of the mass.
Passion and enthusiasm swept through the crowd like a contagion, and they reacted violently to anyone who dared to spread a seed of doubt. Both consciously studying this dynamic over decades of experiment and spontaneously adapting to these situations as they happened,
the charlatans perfected the science of attracting and holding a crowd, molding the crowd into followers and the followers into a cult. It was to the charlatan’s advantage that the individuals predisposed to credulity should multiply, that the groups of his adherents should enlarge to mass proportions, guaranteeing an ever greater scope for his triumphs. And this was in fact to occur, as science was popularized, from the Renaissance on down through succeeding centuries. With the immense growth of
knowledge and its spread through printing in modern times, the mass of the half educated, the eagerly gullible prey of the quack, also increased, became indeed a majority; real power could be based on their wishes, opinions, preferences, and rejections. The charlatan’s empire accordingly widened with the modern dissemination of knowledge; since he operated on the basis of science, however much he perverted it, producing gold with a
technique borrowed from chemistry and his wonderful balsams with the apparatus of medicine, he could not appeal to an entirely ignorant folk. The illiterate would be protected against his absurdities by their healthy common sense. His choicest audience would be composed of the semiliterate, those who had exchanged their common sense for a little distorted information and had encountered science and education at some time, though briefly and unsuccessfully.... The great mass of mankind has always been predisposed to marvel at mysteries, and this was especially true at certain historic periods when the secure foundations of life seemed shaken and old values, economic or spiritual, long accepted as certainties, could no longer be relied upon. Then the numbers of the charlatan’s dupes multiplied—the “self killers,” as a seventeenth-century Englishman called them.
THE POWER OF THE CHARLATAN, GRETE DE FRANCESCO, 1939
The gimmicks of the charlatans may seem quaint today, but there are thousands of charlatans among us still, using the same tried-and-true methods their predecessors refined centuries ago, only changing the names of their elixirs and modernizing the look of their cults. We find these latterday charlatans in all arenas of life—business, fashion, politics, art. Many of them, perhaps, are following in the charlatan tradition without having any
knowledge of its history, but you can be more systematic and deliberate.
Simply follow the five steps of cultmaking that our charlatan ancestors perfected over the years.
Step 1: Keep It Vague; Keep It Simple. To create a cult you must first attract attention. This you should do not through actions, which are too clear and readable, but through words, which are hazy and deceptive. Your initial speeches, conversations, and interviews must include two elements: on the one hand the promise of something great and transformative, and on the other a total vagueness. This combination will stimulate all kinds of hazy dreams in your listeners, who will make their own connections and see what they want to see.
To make your vagueness attractive, use words of great resonance but cloudy meaning, words full of heat and enthusiasm. Fancy titles for simple things are helpful, as are the use of numbers and the creation of new words for vague concepts. All of these create the impression of specialized knowledge, giving you a veneer of profundity.
By the same token, try to make the subject of your cult new and fresh, so that few will understand it. Done right, the combination of vague promises, cloudy but alluring concepts, and fiery enthusiasm will stir people’s souls and a group will form
around you.
Talk too vaguely and you have no credibility. But it is more dangerous to be specific. If you explain in detail the benefits people will gain by following your cult, you will be expected to satisfy them.
As a corollary to its vagueness your appeal should also be simple. Most people’s problems have complex causes: deep-rooted neurosis, interconnected social factors, roots that go way back in time and are exceedingly hard to unravel.
Few, however, have the patience to deal with this; most people want to hear that a simple solution will cure their problems. The ability to offer this kind of solution will give you great power and build you a following. Instead of the complicated explanations of
real life, return to the primitive solutions of our ancestors, to good old country remedies, to mysterious panaceas.
Step 2: Emphasize the Visual and the Sensual over the Intellectual.
Once people have begun to gather around you, two dangers will present themselves: boredom and skepticism. Boredom will make people go elsewhere ; skepticism will allow them the distance to think rationally about whatever it is you are offering, blowing away the mist you have artfully created and revealing your ideas for what they are. You need to amuse the bored, then, and ward off the cynics.
THE OWL WHO WAS GOD
Once upon a starless midnight there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by, unnoticed.
“You!” said the owl.
“Who?” they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they
could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness.
“You two!” said the owl.
The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question.
“I’ll see about that,” said a secretary bird,
and he called on the owl one night when it was again very dark. “How many claws am I holding up?” said the secretary bird.
“Two,” said the owl, and that was right.
“Can you give me another expression for ‘that is to say’ or
‘namely?’ ” asked the secretary bird.
“To wit,” said the owl.
“Why does a lover call on his love?” asked the secretary bird.
“To woo,” said the owl.
The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl was indeed the greatest and wisest animal in the world because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question.
“Can he see in the daytime, too?” asked a red fox.
“Yes,” echoed a dormouse and a French poodle.
“Can he see in the daytime, too?” All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region. Then they sent a
messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader.
When the owl appeared among the animals it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance.
“He’s God!” screamed a Plymouth Rock hen.
And the others took up the cry
“He’s God!” So they followed him wherever he went and when he began to bump into things they began to bump into things. too. Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him.
Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl. “There’s danger ahead, ” said the secretary bird.
“To wit?” said the owl.
The secretary bird told him. “Aren’t you afraid?”
He asked. “Who?” said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck.
“He’s God!” cried all the creatures again,
and they were still crying “He’s God!” when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.
Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
THE THURBER CARNIVAL, JAMES THURBER, 1894-1961
The best way to do this is through theater, or other devices of its kind. Surround yourself with luxury, dazzle your followers with visual splendor, fill their eyes with spectacle. Not only will this keep them from seeing the ridiculousness of your ideas, the holes in your belief system, it will also attract more attention, more followers.
Appeal to all the senses: Use incense for scent, soothing music for hearing, colorful charts and graphs for the eye.
You might even tickle the mind, perhaps by using new technological gadgets to give your cult a pseudo-scientific veneer—as long as you do not make anyone really think.
Use the exotic—distant cultures, strange customs —to create theatrical effects, and to make the most banal and ordinary
affairs seem signs of something extraordinary.
Step 3: Borrow the Forms of Organized Religion to Structure the
Group.
Your cultlike following is growing; it is time to organize it. Find a
way both elevating and comforting. Organized religions have long held unquestioned authority for large numbers of people, and continue to do so in our supposedly secular age. And even if the religion itself has faded some, its forms still resonate with power. The lofty and holy associations of organized religion can be endlessly exploited. Create rituals for your followers; organize them into a hierarchy, ranking them in grades of sanctity, and giving them names and titles that resound with religious
overtones; ask them for sacrifices that will fill your coffers and increase your power.
To emphasize your gathering’s quasi-religious nature, talk and
act like a prophet. You are not a dictator, after all; you are a priest, a guru, a sage, a shaman, or any other word that hides your real power in the mist of religion.
Step 4: Disguise Your Source of Income.
Your group has grown, and you have structured it in a churchlike form. Your coffers are beginning to fill with your followers’ money. Yet you must never be seen as hungry for money and the power it brings. It is at this moment that you must disguise the source of your income. Your followers want to believe that if they follow you all sorts of good things will fall into their lap.
By surrounding yourself with luxury you become living proof of the soundness of your belief system. Never reveal that your wealth actually comes from your followers’ pockets; instead,
make it seem to come from the truth of your methods. Followers will copy your each and every move in the belief that it will bring them the same results, and their imitative enthusiasm will blind them to the charlatan nature of your wealth.
Step 5: Set Up an Us-Versus-Them Dynamic.
The group is now large and thriving, a magnet attracting more and more particles. If you are not careful, though, inertia will set in, and time and boredom will demagnetize the group.
To keep your followers united, you must now do what all religions
and belief systems have done: create an us-versus-them dynamic.
First, make sure your followers believe they are part of an exclusive club, unified by a bond of common goals. Then, to strengthen this bond, manufacture the notion of a devious enemy out to ruin you.
There is a force of nonbelievers that will do anything to stop you. Any outsider who tries to reveal the charlatan nature of your belief system can now be described as a member of this devious force.
If you have no enemies, invent one. Given a straw man to react against, your followers will tighten and cohere. They have your cause to believe in and infidels to destroy.
OBSERVANCES OF THE LAW
Observance I
In the year 1653, a twenty-seven-year-old Milan man named Francesco Giuseppe Borri claimed to have had a vision. He went around town telling one and all that the archangel Michael had appeared to him and announced that he had been chosen to be the capitano generale of the Army of the New Pope, an army that would seize and revitalize the world. The archangel had further revealed that Borri now had the power to see people’s souls, and
that he would soon discover the philosopher’s stone—a long-sought-after substance that could change base metals into gold. Friends and acquaintances who heard Borri explain the vision, and who witnessed the change that had come over him, were impressed, for Borri had previously devoted himself to a life of wine, women, and gambling. Now he gave all that up, plunging himself into the study of alchemy and talking only of mysticism and the occult.
The transformation was so sudden and miraculous, and Borri’s words were so filled with enthusiasm, that he began to create a following. Unfortunately the Italian Inquisition began to notice him as well—they prosecuted anyone who delved into the occult—so he left Italy and began to wander Europe, from Austria to Holland, telling one and all that “to those who follow me all joy shall be granted.” Wherever Borri stayed he attracted followers. His method was simple: He spoke of his vision, which had grown
more and more elaborate, and offered to “look into” the soul of anyone who believed him (and they were many). Seemingly in a trance, he would stare at this new follower for several minutes, then claim to have seen the person’s soul, degree of enlightenment, and potential for spiritual greatness. If what he saw showed promise, he would add the person to his growing
order of disciples, an honor indeed.
The cult had six degrees, into which the disciples were assigned
according to what Borri had glimpsed in their souls. With work and total devotion to the cult they could graduate to a higher degree. Borri—whom they called “His Excellency,” and “Universal Doctor”—demanded from them the strictest vows of poverty. All the goods and moneys they possessed had to be turned over to him. But they did not mind handing over their property,
for Borri had told them, “I shall soon bring my chemical studies to a happy conclusion by the discovery of the philosopher’s stone,
and by this means we shall all have as much gold as we desire.”
Given his growing wealth, Borri began to change his style of living. Renting the most splendid apartment in the city into which he had temporarily settled, he would furnish it with fabulous furniture and accessories, which he had begun to collect. He would drive through the city in a coach studded with jewels, with six magnificent black horses at its head. He never stayed too long in one place, and when he disappeared, saying he had more souls to gather into his flock, his reputation only grew in his absence. He became famous, although in fact he had never done a single concrete thing.
To become the founder of a new religion one must be psychologically infallible in one’s knowledge of a certain average type of souls who have not yet recognized that they belong together.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844-1900
Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.
NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, 1469-1527
From all over Europe, the blind, the crippled, and the desperate came to visit Borri, for word had spread that he had healing powers. He asked no fee for his services, which only made him seem more marvelous, and indeed some claimed that in this or that city he had performed a miracle cure. By only hinting at his accomplishments, he encouraged people’s imaginations to blow them up to fantastic proportions. His wealth, for example, actually came from the vast sums he was collecting from his increasingly select group of rich disciples; yet it was presumed that he had in fact perfected the philosopher’s stone. The Church continued to pursue him, denouncing him for heresy and witchcraft, and Borri’s response to these charges was a dignified silence; this only enhanced his reputation and made his followers
more passionate. Only the great are persecuted, after all; how many understood Jesus Christ in his own time? Borri did not have to say a word— his followers now called the Pope the Antichrist.
And so Borri’s power grew and grew, until one day he left the city of Amsterdam (where he had settled for a while), absconding with huge sums of borrowed money and diamonds that had been entrusted to him. (He claimed to be able to remove the flaws from diamonds through the power of his gifted mind.) Now he was on the run. The Inquisition eventually caught up with him, and for the last twenty years of his life he was imprisoned in
Rome. But so great was the belief in his occult powers that to his dying day he was visited by wealthy believers, including Queen Christina of Sweden. Supplying him with money and materials, these visitors allowed him to continue his search for the elusive philosopher’s stone. Interpretation
THE TEMPLE OF HEALTH
[In the late 1780s] the Scottish quack James Graham... was winning a large following and great riches in London.... [Graham] maintained a show of great scientific technique. In 1772 ... he had visited Philadelphia, where he met Benjamin Franklin and became interested in the latter’s experiments with electricity. These appear to have inspired the apparatus in the “Temple of Health,”
the fabulous establishment he opened in London for the sale of his elixirs.... In the chief room, where he received patients, stood “the largest air pump in the world” to assist him in his “philosophical investigations” into disease, and also a “stupendous metallic conductor,” a richly gilded pedestal
surrounded with retorts and vials of “etherial and other essences.” ...
According to J. Ennemoser, who published a history of magic in 1844 at Leipzig, Graham’s “house... united the useful with the pleasurable. Everywhere the utmost magnificence was displayed. Even in the outer court, averred an eye-witness, it seemed as though art, invention, and riches had been exhausted. On the side walls in the chambers an arc-shaped glow was provided by artificial electric light; star rays darted forth; transparent glasses of all colors were placed with clever selection and much taste. All
this, the same eyewitness assures us, was ravishing and exalted the imagination to the highest degree.”
Visitors were given a printed sheet of rules for healthy living. In the Great Apollo Apartment they might join in mysterious rituals, accompanied by chants : “Hail, Vital Air, aethereal ! Magnetic Magic, hail !”
And while they hailed the magic of magnetism, the windows were darkened, revealing a ceiling studded with electric stars and a young and lovely “Rosy Goddess of Health” in a niche.... Every evening this Temple of Health was crowded with guests;
it had become the fashion to visit it and try the great twelve-foot bed of state, the “Grand Celestial Bed,” said to cure any disease.... This bed, according to Ennemoser, “stood in a splendid room, into which a cylinder led from an adjoining chamber to conduct the healing currents... at the same time all sorts of pleasing scents of strengthening herbs and Oriental incense were also brought in through glass tubes.
The heavenly bed itself rested upon six solid transparent pillars; the bedclothes were of purple and sky-blue Atlas silk, spread over a mattress saturated with Arabian perfumed waters to suit the tastes of the Persian court. The chamber in which it was placed he called the Sanctum Sanctorum.... To add to all this, there were the melodious notes of the harmonica, soft flutes, agreeable voices, and a great organ.”
THE POWER OF THE CHARLATAN, GRETE DE FRANCESCO, 1939
Before he formed his cult, Borri seems to have stumbled on a critical discovery. Tiring of his life of debauchery, he had decided to give it up and to devote himself to the occult, a genuine interest of his. He must have noticed, however, that when he alluded to a mystical experience (rather than physical exhaustion) as the source of his conversion, people of all classes wanted to hear more. Realizing the power he could gain by ascribing the
change to something external and mysterious, he went further with his manufactured visions. The grander the vision, and the more sacrifices he asked for, the more appealing and believable his story seemed to become.
Remember: People are not interested in the truth about change. They do not want to hear that it has come from hard work, or from anything as banal as exhaustion, boredom, or depression; they are dying to believe in something romantic, otherworldly. They want to hear of angels and out-ofbody experiences. Indulge them. Hint at the mystical source of some personal change, wrap it in ethereal colors, and a cultlike following will form around you. Adapt to people’s needs: The messiah must mirror the desires of his followers. And always aim high. The bigger and bolder your
illusion, the better.
Observance II
In the mid-1700s, word spread in Europe’s fashionable society of a Swiss country doctor named Michael Schüppach who practiced a different kind of medicine: He used the healing powers of nature to perform miraculous cures. Soon well-to-do people from all over the Continent, their ailments both serious and mild, were making the trek to the alpine village of Langnau, where Schüppach lived and worked. Trudging through the mountains, these visitors witnessed the most dramatic natural landscapes
that Europe has to offer. By the time they reached Langnau, they were already feeling transformed and on their way to health.
Schüppach, who had become known as simply the “Mountain Doctor,” had a small pharmacy in town.
This place became quite a scene: Crowds of people from many different countries would cram the small room, its walls lined with colorful bottles filled with herbal cures. Where most doctors of the time prescribed foul-tasting concoctions that bore incomprehensible Latin titles (as medicines often do still), Schüppach’s cures had names such as “The Oil of Joy,” “Little Flower’s Heart,” or “Against the Monster,” and they tasted sweet and pleasing. Visitors to Langnau would have to wait patiently for a visit with the Mountain Doctor, because every day some eighty messengers would arrive at the pharmacy bearing flasks of urine from all over Europe. Schüppach claimed he could diagnose what ailed you simply by looking at a sample of your urine and reading a written description of your ailment.
(Naturally he read the description very carefully before prescribing a cure.) When he finally had a spare minute (the urine samples took up much of his time), he would call the visitor into his office in the pharmacy. He would then examine this person’s urine sample, explaining that its appearance would tell him everything he needed to know. Country people had a sense for these things,
he would say—their wisdom came from living a simple, godly life with none of the complications of urban living. This personal consultation would also include a discussion as to how one might bring one’s soul more into harmony with nature.
Schüppach had devised many forms of treatment, each profoundly unlike the usual medical practices of the time. He was a believer, for instance, in electric shock therapy. To those who wondered whether this was in keeping with his belief in the healing power of nature, he would explain that electricity is a natural phenomenon; he was merely imitating the power of
lightning. One of his patients claimed to be inhabited by seven devils. The doctor cured him with electrical shocks, and as he administered these he exclaimed that he could see the devils flying out of the man’s body, one by one.
Another man claimed to have swallowed a hay wagon and its driver, which were causing him massive pains in the chest. The Mountain Doctor listened patiently, claimed to be able to hear the crack of a whip in the man’s belly, promised to cure him, and gave him a sedative and a purgative. The man fell asleep on a chair outside the pharmacy. As soon as he awoke he vomited, and as he vomited a hay wagon sped past him (the Mountain Doctor had hired it for the occasion), the crack of its whip making him feel that somehow he had indeed expelled it under the doctor’s care.
Over the years, the Mountain Doctor’s fame grew. He was consulted by the powerful—even the writer Goethe made the trek to his village—and he became the center of a cult of nature in which everything natural was considered worthy of worship. Schüppach was careful to create effects that would entertain and inspire his patients.
A professor who visited him once wrote, “One stands or sits in company, one plays cards, sometimes with a young woman; now a concert is given, now a lunch or supper, and now a little ballet is presented. With a very happy effect, the freedom of nature is
everywhere united with the pleasures of the beau monde, and if the doctor is not able to heal any diseases, he can at least cure hypochondria and the vapors.”
Interpretation
Schüppach had begun his career as an ordinary village doctor. He would sometimes use in his practice some of the village remedies he had grown up with, and apparently he noticed some results, for soon these herbal tinctures and natural forms of healing became his specialty.
And in fact his natural form of healing did have profound psychological effects on his patients.
Where the normal drugs of the time created fear and pain, Schüppach’s treatments were comfortable and soothing. The resulting improvement in the patient’s mood was a critical element in the cures he brought about.
His patients believed so deeply in his skills that they willed themselves into health. Instead of scoffing at their irrational explanations for their ailments, Schüppach used their hypochondria to make it seem that he had effected a
great cure.
The case of the Mountain Doctor teaches us valuable lessons in the creation of a cultlike following.
First, you must find a way to engage people’s will, to make their belief in your powers strong enough that they imagine all sorts of benefits. Their belief will have a self-fulfilling quality, but you must make sure that it is you, rather than their own will, who is seen as the agent of transformation.
Find the belief, cause, or fantasy that will make them believe with a passion and they will imagine the rest, worshipping you as healer, prophet, genius, whatever you like.
Second, Schüppach teaches us the everlasting power of belief in nature, and in simplicity. Nature, in reality, is full of much that is terrifying— poisonous plants, fierce animals, sudden disasters, plagues. Belief in the healing, comforting quality of nature is really a constructed myth, a romanticism. But the appeal to nature can bring you great power, especially in complicated and stressful times. This appeal, however, must be handled right. Devise a kind of theater of nature in which you, as the director, pick and choose the qualities that fit the romanticism of the times.
The Mountain Doctor played the part to perfection, playing up his homespun wisdom and wit, and staging his cures as dramatic pieces. He did not make himself one with nature; instead he molded nature into a cult, an artificial construction.
To create a “natural” effect you actually have to work hard, making nature theatrical and delightfully pagan. Otherwise no one will notice. Nature too must follow trends and be progressive.
Observance III
In 1788, at the age of fifty-five, the doctor and scientist Franz Mesmer was at a crossroads. He was a pioneer in the study of animal magnetism—the belief that animals contain magnetic matter, and that a doctor or specialist can effect miraculous cures by working on this charged substance—but in Vienna, where he lived, his theories had met with scorn and ridicule from the medical establishment. In treating women for convulsions, Mesmer claimed to have worked a number of cures, his proudest achievement being the restoration of sight to a blind girl. But another doctor who examined the young girl said she was as blind as ever, an assessment with which she herself agreed. Mesmer countered that his enemies were out to slander him by winning her over to their side. This claim only elicited more ridicule.
Clearly the sober-minded Viennese were the wrong audience for his theories, and so he decided to move to Paris and start again.
Renting a splendid apartment in his new city, Mesmer decorated it appropriately. Stained glass in most of the windows created a religious feeling, and mirrors on all the walls produced an hypnotic effect. The doctor advertised that in his apartment he would give demonstrations of the powers of animal magnetism, inviting the diseased and melancholic to feel its powers. Soon Parisians of all classes (but mostly women, who seemed more
attracted to the idea than men did) were paying for entry to witness the miracles that Mesmer promised.
Inside the apartment, the scents of orange blossom and exotic incense wafted through special vents. As the initiates filtered into the salon where the demonstrations took place, they heard harp music and the lulling sounds of a female vocalist coming from another room. In the center of the salon was a long oval container filled with water that Mesmer claimed had been magnetized. From holes in the container’s metal lid protruded long movable
iron rods. The visitors were instructed to sit around the container, place these magnetized rods on the body part that gave them pains or problems, and then hold hands with their neighbors, sitting as close as possible to one another to help the magnetic force pass between their bodies. Sometimes, too, they were attached to each other by cords.
THE POWER OF A LIE
In the town of Tarnopol lived a man by the name of Reb Feivel. One day, as he sat in his house deeply-absorbed in his Talmud, he heard a loud noise outside. When he went to the window he saw a lot of little pranksters.
“Up to some new piece of mischief, no doubt.” he thought. “Children, run quickly to the synagogue,” he cried, leaning out and improvising the first story that occurred to him.
“You’ll see there a sea monster, and what a monster! It’s a creature with five feet, three eyes, and a beard like that of a
goat, only it’s green!”
And sure enough the children scampered off and Reb Feivel returned to his studies. He smiled into his beard as he thought of the trick he had played on those little rascals. It wasn’t long before his studies were interrupted again, this time by running footsteps. When he went to the window he saw several Jews running.
“Where are you running ?” he called out.
“To the synagogue!” answered the Jews.
“Haven’t you heard? There’s a sea monster, there’s a creature with five legs, three eyes, and a beard like that of a goat, only it’s green!” Reb Feivel laughed with glee, thinking of the trick
he had played,and sat down again to his Talmud. But no sooner had he begun to concentrate when suddenly he heard a dinning tumult outside.
And what did he see? A great crowd of men, women and children, all running toward the synagogue.
“What’s up?” he cried, sticking his head out of the window.
“What a question! Why, don’t you know?” they answered.
“Right in front of the synagogue there’s a sea monster. It’s a creature with five legs, three eyes, and a beard like that of a goat, only it’s green!”
And as the crowd hurried by, Reb Feivel suddenly noticed that the rabbi himself was among them.
“Lord of the world!” he exclaimed.
“If the rabbi himself is running with them surely there must be something happening. Where there’s smoke there’s fire!” Without further thought Reb Feivel grabbed his hat, left his
house, and also began running.
“Who can tell?” he muttered to himself as he ran, all out of breath, toward the synagogue.
A TREASURY OF JEWISH FOLKLORE, NATHAN AUSUBEL, ED.,
1948
Mesmer would leave the room, and “assistant magnetizers”—all
handsome and strapping young men—would enter with jars of magnetized water that they would sprinkle on the patients, rubbing the healing fluid on their bodies, massaging it into their skin, moving them toward a trancelike state. And after a few minutes a kind of delirium would overcome the women. Some would sob, some would shriek and tear their hair, others would laugh hysterically. At the height of the delirium Mesmer would
reenter the salon, dressed in a flowing silk robe embroidered with golden flowers and carrying a white magnetic rod. Moving around the container, he would stroke and soothe the patients until calm was restored. Many women would later attribute the strange power he had on them to his piercing look, which, they thought, was exciting or quieting the magnetic fluids in their
bodies.
Within months of his arrival in Paris, Mesmer became the rage. His supporters included Marie-Antoinette herself, the queen of France, wife of Louis XVI. As in Vienna, he was condemned by the official faculty of medicine, but it did not matter. His growing following of pupils and patients paid him handsomely.
Mesmer expanded his theories to proclaim that all humanity could be brought into harmony through the power of magnetism, a concept with much appeal during the French Revolution.
A cult of Mesmerism spread across the country; in many towns, “Societies of Harmony” sprang up to experiment with magnetism. These societies eventually became notorious: They tended to be led by libertines who would turn their sessions into a kind of group orgy.
At the height of Mesmer’s popularity, a French commission published a report based on years of testing the theory of animal magnetism.
The conclusion: Magnetism’s effects on the body actually came from a kind of group hysteria and autosuggestion. The report was well documented, and ruined Mesmer’s reputation in France. He left the country and went into retirement. Only a few years later, however, imitators sprang up all over Europe and the cult of Mesmerism spread once again, its believers more numerous than ever.
Interpretation
Mesmer’s career can be broken into two parts. When still in Vienna, he clearly believed in the validity of his theory, and did all he could to prove it. But his growing frustration and the disapproval of his colleagues made him adopt another strategy. First he moved to Paris, where no one knew him, and where his extravagant theories found a more fruitful soil. Then he appealed to the French love of theater and spectacle, making his apartment
into a kind of magical world in which a sensory overload of smells, sights, and sounds entranced his customers. Most important, from now on he practiced his magnetism only on a group. The group provided the setting in which the magnetism would have its proper effect, one believer infecting the other, overwhelming any individual doubter.
Mesmer thus passed from being a confirmed advocate of magnetism to the role of a charlatan using every trick in the book to captivate the public. The biggest trick of all was to play on the repressed sexuality that bubbles under the surface of any group setting. In a group, a longing for social unity, a longing older than civilization, cries out to be awakened. This desire may be subsumed under a unifying cause, but beneath it is a repressed sexuality that the charlatan knows how to exploit and manipulate for his own purposes.
This is the lesson that Mesmer teaches us: Our tendency to doubt, the distance that allows us to reason, is broken down when we join a group. The warmth and infectiousness of the group overwhelm the skeptical individual.
This is the power you gain by creating a cult. Also, by playing on people’s repressed sexuality, you lead them into mistaking their excited feelings for signs of your mystical strength. You gain untold power by working on people’s unrealized desire for a kind of promiscuous and pagan unity.
Remember too that the most effective cults mix religion with science. Take the latest technological trend or fad and blend it with a noble cause, a mystical faith, a new form of healing. People’s interpretations of your hybrid cult will run rampant, and they will attribute powers to you that you had never even thought to claim.
Image: The Magnet. An unseen force draws objects to it, which in turn become magnetized themselves, drawing other pieces to them, the magnetic power of the whole constantly increasing. But take away the original magnet and it all falls apart. Become the magnet, the invisible force that attracts people’s imaginations and holds them together. Once they have clustered around you, no power can wrest them away.
Authority: The charlatan achieves his great power by simply opening a possibility for men to believe what they already want to believe.... The credulous cannot keep at a distance; they crowd around the wonder worker, entering his personal aura, surrendering themselves to illusion with a heavy solemnity, like cattle. (Grete de Francesco)
REVERSAL
One reason to create a following is that a group is often easier to deceive than an individual, and turns over to you that much more power. This comes, however, with a danger: If at any moment the group sees through you, you will find yourself facing not one deceived soul but an angry crowd that will tear you to pieces as avidly as it once followed you. The charlatans constantly faced this danger, and were always ready to move out of town as it inevitably became clear that their elixirs did not work and their ideas were sham. Too slow and they paid with their lives. In playing with the crowd, you are playing with fire, and must constantly keep an eye out for any sparks of doubt, any enemies who will turn the crowd against you. When you play with the emotions of a crowd, you have to know how to adapt, attuning yourself instantaneously to all of the moods and desires that a
group will produce. Use spies, be on top of everything, and keep your bags packed. For this reason you may often prefer to deal with people one by one. Isolating them from their normal milieu can have the same effect as putting them in a group—it makes them more prone to suggestion and intimidation.
Choose the right sucker and if he eventually sees through you he may prove easier to escape than a crowd.

Law 26 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 26
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN
JUDGMENT
You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise your involvement.
PART I: CONCEAL YOUR MISTAKES—HAVE A SCAPEGOAT AROUND TO TAKE THE BLAME
Our good name and reputation depend more on what we conceal than on what we reveal. Everyone makes mistakes, but those who are truly clever manage to hide them, and to make sure someone else is blamed. A convenient scapegoat should always be kept around for such moments.
CHELM JUSTICE
A great calamity befell the town of Chelm one day. The town cobbler murdered one of his customers. So he was brought before the judge, who sentenced him to die by hanging.
When the verdict was read a townsman arose and cried out, “If your Honor pleases—you have sentenced to death the town cobbler! He’s the only one we’ve got. lf you hang him who will
mend our shoes?”
“Who? Who?” cried all the people of Chelm with one voice.
The judge nodded in agreement and reconsidered his verdict. “Good people of Chelm,”he said, “what you say is true.
Since we have only one cobbler it would he a great wrong against the community to let him die. As there are two roofers in the town let one of them be hanged instead.”
A TREASURY OF JEWISH FOLKLORE, NATHAN AUSUBEL, ED..
1948
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW I
Near the end of the second century A.D., as China’s mighty Han Empire slowly collapsed, the great general and imperial minister Ts‘ao Ts’ao emerged as the most powerful man in the country. Seeking to extend his power base and to rid himself of the last of his rivals, Ts‘ao Ts’ao began a campaign to take control of the strategically vital Central Plain.
During the siege of a key city, he slightly miscalculated the timing for supplies of grain to arrive from the capital. As he waited for the shipment to come in, the army ran low on food, and Ts‘ao Ts’ao was forced to order the chief of commissariat to reduce its rations. Ts‘ao Ts’ao kept a tight rein on the army, and ran a network of informers.
His spies soon reported that the men were complaining, grumbling that he was living well while they themselves had barely enough to eat. Perhaps Ts‘ao Ts’ao was keeping the food for himself, they murmured. If the grumbling spread, Ts‘ao Ts’ao could have a mutiny on his hands.
He summoned the chief of commissariat to his tent.
“I want to ask you to lend me something, and you must not refuse,” Ts‘ao Ts’ao told the chief.
“What is it?” the chief replied.
“I want the loan of your head to show to the troops,” said Ts‘ao Ts’ao.
“But I’ve done nothing wrong!” cried the chief.
“I know,” said Ts‘ao Ts’ao with a sigh,
“but if I do not put you to death, there will be a mutiny. Do not grieve—after you’re gone, I’ll look after your family.”
Put this way, the request left the chief no choice, so he resigned himself to his fate and was beheaded that very day. Seeing his head on public display, the soldiers stopped grumbling. Some
saw through Ts‘ao Ts’ao’s gesture, but kept quiet, stunned and intimidated by his violence. And most accepted his version of who was to blame, preferring to believe in his wisdom and fairness than in his incompetence and cruelty.
Interpretation
Ts‘ao Ts’ao came to power in an extremely tumultuous time. In the struggle for supremacy in the crumbling Han Empire, enemies had emerged from all sides. The battle for the Central Plain had proven more difficult than he imagined, and money and provisions were a constant concern. No wonder that under such stress, he had forgotten to order supplies in time. Once it became clear that the delay was a critical mistake, and that the army was seething with mutiny, Ts‘ao Ts’ao had two options: apology and
excuses, or a scapegoat. Understanding the workings of power and the importance of appearances as he did, Ts‘ao Ts’ao did not hesitate for a moment: He shopped around for the most convenient head and had it served up immediately. Occasional mistakes are inevitable—the world is just too unpredictable.
People of power, however, are undone not by the mistakes they make, but by the way they deal with them. Like surgeons, they must cut away the tumor with speed and finality. Excuses and apologies are much too blunt tools for this delicate operation; the powerful avoid them. By apologizing you open up all sorts of doubts about your competence, your intentions, any other mistakes you may not have confessed. Excuses satisfy no one and
apologies make everyone uncomfortable. The mistake does not vanish with an apology; it deepens and festers. Better to cut it off instantly, distract attention from yourself, and focus attention on a convenient scapegoat before people have time to ponder your responsibility or your possible incompetence.
I would rather betray the whole world than let the world betray me.
General Ts‘ao Ts’ao, c. A.D. 155-220
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW II
For several years Cesare Borgia campaigned to gain control of large parts of Italy in the name of his father, Pope Alexander. In the year 1500 he managed to take Romagna, in northern Italy. The region had for years been ruled by a series of greedy masters who had plundered its wealth for themselves. Without police or any disciplining force, it had descended into lawlessness, whole areas being ruled by robbers and feuding families. To establish order, Cesare appointed a lieutenant general of the region—
Remirro de Orco, “a cruel and vigorous man,” according to Niccolõ
Machiavelli. Cesare gave de Orco absolute powers. With energy and violence, de Orco established a severe, brutal justice in Romagna, and soon rid it of almost all of its lawless elements. But in his zeal he sometimes went too far, and after a couple of years the local population resented and even hated him. In December of 1502, Cesare took decisive action. He first let it be known that he had not approved of de Orco’s cruel and violent deeds, which stemmed from the lieutenant’s brutal nature. Then, on December 22, he imprisoned de Orco in the town of Cesena, and the day after Christmas the townspeople awoke to find a strange spectacle in the middle of the piazza: de Orco’s headless body,
dressed in a lavish suit with a purple cape, the head impaled beside it on a pike, the bloody knife and executioner’s block laid out beside the head. As Machiavelli concluded his comments on the affair, “The ferocity of this scene left the people at once stunned and satisfied.”
Interpretation
Cesare Borgia was a master player in the game of power. Always planning several moves ahead, he set his opponents the cleverest traps. For this Machiavelli honored him above all others in The Prince. Cesare foresaw the future with amazing clarity in Romagna: Only brutal justice would bring order to the region. The process would take several years, and at first the people would welcome it. But it would soon make many enemies, and the citizens would come to resent the imposition of such unforgiving justice, especially by outsiders. Cesare himself, then, could not
be seen as the agent of this justice—the people’s hatred would cause too many problems in the future. And so he chose the one man who could do the dirty work, knowing in advance that once the task was done he would have to display de Orco’s head on a pike. The scapegoat in this case had been planned from the beginning.
With Ts‘ao Ts’ao, the scapegoat was an entirely innocent man; in the Romagna, he was the offensive weapon in Cesare’s arsenal that let him get the dirty work done without bloodying his own hands. With this second kind of scapegoat it is wise to separate yourself from the hatchet man at some point, either leaving him dangling in the wind or, like Cesare, even making yourself the one to bring him to justice. Not only are you free of involvement in the problem, you can appear as the one who cleaned it up.
The Athenians regularly maintained a number of degraded and useless beings at the public expense; and when any calamity, such as plague, drought, or famine, befell the city ... [these scapegoats] were led about ... and then sacrificed, apparently by being stoned outside the city.
The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer, 1854-1941
KEYS TO POWER
The use of scapegoats is as old as civilization itself, and examples of it can be found in cultures around the world. The main idea behind these sacrifices is the shifting of guilt and sin to an outside figure—object, animal, or man—which is then banished or destroyed. The Hebrews used to take a live goat (hence the term “scapegoat”) upon whose head the priest would lay both hands while confessing the sins of the Children of Israel. Having thus had those sins transferred to it, the beast would be led away
and abandoned in the wilderness. With the Athenians and the Aztecs, the scapegoat was human, often a person fed and raised for the purpose. Since famine and plague were thought to be visited on humans by the gods, in punishment for wrongdoing, the people suffered not only from the famine and plague themselves but from blame and guilt. They freed themselves of guilt by transferring it to an innocent person, whose death was intended to satisfy the divine powers and banish the evil from their midst.
It is an extremely human response to not look inward after a mistake or crime, but rather to look outward and to affix blame and guilt on a convenient object. When the plague was ravaging Thebes, Oedipus looked everywhere for its cause, everywhere except inside himself and his own sin of incest, which had so offended the gods and occasioned the plague. This profound need to exteriorize one’s guilt, to project it on another person or
object, has an immense power, which the clever know how to harness. Sacrifice is a ritual, perhaps the most ancient ritual of all; ritual too is a well-spring of power. In the killing of de Orco, note Cesare’s symbolic and ritualistic display of his body. By framing it in this dramatic way he focused guilt outward. The citizens of Romagna responded instantly. Because it comes so naturally to us to look outward rather than inward, we readily accept the scapegoat’s guilt.
The bloody sacrifice of the scapegoat seems a barbaric relic of the past, but the practice lives on to this day, if indirectly and symbolically; since power depends on appearances, and those in power must seem never to make mistakes, the use of scapegoats is as popular as ever. What modern leader will take responsibility for his blunders? He searches out others to blame, a scapegoat to sacrifice. When Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution failed miserably, he made no apologies or excuses to the Chinese people; instead, like Ts‘ao Ts’ao before him, he offered up scapegoats, including his own personal secretary and high-ranking member of the Party, Ch’en Po-ta.
Franklin D. Roosevelt had a reputation for honesty and fairness.
Throughout his career, however, he faced many situations in which being the nice guy would have spelled political disaster—yet he could not be seen as the agent of any foul play. For twenty years, then, his secretary, Louis Howe, played the role de Orco had. He handled the backroom deals, the manipulation of the press, the underhanded campaign maneuvers. And whenever a mistake was committed, or a dirty trick contradicting Roosevelt’s carefully crafted image became public, Howe served as the
scapegoat, and never complained.
Besides conveniently shifting blame, a scapegoat can serve as a warning to others.
In 1631 a plot was hatched to oust France’s Cardinal Richelieu
from power, a plot that became known as “The Day of the Dupes.” It almost succeeded, since it involved the upper echelons of government, including the queen mother. But through luck and his own connivances, Richelieu survived. One of the key conspirators was a man named Marillac, the keeper of the seals. Richelieu could not imprison him without implicating the queen
mother, an extremely dangerous tactic, so he targeted Marillac’s brother, a marshal in the army. This man had no involvement in the plot. Richelieu, however, afraid that other conspiracies might be in the air, especially in the army, decided to set an example. He tried the brother on trumped-up charges and had him executed. In this way he indirectly punished the real perpetrator, who had thought himself protected, and warned any future conspirators that he would not shrink from sacrificing the innocent to protect his own power.
In fact it is often wise to choose the most innocent victim possible as a sacrificial goat. Such people will not be powerful enough to fight you, and their naive protests may be seen as protesting too much—may be seen, in other words, as a sign of their guilt. Be careful, however, not to create a martyr. It is important that you remain the victim, the poor leader betrayed
by the incompetence of those around you. If the scapegoat appears too weak and his punishment too cruel, you may end up the victim of your own device. Sometimes you should find a more powerful scapegoat—one who will elicit less sympathy in the long run. In this vein, history has time and again shown the value of using a close associate as a scapegoat. This is known as the “fall of the favorite.” Most kings had a personal favorite at court, a man whom they singled out, sometimes for no apparent reason, and lavished with favors and attention. But this court favorite could serve as a convenient scapegoat in case of a threat to the king’s reputation. The public would readily believe in the
scapegoat’s guilt—why would the king sacrifice his favorite unless he were guilty? And the other courtiers, resentful of the favorite anyway, would rejoice at his downfall. The king, meanwhile, would rid himself of a man who by that time had probably learned too much about him, perhaps becoming arrogant and even disdainful of him. Choosing a close associate
as a scapegoat has the same value as the “fall of the favorite.” You may lose a friend or aide, but in the long-term scheme of things, it is more important to hide your mistakes than to hold on to someone who one day will probably turn against you. Besides, you can always find a new favorite to take his place.
Image: The Innocent Goat. On the Day of Atonement, the high
priest brings the goat into the temple, places his hands on its head, and confesses the people’s sins, transferring guilt to the guiltless beast, which is then led to the wilderness and abandoned, the people’s sins and blame vanishing with him.
Authority: Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is seen. If you can’t be good, be careful.
(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
PART II: MAKE USE OF THE CAT’S-PAW
In the fable, the Monkey grabs the paw of his friend, the Cat, and uses it to fish chestnuts out of the fire, thus getting the nuts he craves, without hurting himself. If there is something unpleasant or unpopular that needs to be done, it is far too risky for you to do the work yourself. You need a cat‘s-paw-someone who does the dirty, dangerous work for you. The cat’s-paw grabs what you
need, hurts whom you need hurt, and keeps people from noticing that you are the one responsible. Let someone else be the executioner, or the bearer of bad news, while you bring only joy and glad tidings.
THE MONKEY AND THE CAT
A monkey and cat, in roguery and fun
Sworn brothers twain, both owned a common master,
Whatever mischief in the house was done
By Pug and Tom was contrived each disaster....
One winter’s day was seen this hopeful pair
Close to the kitchen fire, as usual, posted.
Amongst the red-hot coals the cook with care
Had plac’d some nice plump chestnuts to be roasted,
From whence in smoke a pungent odor rose,
Whose oily fragrance struck the monkey’s nose.
“Tom!” says sly Pug, “pray could not you and I
Share this dessert the cook is pleased to cater?
Had I such claws as yours, I’d quickly try:
Lend me a hand—’twill be a coup-de-maître.”
So said, he seized his colleague’s ready paw,
Pulled out the fruit, and crammed it in his jaw.
Now came the shining Mistress of the fane.
And off in haste the two marauders scampered.
Tom for his share of the plunder had the pain.
Whilst Pug his palate with the dainties pampered.
FABLES, JEAN OF LA FONTAINE, 1621-1695
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW I
In 59 B.C., the future queen Cleopatra of Egypt, then ten years old, witnessed the overthrow and banishment of her father, Ptolemy XII, at the hand of his elder daughters—her own sisters. One of the daughters, Berenice, emerged as the leader of the rebellion, and to ensure that she would now rule Egypt alone, she imprisoned her other sisters and murdered her own husband. This may have been necessary as a practical step to secure her rule. But that a member of the royal family, a queen no less, would so overtly exact such violence on her own family horrified her
subjects and stirred up powerful opposition. Four years later this opposition was able to return Ptolemy to power, and he promptly had Berenice and the other elder sisters beheaded.
In 51 B.C. Ptolemy died, leaving four remaining children as heirs. As was the tradition in Egypt, the eldest son, Ptolemy XIII (only ten at the time), married the elder sister, Cleopatra (now eighteen), and the couple took the throne together as king and queen. None of the four children felt satisfied with this; everyone, including Cleopatra, wanted more power. A struggle emerged between Cleopatra and Ptolemy, each trying to push the other to the side. In 48 B.C., with the help of a government faction that feared Cleopatra’s ambitions, Ptolemy was able to force his sister to flee the country, leaving himself as sole ruler. In exile, Cleopatra schemed. She wanted to rule alone and to restore Egypt to its past glory, a goal she felt none of her other
siblings could achieve; yet as long as they were alive, she could not realize her dream. And the example of Berenice had made it clear that no one would serve a queen who was seen murdering her own kind. Even Ptolemy XIII had not dared murder Cleopatra, although he knew she would plot against him from abroad. Within a year after Cleopatra’s banishment, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, determined to make the country a Roman colony. Cleopatra saw her chance: Reentering Egypt in disguise, she traveled hundreds of miles to reach Caesar in Alexandria. Legend has it that she had herself smuggled into his presence rolled up inside a carpet, which was gracefully unfurled at his feet, revealing the young queen. Cleopatra immediately went to work on the Roman. She appealed to his love of spectacle and his interest in Egyptian history, and poured on her feminine
charms. Caesar soon succumbed and restored Cleopatra to the throne. Cleopatra’s siblings seethed—she had outmaneuvered them. Ptolemy XIII would not wait to see what happened next: From his palace in Alexandria, he summoned a great army to march on the city and attack Caesar. In response, Caesar immediately put Ptolemy and the rest of the family under house arrest. But Cleopatra’s younger sister Arsinoe escaped from the palace and placed herself at the head of the approaching Egyptian troops, proclaiming herself queen of Egypt. Now Cleopatra finally saw her chance: She convinced Caesar to release Ptolemy from house arrest, under the agreement that he would broker a truce. Of course she knew he would do the opposite—that he would fight Arsinoe for control of the Egyptian army. But this was to Cleopatra’s benefit, for it would divide the royal
family. Better still, it would give Caesar the chance to defeat and kill her siblings in battle. Reinforced by troops from Rome, Caesar swiftly defeated the rebels. In the Egyptians’ retreat, Ptolemy drowned in the Nile. Caesar captured Arsinoe and had her sent to Rome as a prisoner. He also executed the numerous enemies who had conspired against Cleopatra, and imprisoned others who had opposed her. To reinforce her position as uncontested queen, Cleopatra now married the only sibling left, Ptolemy XIV—only
eleven at the time, and the weakest of the lot. Four years later Ptolemy mysteriously died, of poison.
In 41 B.C., Cleopatra employed on a second Roman leader, Marc Antony, the same tactics she had used so well on Julius Caesar. After seducing him, she hinted to him that her sister Arsinoe, still a prisoner in Rome, had conspired to destroy him. Marc Antony believed her and promptly had Arsinoe executed, thereby getting rid of the last of the siblings who had posed such a threat to Cleopatra.
THE CROW-HEN, THE COBRA, AND THE JACKEL
Once upon a time there was a crow and his wife who had built a nest in a banyan tree. A big snake crawled into the hollow trunk and ate up the chicks as they were hatched. The crow did not want to move, since he loved the tree dearly. So he went to his friend the jackal for advice. A plan of action was devised. The crow and his wife flew about in implementation. As the wife approached a pond, she saw the women of the king’s court
bathing, with pearls, necklaces, gems, garments, and a golden chain laying on the shore. The crow-hen seized the golden chain in her beak and flew toward the banyan tree with the eunuchs in pursuit. When she reached the tree, she dropped the chain into the hole. As the kings’ men climbed the tree for the chain, they saw the swelling hood of the cobra. So they killed the snake with their clubs, retrieved the golden chain, and went back to the pond. And the crow and his wife lived happily ever after.
A TALE FROM THE PANCHATANTRA, FOURTH CENTURY, RETOLD
IN THE CRAFT OF POWER, R. G. H. SIU, 1979
Interpretation
Legend has it that Cleopatra succeeded through her seductive charms, but in reality her power came from an ability to get people to do her bidding without realizing they were being manipulated. Caesar and Antony not only rid her of her most dangerous siblings—Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe—they decimated all of her enemies, in both the government and the military. The
two men became her cat’s-paws. They entered the fire for her, did the ugly but necessary work, while shielding her from appearing as the destroyer of her siblings and fellow Egyptians. And in the end, both men acquiesced to her desire to rule Egypt not as a Roman colony but as an independent allied kingdom. And they did all this for her without realizing how she had manipulated them. This was persuasion of the subtlest and most powerful
kind.
A queen must never dirty her hands with ugly tasks, nor can a king appear in public with blood on his face. Yet power cannot survive without the constant squashing of enemies—there will always be dirty little tasks that have to be done to keep you on the throne. Like Cleopatra, you need a cat’s-paw. This will usually be a person from outside your immediate circle, who will therefore be unlikely to realize how he or she is being used. You will find these dupes everywhere—people who enjoy doing you favors, especially if you throw them a minimal bone or two in exchange. But as they accomplish tasks that may seem to them innocent enough, or at least completely justified, they are actually clearing the field for you, spreading the information you feed them, undermining people they do not realize are your rivals, inadvertently furthering your cause, dirtying their hands while yours remain spotless.
HOW TO BROADCAST NEWS
When Omar, son of al-Khattab, was converted to Islam, he wanted the news of his conversion to reach everyone quickly. He went to see Jamil, son of Ma’mar al-Jumahi. The latter was renowned for the speed with which he passed on secrets. If he was told anything in confidence, he let everyone know about it immediately. Omar said to him: “I have become a Muslim. Do not say anything. Keep it dark. Do not mention it in front of anyone.”
Jamil went out into the street and began shouting at the top of his voice: “Do you believe that Omar, son of al-Khattab, has not become a Muslim? Well, do not believe that! I am telling you that he has!”
The news of Omar’s conversion to Islam was spread everywhere. And that was just what he intended.
THE SUBTLE RUSE: THE BOOK OF ARABIC WISDOM AND GUILE,
THIRTEENTH CENTURY
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW II
In the late 1920s, civil war broke out in China as the Nationalist and Communist parties battled for control of the country. In 1927 Chiang Kaishek, the Nationalist leader, vowed to kill every last Communist, and over the next few years he nearly accomplished his task, pushing his enemies hard until, in 1934-1935, he forced them into the Long March, a sixthousand-mile retreat from the southeast to the remote northwest, through harsh terrain, in which most of their ranks were decimated. In late 1936 Chiang planned one last offensive to wipe them out, but he was caught in a mutiny: His own soldiers captured him and turned him over to the Communists. Now he could only expect the worst.
Meanwhile, however, the Japanese began an invasion of China, and much to Chiang’s surprise, instead of killing him the Communist leader, Mao Tsetung, proposed a deal: The Communists would let him go, and would recognize him as commander of their forces as well as his, if he would agree to fight alongside them against their common enemy. Chiang had
expected torture and execution; now he could not believe his luck. How soft these Reds had become. Without having to fight a rearguard action against the Communists, he knew he could beat the Japanese, and then a few years down the line he would turn around and destroy the Reds with ease. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain by agreeing to their terms. The Communists proceeded to fight the Japanese in their usual fashion, with hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, while the Nationalists fought a more conventional war. Together, after several years, they succeeded in evicting the Japanese. Now, however, Chiang finally understood what Mao had really planned. His own army had met the brunt of the Japanese artillery, was greatly weakened, and would take a few years to recover. The Communists, meanwhile, had not only avoided any direct hits from the Japanese, they had used the time to recoup their strength, and to spread out and gain pockets of influence all over China. As soon as the war against the Japanese ended, the civil war started again—but this time the Communists enveloped the weakened Nationalists and slowly beat them into submission.
The Japanese had served as Mao’s cat’s-paw, inadvertently ploughing the fields for the Communists and making possible their victory over Chiang Kai-shek.
Interpretation
Most leaders who had taken as powerful an enemy as Chiang Kai-shek prisoner would have made sure to kill him. But in doing so they would have lost the chance Mao exploited. Without the experienced Chiang as leader of the Nationalists, the fight to drive the Japanese out might have lasted much longer, with devastating results. Mao was far too clever to let anger spoil
the chance to kill two birds with one stone. In essence, Mao used two cat‘spaws to help him attain total victory. First, he cleverly baited Chiang into taking charge of the war against the Japanese. Mao knew the Nationalists led by Chiang would do most of the hard fighting and would succeed in pushing the Japanese out of China, if they did not have to concern themselves with fighting the Communists at the same time. The Nationalists, then, were the first cat’s-paw, used to evict the Japanese. But Mao also knew that in the process of leading the war against the invaders, the Japanese artillery and air support would decimate the conventional forces of the Nationalists, doing damage it could take the Communists decades to inflict.
Why waste time and lives if the Japanese could do the job quickly? It was this wise policy of using one cat’s-paw after another that allowed the Communists to prevail.
There are two uses of the cat‘s-paw: to save appearances, as Cleopatra did, and to save energy and effort. The latter case in particular demands that
you plan several moves in advance, realizing that a temporary move backward (letting Chiang go, say) can lead to a giant leap forward. If you are temporarily weakened and need time to recover, it will often serve you well to use those around you both as a screen to hide your intentions and as a cat’s-paw to do your work for you. Look for a powerful third party who shares an enemy with you (if for different reasons), then take advantage of
their superior power to deal blows which would have cost you much more energy, since you are weaker. You can even gently guide them into hostilities. Always search out the overly aggressive as potential cat’s-paws —they are often more than willing to get into a fight, and you can choose just the right fight for your purposes.
A FOOL AND A WISE MAN
A wise man, walking alone,
Was being bothered by a fool throwing stones at his head.
Turning to face him, he said: “My dear chap, well thrown!
Please accept these few francs.
You’ve worked hard enough to get more than mere thanks.
Every effort deserves its reward.
But see that man over there? He can afford
More than I can.
Present him with some of your stones: they’ll earn a good wage.”
Lured by the bait, the stupid man
Ran off to repeat the outrage
On the other worthy citizen.
This time he wasn’t paid in money for his stones.
Up rushed serving-men,
And seized him and thrashed him and broke all his bones.
In the courts of kings there are pests like this, devoid of sense:
They’ll make their master laugh at your expense.
To silence their cackle, should you hand out rough
Punishment? Maybe you’re not strong enough.
Better persuade them to attack
Somebody else, who can more than pay them back.
SELECTED FABLES, JEAN DE LA FONTAINE, 1621-1695
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW III
Kuriyama Daizen was an adept of Cha-no-yu (Hot Water for Tea, the Japanese tea ceremony) and a student of the teachings of the great tea master Sen no Rikyu. Around 1620 Daizen learned that a friend of his, Hoshino Soemon, had borrowed a large sum of money (300 ryo) to help a relative who had fallen into debt. But although Soemon had managed to bail out his relative, he had simply displaced the burden onto himself. Daizen knew Soemon well—he neither cared nor understood much about money, and could easily get into trouble through slowness in repaying the loan, which had been made by a wealthy merchant called Kawachiya Sanemon. Yet if Daizen offered to help Soemon pay back the loan, he would refuse, out of pride, and might even be offended. One day Daizen visited his friend, and after touring the garden and looking at Soemon’s prized peonies, they retired to his reception room. Here Daizen saw a painting by the master Kano Tennyu.
“Ah,” Daizen exclaimed,
“a splendid piece of painting.... I don’t know when I have seen
anything I like better.”
After several more bouts of praise, Soemon had no choice:
“Well,” he said, “since you like it so much, I hope you will do me
the favor of accepting it.”
At first Daizen refused, but when Soemon insisted he gave in. The next day Soemon in turn received a package from Daizen. Inside it was a beautiful and delicate vase, which Daizen, in an accompanying note, asked his friend to accept as a token of his appreciation for the painting that Soemon had so graciously given him the day before. He explained that the vase had been made by Sen no Rikyu himself, and bore an inscription from
Emperor Hideyoshi. If Soemon did not care for the vase, Daizen suggested, he might make a gift of it to an adherent of Cha-no-yu—perhaps the merchant Kawachiya Sanemon, who had often expressed a desire to possess it.
“I hear,” Daizen continued,
“he has a fine piece of fancy paper [the 300- ryo I.O.U.] which you would much like. It is possible you might arrange an exchange.”
Realizing what his gracious friend was up to, Soemon took the vase to the wealthy lender.
“However did you get this,” exclaimed Sanemon, when Soemon showed him the vase.
“I have often heard of it, but this is the first time I have ever seen it. It is such a treasure that it is never allowed outside the gate!” He instantly offered to exchange the debt note for the flower
vase, and to give Soemon 300 ryo more on top of it. But Soemon, who did not care for money, only wanted the debt note back, and Sanemon gladly gave it to him. Then Soemon immediately hurried to Daizen’s house to thank him for his clever support.
THE INDIAN BIRD
A merchant kept a bird in a cage. He was going to India, the land from which the bird came, and asked it whether he could bring anything back for it. The bird asked for its freedom, but was refused. So he asked the merchant to visit a jungle in India and announce his captivity to the free birds who were there. The merchant did so, and no sooner had he spoken when a wild bird, just like his own, fell senseless out of a tree on to the ground. The
merchant thought that this must be a relative of his own bird, and felt sad that he should have caused this death. When he got home, the bird asked him whether he had brought good news from India.
“No,” said the merchant, “I fear that my news is bad. One of your relations collapsed and fell at my feet when I mentioned your captivity.”
As soon as these words were spoken the merchant’s bird collapsed and fell to the bottom of the cage.
“The news of his kins-man’s death has killed him, too," thought the merchant.
Sorrowfully he picked up the bird and put it on the window sill. At once the bird revived and flew to a nearby tree.
“Now you know, ”the bird said,
“that what you thought was disaster was in fact good news for me. And how the message, the suggestion of how to behave in
order to free myself, was transmitted to me through you, my captor.”
And he flew away, free at last.
TALES OF THE DERVISHES, IDRIES SHAH, 1967
Interpretation
Kuriyama Daizen understood that the granting of a favor is never simple: If it is done with fuss and obviousness, its receiver feels burdened by an obligation. This may give the doer a certain power, but it is a power that will eventually self-destruct, for it will stir up resentment and resistance. A favor done indirectly and elegantly has ten times more power. Daizen knew a direct approach would only have offended Soemon. By letting his friend
give him the painting, however, he made Soemon feel that he too had pleased his friend with a gift. In the end, all three parties emerged from the encounter feeling fulfilled in their own way.
In essence, Daizen made himself the cat‘s-paw, the tool to take the chestnuts out of the fire. He must have felt some pain in losing the vase, but he gained not only the painting but, more important, the power of the courtier. The courtier uses his gloved hand to soften any blows against him, disguise his scars, and make the act of rescue more elegant and clean. By helping others, the courtier eventually helps himself.
Daizen’s example provides the paradigm for every favor done between friends and peers: never impose your favors. Search out ways to make yourself the cat’s-paw, indirectly extricating your friends from distress without imposing yourself or making them feel obligated to you.
One should not be too straightforward. Go and see the forest.
The straight trees are cut down, the crooked ones are left standing.
Kautilya, Indian philosopher, third century B.C.
KEYS TO POWER
As a leader you may imagine that constant diligence, and the appearance of working harder than anyone else, signify power. Actually, though, they have the opposite effect:
They imply weakness. Why are you working so hard?
Perhaps you are incompetent, and have to put in extra effort just to keep up;
perhaps you are one of those people who does not know how to delegate, and has to meddle in everything.
The truly powerful, on the other hand, seem never to be in a hurry or overburdened. While others work their fingers to the bone, they take their leisure. They know how to find the right
people to put in the effort while they save their energy and keep their hands out of the fire. Similarly, you may believe that by taking on the dirty work yourself, involving yourself directly in unpleasant actions, you impose your power and instill fear. In fact you make yourself look ugly, and abusive of your high position. Truly powerful people keep their hands clean. Only good things surround them, and the only announcements they make are of
glorious achievements. You will often find it necessary, of course, to expend energy, or to effect an evil but necessary action. But you must never appear to be this action’s agent.
Find a cat‘s-paw. Develop the arts of finding, using, and, in time,
getting rid of these people when their cat’s-paw role has been fulfilled. On the eve of an important river battle, the great third-century Chinese strategist Chuko Liang found himself falsely accused of secretly working for the other side. As proof of his loyalty, his commander ordered him to produce 100,000 arrows for the army within three days, or be put to death.
Instead of trying to manufacture the arrows, an impossible task, Liang took a dozen boats and had bundles of straw lashed to their sides. In the late afternoon, when mist always blanketed the river, he floated the boats toward the enemy camp. Fearing a trap from the wily Chuko Liang, the enemy did not attack the barely visible boats with boats of their own, but showered them with arrows from the bank. As Liang’s boats inched closer, they redoubled the rain of arrows, which stuck in the thick straw. After several hours, the men hiding on board sailed the vessels quickly downstream,
where Chuko Liang met them and collected his 100,000 arrows.
Chuko Liang would never do work that others could do for him—he was always thinking up tricks like this one. The key to planning such a strategy is the ability to think far ahead, to imagine ways in which other people can be baited into doing the job for you. An essential element in making this strategy work is to disguise your
goal, shrouding it in mystery, like the strange enemy boats appearing dimly in the mist. When your rivals cannot be sure what you are after, they will react in ways that often work against them in the long run. In fact they will become your cat’s-paws. If you disguise your intentions, it is much easier to guide them into moves that accomplish exactly what you want done, but prefer not to do yourself. This may require planning several moves in
advance, like a billiard ball that bounces off the sides a few times before heading into the right pocket.
The early-twentieth-century American con artist Yellow Kid Weil knew that no matter how skillfully he homed in on the perfect wealthy sucker, if he, a stranger, approached this man directly, the sucker might become suspicious. So Weil would find someone the sucker already knew to serve as a cat‘s-paw—someone lower on the totem pole who was himself an unlikely target, and would therefore be less suspicious. Weil would interest this man in a scheme promising incredible wealth. Convinced the scheme
was for real, the cat’s-paw would often suggest, without prompting, that his boss or wealthy friend should get involved: Having more cash to invest, this man would increase the size of the pot, making bigger bucks for all concerned. The cat‘s-paw would then involve the wealthy sucker who had been Weil’s target all along, but who would not suspect a trap, since it was
his trusty subordinate who had roped him in. Devices like this are often the best way to approach a person of power: Use an associate or subordinate to hook you up with your primary target. The cat’s-paw establishes your credibility and shields you from the unsavory appearance of being too pushy in your courtship.
The easiest and most effective way to use a cat’s-paw is often to plant information with him that he will then spread to your primary target.
False or planted information is a powerful tool, especially if spread by a dupe whom no one suspects. You will find it very easy to play innocent and disguise yourself as the source.
DAVID AND BATHSHEBA
At the turn of the year, when kings take the field, David sent Joab out with his other officers and all the Israelite forces, and they ravaged Ammon and laid siege to Rabbah, while David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his couch and, as he walked about on the roof of the palace, he saw from there a woman bathing and she was very beautiful. He sent to inquire who she was,
and the answer came, “It must be Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite....”
David wrote a letter to Joab and sent Uriah with it. He wrote in the letter: “Put Uriah opposite the enemy where the fighting is fiercest and then fall back, and leave him to meet his death.”
... Joab... stationed Uriah at a point where he knew they would put up a stout fight. The men of the city sallied out and engaged
Joab, and some of David’s guards fell; Uriah the Hittite was also killed.
Joab sent David a dispatch with all the news of the battle.... When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him; and when the period of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her into his house. She became his wife and bore him a son.
OLD TESTAMENT, 2 SAMUEL, 11-12
The strategic therapist Dr. Milton H. Erickson would often encounter among his patients a married couple in which the wife wanted the therapy but the husband absolutely refused it. Rather than wasting energy trying to deal with the man directly, Dr. Erickson would see the wife alone, and as she talked he would interject interpretations of the husband’s behavior that he knew would rile the husband up if he heard them. Sure enough, the wife would tell her husband what the doctor had said. After a few weeks the husband would be so furious he would insist on joining his wife in the sessions so he could set the doctor straight.
Finally, you may well find cases in which deliberately offering yourself as the cat’s-paw will ultimately gain you great power. This is the ruse of the perfect courtier. Its symbol is Sir Walter Raleigh, who once placed his own cloak on the muddy ground so that Queen Elizabeth would not sully her shoes. As the instrument that protects a master or peer from unpleasantness
or danger, you gain immense respect, which sooner or later will pay dividends. And remember: If you can make your assistance subtle and gracious rather than boastful and burdensome, your recompense will be that much the more satisfying and powerful.
Image: The Cat’s-Paw. It has long claws to grab things. It is soft and padded. Take hold of the cat and use its paw to pluck things out of the fire, to claw your enemy, to play with the mouse before devouring it. Sometimes you hurt the cat, but most often it doesn’t feel a thing.
Authority: Do everything pleasant yourself, everything unpleasant through third parties. By adopting the first course you win favor, by taking the second you deflect ill will. Important affairs often require rewards and punishments. Let only the good come from you and the evil from others.
(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
REVERSAL
The cat’s-paw and the scapegoat must be used with extreme caution and delicacy. They are like screens that hide your own involvement in dirty work from the public; if at any moment the screen is lifted and you are seen as the manipulator, the puppet master, the whole dynamic turns around— your hand will be seen everywhere, and you will be blamed for misfortunes you may have had nothing to do with. Once the truth is revealed, events will snowball beyond your control.
In 1572, Queen Catherine de’ Médicis of France conspired to do away with Gaspard de Coligny, an admiral in the French navy and a leading member of the Huguenot (French Protestant) community. Coligny was close to Catherine’s son, Charles IX, and she feared his growing influence on the young king. So she arranged for a member of the Guise family, one of the most powerful royal clans in France, to assassinate him. Secretly, however, Catherine had another plan: She wanted the Huguenots to blame the Guises for killing one of their leaders, and to take
revenge. With one blow, she would erase or injure two threatening rivals, Coligny and the Guise family. Yet both plans went awry. The assassin missed his target, only wounding Coligny; knowing Catherine as his enemy, he strongly suspected it was she who had set up the attack on him, and he told the king so. Eventually the failed assassination and the arguments that
ensued from it set off a chain of events that led to a bloody civil war between Catholics and Protestants, culminating in the horrifying Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve, in which thousands of Protestants were killed. If you have to use a cat’s-paw or a scapegoat in an action of great consequence, be very careful: Too much can go wrong. It is often wiser to use such dupes in more innocent endeavors, where mistakes or miscalculations will cause no serious harm.
Finally, there are moments when it is advantageous to not disguise your involvement or responsibility, but rather to take the blame yourself for some mistake. If you have power and are secure in it, you should sometimes play the penitent: With a sorrowful look, you ask for forgiveness from those weaker than you. It is the ploy of the king who makes a show of his own
sacrifices for the good of the people. Similarly, upon occasion you may want to appear as the agent of punishment in order to instill fear and trembling in your subordinates. Instead of the cat‘s-paw you show your own mighty hand as a threatening gesture. Play such a card sparingly. If you play it too often, fear will turn into resentment and hatred. Before you know it, such emotions will spark a vigorous opposition that will someday bring you down. Get in the habit of using a cat’s-paw—it is far safer.

Law 25 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 25
RE-CREATE YOURSELF
JUDGMENT
Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions—your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW I
Julius Caesar made his first significant mark on Roman society in 65 B.C., when he assumed the post of aedile, the official in charge of grain distribution and public games. He began his entrance into the public eye by organizing a series of carefully crafted and well-timed spectacles—wildbeast hunts, extravagant gladiator shows, theatrical contests. On several occasions, he paid for these spectacles out of his own pocket. To the common man, Julius Caesar became indelibly associated with these muchloved events. As he slowly rose to attain the position of consul, his popularity among the masses served as the foundation of his power. He had
created an image of himself as a great public showman. The man who intends to make his fortune in this ancient capital of the world [Rome] must be a chameleon susceptible of reflecting the colors of the atmosphere that surrounds him—a Proteus apt to assume every form, every shape. He must be supple, flexible, insinuating, close, inscrutable, often base, sometimes sincere, sometimes perfidious, always concealing a part of his knowledge, indulging in but one tone of voice, patient, a perfect master of his own countenance, as cold as ice when any other man would be all
fire; and if unfortunately he is not religious at heart—a very common occurrence for a soul possessing the above requisites-he must have religion in his mind, that is to say, on his face, on his lips, in his manners; he must suffer quietly, if he be an honest man, the necessity of knowing himself an arrant hypocrite. The man whose soul would loathe such a life should leave Rome and seek his fortune elsewhere. I do not know whether I am praising
or excusing myself, but of all those qualities I possessed but one—namely, flexibility.
MEMOIRS, GIOVANNI CASANOVA, 1725-1798
In 49 B.C., Rome was on the brink of a civil war between rival leaders, Caesar and Pompey. At the height of the tension, Caesar, an addict of the stage, attended a theatrical performance, and afterward, lost in thought, he wandered in the darkness back to his camp at the Rubicon, the river that divides Italy from Gaul, where he had been campaigning. To march his army back into Italy across the Rubicon would mean the beginning of a war with Pompey. Before his staff Caesar argued both sides, forming the options like an actor on stage, a precursor of Hamlet. Finally, to put his soliloquy to an end, he pointed to a seemingly innocent apparition at the edge of the river—a very tall soldier blasting a call on a trumpet, then going across a bridge over the Rubicon—and pronounced, “Let us accept this as a sign from the Gods and follow where they beckon, in vengeance on our double-dealing
enemies. The die is cast.” All of this he spoke portentously and
dramatically, gesturing toward the river and looking his generals in the eye. He knew that these generals were uncertain in their support, but his oratory overwhelmed them with a sense of the drama of the moment, and of the need to seize the time. A more prosaic speech would never have had the same effect. The generals rallied to his cause; Caesar and his army crossed the Rubicon and by the following year had vanquished Pompey, making Caesar dictator of Rome. In warfare, Caesar always played the leading man with gusto. He was as skilled a horseman as any of his soldiers, and took pride in outdoing them in feats of bravery and endurance. He entered battle astride the strongest
mount, so that his soldiers would see him in the thick of battle, urging them on, always positioning himself in the center, a godlike symbol of power and a model for them to follow. Of all the armies in Rome, Caesar’s was the most devoted and loyal. His soldiers, like the common people who had attended his entertainments, had come to identify with him and with his
cause. After the defeat of Pompey, the entertainments grew in scale. Nothing like them had ever been seen in Rome. The chariot races became more spectacular, the gladiator fights more dramatic, as Caesar staged fights to the death among the Roman nobility. He organized enormous mock naval battles on an artificial lake. Plays were performed in every Roman ward. A giant new theater was built that sloped dramatically down the Tarpeian
Rock. Crowds from all over the empire flocked to these events, the roads to Rome lined with visitors’ tents. And in 45 B.C., timing his entry into the city for maximum effect and surprise, Caesar brought Cleopatra back to Rome after his Egyptian campaign, and staged even more extravagant public spectacles.
These events were more than devices to divert the masses; they
dramatically enhanced the public’s sense of Caesar’s character, and made him seem larger than life. Caesar was the master of his public image, of which he was forever aware. When he appeared before crowds he wore the most spectacular purple robes. He would be upstaged by no one. He was notoriously vain about his appearance—it was said that one reason he enjoyed being honored by the Senate and people was that on these occasions he could wear a laurel wreath, hiding his baldness. Caesar was a
masterful orator. He knew how to say a lot by saying a little, intuited the moment to end a speech for maximum effect. He never failed to incorporate a surprise into his public appearances—a startling announcement that would heighten their drama.
Immensely popular among the Roman people, Caesar was hated and feared by his rivals. On the ides of March—March 15—in the year 44 B.C., a group of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius surrounded him in the senate and stabbed him to death. Even dying, however, he kept his sense of drama. Drawing the top of his gown over his face, he let go of the cloth’s lower part so that it draped his legs, allowing him to die covered and decent. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, his final words to his old friend Brutus, who was about to deliver a second blow, were in Greek, and as if rehearsed for the end of a play: “You too, my child?”
Interpretation
The Roman theater was an event for the masses, attended by crowds unimaginable today. Packed into enormous auditoriums, the audience would be amused by raucous comedy or moved by high tragedy. Theater seemed to contain the essence of life, in its concentrated, dramatic form. Like a religious ritual, it had a powerful, instant appeal to the common man. Julius Caesar was perhaps the first public figure to understand the vital link between power and theater. This was because of his own obsessive interest in drama. He sublimated this interest by making himself an actor and director on the world stage. He said his lines as if they had been scripted; he gestured and moved through a crowd with a constant sense of how he appeared to his audience. He incorporated surprise into his repertoire, building drama into his speeches, staging into his public appearances. His gestures were broad enough for the common man to grasp them instantly. He became immensely popular. Caesar set the ideal for all leaders and people of power. Like him, you must learn to enlarge your actions through dramatic techniques such as surprise, suspense, the creation of sympathy, and symbolic identification. Also like him, you must be constantly aware of your audience—of what will please them and what will bore them. You must arrange to place yourself at the center, to command attention, and never to be upstaged at any cost.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW II
In the year 1831, a young woman named Aurore Dupin Dudevant left her husband and family in the provinces and moved to Paris. She wanted to be a writer; marriage, she felt, was worse than prison, for it left her neither the time nor the freedom to pursue her passion. In Paris she would establish her independence and make her living by writing. Soon after Dudevant arrived in the capital, however, she had to confront certain harsh realities. To have any degree of freedom in Paris you had to have money. For a woman, money could only come through marriage or prostitution. No woman had ever come close to making a living by writing. Women wrote as a hobby, supported by their husbands, or by an inheritance.
In fact when Dudevant first showed her writing to an editor, he told her, “You should make babies, Madame, not literature.”
Clearly Dudevant had come to Paris to attempt the impossible. In the end, though, she came up with a strategy to do what no woman had ever done— a strategy to re-create herself completely, forging a public image of her own making. Women writers before her had been forced into a ready-made role, that of the second-rate artist who wrote mostly for other women. Dudevant decided that if she had to play a role, she would turn the game around: She would play the part of a man.
In 1832 a publisher accepted Dudevant’s first major novel, Indiana. She had chosen to publish it under a pseudonym, “George Sand,” and all of Paris assumed this impressive new writer was male. Dudevant had sometimes worn men’s clothes before creating “George Sand” (she had always found men’s shirts and riding breeches more comfortable);
now, as a public figure, she exaggerated the image. She added long men’s coats, gray hats, heavy boots, and dandyish cravats to her wardrobe. She smoked cigars and in conversation expressed herself like a man, unafraid to dominate the conversation or to use a saucy word. This strange “male/female” writer fascinated the public. And unlike other women writers, Sand found herself accepted into the clique of male artists. She drank and smoked with them, even carried on affairs with the most famous artists of Europe—Musset, Liszt, Chopin. It was she who did the wooing, and also the abandoning—she moved on at her discretion.
Those who knew Sand well understood that her male persona protected her from the public’s prying eyes. Out in the world, she enjoyed playing the part to the extreme; in private she remained herself. She also realized that the character of “George Sand” could grow stale or predictable, and to avoid this she would every now and then dramatically alter the character she had created; instead of conducting affairs with famous men, she would begin meddling in politics, leading demonstrations, inspiring student
rebellions. No one would dictate to her the limits of the character she had created. Long after she died, and after most people had stopped reading her novels, the larger-than-life theatricality of that character has continued to fascinate and inspire.
Interpretation
Throughout Sand’s public life, acquaintances and other artists who spent time in her company had the feeling they were in the presence of a man. But in her journals and to her closest friends, such as Gustave Flaubert, she confessed that she had no desire to be a man, but was playing a part for public consumption. What she really wanted was the power to determine her own character. She refused the limits her society would have set on her. She did not attain her power, however, by being herself; instead she created a persona that she could constantly adapt to her own desires, a persona that attracted attention and gave her presence.
Understand this: The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed. Your power is limited to the tiny amount allotted to the role you have selected or have been forced to assume. An actor, on the other hand, plays many roles. Enjoy that protean power, and if it is beyond you, at least forge a new identity, one of your own making, one that has had no boundaries assigned to it by an envious and resentful world. This act of defiance is Promethean: It makes you responsible for your own creation. Your new identity will protect you from the world precisely because it is not “you”; it is a costume you put on and take off. You need not take it personally. And your new identity sets you apart, gives you theatrical presence. Those in the back rows can see you and hear you. Those in the front rows marvel at your audacity. Do not people talk in society of a man being a great actor? They do not mean by that that he feels, but that he excels in simulating, though he feels nothing.
Denis Diderot, 1713-1784
KEYS TO POWER
The character you seem to have been born with is not necessarily who you are; beyond the characteristics you have inherited, your parents, your friends, and your peers have helped to shape your personality. The Promethean task of the powerful is to take control of the process, to stop allowing others that ability to limit and mold them. Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist—
an artist creating yourself.
In fact, the idea of self-creation comes from the world of art. For thousands of years, only kings and the highest courtiers had the freedom to shape their public image and determine their own identity. Similarly, only kings and the wealthiest lords could contemplate their own image in art, and consciously alter it. The rest of mankind played the limited role that society demanded of them, and had little self-consciousness.
A shift in this condition can be detected in Velázquez’s painting Las Meninas, made in 1656. The artist appears at the left of the canvas, standing before a painting that he is in the process of creating, but that has its back to us—we cannot see it. Beside him stands a princess, her attendants, and one of the court dwarves, all watching him work. The people posing for the painting are not directly visible, but we can see them in tiny reflections in a mirror on the back wall—the king and queen of Spain, who must be sitting somewhere in the foreground, outside the picture. The painting represents a dramatic change in the dynamics of power and the ability to determine one’s own position in society. For Velázquez, the artist, is far more prominently positioned than the king and queen. In a sense he is more powerful than they are, since he is clearly the one controlling the image—their image. Velázquez no longer saw himself as the slavish, dependent artist. He had remade himself into a man of power. And indeed the first people other than aristocrats to play openly with their image in Western society were artists and writers, and later on dandies and bohemians. Today the concept of self-creation has slowly filtered down to the rest of society, and has become an ideal to aspire to. Like Velazquez, you must demand for yourself the power to determine your position in the painting, and to create your own image.
The first step in the process of self-creation is self-consciousness—being aware of yourself as an actor and taking control of your appearance and emotions. As Diderot said, the bad actor is the one who is always sincere.
People who wear their hearts on their sleeves out in society are tiresome and embarrassing. Their sincerity notwithstanding, it is hard to take them seriously. Those who cry in public may temporarily elicit sympathy, but sympathy soon turns to scorn and irritation at their self obsessiveness—they are crying to get attention, we feel, and a malicious part of us wants to deny them the satisfaction. Good actors control themselves better. They can play sincere and heartfelt, can affect a tear and a compassionate look at will, but they don’t have to feel it. They externalize emotion in a form that others can understand. Method acting is fatal in the real world. No ruler or leader could possibly play the part if all of the emotions he showed had to be real. So learn self-control. Adopt the plasticity of the actor, who can mold his or her face to the emotion required.
The second step in the process of self-creation is a variation on the George Sand strategy: the creation of a memorable character, one that compels attention, that stands out above the other players on the stage. This was the game Abraham Lincoln played. The homespun, common country man, he knew, was a kind of president that America had never had but would delight in electing. Although many of these qualities came naturally to him, he played them up—the hat and clothes, the beard. (No president
before him had worn a beard.) Lincoln was also the first president to use photographs to spread his image, helping to create the icon of the “homespun president.” Good drama, however, needs more than an interesting appearance, or a single stand-out moment. Drama takes place over time—it is an unfolding event. Rhythm and timing are critical. One of the most important elements in the rhythm of drama is suspense. Houdini for instance, could sometimes complete his escape acts in seconds—but he drew them out to minutes, to make the audience sweat.
The key to keeping the audience on the edge of their seats is letting events unfold slowly, then speeding them up at the right moment, according to a pattern and tempo that you control. Great rulers from Napoleon to Mao Tse-tung have used theatrical timing to surprise and divert their public. Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood the importance of staging political events in a particular order and rhythm.
At the time of his 1932 presidential election, the United States was in the midst of a dire economic crisis. Banks were failing at an alarming rate. Shortly after winning the election, Roosevelt went into a kind of retreat. He said nothing about his plans or his cabinet appointments. He even refused to meet the sitting president, Herbert Hoover, to discuss the transition. By the time of Roosevelt’s inauguration the country was in a state of high anxiety. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt shifted gears. He made a powerful speech, making it clear that he intended to lead the country in a completely new direction, sweeping away the timid gestures of his predecessors. From then on the pace of his speeches and public decisions—cabinet appointments, bold legislation—unfolded at an incredibly rapid rate. The period after the inauguration became known as the “Hundred Days,” and its
success in altering the country’s mood partly stemmed from Roosevelt’s clever pacing and use of dramatic contrast. He held his audience in suspense, then hit them with a series of bold gestures that seemed all the more momentous because they came from nowhere. You must learn to orchestrate events in a similar manner, never revealing all your cards at once, but unfolding them in a way that heightens their dramatic effect.
Besides covering a multitude of sins, good drama can also confuse and deceive your enemy. During World War II, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. After the war he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities for his supposed Communist sympathies. Other writers who had been called to testify planned to humiliate the committee members with an angry emotional stand. Brecht was wiser: He would play the committee like a violin, charming them while fooling them as well. He carefully rehearsed his responses, and brought along some props, notably a cigar on which he puffed away, knowing the head of the committee liked cigars. And indeed he proceeded to beguile the committee with well-crafted responses that were ambiguous, funny, and double-edged. Instead of an angry, heartfelt tirade, he ran circles around them with a staged production, and they let him off scot-free. Other dramatic effects for your repertoire include the beau geste, an action at a climactic moment that symbolizes your triumph or your boldness. Caesar’s dramatic crossing of the Rubicon was a beau geste—a move that dazzled the soldiers and gave him heroic proportions. You must
also appreciate the importance of stage entrances and exits. When Cleopatra first met Caesar in Egypt, she arrived rolled up in a carpet, which she arranged to have unfurled at his feet. George Washington twice left power with flourish and fanfare (first as a general, then as a president who refused to sit for a third term), showing he knew how to make the moment count, dramatically and symbolically. Your own entrances and exits should be crafted and planned as carefully.
Remember that overacting can be counterproductive—it is another way of spending too much effort trying to attract attention. The actor Richard Burton discovered early in his career that by standing totally still onstage, he drew attention to himself and away from the other actors. It is less what you do that matters, clearly, than how you do it—your gracefulness and
imposing stillness on the social stage count for more than overdoing your part and moving around too much.
Finally: Learn to play many roles, to be whatever the moment requires. Adapt your mask to the situation—be protean in the faces you wear. Bismarck played this game to perfection: To a liberal he was a liberal, to a hawk he was a hawk. He could not be grasped, and what cannot be grasped cannot be consumed.
Image:
The Greek Sea-God Proteus. His power came from his ability to
change shape at will, to be whatever the moment required. When Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon, tried to seize him, Proteus
transformed himself into a lion, then a serpent, a panther, a boar, running water, and finally a leafy tree.
Authority: Know how to be all things to all men. A discreet Proteus—a scholar among scholars, a saint among saints. That is the art of winning over everyone, for like attracts like. Take note of temperaments and adapt yourself to that of each person you meet—follow the lead of the serious and jovial in turn, changing your mood discreetly. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601- 1658)
REVERSAL
There can really be no reversal to this critical law: Bad theater is bad theater. Even appearing natural requires art—in other words, acting. Bad acting only creates embarrassment. Of course you should not be too dramatic—avoid the histrionic gesture. But that is simply bad theater anyway, since it violates centuries-old dramatic laws against overacting. In essence there is no reversal to this law.

Law 24 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 24
PLAY THE PERFECT COURTIER
JUDGMENT
The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.
COURT SOCIETY
It is a fact of human nature that the structure of a court society forms itself around power. In the past, the court gathered around the ruler, and had many functions: Besides keeping the ruler amused, it was a way to solidify the hierarchy of royalty, nobility, and the upper classes, and to keep the nobility both subordinate and close to the ruler, so that he could keep an eye on them. The court serves power in many ways, but most of all it glorifies the ruler, providing him with a microcosmic world that must struggle to please him.
To be a courtier was a dangerous game. A nineteenth-century Arab traveler to the court of Darfur, in what is now Sudan, reported that courtiers there had to do whatever the sultan did: If he were injured, they had to suffer the same injury; if he fell off his horse during a hunt, they fell, too. Mimicry like this appeared in courts all over the world. More troublesome was the danger of displeasing the ruler—one wrong move spelled death or exile. The successful courtier had to walk a tightrope, pleasing but not
pleasing too much, obeying but somehow distinguishing himself from the other courtiers, while also never distinguishing himself so far as to make the ruler insecure.
Great courtiers throughout history have mastered the science of
manipulating people. They make the king feel more kingly; they make everyone else fear their power. They are magicians of appearance, knowing that most things at court are judged by how they seem. Great courtiers are gracious and polite; their aggression is veiled and indirect. Masters of the word, they never say more than necessary, getting the most out of a compliment or hidden insult. They are magnets of pleasure—people want to
be around them because they know how to please, yet they neither fawn nor humiliate themselves. Great courtiers become the king’s favorites, enjoying the benefits of that position. They often end up more powerful than the ruler, for they are wizards in the accumulation of influence. Many today dismiss court life as a relic of the past, a historical curiosity.
They reason, according to Machiavelli, “as though heaven, the sun, the elements, and men had changed the order of their motions and power, and were different from what they were in ancient times.”
There may be no more Sun Kings but there are still plenty of people who believe the sun revolves around them. The royal court may have more or less disappeared, or at least lost its power, but courts and courtiers still exist because power still exists. A courtier is rarely asked to fall off a horse anymore, but the laws that govern court politics are as timeless as the laws of power. There is much to be learned, then, from great courtiers past and present.
THE TWO DOGS
Barbos, the faithful yard-dog who serves his master zealously, happens to see his old acquaintance Joujou, the curly lapdog, seated at the window on a soft down cushion. Sidling fondly up to her, like a child to a parent, he all but weeps with emotion; and there, under the window. he whines, wags his tail, and bounds about. “What sort of life do you lead now, Joujoutka, ever since the master took you into his mansion? You remember, no doubt, how we often used to suffer hunger out in the yard. What is your present service like?”
“It would be a sin in me to murmur against my good fortune, ”
answers Joujoutka.
“My master cannot make enough of me. I live amidst riches and plenty, and I eat and drink off silver. I frolic with the master, and,
if I get tired, I take my ease on carpets or on a soft couch. And how do you get on?”
“I?” replies Barbos, letting his tail dangle like a whip, and
hanging his head.
“I live as I used to do. I suffer from cold and hunger; and
here, while guarding my master’s house, I have to sleep at the foot of the wall, and I get drenched in the rain. And if I bark at the wrong time, I am whipped. But how did you, Joujou, who were so small and weak, get taken into favor, while I jump out of my skin to no purpose? What is it you do?” “‘What is it you do?’ A pretty question to ask!” replied Joujou, mockingly. “I walk upon my hind legs.”
FABLES, IVAN KRILOFF, 1768-1844
THE LAWS OF COURT POLITICS
Avoid Ostentation. It is never prudent to prattle on about yourself or call too much attention to your actions. The more you talk about your deeds the more suspicion you cause. You also stir up enough envy among your peers to induce treachery and backstabbing. Be careful, ever so careful, in trumpeting your own achievements, and always talk less about yourself than about other people. Modesty is generally preferable. Practice Nonchalance. Never seem to be working too hard. Your talent
must appear to flow naturally, with an ease that makes people take you for a genius rather than a workaholic. Even when something demands a lot of sweat, make it look effortless—people prefer to not see your blood and toil, which is another form of ostentation. It is better for them to marvel at how
gracefully you have achieved your accomplishment than to wonder why it took so much work.
Be Frugal with Flattery. It may seem that your superiors cannot get enough flattery, but too much of even a good thing loses its value. It also stirs up suspicion among your peers. Learn to flatter indirectly—by downplaying your own contribution, for example, to make your master look better.
It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and wilful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter—an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. A sensible man will be generous in the use of it.... Wax, a substance naturally hard and brittle, can be made soft by the application of a little warmth, so that it will take any shape you please. In the same way, by being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and obliging, even though they are apt to be crabbed and malevolent. Hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860
Arrange to Be Noticed. There is a paradox: You cannot display yourself too brazenly, yet you must also get yourself noticed. In the court of Louis XIV, whoever the king decided to look at rose instantly in the court hierarchy. You stand no chance of rising if the ruler does not notice you in the swamp of courtiers. This task requires much art. It is often initially a matter of being seen, in the literal sense. Pay attention to your physical appearance, then, and find a way to create a distinctive—a subtly distinctive —style and image.
Alter Your Style and Language According to the Person You Are
Dealing With. The pseudo-belief in equality—the idea that talking and acting the same way with everyone, no matter what their rank, makes you somehow a paragon of civilization—is a terrible mistake. Those below you will take it as a form of condescension, which it is, and those above you will be offended, although they may not admit it. You must change your style and your way of speaking to suit each person. This is not lying, it is acting, and acting is an art, not a gift from God. Learn the art. This is also
true for the great variety of cultures found in the modern court: Never assume that your criteria of behavior and judgment are universal. Not only is an inability to adapt to another culture the height of barbarism, it puts you at a disadvantage.
Never Be the Bearer of Bad News. The king kills the messenger who brings bad news: This is a cliche but there is truth to it. You must struggle and if necessary lie and cheat to be sure that the lot of the bearer of bad news falls on a colleague, never on you. Bring only good news and your approach will gladden your master.
Never Affect Friendliness and Intimacy with Your Master. He does not want a friend for a subordinate, he wants a subordinate. Never approach him in an easy, friendly way, or act as if you are on the best of terms—that is his prerogative. If he chooses to deal with you on this level, assume a wary chumminess. Otherwise err in the opposite direction, and make the distance between you clear.
Never Criticize Those Above You Directly. This may seem obvious, but there are often times when some sort of criticism is necessary—to say nothing, or to give no advice, would open you to risks of another sort. You must learn, however, to couch your advice and criticism as indirectly and as politely as possible. Think twice, or three times, before deciding you have made them sufficiently circuitous. Err on the side of subtlety and gentleness.
Be Frugal in Asking Those Above You for Favors. Nothing irritates a master more than having to reject someone’s request. It stirs up guilt and resentment. Ask for favors as rarely as possible, and know when to stop. Rather than making yourself the supplicant, it is always better to earn your favors, so that the ruler bestows them willingly. Most important: Do not ask for favors on another person’s behalf, least of all a friend’s.
Never Joke About Appearances or Taste. A lively wit and a humorous disposition are essential qualities for a good courtier, and there are times when vulgarity is appropriate and engaging. But avoid any kind of joke about appearance or taste, two highly sensitive areas, especially with those above you. Do not even try it when you are away from them. You will dig your own grave.
Do Not Be the Court Cynic. Express admiration for the good work of others. If you constantly criticize your equals or subordinates some of that criticism will rub off on you, hovering over you like a gray cloud wherever you go. People will groan at each new cynical comment, and you will irritate them. By expressing modest admiration for other people’s achievements, you paradoxically call attention to your own. The ability to express wonder and amazement, and seem like you mean it, is a rare and dying talent, but one still greatly valued.
Be Self-observant. The mirror is a miraculous invention; without it you would commit great sins against beauty and decorum. You also need a mirror for your actions. This can sometimes come from other people telling you what they see in you, but that is not the most trustworthy method: You must be the mirror, training your mind to try to see yourself as others see you.
Are you acting too obsequious?
Are you trying too hard to please?
Do you seem desperate for attention, giving the impression that you are on the decline?
Be observant about yourself and you will avoid a mountain of
blunders.
Master Your Emotions. As an actor in a great play, you must learn to cry and laugh on command and when it is appropriate. You must be able both to disguise your anger and frustration and to fake your contentment and agreement. You must be the master of your own face. Call it lying if you like; but if you prefer to not play the game and to always be honest and upfront, do not complain when others call you obnoxious and arrogant.
Fit the Spirit of the Times. A slight affectation of a past era can be
charming, as long as you choose a period at least twenty years back; wearing the fashions of ten years ago is ludicrous, unless you enjoy the role of court jester. Your spirit and way of thinking must keep up with the times, even if the times offend your sensibilities. Be too forward-thinking, however, and no one will understand you. It is never a good idea to stand out too much in this area; you are best off at least being able to mimic the
spirit of the times.
Be a Source of Pleasure. This is critical. It is an obvious law of human nature that we will flee what is unpleasant and distasteful, while charm and the promise of delight will draw us like moths to a flame. Make yourself the flame and you will rise to the top. Since life is otherwise so full of unpleasantness and pleasure so scarce, you will be as indispensable as food and drink. This may seem obvious, but what is obvious is often ignored or
unappreciated. There are degrees to this: Not everyone can play the role of favorite, for not everyone is blessed with charm and wit. But we can all control our unpleasant qualities and obscure them when necessary. A man who knows the court is master of his gestures, of his eyes and of his face; he is profound, impenetrable; he dissimulates bad offices, smiles at his enemies, controls his irritation, disguises his passions, belies his heart, speaks and acts against his feelings.
Jean de La Bruyère, 1645-1696
SCENES OF COURT LIFE: Exemplary Deeds and Fatal Mistakes
Scene I
Alexander the Great, conqueror of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East through to India, had had the great Aristotle as his tutor and mentor, and throughout his short life he remained devoted to philosophy and his master’s teachings. He once complained to Aristotle that during his long campaigns he had no one with whom he could discuss philosophical matters. Aristotle responded by suggesting that he take Callisthenes, a former pupil of Aristotle’s and a promising philosopher in his own right, along on the next campaign. Aristotle had schooled Callisthenes in the skills of being a courtier, but the young man secretly scoffed at them. He believed in pure philosophy, in unadorned words, in speaking the naked truth. If Alexander loved learning so much, Callisthenes thought, he could not object to one who spoke his
mind. During one of Alexander’s major campaigns, Callisthenes spoke his mind one too many times and Alexander had him put to death.
Interpretation
In court, honesty is a fool’s game. Never be so self-absorbed as to believe that the master is interested in your criticisms of him, no matter how accurate they are.
Scene II
Beginning in the Han Dynasty two thousand years ago, Chinese scholars compiled a series of writings called the 21 Histories, an official biography of each dynasty, including stories, statistics, census figures, and war chronicles. Each history also contained a chapter called “Unusual Events,” and here, among the listings of earthquakes and floods, there would sometimes suddenly appear descriptions of such bizarre manifestations as two-headed sheep, geese flying backward, stars suddenly appearing in different parts of the sky, and so on. The earthquakes could be historically
verified, but the monsters and weird natural phenomena were clearly inserted on purpose, and invariably occurred in clusters. What could this mean?
The Chinese emperor was considered more than a man—he was a force of nature. His kingdom was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around him. He embodied the world’s perfection.
To criticize him or any of his actions would have been to criticize the divine order. No minister or courtier dared approach the emperor with even the slightest cautionary word. But emperors were fallible and the kingdom suffered greatly by their mistakes. Inserting sightings of strange phenomena into the court chronicles was the only way to warn them. The emperor would read of geese flying backward and moons out of orbit, and realize that he was being cautioned. His actions were unbalancing the universe and needed to change.
Interpretation
For Chinese courtiers, the problem of how to give the emperor advice was an important issue. Over the years, thousands of them had died trying to warn or counsel their master. To be made safely, their criticisms had to be indirect—yet if they were too indirect they would not be heeded. The chronicles were their solution: Identify no one person as the source of criticism, make the advice as impersonal as possible, but let the emperor know the gravity of the situation. Your master is no longer the center of the universe, but he still imagines that everything revolves around him. When you criticize him he sees the person criticizing, not the criticism itself. Like the Chinese courtiers, you must find a way to disappear behind the warning. Use symbols and other
indirect methods to paint a picture of the problems to come, without putting your neck on the line.
Scene III
Early in his career, the French architect Jules Mansart received
commissions to design minor additions to Versailles for King Louis XIV. For each design he would draw up his plans, making sure they followed Louis’s instructions closely. He would then present them to His Majesty. The courtier Saint-Simon described Mansart’s technique in dealing with the king: “His particular skill was to show the king plans that purposely included something imperfect about them, often dealing with the gardens, which were not Mansart’s specialty. The king, as Mansart expected, would put his finger exactly on the problem and propose how to solve it, at which point Mansart would exclaim for all to hear that he would never have seen the problem that the king had so masterfully found and solved; he would burst with admiration, confessing that next to the king he was but a lowly pupil.” At the age of thirty, having used these methods time and time again,
Mansart received a prestigious royal commission: Although he was less talented and experienced than a number of other French designers, he was to take charge of the enlargement of Versailles. He was the king’s architect from then on.
Interpretation
As a young man, Mansart had seen how many royal craftsmen in the service of Louis XIV had lost their positions not through a lack of talent but through a costly social blunder. He would not make that mistake. Mansart always strove to make Louis feel better about himself, to feed the king’s vanity as publicly as possible.
Never imagine that skill and talent are all that matter. In court the
courtier’s art is more important than his talent; never spend so much time on your studies that you neglect your social skills. And the greatest skill of all is the ability to make the master look more talented than those around him.
Scene IV
Jean-Baptiste Isabey had become the unofficial painter of the Napoleonic court. During the Congress of Vienna in 1814, after Napoleon, defeated, had been imprisoned on the island of Elba, the participants in these meetings, which were to decide the fate of Europe, invited Isabey to immortalize the historic events in an epic painting. When Isabey arrived in Vienna, Talleyrand, the main negotiator for the French, paid the artist a visit. Considering his role in the proceedings, the statesman explained, he expected to occupy center stage in the painting. Isabey cordially agreed. A few days later the Duke of Wellington, the main negotiator for the English, also approached Isabey, and said much the same
thing that Talleyrand had. The ever polite Isabey agreed that the great duke should indeed be the center of attention.
Back in his studio, Isabey pondered the dilemma. If he gave the spotlight to either of the two men, he could create a diplomatic rift, stirring up all sorts of resentment at a time when peace and concord were critical. When the painting was finally unveiled, however, both Talleyrand and Wellington felt honored and satisfied. The work depicts a large hall filled with diplomats and politicians from all over Europe. On one side the Duke of
Wellington enters the room, and all eyes are turned toward him; he is the “center” of attention. In the very center of the painting, meanwhile, sits Talleyrand.
Interpretation
It is often very difficult to satisfy the master, but to satisfy two masters in one stroke takes the genius of a great courtier. Such predicaments are common in the life of a courtier: By giving attention to one master, he displeases another. You must find a way to navigate this Scylla and Charybdis safely. Masters must receive their due; never inadvertently stir up the resentment of one in pleasing another.
Scene V
George Brummell, also known as Beau Brummell, made his mark in the late 1700s by the supreme elegance of his appearance, his popularization of shoe buckles (soon imitated by all the dandies), and his clever way with words. His London house was the fashionable spot in town, and Brummell was the authority on all matters of fashion. If he disliked your footwear, you immediately got rid of it and bought whatever he was wearing. He perfected
the art of tying a cravat; Lord Byron was said to spend many a night in front of the mirror trying to figure out the secret behind Brummell’s perfect knots.
One of Brummell’s greatest admirers was the Prince of Wales, who fancied himself a fashionable young man. Becoming attached to the prince’s court (and provided with a royal pension), Brummell was soon so sure of his own authority there that he took to joking about the prince’s weight, referring to his host as Big Ben. Since trimness of figure was an important quality for a dandy, this was a withering criticism. At dinner once, when the service was slow, Brummell said to the prince, “Do ring, Big Ben.” The prince rang, but when the valet arrived he ordered the man to show Brummell the door and never admit him again. Despite falling into the prince’s disfavor, Brummell continued to treat
everyone around him with the same arrogance. Without the Prince of Wales’ patronage to support him, he sank into horrible debt, but he maintained his insolent manners, and everyone soon abandoned him. He died in the most pitiable poverty, alone and deranged.
Interpretation
Beau Brummell’s devastating wit was one of the qualities that endeared him to the Prince of Wales. But not even he, the arbiter of taste and fashion, could get away with a joke about the prince’s appearance, least of all to his face. Never joke about a person’s plumpness, even indirectly—and particularly when he is your master. The poorhouses of history are filled with people who have made such jokes at their master’s expense.
Scene VI
Pope Urban VIII wanted to be remembered for his skills in writing poetry, which unfortunately were mediocre at best. In 1629 Duke Francesco d‘Este, knowing the pope’s literary pretensions, sent the poet Fulvio Testi as his ambassador to the Vatican. One of Testi’s letters to the duke reveals why he was chosen: “Once our discussion was over, I kneeled to depart, but His Holiness made a signal and walked to another room where he sleeps, and after reaching a small table, he grabbed a bundle of papers and thus, turning to me with a smiling face,
he said: ‘We want Your Lordship to listen to some of our compositions.’
And, in fact, he read me two very long Pindaric poems, one in praise of the most holy Virgin, and the other one about Countess Matilde.”
We do not know exactly what Testi thought of these very long poems, since it would have been dangerous for him to state his opinion freely, even in a letter.
But he went on to write, “I, following the mood, commented on
each line with the needed praise, and, after having kissed His Holiness’s foot for such an unusual sign of benevolence [the reading of the poetry], I left.”
Weeks later, when the duke himself visited the pope, he managed to recite entire verses of the pope’s poetry and praised it enough to make the pope “so jubilant he seemed to lose his mind.” Interpretation
In matters of taste you can never be too obsequious with your master. Taste is one of the ego’s prickliest parts; never impugn or question the master’s taste—his poetry is sublime, his dress impeccable, and his manner the model for all.
Scene VII
One afternoon in ancient China, Chao, ruler of Han from 358 to 333 B.C., got drunk and fell asleep in the palace gardens. The court crown-keeper, whose sole task was to look after the ruler’s head apparel, passed through the gardens and saw his master sleeping without a coat. Since it was getting cold, the crown-keeper placed his own coat over the ruler, and left. When Chao awoke and saw the coat upon him, he asked his attendants,
“Who put more clothes on my body?” “The crown-keeper,” they replied.
The ruler immediately called for his official coat-keeper and had him punished for neglecting his duties. He also called for the crown-keeper, whom he had beheaded.
Interpretation
Do not overstep your bounds. Do what you are assigned to do, to the best of your abilities, and never do more. To think that by doing more you are doing better is a common blunder. It is never good to seem to be trying too hard—it is as if you were covering up some deficiency. Fulfilling a task that has not been asked of you just makes people suspicious. If you are a crownkeeper, be a crown-keeper. Save your excess energy for when you are not in
the court.
Scene VIII
One day, for amusement, the Italian Renaissance painter Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) and some friends went sailing in a small boat off Ancona. There they were captured by two Moorish galleys, which hauled them off in chains to Barbary, where they were sold as slaves. For eighteen long months Filippo toiled with no hope of returning to Italy. On several occasions Filippo saw the man who had bought him pass by, and one day he decided to sketch this man’s portrait, using burnt coal— charcoal—from the fire. Still in his chains, he found a white wall, where he drew a full-length likeness of his owner in Moorish clothing. The owner soon heard about this, for no one had seen such skill in drawing before in these parts; it seemed like a miracle, a gift from God. The drawing so pleased the owner that he instantly gave Filippo his freedom and employed him in his court. All the big men on the Barbary coast came to see the magnificent color portraits that Fra Filippo then proceeded to do, and finally, in gratitude for the honor in this way brought upon him, Filippo’s owner returned the artist safely to Italy.
Interpretation
We who toil for other people have all in some way been captured by pirates and sold into slavery. But like Fra Filippo (if to a lesser degree), most of us possess some gift, some talent, an ability to do something better than other people. Make your master a gift of your talents and you will rise above other courtiers. Let him take the credit if necessary, it will only be temporary: Use him as a stepping stone, a way of displaying your talent and eventually buying your freedom from enslavement.
Scene IX
Alfonso I of Aragon once had a servant who told the king that the night before he had had a dream: Alfonso had given him a gift of weapons, horses, and clothes. Alfonso, a generous, lordly man, decided it would be amusing to make this dream come true, and promptly gave the servant exactly these gifts. A little while later, the same servant announced to Alfonso that he had had yet another dream, and in this one Alfonso had given him a
considerable pile of gold florins.
The king smiled and said, “Don’t believe in dreams from now on; they lie.”
Interpretation
In his treatment of the servant’s first dream, Alfonso remained in control. By making a dream come true, he claimed a godlike power for himself, if in a mild and humorous way. In the second dream, however, all appearance of magic was gone; this was nothing but an ugly con game on the servant’s part. Never ask for too much, then, and know when to stop. It is the master’s prerogative to give—to give when he wants and what he wants,
and to do so without prompting. Do not give him the chance to reject your requests. Better to win favors by deserving them, so that they are bestowed without your asking.
Scene X
The great English landscape painter J. M. W Turner (1775-1851) was known for his use of color, which he applied with a brilliance and a strange iridescence. The color in his paintings was so striking, in fact, that other artists never wanted his work hung next to theirs: It inevitably made everything around it seem dull.
The painter Sir Thomas Lawrence once had the misfortune of seeing Turner’s masterpiece Cologne hanging in an exhibition between two works of his own. Lawrence complained bitterly to the gallery owner, who gave him no satisfaction: After all, someone’s paintings had to hang next to Turner’s. But Turner heard of Lawrence’s complaint, and before the exhibition opened, he toned down the brilliant golden sky in Cologne,
making it as dull as the colors in Lawrence’s works. A friend of Turner’s who saw the painting approached the artist with a horrified look: “What have you done to your picture!” he said. “Well, poor Lawrence was so unhappy,” Turner replied,
“and it’s only lampblack. It’ll wash off after the exhibition.” Interpretation
Many of a courtier’s anxieties have to do with the master, with whom most dangers lie. Yet it is a mistake to imagine that the master is the only one to determine your fate. Your equals and subordinates play integral parts also. A court is a vast stew of resentments, fears, and powerful envy. You have to placate everyone who might someday harm you, deflecting their resentment and envy and diverting their hostility onto other people. Turner, eminent courtier, knew that his good fortune and fame depended on his fellow painters as well as on his dealers and patrons. How many of the great have been felled by envious colleagues! Better temporarily to dull your brilliance than to suffer the slings and arrows of envy.
Scene XI
Winston Churchill was an amateur artist, and after World War II his paintings became collector’s items. The American publisher Henry Luce, in fact, creator of Time and Life magazines, kept one of Churchill’s landscapes hanging in his private office in New York.
On a tour through the United States once, Churchill visited Luce in his office, and the two men looked at the painting together. The publisher remarked, “It’s a good picture, but I think it needs something in the foreground—a sheep, perhaps.”
Much to Luce’s horror, Churchill’s secretary called the publisher the next day and asked him to have the painting sent to England. Luce did so, mortified that he had perhaps offended the former prime minister. A few days later, however, the painting was shipped back, but slightly altered: a single sheep now grazed peacefully in the foreground.
Interpretation
In stature and fame, Churchill stood head and shoulders above Luce, but Luce was certainly a man of power, so let us imagine a slight equality between them.
Still, what did Churchill have to fear from an American publisher? Why bow to the criticism of a dilettante?
A court—in this case the entire world of diplomats and international statesmen, and also of the journalists who court them—is a place of mutual dependence. It is unwise to insult or offend the taste of people of power, even if they are below or equal to you. If a man like Churchill can swallow the criticisms of a man like Luce, he proves himself a courtier without peer.
(Perhaps his correction of the painting implied a certain condescension as well, but he did it so subtly that Luce did not perceive any slight.)
Imitate Churchill: Put in the sheep. It is always beneficial to play the obliging courtier, even when you are not serving a master.
THE DELICATE GAME OF COURTIERSHIP: A Warning Talleyrand was the consummate courtier, especially in serving his master
Napoleon. When the two men were first getting to know each other,
Napoleon once said in passing, “I shall come to lunch at your house one of these days.”
Talleyrand had a house at Auteuil, in the suburbs of Paris. “I
should be delighted, mon général,” the minister replied,
“and since my house is close to the Bois de Boulogne, you will be able to amuse yourself with a bit of shooting in the afternoon.”
“I do not like shooting,” said Napoleon,
“But I love hunting. Are there any boars in the Bois de Boulogne?” Napoleon came from Corsica, where boar hunting was a great sport. By asking if there were boars in a Paris park, he showed himself still a provincial, almost a rube. Talleyrand did not laugh, however, but he could not resist a practical joke on the man who was now his master in politics, although not in blood and nobility, since Talleyrand came from an old aristocratic family.
To Napoleon’s question, then, he simply replied, “Very few, mon général, but I dare say you will manage to find one.”
It was arranged that Napoleon would arrive at Talleyrand’s house the following day at seven A.M. and would spend the morning there. The “boar hunt” would take place in the afternoon. Throughout the morning the excited general talked nothing but boar hunting. Meanwhile, Talleyrand secretly had his servants go to the market, buy two enormous black pigs, and take them to the great park. After lunch, the hunters and their hounds set off for the Bois de Boulogne.
At a secret signal from Talleyrand, the servants loosed one of the
pigs. “I see a boar,” Napoleon cried joyfully, jumping onto his horse to give chase.
Talleyrand stayed behind. It took half an hour of galloping through the park before the “boar” was finally captured. At the moment of triumph, however, Napoleon was approached by one of his aides, who knew the creature could not possibly be a boar, and feared the general would be ridiculed once the story got out: “Sir,” he told Napoleon, “you realize of course that this is not a boar but a pig.”
Flying into a rage, Napoleon immediately set off at a gallop for
Talleyrand’s house. He realized along the way that he would now be the butt of many a joke, and that exploding at Talleyrand would only make him more ridiculous; it would be better to make a show of good humor. Still, he did not hide his displeasure well.
Talleyrand decided to try to soothe the general’s bruised ego. He told Napoleon not to go back to Paris yet—he should again go hunting in the park. There were many rabbits there, and hunting them had been a favorite pastime of Louis XVI. Talleyrand even offered to let Napoleon use a set of guns that had once belonged to Louis. With much flattery and cajolery, he once again got Napoleon to agree to a hunt. The party left for the park in the late afternoon.
Along the way, Napoleon told Talleyrand, “I’m not Louis XVI, I surely won’t kill even one rabbit.”
Yet that afternoon, strangely enough, the park was teeming with rabbits. Napoleon killed at least fifty of them, and his mood changed from anger to satisfaction. At the end of his wild shooting spree,
however, the same aide approached him and whispered in his ear, “To tell the truth, sir, I am beginning to believe these are not wild rabbits. I suspect that rascal Talleyrand has played another joke on us.” (The aide was right: Talleyrand had in fact sent his servants back to the market, where they had purchased dozens of rabbits and then had released them in the Bois de Boulogne.)
Napoleon immediately mounted his horse and galloped away, this time returning straight to Paris. He later threatened Talleyrand, warned him not to tell a soul what had happened; if he became the laughingstock of Paris, there would be hell to pay. It took months for Napoleon to be able to trust Talleyrand again, and he
never totally forgave him his humiliation.
Interpretation
Courtiers are like magicians: They deceptively play with appearances, only letting those around them see what they want them to see. With so much deception and manipulation afoot, it is essential to keep people from seeing your tricks and glimpsing your sleight of hand. Talleyrand was normally the Grand Wizard of Courtiership, and but for Napoleon’s aide, he probably would have gotten away completely with both pleasing his master and having a joke at the general’s expense. But courtiership is a subtle art, and overlooked traps and inadvertent mistakes can ruin your best tricks. Never risk being caught in your maneuvers; never
let people see your devices. If that happens you instantly pass in people’s perceptions from a courtier of great manners to a loathsome rogue. It is a delicate game you play; apply the utmost attention to covering your tracks, and never let your master unmask you.

Law 23 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 23
CONCENTRATE YOUR FORCES
JUDGMENT
Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to another—intensity defeats extensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a long time to come.
TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW
In China in the early sixth century B.C., the kingdom of Wu began a war with the neighboring northern provinces of the Middle Kingdom. Wu was a growing power, but it lacked the great history and civilization of the Middle Kingdom, for centuries the center of Chinese culture. By defeating the Middle Kingdom, the king of Wu would instantly raise his status. The war began with great fanfare and several victories, but it soon bogged down. A victory on one front would leave the Wu armies vulnerable on another. The king’s chief minister and adviser, Wu Tzu-hsiu, warned him
that the barbarous state of Yueh, to the south, was beginning to notice the kingdom of Wu’s problems and had designs to invade. The king only laughed at such worries—one more big victory and the great Middle Kingdom would be his.
THE GOOSE AND THE HORSE
A goose who was plucking grass upon a common thought herself affronted by a horse who fed near her; and, in hissing accents, thus addressed him:
“I am certainly a more noble and perfect animal than you, for the whole range and extent of your faculties is confined to one element. I can walk upon the ground as well as you; I have, besides, wings, with which I can raise myself in the air; and when I please, I can sport on ponds and lakes, and refresh myself in the cool waters. I enjoy the different powers of a bird, a fish, and a quadruped.”
The horse, snorting somewhat disdainfully, replied:
“It is true you inhabit three elements, but you make no very distinguished figure in any one of them. You fly, indeed; but your flight is so heavy and clumsy, that you have no right to put yourself on a level with the lark or the swallow. You can swim on the surface of the waters, but you cannot live in them as fishes do; you cannot find your food in that element, nor glide smoothly along the bottom of the waves. And when you walk, or rather waddle, upon the ground, with your broad feet and your long neck stretched out, hissing at everyone who passes by, you bring upon yourself the derision of all beholders. I confess that I am only formed to move upon the ground; but how graceful is my make! How well turned my lunbs! How highly finished my whole body! How great my strength! How astonishing my speed! I had
much rather be confined to one element, and be admired in that, than be a goose in all!”
FABLES FROM BOCCAACCIO AND CHAUCER, DR. JOHN AIKIN,
1747-1822
In the year 490, Wu Tzu-hsiu sent his son away to safety in the kingdom of Ch’i. In doing so he sent the king a signal that he disapproved of the war, and that he believed the king’s selfish ambition was leading Wu to ruin. The king, sensing betrayal, lashed out at his minister, accusing him of a lack of loyalty and, in a fit of anger, ordered him to kill himself. Wu Tzu-hsiu obeyed his king, but before he plunged the knife into his chest, he cried,
“Tear out my eyes, oh King, and fix them on the gate of Wu, so that I may see the triumphant entry of Yueh.”
As Wu Tzu-hsiu had predicted, within a few years a Yueh army passed beneath the gate of Wu. As the barbarians surrounded the palace, the king remembered his minister’s last words—and felt the dead man’s disembodied eyes watching his disgrace. Unable to bear his shame, the king killed himself,
“covering his face so that he would not have to meet the reproachful gaze of his minister in the next world.”
Interpretation
The story of Wu is a paradigm of all the empires that have come to ruin by overreaching. Drunk with success and sick with ambition, such empires expand to grotesque proportions and meet a ruin that is total. This is what happened to ancient Athens, which lusted for the faraway island of Sicily and ended up losing its empire. The Romans stretched the boundaries of their empire to encompass vast territories; in doing so they increased their
vulnerability, and the chances of invasion from yet another barbarian tribe. Their useless expansion led their empire into oblivion. For the Chinese, the fate of the kingdom of Wu serves as an elemental lesson on what happens when you dissipate your forces on several fronts, losing sight of distant dangers for the sake of present gain.
“If you are not in danger,” says Sun-tzu,
“do not fight.” It is almost a physical law: What is bloated beyond its proportions inevitably collapses. The mind must not wander from goal to goal, or be distracted by success from its sense of
purpose and proportion. What is concentrated, coherent, and connected to its past has power. What is dissipated, divided, and distended rots and falls to the ground. The bigger it bloats, the harder it falls.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
The Rothschild banking family had humble beginnings in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, Germany. The city’s harsh laws made it impossible for Jews to mingle outside the ghetto, but the Jews had turned this into a virtue—it made them self-reliant, and zealous to preserve their culture at all costs. Mayer Amschel, the first of the Rothschilds to accumulate wealth by lending money, in the late eighteenth century, well understood the power
that comes from this kind of concentration and cohesion.
First, Mayer Amschel allied himself with one family, the powerful
princes of Thurn und Taxis. Instead of spreading his services out, he made himself these princes’ primary banker.
Second, he entrusted none of his business to outsiders, using only his children and close relatives. The more unified and tight-knit the family, the more powerful it would become. Soon Mayer Amschel’s five sons were running the business. And when Mayer
Amschel lay dying, in 1812, he refused to name a principal heir, instead setting up all of his sons to continue the family tradition, so that they would stay united and would resist the dangers of diffusion and of infiltration by outsiders.
Beware of dissipating your powers: strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.
JOHANN VON GOETHE, 1749-1832
Once Mayer Amschel’s sons controlled the family business, they decided that the key to wealth on a larger scale was to secure a foothold in the finances of Europe as a whole, rather than being tied to any one country or prince. Of the five brothers, Nathan had already opened up shop in London.
In 1813 James moved to Paris. Amschel remained in Frankfurt, Salomon established himself in Vienna, and Karl, the youngest son, went to Naples. With each sphere of influence covered, they could tighten their hold on Europe’s financial markets.
This widespread network, of course, opened the Rothschilds to the very danger of which their father had warned them: diffusion, division, dissension. They avoided this danger, and established themselves as the most powerful force in European finance and politics, by once again resorting to the strategy of the ghetto—excluding outsiders, concentrating their forces. The Rothschilds established the fastest courier system in Europe, allowing them to get news of events before all their competitors. They held a virtual monopoly on information. And their internal communications and correspondence were written in Frankfurt Yiddish, and in a code that only the brothers could decipher. There was no point in stealing this information—no one could understand it. “Even the shewdest bankers cannot find their way through the Rothschild maze,” admitted a financier who had tried to infiltrate the clan.
In 1824 James Rothschild decided it was time to get married. This
presented a problem for the Rothschilds, since it meant incorporating an outsider into the Rothschild clan, an outsider who could betray its secrets. James therefore decided to marry within the family, and chose the daughter of his brother Salomon. The brothers were ecstatic—this was the perfect solution to their marriage problems. James’s choice now became the family policy: Two years later, Nathan married off his daughter to Salomon’s son. In the years to come, the five brothers arranged eighteen matches among their children, sixteen of these being contracted between first cousins.
“We are like the mechanism of a watch: Each part is essential,” said brother Salomon.
As in a watch, every part of the business moved in concert with every other, and the inner workings were invisible to the world, which only saw the movement of the hands. While other rich and
powerful families suffered irrecoverable downturns during the tumultous first half of the nineteenth century, the tight-knit Rothschilds managed not only to preserve but to expand their unprecedented wealth.
Interpretation
The Rothschilds were born in strange times. They came from a place that had not changed in centuries, but lived in an age that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, and an endless series of upheavals. The Rothchilds kept the past alive, resisted the patterns of dispersion of their era and for this are emblematic of the law of concentration.
No one represents this better than James Rothschild, the son who established himself in Paris. In his lifetime James witnessed the defeat of Napoleon, the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the bourgeois monarchy of Orleans, the return to a republic, and finally the enthronement of Napoleon III. French styles and fashions changed at a relentless pace during all this turmoil. Without appearing to be a relic of the past, James
steered his family as if the ghetto lived on within them. He kept alive his clan’s inner cohesion and strength. Only through such an anchoring in the past was the family able to thrive amidst such chaos. Concentration was the foundation of the Rothschilds’ power, wealth, and stability.
The best strategy is always to be very strong first in general, then
at the decisive point.... There is no higher and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one’s forces concentrated....
In short the first principle is: act with the utmost concentration.
On War, Carl von Clausewitz, 1780-1831
KEYS TO POWER
The world is plagued by greater and greater division—within countries, political groups, families, even individuals. We are all in a state of total distraction and diffusion, hardly able to keep our minds in one direction
before we are pulled in a thousand others. The modern world’s level of conflict is higher than ever, and we have internalized it in our own lives.
The solution is a form of retreat inside ourselves, to the past, to more concentrated forms of thought and action. As Schopenhauer wrote,
“Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity.”
Napoleon knew the value of concentrating your forces at the enemy’s weakest spot— it was the secret of his success on the battlefield. But his willpower and his mind were equally modeled on this notion. Singlemindedness of purpose, total concentration on the goal, and the use of these qualities against people less focused, people in a state of distraction—such an arrow will find its mark every time and overwhelm the enemy.
Casanova attributed his success in life to his ability to concentrate on a single goal and push at it until it yielded. It was his ability to give himself over completely to the women he desired that made him so intensely seductive. For the weeks or months that one of these women lived in his orbit, he thought of no one else. When he was imprisoned in the treacherous “leads” of the doge’s palace in Venice, a prison from which no one had ever escaped, he concentrated his mind on the single goal of escape, day after
day. A change of cells, which meant that months of digging had all been for naught, did not discourage him; he persisted and eventually escaped.
“I have always believed,” he later wrote,
“that when a man gets it into his head to do something, and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design, he must succeed, whatever the difficulties. That man will become Grand Vizier or Pope.”
Concentrate on a single goal, a single task, and beat it into submission. In the world of power you will constantly need help from other people, usually those more powerful than you. The fool flits from one person to another, believing that he will survive by spreading himself out. It is a corollary of the law of concentration, however, that much energy is saved, and more
power is attained, by affixing yourself to a single, appropriate source of power. The scientist Nikola Tesla ruined himself by believing that he somehow maintained his independence by not having to serve a single master. He even turned down J. P. Morgan, who offered him a rich contract.
In the end, Tesla’s “independence” meant that he could depend on no single patron, but was always having to toady up to a dozen of them. Later in his life he realized his mistake.
All the great Renaissance painters and writers wrestled with this problem, none more so than the sixteenth-century writer Pietro Aretino. Throughout his life Aretino suffered the indignities of having to please this prince and that. At last, he had had enough, and decided to woo Charles V, promising the emperor the services of his powerful pen. He finally discovered the freedom that came from attachment to a single source of power.
Michelangelo found this freedom with Pope Julius II, Galileo with the Medicis. In the end, the single patron appreciates your loyalty and becomes dependent on your services; in the long run the master serves the slave.
Finally, power itself always exists in concentrated forms. In any
organization it is inevitable for a small group to hold the strings. And often it is not those with the titles. In the game of power, only the fool flails about without fixing his target. You must find out who controls the operations, who is the real director behind the scenes. As Richelieu discovered at the beginning of his rise to the top of the French political scene during the early seventeenth century, it was not King Louis XIII who decided things, it was the king’s mother. And so he attached himself to her, and catapulted through the ranks of the courtiers, all the way to the top. It is enough to strike oil once—your wealth and power are assured for a lifetime.
Image: The Arrow. You cannot hit two targets with one arrow. If your thoughts stray, you miss the enemy’s heart. Mind and arrow must become one. Only with such concentration of mental and physical power can your arrow hit the target and pierce the heart.
Authority: Prize intensity more than extensity. Perfection resides in quality, not quantity. Extent alone never rises above mediocrity, and it is the misfortune of men with wide general interests that while they would like to have their finger in every pie, they have one in none. Intensity gives eminence, and rises to the heroic in matters sublime.
(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
REVERSAL
There are dangers in concentration, and moments when dispersion is the proper tactical move. Fighting the Nationalists for control of China, Mao Tse-tung and the Communists fought a protracted war on several fronts, using sabotage and ambush as their main weapons. Dispersal is often suitable for the weaker side; it is, in fact, a crucial principle of guerrilla warfare. When fighting a stronger army, concentrating your forces only makes you an easier target—better to dissolve into the scenery and frustrate your enemy with the elusiveness of your presence.
Tying yourself to a single source of power has one preeminent danger: If that person dies, leaves, or falls from grace, you suffer. This is what happened to Cesare Borgia, who derived his power from his father, Pope Alexander VI. It was the pope who gave Cesare armies to fight with and wars to wage in his name. When he suddenly died (perhaps from poison), Cesare was as good as dead. He had made far too many enemies over the years, and was now without his father’s protection. In cases when you may need protection, then, it is often wise to entwine yourself around several sources of power. Such a move would be especially prudent in periods of great tumult and violent change, or when your enemies are numerous. The more patrons and masters you serve the less risk you run if one of them falls from power. Such dispersion will even allow you to play one off against the other. Even if you concentrate on the single source of power, you still must practice caution, and prepare for the day when your master or patron is no longer there to help you.
Finally, being too single-minded in purpose can make you an intolerable bore, especially in the arts. The Renaissance painter Paolo Uccello was so obsessed with perspective that his paintings look lifeless and contrived.
Whereas Leonardo da Vinci interested himself in everything—architecture, painting, warfare, sculpture, mechanics. Diffusion was the source of his power. But such genius is rare, and the rest of us are better off erring on the side of intensity.

Law 20 of powers by boommahahod

LAW 20
DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE
JUDGMENT
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others—playing people against one another, making them pursue you.
PART I: DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE, BUT BE COURTED BY ALL
If you allow people to feel they possess you to any degree, you lose all power over them. By not committing your affections, they will only try harder to win you over. Stay aloof and you gain the power that comes from their attention and frustrated desire. Play the Virgin Queen: Give them hope but never satisfaction.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
When Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England, in 1558, there was much to-do about her finding a husband. The issue was debated in Parliament, and was a main topic of conversation among Englishmen of all classes; they often disagreed as to whom she should marry, but everyone thought she should marry as soon as possible, for a queen must have a king, and must bear heirs for the kingdom. The debates raged on for years.
Meanwhile the most handsome and eligible bachelors in the realm—Sir Robert Dudley, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh—vied for Elizabeth’s hand. She did not discourage them, but she seemed to be in no hurry, and her hints as to which man might be her favorite often contradicted each other.
In 1566, Parliament sent a delegation to Elizabeth urging her to marry before she was too old to bear children. She did not argue, nor did she discourage the delegation, but she remained a virgin nonetheless.
The delicate game that Elizabeth played with her suitors slowly made her the subject of innumerable sexual fantasies and the object of cultish worship. The court physician, Simon Forman, used his diary to describe his dreams of deflowering her. Painters represented her as Diana and other goddesses. The poet Edmund Spenser and others wrote eulogies to the Virgin Queen. She was referred to as “the world’s Empresse,” “that virtuous Virgo” who rules the world and sets the stars in motion. In conversation
with her, her many male suitors would employ bold sexual innuendo, a dare that Elizabeth did not discourage. She did all she could to stir their interest and simultaneously keep them at bay.
Throughout Europe, kings and princes knew that a marriage with
Elizabeth would seal an alliance between England and any nation. The king of Spain wooed her, as did the prince of Sweden and the archduke of Austria. She politely refused them all.
The great diplomatic issue of Elizabeth’s day was posed by the revolt of the Flemish and Dutch Lowlands, which were then possessions of Spain.
Should England break its alliance with Spain and choose France as its main ally on the Continent, thereby encouraging Flemish and Dutch independence?
By 1570 it had come to seem that an alliance with France
would be England’s wisest course. France had two eligible men of noble blood, the dukes of Anjou and Alençon, brothers of the French king.
Would either of them marry Elizabeth?
Both had advantages, and Elizabeth kept the hopes of both alive. The issue simmered for years. The duke of Anjou made several visits to England, kissed Elizabeth in public, even called her by pet names; she appeared to requite his affections. Meanwhile, as she
flirted with the two brothers, a treaty was signed that sealed peace between France and England.
By 1582 Elizabeth felt she could break off the courtship. In the case of the duke of Anjou in particular, she did so with great relief: For the sake of diplomacy she had allowed herself to be courted by a man whose presence she could not stand and whom she found physically repulsive. Once peace between France and England was secure, she dropped the unctuous duke as politely as she could. By this time Elizabeth was too old to bear children. She was accordingly able to live the rest of her life as she desired, and she died the Virgin Queen. She left no direct heir, but ruled through a period of incomparable peace and cultural fertility.
Interpretation
Elizabeth had good reason not to marry: She had witnessed the mistakes of Mary Queen of Scots, her cousin. Resisting the idea of being ruled by a woman, the Scots expected Mary to marry and marry wisely. To wed a foreigner would be unpopular; to favor any particular noble house would open up terrible rivalries. In the end Mary chose Lord Darnley, a Catholic. In doing so she incurred the wrath of Scotland’s Protestants, and endless turmoil ensued.
Elizabeth knew that marriage can often lead to a female ruler’s undoing: By marrying and committing to an alliance with one party or nation, the queen becomes embroiled in conflicts that are not of her choosing, conflicts which may eventually overwhelm her or lead her into a futile war. Also, the husband becomes the de facto ruler, and often tries to do away with his wife the queen, as Darnley tried to get rid of Mary. Elizabeth learned the lesson well.
She had two goals as a ruler: to avoid marriage and to avoid war. She managed to combine these goals by dangling the possibility of marriage in order to forge alliances. The moment she committed to any single suitor would have been the moment she lost her power. She had to emanate mystery and desirability, never discouraging anyone’s hopes but never yielding. Through this lifelong game of flirting and withdrawing, Elizabeth dominated the country and every man who sought to conquer her. As the center of attention, she was in control. Keeping her independence above all,
Elizabeth protected her power and made herself an object of worship. I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.
Queen Elizabeth I, 1533-1603
KEYS TO POWER
Since power depends greatly on appearances, you must learn the tricks that will enhance your image. Refusing to commit to a person or group is one of these. When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable, rather than succumbing to the group, or to the relationship, as most people do. This aura of power only grows with time: As your reputation for independence grows, more and more people will come to
desire you, wanting to be the one who gets you to commit.
Desire is like a virus: If we see that someone is desired by other people, we tend to find this person desirable too. The moment you commit, the magic is gone. You become like everyone else. People will try all kinds of underhanded methods to get you to
commit. They will give you gifts, shower you with favors, all to put you under obligation. Encourage the attention, stimulate their interest, but do not commit at any cost. Accept the gifts and favors if you so desire, but be careful to maintain your inner aloofness. You cannot inadvertently allow yourself to feel obligated to anyone.
Remember, though: The goal is not to put people off, or to make it seem that you are incapable of commitment. Like the Virgin Queen, you need to stir the pot, excite interest, lure people with the possibility of having you. You have to bend to their attention occasionally, then—but never too far.
The Greek soldier and statesman Alcibiades played this game to
perfection. It was Alcibiades who inspired and led the massive Athenian armada that invaded Sicily in 414 B.C. When envious Athenians back home tried to bring him down by accusing him of trumped-up charges, he defected to the enemy, the Spartans, instead of facing a trial back home. Then, after the Athenians were defeated at Syracuse, he left Sparta for Persia, even though the power of Sparta was now on the rise. Now, however, both the Athenians and the Spartans courted Alcibiades because of his influence with the Persians; and the Persians showered him with
honors because of his power over the Athenians and the Spartans. He made promises to every side but committed to none, and in the end he held all the cards.
If you aspire to power and influence, try the Alcibiades tactic: Put
yourself in the middle between competing powers. Lure one side with the promise of your help; the other side, always wanting to outdo its enemy, will pursue you as well. As each side vies for your attention, you will immediately seem a person of great influence and desirability. More power will accrue to you than if you had rashly committed to one side. To perfect this tactic you need to keep yourself inwardly free from emotional entanglements, and to view all those around you as pawns in your rise to the top. You cannot let yourself become the lackey for any cause.
In the midst of the 1968 U.S. presidential election, Henry Kissinger made a phone call to Richard Nixon’s team. Kissinger had been allied with Nelson Rockefeller, who had unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination. Now Kissinger offered to supply the Nixon camp with valuable inside information on the negotiations for peace in Vietnam that were then going on in Paris. He had a man on the negotiating team keeping him informed of the latest developments. The Nixon team gladly accepted his offer. At the same time, however, Kissinger also approached the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, and offered his aid.
The Humphrey people asked him for inside information on Nixon and he supplied it. “Look,” Kissinger told Humphrey’s people, “I’ve hated Nixon for years.”
In fact he had no interest in either side. What he really wanted was what he got: the promise of a high-level cabinet post from both Nixon and Humphrey. Whichever man won the election, Kissinger’s career was secure. The winner, of course, was Nixon, and Kissinger duly went on to his cabinet post. Even so, he was careful never to appear too much of a Nixon man. When Nixon was reelected in 1972, men much more loyal to him than
Kissinger were fired. Kissinger was also the only Nixon high official to survive Watergate and serve under the next president, Gerald Ford.
By maintaining a little distance he thrived in turbulent times. Those who use this strategy often notice a strange phenomenon: People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants. Their aloofness is powerful, and everyone wants them on their side.
When Picasso, after early years of poverty, had become the most
successful artist in the world, he did not commit himself to this dealer or that dealer, although they now besieged him from all sides with attractive offers and grand promises. Instead, he appeared to have no interest in their services; this technique drove them wild, and as they fought over him his prices only rose. When Henry Kissinger, as U.S. secretary of state, wanted to reach detente with the Soviet Union, he made no concessions or
conciliatory gestures, but courted China instead. This infuriated and also scared the Soviets—they were already politically isolated and feared further isolation if the United States and China came together. Kissinger’s move pushed them to the negotiating table.
The tactic has a parallel in seduction: When you want to seduce a woman, Stendhal advises, court her sister first. Stay aloof and people will come to you. It will become a challenge for them to win your affections. As long as you imitate the wise Virgin Queen
and stimulate their hopes, you will remain a magnet of attention and desire.
Image:
The Virgin Queen. The center of attention, desire, and worship. Never succumbing to one suitor or the other, the Virgin Queen keeps them all revolving around her like planets, unable to leave her orbit but never getting any closer to her.
Authority: Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave, a slave to every man.... Above all, keep yourself free of commitments and obligations—they are the device of another to get you into his power....
(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
PART II: DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE-STAY ABOVE THE FRAY
Do not let people drag you into their petty fights and squabbles. Seem interested and supportive, but find a way to remain neutral; let others do the fighting while you stand back, watch and wait. When the fighting parties are good and tired they will be ripe for the picking. You can make it a practice, in fact, to stir up quarrels between other people, and then offer to mediate, gaining power as the go-between.
THE KITES, THE CROWS, AND THE FOX
The kites and the crows made an agreement among themselves that they should go halves in everything obtained in the forest. One day they saw a fox that had been wounded by hunters lying helpless under a tree, and gathered round it.
The crows said, “We will take the upper half of the fox.”
“Then we will take the lower half,” said the kites.
The fox laughed at this, and said, “I always thought the kites were superior in creation to the crows; as such they must get the upper half of my body, of which my head, with the brain and other delicate things in it, forms a portion. ”
“Oh, yes, that is right,” said the kites,
“we will have that part of the fox.” “Not at all,” said the crows, “we must have it, as already agreed.”
Then a war arose between the rival parties, and a great many fell on both sides, and the remaining few escaped with difficulty. The fox continued there for some days, leisurely feeding on the dead kites and crows, and then left the place hale and hearty, observing, The weak benefit by the quarrels of the mighty . ”
INDIAN FABLES
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
In the late fifteenth century, the strongest city-states in Italy—Venice, Florence, Rome, and Milan—found themselves constantly squabbling. Hovering above their struggles were the nations of France and Spain, ready to grab whatever they could from the weakened Italian powers. And trapped in the middle was the small state of Mantua, ruled by the young Duke Gianfrancesco Gonzaga. Mantua was strategically located in northern Italy,
and it seemed only a matter of time before one of the powers swallowed it up and it ceased to exist as an independent kingdom. Gonzaga was a fierce warrior and a skilled commander of troops, and he became a kind of mercenary general for whatever side paid him best. In the year 1490, he married Isabella d’Este, daughter of the ruler of another small Italian duchy, Ferrara. Since he now spent most of his time away from Mantua, it fell to Isabella to rule in his stead. Isabella’s first true test as ruler came in 1498, when King Louis XII of France was preparing armies to attack Milan. In their usual perfidious fashion, the Italian states immediately looked for ways to profit from Milan’s difficulties. Pope Alexander VI promised not to intervene, thereby giving the French carte blanche. The Venetians signaled that they would not help Milan, either—and in exchange for this, they hoped the French would give them Mantua. The ruler of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, suddenly found himself alone and abandoned. He turned to Isabella d’Este, one of his closest friends (also rumored to be his lover), and begged her to persuade Duke Gonzaga to come to his aid. Isabella tried, but her husband balked, for he saw Sforza’s cause as hopeless. And so, in 1499, Louis swooped down on Milan and took it with ease. Isabella now faced a dilemma: If she stayed loyal to Lodovico, the
French would now move against her. But if, instead, she allied herself with France, she would make enemies elsewhere in Italy, compromising Mantua once Louis eventually withdrew. And if she looked to Venice or Rome for help, they would simply swallow up Mantua under the cloak of coming to her aid. Yet she had to do something. The mighty king of France was breathing down her neck: She decided to befriend him, as she had befriended Lodovico Sforza before him—with alluring gifts, witty, intelligent letters, and the possibility of her company, for Isabella was famous as a woman of incomparable beauty and charm.
In 1500 Louis invited Isabella to a great party in Milan to celebrate his victory. Leonardo da Vinci built an enormous mechanical lion for the affair: When the lion opened its mouth, it spewed fresh lilies, the symbols of French royalty. At the party Isabella wore one of her celebrated dresses (she had by far the largest wardrobe of any of the Italian princesses), and just as she had hoped, she charmed and captivated Louis, who ignored all the other ladies vying for his attention. She soon became his constant companion, and in exchange for her friendship he pledged to protect Mantua’s independence from Venice. Men of great abilities are slow to act. for it is easier to avoid occasions for
committing yourself than to come well out of a commitment. Such occasions test your judgment; it is safer to avoid them than to emerge victorious from them. One obligation leads to a greater one, and you come very near to the brink of disaster.
BALTASAR GRACIÁN, 1601-1658
As one danger receded, however, another, more worrying one arose, this time from the south, in the form of Cesare Borgia. Starting in 1500, Borgia had marched steadily northward, gobbling up all the small kingdoms in his path in the name of his father, Pope Alexander. Isabella understood Cesare perfectly: He could be neither trusted nor in any way offended. He had to be
cajoled and kept at arm’s length. Isabella began by sending him gifts— falcons, prize dogs, perfumes, and dozens of masks, which she knew he always wore when he walked the streets of Rome. She sent messengers with flattering greetings (although these messengers also acted as her spies). At one point Cesare asked if he could house some troops in Mantua; Isabella managed to dissuade him politely, knowing full well that once the troops
were quartered in the city, they would never leave. Even while Isabella was charming Cesare, she convinced everyone around her to take care never to utter a harsh word about him, since he had
spies everywhere and would use the slightest pretext for invasion. When Isabella had a child, she asked Cesare to be the godfather. She even dangled in front of him the possibility of a marriage between her family and his. Somehow it all worked, for although elsewhere he seized everything in his path, he spared Mantua.
In 1503 Cesare’s father, Alexander, died, and a few years later the new pope, Julius II, went to war to drive the French troops from Italy. When the ruler of Ferrara—Alfonso, Isabella’s brother—sided with the French, Julius decided to attack and humble him. Once again Isabella found herself in the middle: the pope on one side, the French and her brother on the other. She dared not ally herself with either, but to offend either would be equally disastrous. Again she played the double game at which she had become so expert. On the one hand she got her husband Gonzaga to fight for the pope, knowing he would not fight very hard. On the other she let French troops pass through Mantua to come to Ferrara’s aid. While she publicly complained that the French had “invaded” her territory, she privately supplied them with valuable information. To make the invasion plausible to Julius, she even had the French pretend to plunder Mantua. It worked once again: The pope left Mantua alone.
In 1513, after a lengthy siege, Julius defeated Ferrara, and the French troops withdrew. Worn out by the effort, the pope died a few months later. With his death, the nightmarish cycle of battles and petty squabbles began to repeat itself.
A great deal changed in Italy during Isabella’s reign: Popes came and went, Cesare Borgia rose and then fell, Venice lost its empire, Milan was invaded, Florence fell into decline, and Rome was sacked by the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V Through all this, tiny Mantua not only survived but thrived, its court the envy of Italy. Its wealth and sovereignty would remain intact for a century after Isabella’s death, in 1539.
THE EAGLE AND THE SOW
An eagle built a nest on a tree, and hatched out some eaglets. And a wild sow brought her litter under the tree. The eagle used to fly off after her prey, and bring it back to her young. And the sow rooted around the tree and hunted in the woods, and when night came she would bring her young something to eat.
And the eagle and the sow lived in neighborly fashion. And a grimalkin laid her plans to destroy the eaglets and the little sucking pigs.
She went to the eagle, and said: “Eagle, you had better not fly very far away. Beware of the sow; she is planning an evil design. She is going to undermine the roots of the tree. You see she is rooting all the time.”
Then the grimalkin went to the sow and said: “Sow, you have not a good neighbor. Last evening I heard the eagle saying to her eaglets: ‘My dear little eaglets, I am going to treat you to a nice little pig. Just as soon as the sow is gone, I will bring you a little young sucking pig.”’
From that time the eagle ceased to fly out after prey, and the sow did not go any more into the forest. The eaglets and the young pigs perished of starvation, and grimalkin feasted on them.
FABLES, LEO TOLSTOY, 1828-1910
Interpretation
Isabella d’Este understood Italy’s political situation with amazing clarity: Once you took the side of any of the forces in the field, you were doomed. The powerful would take you over, the weak would wear you down. Any new alliance would lead to a new enemy, and as this cycle stirred up more conflict, other forces would be dragged in, until you could no longer extricate yourself. Eventually you would collapse from exhaustion. Isabella steered her kingdom on the only course that would bring her safely through. She would not allow herself to lose her head through loyalty to a duke or a king. Nor would she try to stop the conflict that raged around her—that would only drag her into it. And in any case the conflict was to her advantage. If the various parties were fighting to the death, and exhausting themselves in the process, they were in no position to gobble up Mantua. The source of Isabella’s power was her clever ability to seem
interested in the affairs and interests of each side, while actually committing to no one but herself and her kingdom. Once you step into a fight that is not of your own choosing, you lose all
initiative. The combatants’ interests become your interests; you become their tool. Learn to control yourself, to restrain your natural tendency to take sides and join the fight. Be friendly and charming to each of the combatants, then step back as they collide. With every battle they grow weaker, while you grow stronger with every battle you avoid. When the snipe and the mussel struggle, the fisherman gets the benefit.
Ancient Chinese saying
KEYS TO POWER
To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger. Most people operate in a whirlpool of emotions, constantly reacting, churning up squabbles and conflicts. Your self-control and autonomy will
only bother and infuriate them. They will try to draw you into the
whirlpool, begging you to take sides in their endless battles, or to make peace for them. If you succumb to their emotional entreaties, little by little you will find your mind and time occupied by their problems. Do not allow whatever compassion and pity you possess to suck you in. You can never win in this game; the conflicts can only multiply.
On the other hand, you cannot completely stand aside, for that would cause needless offense. To play the game properly, you must seem interested in other people’s problems, even sometimes appear to take their side. But while you make outward gestures of support, you must maintain your inner energy and sanity by keeping your emotions disengaged. No matter how hard people try to pull you in, never let your interest in their affairs and petty squabbles go beyond the surface. Give them gifts, listen with a sympathetic look, even occasionally play the charmer—but inwardly keep both the friendly kings and the perfidious Borgias at arm’s length. By refusing to commit
and thus maintaining your autonomy you retain the initiative: Your moves stay matters of your own choosing, not defensive
reactions to the push-and-pull of those around you.
THE PRICE OF ENVY
While a poor woman stood in the market place selling cheeses, a cat came along and carried off a cheese. A dog saw the pilferer and tried to take the cheese away from him. The cat stood up to the dog. So they pitched into each other. The dog barked and snapped; the cat spat and scratched, but they could bring the battle to no decision.
“Let’s go to the fox and have him referee the matter, ” the cat finally suggested.
“Agreed, ” said the dog.
So they went to the fox. The fox listened to their arguments with a judicious air.
“Foolish animals,” he chided them,
“why carry on like that? If both of you are willing, I’ll divide the cheese in two and you’ll both be satisfied. ”
“Agreed, ” said the cat and the dog.
So the fox took out his knife and cut the cheese in two, but, instead of cutting it lengthwise, he cut it in the width.
“My half is smaller!” protested the dog.
The fox looked judiciously through his spectacles at the dog’s share. “You’re right, quite right!” he decided.
So he went and bit off a piece of the cat’s share.
“That will make it even!” he said.
When the cat saw what the fox did she began to yowl:
“Just look! My part’s smaller now!”
The fox again put on his spectacles and looked judiciously at the cat’s share.
“Right you are!” said the fox. “Just a moment, and I’ll make it right.”
And he went and bit off a piece from the dog’s cheese. This went on so long, with the fox nibbling first at the dog’s and then at the cat’s share, that he finally ate up the whole cheese before their eyes.
A TREASURY OF JEWISH FOLKLORE, NATHAN AUSUBEL, ED.,
1948
Slowness to pick up your weapons can be a weapon itself, especially if you let other people exhaust themselves fighting, then take advantage of their exhaustion.
In ancient China, the kingdom of Chin once invaded the kingdom of Hsing. Huan, the ruler of a nearby province, thought he should
rush to Hsing’s defense, but his adviser counseled him to wait: “Hsing is not yet going to ruin,” he said,
“and Chin is not yet exhausted. If Chin is not exhausted, [we] cannot become very influential. Moreover, the merit of supporting a state in danger is not as great as the virtue of reviving a ruined one.”
The adviser’s argument won the day, and as he had predicted, Huan later had the glory both of rescuing Hsing from the brink of destruction and then of conquering an exhausted Chin. He stayed out of the fighting until the forces engaged in it had worn each other down, at which point it was safe for him to intervene. That is what holding back from the fray allows you: time to position
yourself to take advantage of the situation once one side starts to lose. You can also take the game a step further, by promising your support to both sides in a conflict while maneuvering so that the one to come out ahead in the struggle is you. This was what Castruccio Castracani, ruler of the Italian town of Lucca in the fourteenth century, did when he had designs on the town of Pistoia. A siege would have been expensive, costing both lives and money, but Castruccio knew that Pistoia contained two rival factions, the Blacks and the Whites, which hated one another. He negotiated with the Blacks, promising to help them against the Whites; then, without their knowledge, he promised the Whites he would help them against the Blacks. And Castruccio kept his promises—he sent an army to a Black-controlled gate to the city, which the sentries of course welcomed in. Meanwhile another of his armies entered through a White-controlled gate. The two
armies united in the middle, occupied the town, killed the leaders of both factions, ended the internal war, and took Pistoia for Castruccio.
Preserving your autonomy gives you options when people come to blows —you can play the mediator, broker the peace, while really securing your own interests. You can pledge support to one side and the other may have to court you with a higher bid. Or, like Castruccio, you can appear to take both sides, then play the antagonists against each other. Oftentimes when a conflict breaks out, you are tempted to side with the stronger party, or the one that offers you apparent advantages in an alliance.
This is risky business. First, it is often difficult to foresee which side will prevail in the long run. But even if you guess right and ally yourself with the stronger party, you may find yourself swallowed up and lost, or conveniently forgotten, when they become victors. Side with the weaker,
on the other hand, and you are doomed. But play a waiting game and you cannot lose.
In France’s July Revolution of 1830, after three days of riots, the
statesman Talleyrand, now elderly, sat by his Paris window, listening to the pealing bells that signaled the riots were over. Turning to an assistant, he said, “Ah, the bells! We’re winning.” “Who’s ‘we,’ mon prince?” the assistant asked.
Gesturing for the man to keep quiet, Talleyrand replied,
“Not a word! I’ll tell you who we are tomorrow.”
He well knew that only fools rush into a situation—that by committing too quickly you lose your maneuverability. People also respect you less: Perhaps tomorrow, they think, you will commit to another, different cause, since you gave yourself
so easily to this one. Good fortune is a fickle god and will often pass from one side to the other. Commitment to one side deprives you of the advantage of time and the luxury of waiting. Let others fall in love with this group or that; for your part don’t rush in, don’t lose your head.
Finally, there are occasions when it is wisest to drop all pretence of appearing supportive and instead to trumpet your independence and selfreliance. The aristocratic pose of independence is particularly important for those who need to gain respect. George Washington recognized this in his work to establish the young American republic on firm ground. As president, Washington avoided the temptation of making an alliance with France or England, despite the pressure on him to do so. He wanted the country to earn the world’s respect through its independence. Although a treaty with France might have helped in the short term, in the long run he knew it would be more effective to establish the nation’s autonomy. Europe would have to see the United States as an equal power.
Remember: You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength. You may be afraid that people will condemn you as heartless, but in the end, maintaining your independence and self-reliance will gain you more respect and place you in a position of power from which you can choose to help others on your own initiative.
Image: A Thicket of Shrubs. In the forest, one shrub latches on to another, entangling its neighbor with its thorns, the thicket slowly extending its impenetrable domain. Only what keeps its distance and stands apart can grow and rise above the thicket.
Authority: Regard it as more courageous not to become involved in an engagement than to win in battle, and where there is already one interfering fool, take care that there shall not be two. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
REVERSAL
Both parts of this law will turn against you if you take it too far. The game proposed here is delicate and difficult. If you play too many parties against one another, they will see through the maneuver and will gang up on you. If you keep your growing number of suitors waiting too long, you will inspire not desire but distrust. People will start to lose interest. Eventually you may find it worthwhile to commit to one side—if only for appearances’ sake, to prove you are capable of attachment. Even then, however, the key will be to maintain your inner independence
—to keep yourself from getting emotionally involved. Preserve the unspoken option of being able to leave at any moment and reclaim your freedom if the side you are allied with starts to collapse. The friends you made while you were being courted will give you plenty of places to go once you jump ship.

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1117.1117.3

THO Notre Dame CH1 by aurore_dawn

Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal.

The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of “our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century, of some plumed and bedizened embassy. It was barely two days since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into Paris, to the great annoyance of M. le Cardinal de Bourbon, who, for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish burgomasters, and to regale them at his Hotel de Bourbon, with a very “pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door.

What put the “whole population of Paris in commotion,” as Jehan de Troyes expresses it, on the sixth of January, was the double solemnity, united from time immemorial, of the Epiphany and the Feast of Fools.

On that day, there was to be a bonfire on the Place de Greve, a maypole at the Chapelle de Braque, and a mystery at the Palais de Justice. It had been cried, to the sound of the trumpet, the preceding evening at all the cross roads, by the provost’s men, clad in handsome, short, sleeveless coats of violet camelot, with large white crosses upon their breasts.

So the crowd of citizens, male and female, having closed their houses and shops, thronged from every direction, at early morn, towards some one of the three spots designated.

Each had made his choice; one, the bonfire; another, the maypole; another, the mystery play. It must be stated, in honor of the good sense of the loungers of Paris, that the greater part of this crowd directed their steps towards the bonfire, which was quite in season, or towards the mystery play, which was to be presented in the grand hall of the Palais de Justice (the courts of law), which was well roofed and walled; and that the curious left the poor, scantily flowered maypole to shiver all alone beneath the sky of January, in the cemetery of the Chapel of Braque.

The populace thronged the avenues of the law courts in particular, because they knew that the Flemish ambassadors, who had arrived two days previously, intended to be present at the representation of the mystery, and at the election of the Pope of the Fools, which was also to take place in the grand hall.

It was no easy matter on that day, to force one’s way into that grand hall, although it was then reputed to be the largest covered enclosure in the world (it is true that Sauval had not yet measured the grand hall of the Chateau of Montargis). The palace place, encumbered with people, offered to the curious gazers at the windows the aspect of a sea; into which five or six streets, like so many mouths of rivers, discharged every moment fresh floods of heads. The waves of this crowd, augmented incessantly, dashed against the angles of the houses which projected here and there, like so many promontories, into the irregular basin of the place. In the centre of the lofty Gothic facade of the palace, the grand staircase, incessantly ascended and descended by a double current, which, after parting on the intermediate landing-place, flowed in broad waves along its lateral slopes, - the grand staircase, I say, trickled incessantly into the place, like a cascade into a lake. The cries, the laughter, the trampling of those thousands of feet, produced a great noise and a great clamor. From time to time, this noise and clamor redoubled; the current which drove the crowd towards the grand staircase flowed backwards, became troubled, formed whirlpools. This was produced by the buffet of an archer, or the horse of one of the provost’s sergeants, which kicked to restore order; an admirable tradition which the provostship has bequeathed to the constablery, the constablery to the marechaussee, the marechaussee to our gendarmeri of Paris.

Thousands of good, calm, bourgeois faces thronged the windows, the doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace, gazing at the populace, and asking nothing more; for many Parisians content themselves with the spectacle of the spectators, and a wall behind which something is going on becomes at once, for us, a very curious thing indeed.

If it could be granted to us, the men of 1830, to mingle in thought with those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to enter with them, jostled, elbowed, pulled about, into that immense hall of the palace, which was so cramped on that sixth of January, 1482, the spectacle would not be devoid of either interest or charm, and we should have about us only things that were so old that they would seem new.

With the reader’s consent, we will endeavor to retrace in thought, the impression which he would have experienced in company with us on crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in the midst of that tumultuous crowd in surcoats, short, sleeveless jackets, and doublets.

And, first of all, there is a buzzing in the ears, a dazzlement in the eyes. Above our heads is a double ogive vault, panelled with wood carving, painted azure, and sown with golden fleurs-de-lis; beneath our feet a pavement of black and white marble, alternating. A few paces distant, an enormous pillar, then another, then another; seven pillars in all, down the length of the hall, sustaining the spring of the arches of the double vault, in the centre of its width. Around four of the pillars, stalls of merchants, all sparkling with glass and tinsel; around the last three, benches of oak, worn and polished by the trunk hose of the litigants, and the robes of the attorneys. Around the hall, along the lofty wall, between the doors, between the windows, between the pillars, the interminable row of all the kings of France, from Pharamond down: the lazy kings, with pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and combative kings, with heads and arms raised boldly heavenward. Then in the long, pointed windows, glass of a thousand hues; at the wide entrances to the hall, rich doors, finely sculptured; and all, the vaults, pillars, walls, jambs, panelling, doors, statues, covered from top to bottom with a splendid blue and gold illumination, which, a trifle tarnished at the epoch when we behold it, had almost entirely disappeared beneath dust and spiders in the year of grace, 1549, when du Breul still admired it from tradition.

Let the reader picture to himself now, this immense, oblong hall, illuminated by the pallid light of a January day, invaded by a motley and noisy throng which drifts along the walls, and eddies round the seven pillars, and he will have a confused idea of the whole effect of the picture, whose curious details we shall make an effort to indicate with more precision.

It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV., there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the clerk’s office of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in causing the said documents to disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better means, to burn the clerk’s office in order to burn the documents, and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk’s office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old Palais would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I should be able to say to the reader, “Go and look at it,” and we should thus both escape the necessity, - I of making, and he of reading, a description of it, such as it is. Which demonstrates a new truth: that great events have incalculable results.

It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place, that Ravaillac had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he had any, they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618. Two other very plausible explanations exist: First, the great flaming star, a foot broad, and a cubit high, which fell from heaven, as every one knows, upon the law courts, after midnight on the seventh of March; second, Theophile’s quatrain,—

“Sure, ’twas but a sorry game
When at Paris, Dame Justice,
Through having eaten too much spice,
Set the palace all aflame.”

Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation, political, physical, and poetical, of the burning of the law courts in 1618, the unfortunate fact of the fire is certain. Very little to-day remains, thanks to this catastrophe,—thanks, above all, to the successive restorations which have completed what it spared,—very little remains of that first dwelling of the kings of France,—of that elder palace of the Louvre, already so old in the time of Philip the Handsome, that they sought there for the traces of the magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared. What has become of the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis consummated his marriage? the garden where he administered justice, “clad in a coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves, and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with Joinville?” Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and that of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless? Where is the staircase, from which Charles VI. promulgated his edict of pardon? the slab where Marcel cut the throats of Robert de Clermont and the Marshal of Champagne, in the presence of the dauphin? the wicket where the bulls of Pope Benedict were torn, and whence those who had brought them departed decked out, in derision, in copes and mitres, and making an apology through all Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all fretted with carvings? and the gilded chamber? and the stone lion, which stood at the door, with lowered head and tail between his legs, like the lions on the throne of Solomon, in the humiliated attitude which befits force in the presence of justice? and the beautiful doors? and the stained glass? and the chased ironwork, which drove Biscornette to despair? and the delicate woodwork of Hancy? What has time, what have men done with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still ringing with the tattle of the Patru.

It is not much. Let us return to the veritable grand hall of the veritable old palace. The two extremities of this gigantic parallelogram were occupied, the one by the famous marble table, so long, so broad, and so thick that, as the ancient land rolls—in a style that would have given Gargantua an appetite—say, “such a slice of marble as was never beheld in the world”; the other by the chapel where Louis XI. had himself sculptured on his knees before the Virgin, and whither he caused to be brought, without heeding the two gaps thus made in the row of royal statues, the statues of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis, two saints whom he supposed to be great in favor in heaven, as kings of France. This chapel, quite new, having been built only six years, was entirely in that charming taste of delicate architecture, of marvellous sculpture, of fine and deep chasing, which marks with us the end of the Gothic era, and which is perpetuated to about the middle of the sixteenth century in the fairylike fancies of the Renaissance. The little open-work rose window, pierced above the portal, was, in particular, a masterpiece of lightness and grace; one would have pronounced it a star of lace.

In the middle of the hall, opposite the great door, a platform of gold brocade, placed against the wall, a special entrance to which had been effected through a window in the corridor of the gold chamber, had been erected for the Flemish emissaries and the other great personages invited to the presentation of the mystery play.

It was upon the marble table that the mystery was to be enacted, as usual. It had been arranged for the purpose, early in the morning; its rich slabs of marble, all scratched by the heels of law clerks, supported a cage of carpenter’s work of considerable height, the upper surface of which, within view of the whole hall, was to serve as the theatre, and whose interior, masked by tapestries, was to take the place of dressing-rooms for the personages of the piece. A ladder, naively placed on the outside, was to serve as means of communication between the dressing-room and the stage, and lend its rude rungs to entrances as well as to exits. There was no personage, however unexpected, no sudden change, no theatrical effect, which was not obliged to mount that ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of art and contrivances!

Four of the bailiff of the palace’s sergeants, perfunctory guardians of all the pleasures of the people, on days of festival as well as on days of execution, stood at the four corners of the marble table.

The piece was only to begin with the twelfth stroke of the great palace clock sounding midday. It was very late, no doubt, for a theatrical representation, but they had been obliged to fix the hour to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.

Now, this whole multitude had been waiting since morning. A goodly number of curious, good people had been shivering since daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace; some even affirmed that they had passed the night across the threshold of the great door, in order to make sure that they should be the first to pass in. The crowd grew more dense every moment, and, like water, which rises above its normal level, began to mount along the walls, to swell around the pillars, to spread out on the entablatures, on the cornices, on the window-sills, on all the salient points of the architecture, on all the reliefs of the sculpture. Hence, discomfort, impatience, weariness, the liberty of a day of cynicism and folly, the quarrels which break forth for all sorts of causes—a pointed elbow, an iron-shod shoe, the fatigue of long waiting—had already, long before the hour appointed for the arrival of the ambassadors, imparted a harsh and bitter accent to the clamor of these people who were shut in, fitted into each other, pressed, trampled upon, stifled. Nothing was to be heard but imprecations on the Flemish, the provost of the merchants, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the bailiff of the courts, Madame Marguerite of Austria, the sergeants with their rods, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the Bishop of Paris, the Pope of the Fools, the pillars, the statues, that closed door, that open window; all to the vast amusement of a band of scholars and lackeys scattered through the mass, who mingled with all this discontent their teasing remarks, and their malicious suggestions, and pricked the general bad temper with a pin, so to speak.

Among the rest there was a group of those merry imps, who, after smashing the glass in a window, had seated themselves hardily on the entablature, and from that point despatched their gaze and their railleries both within and without, upon the throng in the hall, and the throng upon the Place. It was easy to see, from their parodied gestures, their ringing laughter, the bantering appeals which they exchanged with their comrades, from one end of the hall to the other, that these young clerks did not share the weariness and fatigue of the rest of the spectators, and that they understood very well the art of extracting, for their own private diversion from that which they had under their eyes, a spectacle which made them await the other with patience.

“Upon my soul, so it’s you, ‘Joannes Frollo de Molendino!’” cried one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a well-favored and malign countenance, clinging to the acanthus leaves of a capital; “you are well named John of the Mill, for your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings fluttering on the breeze. How long have you been here?”

“By the mercy of the devil,” retorted Joannes Frollo, “these four hours and more; and I hope that they will be reckoned to my credit in purgatory. I heard the eight singers of the King of Sicily intone the first verse of seven o’clock mass in the Sainte-Chapelle.”

“Fine singers!” replied the other, “with voices even more pointed than their caps! Before founding a mass for Monsieur Saint John, the king should have inquired whether Monsieur Saint John likes Latin droned out in a Provencal accent.”

“He did it for the sake of employing those accursed singers of the King of Sicily!” cried an old woman sharply from among the crowd beneath the window. “I just put it to you! A thousand livres parisi for a mass! and out of the tax on sea fish in the markets of Paris, to boot!”

“Peace, old crone,” said a tall, grave person, stopping up his nose on the side towards the fishwife; “a mass had to be founded. Would you wish the king to fall ill again?”

“Bravely spoken, Sire Gilles Lecornu, master furrier of king’s robes!” cried the little student, clinging to the capital.

A shout of laughter from all the students greeted the unlucky name of the poor furrier of the king’s robes.

“Lecornu! Gilles Lecornu!” said some.

“Cornutus et hirsutus, horned and hairy,” another went on.

“He! of course,” continued the small imp on the capital, “What are they laughing at? An honorable man is Gilles Lecornu, brother of Master Jehan Lecornu, provost of the king’s house, son of Master Mahiet Lecornu, first porter of the Bois de Vincennes,—all bourgeois of Paris, all married, from father to son.”

The gayety redoubled. The big furrier, without uttering a word in reply, tried to escape all the eyes riveted upon him from all sides; but he perspired and panted in vain; like a wedge entering the wood, his efforts served only to bury still more deeply in the shoulders of his neighbors, his large, apoplectic face, purple with spite and rage.

At length one of these, as fat, short, and venerable as himself, came to his rescue.

“Abomination! scholars addressing a bourgeois in that fashion in my day would have been flogged with a fagot, which would have afterwards been used to burn them.”

The whole band burst into laughter.

“Hola he! who is scolding so? Who is that screech owl of evil fortune?”

“Hold, I know him” said one of them; “’tis Master Andry Musnier.”

“Because he is one of the four sworn booksellers of the university!” said the other.

“Everything goes by fours in that shop,” cried a third; “the four nations, the four faculties, the four feasts, the four procurators, the four electors, the four booksellers.”

“Well,” began Jean Frollo once more, “we must play the devil with them.”

“Musnier, we’ll burn your books.”

“Musnier, we’ll beat your lackeys.”

“Musnier, we’ll kiss your wife.”

“That fine, big Mademoiselle Oudarde.”

“Who is as fresh and as gay as though she were a widow.”

“Devil take you!” growled Master Andry Musnier.

“Master Andry,” pursued Jean Jehan, still clinging to his capital, “hold your tongue, or I’ll drop on your head!”

Master Andry raised his eyes, seemed to measure in an instant the height of the pillar, the weight of the scamp, mentally multiplied that weight by the square of the velocity and remained silent.

Jehan, master of the field of battle, pursued triumphantly:

“That’s what I’ll do, even if I am the brother of an archdeacon!”

“Fine gentry are our people of the university, not to have caused our privileges to be respected on such a day as this! However, there is a maypole and a bonfire in the town; a mystery, Pope of the Fools, and Flemish ambassadors in the city; and, at the university, nothing!”

“Nevertheless, the Place Maubert is sufficiently large!” interposed one of the clerks established on the window-sill.

“Down with the rector, the electors, and the procurators!” cried Joannes.

“We must have a bonfire this evening in the Champ-Gaillard,” went on the other, “made of Master Andry’s books.”

“And the desks of the scribes!” added his neighbor.

“And the beadles’ wands!”

“And the spittoons of the deans!”

“And the cupboards of the procurators!”

“And the hutches of the electors!”

“And the stools of the rector!”

“Down with them!” put in little Jehan, as counterpoint; “down with Master Andry, the beadles and the scribes; the theologians, the doctors and the decretists; the procurators, the electors and the rector!”

“The end of the world has come!” muttered Master Andry, stopping up his ears.

“By the way, there’s the rector! see, he is passing through the Place,” cried one of those in the window.

Each rivalled his neighbor in his haste to turn towards the Place.

“Is it really our venerable rector, Master Thibaut?” demanded Jehan Frollo du Moulin, who, as he was clinging to one of the inner pillars, could not see what was going on outside.

“Yes, yes,” replied all the others, “it is really he, Master Thibaut, the rector.”

It was, in fact, the rector and all the dignitaries of the university, who were marching in procession in front of the embassy, and at that moment traversing the Place. The students crowded into the window, saluted them as they passed with sarcasms and ironical applause. The rector, who was walking at the head of his company, had to support the first broadside; it was severe.

“Good day, monsieur le recteur! Hola he! good day there!”

“How does he manage to be here, the old gambler? Has he abandoned his dice?”

“How he trots along on his mule! her ears are not so long as his!”

“Hola he! good day, monsieur le recteur Thibaut! Tybalde aleator! Old fool! old gambler!”

“God preserve you! Did you throw double six often last night?”

“Oh! what a decrepit face, livid and haggard and drawn with the love of gambling and of dice!”

“Where are you bound for in that fashion, Thibaut, Tybalde ad dados, with your back turned to the university, and trotting towards the town?”

“He is on his way, no doubt, to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautode?” cried Jehan du M. Moulin.

The entire band repeated this quip in a voice of thunder, clapping their hands furiously.

“You are going to seek a lodging in the Rue Thibautode, are you not, monsieur le recteur, gamester on the side of the devil?”

Then came the turns of the other dignitaries.

“Down with the beadles! down with the mace-bearers!”

“Tell me, Robin Pouissepain, who is that yonder?”

“He is Gilbert de Suilly, Gilbertus de Soliaco, the chancellor of the College of Autun.”

“Hold on, here’s my shoe; you are better placed than I, fling it in his face.”

“Saturnalitias mittimus ecce nuces.”

“Down with the six theologians, with their white surplices!”

“Are those the theologians? I thought they were the white geese given by Sainte-Geneviève to the city, for the fief of Roogny.”

“Down with the doctors!”

“Down with the cardinal disputations, and quibblers!”

“My cap to you, Chancellor of Sainte-Genevieve! You have done me a wrong. ’Tis true; he gave my place in the nation of Normandy to little Ascanio Falzapada, who comes from the province of Bourges, since he is an Italian.”

“That is an injustice,” said all the scholars. “Down with the Chancellor of Sainte-Genevieve!”

“Ho he! Master Joachim de Ladehors! Ho he! Louis Dahuille! Ho he Lambert Hoctement!”

“May the devil stifle the procurator of the German nation!”

“And the chaplains of the Sainte-Chapelle, with their gray amices; cum tunices grisis!”

“Seu de pellibus grisis fourratis!”

“Hola he! Masters of Arts! All the beautiful black copes! all the fine red copes!”

“They make a fine tail for the rector.”

“One would say that he was a Doge of Venice on his way to his bridal with the sea.”

“Say, Jehan! here are the canons of Sainte-Genevieve!”

“To the deuce with the whole set of canons!”

“Abbe Claude Choart! Doctor Claude Choart! Are you in search of Marie la Giffarde?”

“She is in the Rue de Glatigny.”

“She is making the bed of the king of the debauchees.”

“She is paying her four deniers quatuor denarios.”

“Aut unum bombum.”

“Would you like to have her pay you in the face?”

“Comrades! Master Simon Sanguin, the Elector of Picardy, with his wife on the crupper!”

“Post equitem sedet atra cura—behind the horseman sits black care.”

“Courage, Master Simon!”

“Good day, Mister Elector!”

“Good night, Madame Electress!”

“How happy they are to see all that!” sighed Joannes de Molendino, still perched in the foliage of his capital.

Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king’s robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

“I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing nigh.”

“I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs,” said the fur-merchant.

At this moment, midday sounded.

“Ha!” exclaimed the entire crowd, in one voice.

The scholars held their peace. Then a great hurly-burly ensued; a vast movement of feet, hands, and heads; a general outbreak of coughs and handkerchiefs; each one arranged himself, assumed his post, raised himself up, and grouped himself. Then came a great silence; all necks remained outstretched, all mouths remained open, all glances were directed towards the marble table. Nothing made its appearance there. The bailiff’s four sergeants were still there, stiff, motionless, as painted statues. All eyes turned to the estrade reserved for the Flemish envoys. The door remained closed, the platform empty. This crowd had been waiting since daybreak for three things: noonday, the embassy from Flanders, the mystery play. Noonday alone had arrived on time.

On this occasion, it was too much.

They waited one, two, three, five minutes, a quarter of an hour; nothing came. The dais remained empty, the theatre dumb. In the meantime, wrath had succeeded to impatience. Irritated words circulated in a low tone, still, it is true. “The mystery! the mystery!” they murmured, in hollow voices. Heads began to ferment. A tempest, which was only rumbling in the distance as yet, was floating on the surface of this crowd. It was Jehan du Moulin who struck the first spark from it.

“The mystery, and to the devil with the Flemings!” he exclaimed at the full force of his lungs, twining like a serpent around his pillar.

The crowd clapped their hands.

“The mystery!” it repeated, “and may all the devils take Flanders!”

“We must have the mystery instantly,” resumed the student; “or else, my advice is that we should hang the bailiff of the courts, by way of a morality and a comedy.”

“Well said,” cried the people, “and let us begin the hanging with his sergeants.”

A grand acclamation followed. The four poor fellows began to turn pale, and to exchange glances. The crowd hurled itself towards them, and they already beheld the frail wooden railing, which separated them from it, giving way and bending before the pressure of the throng.

It was a critical moment.

“To the sack, to the sack!” rose the cry on all sides.

At that moment, the tapestry of the dressing-room, which we have described above, was raised, and afforded passage to a personage, the mere sight of whom suddenly stopped the crowd, and changed its wrath into curiosity as by enchantment.

“Silence! silence!”

The personage, but little reassured, and trembling in every limb, advanced to the edge of the marble table with a vast amount of bows, which, in proportion as he drew nearer, more and more resembled genuflections.

In the meanwhile, tranquillity had gradually been restored. All that remained was that slight murmur which always rises above the silence of a crowd.

“Messieurs the bourgeois,” said he, “and mesdemoiselles the bourgeoises, we shall have the honor of declaiming and representing, before his eminence, monsieur the cardinal, a very beautiful morality which has for its title, ‘The Good Judgment of Madame the Virgin Mary.’ I am to play Jupiter. His eminence is, at this moment, escorting the very honorable embassy of the Duke of Austria; which is detained, at present, listening to the harangue of monsieur the rector of the university, at the gate Baudets. As soon as his illustrious eminence, the cardinal, arrives, we will begin.”

It is certain, that nothing less than the intervention of Jupiter was required to save the four unfortunate sergeants of the bailiff of the courts. If we had the happiness of having invented this very veracious tale, and of being, in consequence, responsible for it before our Lady Criticism, it is not against us that the classic precept, Nec deus intersit, could be invoked. Moreover, the costume of Seigneur Jupiter, was very handsome, and contributed not a little towards calming the crowd, by attracting all its attention. Jupiter was clad in a coat of mail, covered with black velvet, with gilt nails; and had it not been for the rouge, and the huge red beard, each of which covered one-half of his face,—had it not been for the roll of gilded cardboard, spangled, and all bristling with strips of tinsel, which he held in his hand, and in which the eyes of the initiated easily recognized thunderbolts,—had not his feet been flesh-colored, and banded with ribbons in Greek fashion, he might have borne comparison, so far as the severity of his mien was concerned, with a Breton archer from the guard of Monsieur de Berry.

ACOK - Arya 6 by poschti

Fear has become part of Arya's daily life as she walks the hard, rutted roads among a group of prisoners of Gregor Clegane and his men, a kind of fear she had never known until she was held captive in that storehouse at the shore of the Gods Eye. They spent eight days in the village and are now leaving on Clegane's command, and every day she has seen someone die.

The Mountain came into the storehouse each morning after breakfast to pick one of them to be interrogated. The village folk did not dare to look at him, maybe hoping they would escape his attention. But there was no way to hide from him, no way to be safe. He just chose whomever he liked. There was a girl he picked on the fourth day who had slept with a soldier three nights running, yet the soldier said nothing. There was an old man he picked on the fifth day, who had mended their clothing and declared so often that his son served in the City Watch and did all for Joffrey that the other prisoners had actually started calling him All-for-Joffrey. There was a young mother with a pox-scarred face who had told Clegane everything she knew on the expectation they would spare her daughter for it, only to see her daughter be picked the next morning to make certain the mother held nothing back.

The interrogations always went down the same way. They were done in front of the whole group, so that everyone knew what happened to rebels and traitors. They call the ordinarily looking man who did the questioning the Tickler. He was assisted by Chiswyck, the old stoop-shouldered man who smashed Arya's head when they caught her, or by someone else, with Clegane just watching and listening until the prisoners died, which they invariably did. The questions were always about valuables or food hidden in the village, about the whereabouts of Beric Dondarrion and the size of his band and about who of the villagers had assisted them. They found a few valuables from the interrogations, but only got wildly inconsistent information about Dondarrion and his men. The longest someone survived the Tickler's treatment was until evenfall. The bodies were hung by the fires as food for the wolves.

The time in the storehouse has taught Arya that she is no Water Dancer. Syrio Forel would have never let them knock him down, take his sword, just watch as Lommy Greenhands was killed, or sit meekly by in that storehouse doing nothing while others died. She hates the villagers for being sheep almost as much as she hates herself for being a lamb, not a direwolf as the sigil of her house suggests. By now the Lannisters have taken everything from her: father, friends, home, hope, courage, Needle. They broke her wooden sword in front of her. They have even taken away her secret of being a girl. She was still able to pee in privacy at the storehouse, yet on the open road that is not possible, even though she tried to hold it. Hot Pie gaped at her when she skinned her breeches at a brush in front of all, but nobody else even looked. Clegane's men didn't care at all.

Their captors have forbidden them to talk and they punish those who disregard the order, as Arya has learned herself by getting her lip broken. They smashed with a spiked mace the face of a boy who wouldn't stop calling for his father; then Raff the Sweetling killed the boy's mother as well when she started screaming. Arya sees no purpose any longer in being brave, so she watches people die and does nothing. One woman who was questioned tried to be brave, but she died screaming just as the rest did. There are no brave ones left on this march, only women and children and very old or very young men. The other men were chained to the gibbet and left as food for wolves and crows. They only spared Gendry because he admitted that he had forged his helmet himself, as blacksmiths are too valuable to be killed.

The Mountain tells them that they will be taken to Harrenhal to serve Lord Tywin Lannister, a last chance given to rebels and traitors, which they should take: "Obey, serve, and live." Arya hears people arguing about this when they go to sleep that night. An old woman laments that what is being done to them isn't just, as they didn't commit any treason. Dondarrion's me just came and taken everything from them, as Clegane's did. Unlike the Mountain's men, Dondarrion's did the village folk no harm though, another woman points out, and Thoros of Myr even paid for what they took. Only with signed papers, the old woman replies, and those don't lay eggs as the chicken they took from her used to. Having made sure that no guard is looking, she spits three times for all Lannisters and Starks and Tullys. An old man says that the old king would have never stood for this sin and shame. Arya, forgetting herself, asks whether he is talking about King Robert, but the man meant King Aerys. Then a guard interferes, the old man loses his two remaining teeth and everyone falls silent.

Besides the prisoners, Clegane's band is also taking pigs, chickens, a cow, and nine wagons of salt fish to Harrenhal. The Mountain and his men are riding horses, but the captives have to walk and are killed if they cannot keep up or try to flee. The guards pick women at night and go into the bushes with them, receiving almost no resistance. There was one girl, prettier than the rest, who had to go with four or five different men each night, until she finally hit one with a stone one day. Clegane himself beheaded her with his massive two-handed greatsword and made everyone watch. He commanded that the body was to be left for the wolves. Arya has a side-look at Needle, worn at the hip by a black-bearded, balding man called Polliver, thinking how good it is that they took the sword from her, as she would have used it to stab Glegane that moment – and that would likely have ended with her being left as food for the wolves as well.

Polliver is hardly the worst of the lot, Arya thinks. By now she knows every one of Clegane's men, when they were only nameless strangers the night she was caught. It's important to keep in mind who of them is lazy or brutal, smart or stupid. The one they call Shitmouth has the foulest tongue she ever heard, yet he will give you an extra piece of bread if you ask, while jolly old Chiswyck or soft-spoken Rafford will only hit you. Arya observes them and listens to their talk, polishing her hates the way Gendry used to polish his helmet. She hates Dunsen for wearing Gendry's helmet, Polliver for taking Needle and Chiswyck for thinking he's funny. She hates even more the people she knows are responsible for the death of ones close to her: Raff the Sweetling for the death of Lommy, Amory Lorch for the death of Yoren, Meryn Trant for the death of Syrio, the Hound for the death of Mycah, Ilyn Payne and Joffrey and Cersei for the death of her father, Fat Tom, Desmond and the rest, even for the death of Lady, Sansa's direwolf. The Tickler is almost too scary to hate, though. There are times Arya almost forgets that he is coming along with the band, as he is completely inconspicuous when he isn't torturing people, just another soldier and actually quieter than most of them. Arya has started whispering to herself the names of the people she hates, she does it every night now. In Winterfell, she used to pray with her father at the godswood and with her mother in the sept, but on the road to Harrenhal, whispering those names has become the only prayer left to her.

Finally the trees give way to a more open landscape of hills, streams and fields – and the occasional burnt holdfast. After another day's march, they get the first glimpse of the towers of Harrenhal rising hard against the blue of the lake. Prisoners keep telling each other that things will get better at Harrenhal, but Arya is not sure about this, as she remembers Old Nan's stories about this castle built on fear and with mortar Black Harren mixed with human blood, but where he was roasted with all his sons by the dragons of Aegon the Conqueror nonetheless. The castle is only a few more miles off, Arya thinks, yet they walk almost two more days before they reach Lord Tywin's army, encamped west of the castle in the scorched remains of a town, the stench from the overflowing latrines greeting them as they approach, telling Arya that the army has been here for some time. The sheer size of Harrenhal makes it deceptive to the eyes from afar, yet the gatehouse of the castle alone is as large as the Great Keep of Winterfell. Arya can only see the tops of the five immense towers from outside. Seeing their grotesque and misshapen form, looking like an old man's gnarled, knuckly fingers groping for the sky, she now believes every word Old Nan told about how the stones melted and flowed like candle wax, turning into a searing red as they sought out Harren where he hid.

Hot Pie does not want to enter the castle, declaring that there are ghosts within. Chiswyck gives him the choice of joining the ghosts or becoming one, so he walks in with the rest. In the echoing bathhouse, they have to strip and scrub themselves in tubs filled with scolding hot water, the process supervised by two fierce old women who talk about them like they are newly aquired donkeys. When they examine Arya, Goodwife Amabel is dismayed about her feet while Goodwife Harra has a closer look at the calluses she received while training with Needle. Harra believes Arya is a farmer's daughter and got them from churning butter. She tells Arya that she can earn a higher station in life if she works hard, but will be beaten if she does not. Asked for it, she does not dare to give away her true name, nor does she want to use Arry. Thus she says Lommy called her Weasel, the name of the first girl that comes to her mind. Amabel thinks the name is appropriate. She declares that Arya will lose her hair, as it is filled with lice, and will be assigned to the kitchen. Arya says she'd rather tend the horses, thinking that she could steal one and escape. Harra slaps her so hard that her lip breaks again and commands her to shut up, as nobody is interested in her views. Arya thinks that Harra wouldn't dare slap her if she still had Needle. Amabel explains that Lord Tywin has grooms and squires to look after the horses and that the kitchen would have been a nice place for Arya, as it is snug and clean and one can always find a warm place to sleep there. However, Arya doesn't seem to be smart, so they should give her over to Weese, Amabel suggests. They send her off with a rough-spun garb and ill-fitting shoes.

Weese turns out to be the understeward for the Wailing Tower, a squat man with a carbuncle on the nose and angry red boils at one corner of his lips. He tells the six assigned to him that the Lannisters are generous to those who serve them well, a fate none of them deserve. If they do well, they might rise one day as high as he did. However, if they intend to presume on Lord Tywin's kindness, they'll have to deal with Weese. They are told they are not to look the highborn in the eye, are only allowed to speak when spoken to and should not get in Lord Tywin's way. Weese says he can smell defiance, pride and disobedience, and if he does, they'll have to answer for it. All he wants to sniff of them is fear.

l5 by user109046

Jake Nort had not led a fast life; he had rested. Hadassah Henderson Jonathan Jeanette Leonardo Lee Keith Idle and Henri did tie a fish to the dials.

Law 21 and 22 by boommahahod

LAW 21
PLAY A SUCKER TO CATCH A SUCKER—SEEM DUMBER THAN YOUR MARK
JUDGMENT
No one likes feeling stupider than the next person. The trick, then, is to make your victims feel smart—and not just smart, but smarter than you are. Once convinced of this, they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.
In the winter of 1872, the U.S. financier Asbury Harpending was visiting London when he received a cable: A diamond mine had been discovered in the American West. The cable came from a reliable source—William Ralston, owner of the Bank of California—but Harpending nevertheless took it as a practical joke, probably inspired by the recent discovery of huge diamond mines in South Africa. True, when reports had first come in of gold being discovered in the western United States, everyone had been
skeptical, and those had turned out to be true. But a diamond mine in the West! Harpending showed the cable to his fellow financier Baron Rothschild (one of the richest men in the world), saying it must be a joke.
The baron, however, replied, “Don’t be too sure about that. America is a very large country. It has furnished the world with many surprises already. Perhaps it has others in store.” Harpending promptly took the first ship back to the States. Now, there is nothing of which a man is prouder than of interlecutal ability, for it is this that gives him his commanding place in the animal world. It is an exceedingly rash thing to ter anyone see that you are decidedly superior to him in this respect, and to let other people see it too.... hence, white rank and riches may always reckon upon deferential treatment in society, that is
something which intellectual ability can never expect To be ignorea is the greatest favour shown to it; and if people notice it at all, it is because they regard it us a piece of imperinence, or else as something to which its possessor has no legitimate right, and upon which he dares to pride himself; and in retaliation and revenge for his conduct, people secretly try and humiliare him in some other way; unit if they wait to ao this, it is only for a futing opporunity. A man may be as humble as possible in his demeanour and yet hardly ever get people to overlook his crime in standing intellectually above them. In the Garden of Roses, Sadi makes the remark:
“You should know that foolish people are a hundredfold more averse to meeting the wise than the wise are indisposed for the company of the foolish.”
On the other hand, it is a real recommendation to be stupid. For just as warmth is agreeable to the body, so it does the mind good to feel its superiority; and a man will seek company likely to give him this feeling, as instinctively as he will approach the fireplace or walk in the sun if he wants to get warm. But this means that he will be disliked on account of his superiority; and if a man is to be liked, he must really be inferior in point of intellect.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860
When Harpending reached San Francisco, there was an excitement in the air recalling the Gold Rush days of the late 1840s. Two crusty prospectors named Philip Arnold and John Slack had been the ones to find the diamond mine. They had not divulged its location, in Wyoming, but had led a highly respected mining expert to it several weeks back, taking a circular route so
he could not guess his whereabouts. Once there, the expert had watched as the miners dug up diamonds. Back in San Francisco the expert had taken the gems to various jewelers, one of whom had estimated their worth at $1.5 million. Harpending and Ralston now asked Arnold and Slack to accompany them back to New York, where the jeweler Charles Tiffany would verify the
original estimates. The prospectors responded uneasily.
they smelled a trap: How could they trust these city slickers? What if Tiffany and the financiers managed to steal the whole mine out from under them?
Ralston tried to allay their fears by giving them $100,000 and placing another $300,000 in escrow for them. If the deal went through, they would be paid an additional $300,000. The miners agreed. The little group traveled to New York, where a meeting was held at the mansion of Samuel L. Barlow. The cream of the city’s aristocracy was in attendance—General George Brinton McClellan, commander of the Union forces in the Civil War; General Benjamin Butler; Horace Greeley, editor of the newspaper the New York Tribune; Harpending; Ralston; and Tiffany. Only Slack and Arnold were missing—as tourists in the city, they had decided to go sight-seeing. When Tiffany announced that the gems were real and worth a fortune, the
financiers could barely control their excitement. They wired Rothschild and other tycoons to tell them about the diamond mine and inviting them to share in the investment. At the same time, they also told the prospectors that they wanted one more test: They insisted that a mining expert of their choosing accompany Slack and Arnold to the site to verify its wealth. The
prospectors reluctantly agreed. In the meantime, they said, they had to return to San Francisco. The jewels that Tiffany had examined they left with Harpending for safekeeping. Several weeks later, a man named Louis Janin, the best mining expert in
the country, met the prospectors in San Francisco. Janin was a born skeptic who was determined to make sure that the mine was not a fraud. Accompanying Janin were Harpending, and several other interested financiers. As with the previous expert, the prospectors led the team through a complex series of canyons, completely confusing them as to their whereabouts. Arriving at the site, the financiers watched in amazement as Janin dug the area up, leveling anthills, turning over boulders, and finding
emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and most of all diamonds. The dig lasted eight days, and by the end, Janin was convinced: He told the investors that they now possessed the richest field in mining history. “With a hundred men and proper machinery,”
he told them, “I would guarantee to send out one million dollars in diamonds every thirty days.”
Returning to San Francisco a few days later, Ralston, Harpending, and company acted fast to form a $10 million corporation of private investors. First, however, they had to get rid of Arnold and Slack. That meant hiding their excitement—they certainly did not want to reveal the field’s real value. So they played possum. Who knows if Janin is right, they told the prospectors, the mine may not be as rich as we think. This just made the prospectors angry. Trying a different tactic, the financiers told the two men that if they insisted on having shares in the mine, they would end up being fleeced by the unscrupulous tycoons and investors who would run the corporation ; better, they said, to take the $700,000 already offered—an enormous sum at the time—and put their greed aside. This the prospectors seemed to understand, and they finally agreed to take the money, in return
signing the rights to the site over to the financiers, and leaving maps to it. News of the mine spread like wildfire. Prospectors fanned out across Wyoming. Meanwhile Harpending and group began spending the millions they had collected from their investors, buying equipment, hiring the best men in the business, and furnishing luxurious offices in New York and San Francisco.
A few weeks later, on their first trip back to the site, they learned the hard truth: Not a single diamond or ruby was to be found. It was all a fake. They were ruined. Harpending had unwittingly lured the richest men in the world into the biggest scam of the century.
Interpretation
Arnold and Slack pulled off their stupendous con not by using a fake engineer or bribing Tiffany: All of the experts had been real. All of them honestly believed in the existence of the mine and in the value of the gems. What had fooled them all was nothing else than Arnold and Slack themselves. The two men seemed to be such rubes, such hayseeds, so naive, that no one for an instant had believed them capable of an audacious scam. The prospectors had simply observed the law of appearing more stupid than the mark—the deceiver’s First Commandment.
The logistics of the con were quite simple. Months before Arnold and Slack announced the “discovery” of the diamond mine, they traveled to Europe, where they purchased some real gems for around $12,000 (part of the money they had saved from their days as gold miners). They then salted the “mine” with these gems, which the first expert dug up and brought to San Francisco. The jewelers who had appraised these stones, including Tiffany himself, had gotten caught up in the fever and had grossly
overestimated their value. Then Ralston gave the prospectors $100,000 as security, and immediately after their trip to New York they simply went to Amsterdam, where they bought sacks of uncut gems, before returning to San Francisco. The second time they salted the mine, there were many more jewels to be found.
The effectiveness of the scheme, however, rested not on tricks like these but on the fact that Arnold and Slack played their parts to perfection. On their trip to New York, where they mingled with millionaires and tycoons, they played up their clodhopper image, wearing pants and coats a size or two too small and acting incredulous at everything they saw in the big city. No one believed that these country simpletons could possibly be conning
the most devious, unscrupulous financiers of the time. And once
Harpending, Ralston, and even Rothschild accepted the mine’s existence, anyone who doubted it was questioning the intelligence of the world’s most successful businessmen.
In the end, Harpending’s reputation was ruined and he never recovered; Rothschild learned his lesson and never fell for another con; Slack took his money and disappeared from view, never to be found. Arnold simply went home to Kentucky. After all, his sale of his mining rights had been legitimate; the buyers had taken the best advice, and if the mine had run out of diamonds, that was their problem. Arnold used the money to greatly enlarge his farm and open up a bank of his own.
KEYS TO POWER
The feeling that someone else is more intelligent than we are is almost intolerable. We usually try to justify it in different ways: “He only has book knowledge, whereas I have real knowledge.” “Her parents paid for her to get a good education. If my parents had had as much money, if I had been as privileged....”
“He’s not as smart as he thinks.”
Last but not least: “She may know her narrow little field better than I do, but beyond that she’s really not smart at all. Even Einstein was a boob outside physics.”
Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power. That is an unforgivable sin. But if you can make this iron rule work for you, it opens up all sorts of avenues of deception. Subliminally reassure people that they are more intelligent than you are, or even that you are a bit of a moron, and you can run rings around them. The feeling of intellectual
superiority you give them will disarm their suspicion-muscles.
In 1865 the Prussian councillor Otto von Bismarck wanted Austria to sign a certain treaty. The treaty was totally in the interests of Prussia and against the interests of Austria, and Bismarck would have to strategize to get the Austrians to agree to it. But the Austrian negotiator, Count Blome, was an avid cardplayer. His particular game was quinze, and he often said that he could judge a man’s character by the way he played quinze. Bismarck knew of this saying of Blome’s. The night before the negotiations were to begin, Bismarck innocently engaged Blome in a game of quinze. The Prussian would later write, “That was the very last time I ever played quinze. I played so recklessly that everyone was astonished. I lost several thousand talers [the currency of the time], but I succeeded in fooling [Blome], for he believed me to be more venturesome than I am and I gave way.”
Besides appearing reckless, Bismarck also played the witless fool, saying ridiculous things and bumbling about with a surplus of nervous energy. All this made Blome feel he had gathered valuable information. He knew that Bismarck was aggressive—the Prussian already had that reputation, and the way he played had confirmed it. And aggressive men, Blome knew, can be foolish and rash. Accordingly, when the time came to sign the treaty, Blome thought he had the advantage. A heedless fool like Bismarck, he thought, is incapable of cold-blooded calculation and deception, so he only glanced at the treaty before signing it—he failed to read the fine print.
As soon as the ink was dry, a joyous Bismarck exclaimed in his face, “Well, I could never have believed that I should find an Austrian diplomat willing to sign that document!”
The Chinese have a phrase, “Masquerading as a swine to kill the tiger.”
This refers to an ancient hunting technique in which the hunter clothes himself in the hide and snout of a pig, and mimics its grunting. The mighty tiger thinks a pig is coming his way, and lets it get close, savoring the prospect of an easy meal. But it is the hunter who has the last laugh.
Masquerading as a swine works wonders on those who, like tigers, are arrogant and overconfident: The easier they think it is to prey on you, the more easily you can turn the tables. This trick is also useful if you are ambitious yet find yourself low in the hierarchy: Appearing less intelligent than you are, even a bit of a fool, is the perfect disguise. Look like a harmless pig and no one will believe you harbor dangerous ambitions. They may even promote you since you seem so likable, and subservient.
Claudius before he became emperor of Rome, and the prince of France who later became Louis XIII, used this tactic when those above them suspected they might have designs on the throne. By playing the fool as young men, they were left alone. When the time came for them to strike, and to act with vigor and decisiveness, they caught everyone off-guard.
Intelligence is the obvious quality to downplay, but why stop there?
Taste and sophistication rank close to intelligence on the vanity scale; make people feel they are more sophisticated than you are and their guard will come down. As Arnold and Slack knew, an air of complete naivete can work wonders. Those fancy financiers were laughing at them behind their backs,
but who laughed loudest in the end?
In general, then, always make people believe they are smarter and more sophisticated than you are. They will keep you around because you make them feel better about themselves, and the longer you are around, the more opportunities you will have to
deceive them.
Image:
The Opossum. In playing dead, the opossum plays stupid. Many a predator has therefore left it alone. Who could believe that such an ugly, unintelligent, nervous little creature could be capable of such deception?
Authority: Know how to make use of stupidity: The wisest man plays this card at times. There are occasions when the highest wisdom consists in appearing not to know—you must not be ignorant but capable of playing it. It is not much good being wise among fools and sane among lunatics. He who poses as a fool is not a fool. The best way to be well received by all is to clothe yourself in the skin of the dumbest of brutes.
(Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)
REVERSAL
To reveal the true nature of your intelligence rarely pays; you should get in the habit of downplaying it at all times. If people inadvertently learn the truth—that you are actually much smarter than you look—they will admire you more for being discreet than for making your brilliance show. At the start of your climb to the top, of course, you cannot play too stupid: You may want to let your bosses know, in a subtle way, that you are smarter than
the competition around you. As you climb the ladder, however, you should to some degree try to dampen your brilliance. There is, however, one situation where it pays to do the opposite—when you can cover up a deception with a show of intelligence. In matters of smarts as in most things, appearances are what count. If you seem to have authority and knowledge, people will believe what you say. This can be very useful in getting you out of a scrape. The art dealer Joseph Duveen was once attending a soiree at the New York home of a tycoon to whom he had recently sold a Dürer painting for a high price. Among the guests was a young French art critic who seemed extremely knowledgeable and confident. Wanting to impress this man, the
tycoon’s daughter showed him the Dürer, which had not yet been hung.
The critic studied it for a time, then finally said, “You know, I don’t think this Dürer is right.”
He followed the young woman as she hurried to tell her father what he had said, and listened as the magnate, deeply unsettled,
turned to Duveen for reassurance.
Duveen just laughed. “How very amusing,”
he said. “Do you realize, young man, that at least twenty other
art experts here and in Europe have been taken in too, and have said that painting isn’t genuine? And now you’ve made the same mistake.”
His confident tone and air of authority intimidated the Frenchman, who apologized for his mistake. Duveen knew that the art market was flooded with fakes, and that many paintings had been falsely ascribed to old masters. He tried his best to
distinguish the real from the fake, but in his zeal to sell he often overplayed a work’s authenticity. What mattered to him was that the buyer believed he had bought a Dürer, and that Duveen himself convinced everyone of his “expertness” through his air of irreproachable authority. Thus, it is important to be able to play the professor when necessary and never impose such an attitude for its own sake.
LAW 22
USE THE SURRENDER TACTIC: TRANSFORM WEAKNESS INTO POWER
JUDGMENT
When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, time to wait for his power to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you—surrender first. By turning the other cheek you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.
TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW
The island of Melos is strategically situated in the heart of the
Mediterranean. In classical times, the city of Athens dominated the sea and coastal areas around Greece, but Sparta, in the Peloponnese, had been Melos’s original colonizer. During the Peloponnesian War, then, the Melians refused to ally themselves with Athens and remained loyal to Mother Sparta.
In 416 B.C. the Athenians sent an expedition against Melos. Before launching an all-out attack, however, they dispatched a delegation to persuade the Melians to surrender and become an ally rather than suffer devastation and defeat.
THE CHESTNUT AND THE FIG TREE
A man who had climbed upon a certain fig tree, was bending the boughs toward him and plucking the ripe fruit, which he then put into his mouth to destroy and gnaw with his hard teeth. The chestnut, seeing this, tossed its long branches and with tumultuous rustle exclaimed: “Oh Fig! How much less protected by nature you are than I. See how my sweet offspring are set in close array; first clothed in soft wrappers over which is the hard but softly lined husk. And not content with this much care, nature has also given us these sharp and close-set spines, so that the hand of man cannot hurt us.”
Then the fig tree began to laugh, and after the laughter it said: “You know well that man is of suchingenuity that he will bereave even you of your children. But in your case he will do it by means of rods and stones; and when they are felled he will trample them with his feet or hit them with stones, so that your offspring will emerge from their armor crushed and maimed; while I am touched carefully by his hands, and never, like you, with roughness”
LEONARDO DAVINCI, 1452-1519
“You know as well as we do,” the delegates said,
“that the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel, and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”
When the Melians responded that this denied the notion of fair play, the Athenians said that those in power determined what was fair and what was not.
The Melians argued that this authority belonged to the gods, not to mortals. “Our opinion of the gods and our knowledge of men,”
replied a member of the Athenian delegation,
“lead us to conclude that it is a general and necessary law of nature to rule whatever one can.”
The Melians would not budge. Sparta, they insisted, would come to their defense. The Athenians countered that the Spartans were a conservative, practical people, and would not help Melos because they had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by doing so.
Finally the Melians began to talk of honor and the principle of resisting brute force. “Do not be led astray by a false sense of honor,” said the Athenians.
“Honor often brings men to ruin when they are faced with an
obvious danger that somehow affects their pride. There is nothing disgraceful in giving way to the greatest city in Hellas when she is offering you such reasonable terms.” The debate ended.
The Melians discussed the issue among themselves, and decided to trust in the aid of the Spartans, the will of the gods, and the rightness of their cause. They politely declined the Athenians’ offer. A few days later the Athenians invaded Melos. The Melians fought nobly, even without the Spartans, who did not come to their rescue. It took several attempts before the Athenians could surround and besiege their main city, but the Melians finally surrendered. The Athenians wasted no time—they put to death all the men of military age that they could capture, they sold the women and children as slaves, and they repopulated the island
with their own colonists. Only a handful of Melians survived.
Interpretation
The Athenians were one of the most eminently practical people in history, and they made the most practical argument they could with the Melians:
When you are weaker, there is nothing to be gained by fighting a useless fight. No one comes to help the weak—by doing so they would only put themselves in jeopardy. The weak are alone and must submit. Fighting gives you nothing to gain but martyrdom, and in the process a lot of people who do not believe in your cause will die. Weakness is no sin, and can even become a strength if you learn how to play it right. Had the Melians surrendered in the first place, they would have been able to sabotage the Athenians in subtle ways, or might have gotten what they could have out of the alliance and then left it when the
Athenians themselves were weakened, as in fact happened several years later. Fortunes change and the mighty are often brought down. Surrender conceals great power: Lulling the enemy into complacency, it gives you time to recoup, time to undermine, time for revenge. Never sacrifice that time in exchange for honor in a battle that you cannot win.
Voltaire was living in exile in London at a time when anti-French sentiment was at its highest. One day walking through the streets. he found himself surrounded by an angry crowd.
“Hang him. Hang the Frenchman,” they yelled.
Voltaire calmly addressed the mob with the following words: “Men of England’ You wish to kill me because I am a Frenchman. Am I not punished enough in not being born an Englishman?”
The crowd cheered his thoughtful words, and escorted him safely back to his lodgings.
THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES. CLIFTON FADIMAN,
ED., 1985
Weak people never give way when they ought to.
Cardinal de Retz, 1613-1679
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
Sometime in the 1920s the German writer Bertolt Brecht became a convert to the cause of Communism. From then on his plays, essays, and poems reflected his revolutionary fervor, and he generally tried to make his ideological statements as clear as possible. When Hitler came to power in Germany, Brecht and his Communist colleagues became marked men. He had many friends in the United States—Americans who sympathized with his beliefs, as well as fellow German intellectuals who had fled Hitler. In 1941, accordingly, Brecht emigrated to the United States, and chose to settle in Los Angeles, where he hoped to make a living in the film business. Over the next few years Brecht wrote screenplays with a pointedly anticapitalist slant. He had little success in Hollywood, so in 1947, the war having ended, he decided to return to Europe. That same year, however, the
U.S. Congress’s House Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into supposed Communist infiltration in Hollywood. It began to gather information on Brecht, who had so openly espoused Marxism, and on September 19, 1947, only a month before he had planned to leave the United States, he received a subpoena to appear before the committee. In addition to Brecht, a number of other writers, producers, and directors were summoned to appear as well, and this group came to be known as the Hollywood 19. Before going to Washington, the Hollywood 19 met to decide on a plan of action. Their approach would be confrontational. Instead of answering questions about their membership, or lack of it, in the Communist Party, they would read prepared statements that would challenge the authority of the committee and argue that its activities were unconstitutional. Even if this strategy meant imprisonment, it would gain publicity for their cause. Brecht disagreed. What good was it, he asked, to play the martyr and gain a little public sympathy if in the process they lost the ability to stage their plays and sell their scripts for years to come? He felt certain they were all more intelligent than the members of the committee.
Why lower themselves to the level of their opponents by arguing with them? Why not outfox the committee by appearing to surrender to it while subtly mocking it?
The Hollywood 19 listened to Brecht politely, but decided to stick to their plan, leaving Brecht to go his own way. The committee finally summoned Brecht on October 30. They expected him to do what others among the Hollywood 19 who had testified before
him had done: Argue, refuse to answer questions, challenge the committee’s right to hold its hearing, even yell and hurl insults. Much to their surprise, however, Brecht was the very picture of congeniality. He wore a suit (something he rarely did), smoked a cigar (he had heard that the committee chairman was a passionate cigar smoker), answered their questions politely, and generally deferred to their authority. Unlike the other witnesses, Brecht answered the question of whether he belonged to the Communist Party: He was not a member, he said, which happened to be the truth.
One committee member asked him, “Is it true you have written a number of revolutionary plays?”
Brecht had written many plays with overt Communist messages, but he responded, “I have written a number of poems and songs and plays in the fight against Hitler and, of course, they can be considered, therefore, as revolutionary because I, of course, was for the overthrow of that government.”
This statement went unchallenged. Brecht’s English was more than adequate, but he used an interpreter throughout his testimony, a tactic that allowed him to play subtle games with language. When committee members found Communist leanings in lines from English editions of his poems, he would repeat the lines in German for the interpreter, who would then retranslate them; and somehow they would come out innocuous. At one point a committee member read one of Brecht’s revolutionary poems out loud in English,
and asked him if he had written it. “No,” he responded, “I wrote a German poem, which is very different from this.”
The author’s elusive answers baffled the committee members, but his politeness and the way he yielded to their authority made it impossible for them to get angry with him. After only an hour of questioning, the committee members had had enough.
“Thank you very much,” said the chairman,
“You are a good example to the [other] witnesses.”
Not only did they free him, they offered to help him if he had any trouble with immigration officials who might detain him for their own reasons. The following day, Brecht left the United States, never to return.
Interpretation
The Hollywood 19’s confrontational approach won them a lot of sympathy, and years later they gained a kind of vindication in public opinion. But they were also blacklisted, and lost valuable years of profitable working time. Brecht, on the other hand, expressed his disgust at the committee more indirectly. It was not that he changed his beliefs or compromised his values;
instead, during his short testimony, he kept the upper hand by appearing to yield while all the time running circles around the committee with vague responses, outright lies that went unchallenged because they were wrapped in enigmas, and word games. In the end he kept the freedom to continue his
revolutionary writing (as opposed to suffering imprisonment or detainment in the United States), even while subtly mocking the committee and its authority with his pseudo-obedience.
Keep in mind the following: People trying to make a show of their
authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic. Your outward sign of submission makes them feel important; satisfied that you respect them, they become easier targets for a later counterattack, or for the kind of indirect ridicule used by Brecht. Measuring your power over time, never sacrifice long-term maneuverability for the short-lived glories of martyrdom. When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.
Ethiophan proverb
KEYS TO POWER
What gets us into trouble in the realm of power is often our own
overreaction to the moves of our enemies and rivals. That overreaction creates problems we would have avoided had we been more reasonable. It also has an endless rebound effect, for the enemy then overreacts as well, much as the Athenians did to the Melians. It is always our first instinct to react, to meet aggression with some other kind of aggression. But the next
time someone pushes you and you find yourself starting to react, try this: Do not resist or fight back, but yield, turn the other cheek, bend. You will find that this often neutralizes their behavior—they expected, even wanted you to react with force and so they are caught off-guard and confounded by your lack of resistance. By yielding, you in fact control the situation, because your surrender is part of a larger plan to lull them into believing
they have defeated you.
This is the essence of the surrender tactic: Inwardly you stay firm, but outwardly you bend. Deprived of a reason to get angry, your opponents will often be bewildered instead. And they are unlikely to react with more violence, which would demand a reaction from you. Instead you are allowed the time and space to plot the countermoves that will bring them down. In the battle of the intelligent against the brutal and the aggressive, the surrender tactic is the supreme weapon.
It does require self-control: Those who genuinely surrender give up their freedom, and may be crushed by the humiliation of their defeat. You have to remember that you only appear to surrender, like the animal that plays dead to save its hide. We have seen that it can be better to surrender than to fight; faced with a more powerful opponent and a sure defeat, it is often also better to
surrender than to run away. Running away may save you for the time being, but the aggressor will eventually catch up with you. If you surrender instead, you have an opportunity to coil around your enemy and strike with your fangs from close up.
In 473 B.C., in ancient China, King Goujian of Yue suffered a horrible defeat from the ruler of Wu in the battle of Fujiao. Goujian wanted to flee, but he had an adviser who told him to surrender and to place himself in the service of the ruler of Wu, from which position he could study the man and plot his revenge. Deciding to follow this advice, Goujian gave the ruler all of his riches, and went to work in his conqueror’s stables as the lowest
servant. For three years he humbled himself before the ruler, who then, finally satisfied of his loyalty, allowed him to return home. Inwardly, however, Goujian had spent those three years gathering information and plotting revenge. When a terrible drought struck Wu, and the kingdom was weakened by inner turmoil, he raised an army, invaded, and won with ease. That is the power behind surrender: It gives you the time and the flexibility to plot a devastating counterblow. Had Goujian run away, he would have lost this chance.
When foreign trade began to threaten Japanese independence in the midnineteenth century, the Japanese debated how to defeat the foreigners. One minister, Hotta Masayoshi, wrote a memorandum in 1857 that influenced Japanese policy for years to come: “I am therefore convinced that our policy should be to conclude friendly alliances, to send ships to foreign countries everywhere and conduct trade, to copy the foreigners where they
are at their best and so repair our own shortcomings, to foster our national strength and complete our armaments, and so gradually subject the foreigners to our influence until in the end all the countries of the world know the blessings of perfect tranquillity and our hegemony is acknowledged throughout the globe.”
This is a brilliant application of the Law: Use surrender to gain access to your enemy. Learn his ways, insinuate yourself with him slowly, outwardly conform to his customs, but inwardly maintain your own culture. Eventually you will emerge victorious, for while
he considers you weak and inferior, and takes no precautions against you, you are using the time to catch up and surpass him. This soft, permeable form of invasion is often the best, for the enemy has nothing to react against, prepare for, or resist. And had Japan resisted Western influence by force, it might well have suffered a devastating invasion that would have permanently altered its culture.
Surrender can also offer a way of mocking your enemies, of turning their power against them, as it did for Brecht. Milan Kundera’s novel The Joke, based on the author’s experiences in a penal camp in Czechoslovakia, tells the story of how the prison guards organized a relay race, guards against prisoners. For the guards this was a chance to show off their physical superiority. The prisoners knew they were expected to lose, so they went
out of their way to oblige—miming exaggerated exertion while barely moving, running a few yards and collapsing, limping, jogging ever so slowly while the guards raced ahead at full speed. Both by joining the race and by losing it, they had obliged the guards obediently; but their “overobedience” had mocked the event to the point of ruining it.
Overobedience—surrender—was here a way to demonstrate superiority in a reverse manner. Resistance would have engaged the prisoners in the cycle of violence, lowering them to the guards’ level. Overobeying the guards, however, made them ridiculous, yet they could not rightly punish the prisoners, who had only done what they asked.
Power is always in flux—since the game is by nature fluid, and an arena of constant struggle, those with power almost always find themselves eventually on the downward swing. If you find yourself temporarily weakened, the surrender tactic is perfect for raising yourself up again—it disguises your ambition; it teaches you patience and self-control, key skills in the game; and it puts you in the best possible position for taking advantage of your oppressor’s sudden slide. If you run away or fight back, in the long run you cannot win. If you surrender, you will almost always
emerge victorious.
Image: An Oak Tree. The oak that resists the wind loses its branches one by one, and with nothing left to protect it, the trunk finally snaps. The oak that bends lives longer, its trunk growing wider, its roots deeper and more tenacious.
Authority: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let them have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
(Jesus Christ, in Matthew 5:38-41)
REVERSAL
The point of surrendering is to save your hide for a later date when you can reassert yourself. It is precisely to avoid martyrdom that one surrenders, but there are times when the enemy will not relent, and martyrdom seems the only way out. Furthermore, if you are willing to die, others may gain power and inspiration from your example. Yet martyrdom, surrender’s reversal, is a messy, inexact tactic, and is as violent as the aggression it combats. For every famous martyr there are thousands more who have inspired neither a religion nor a rebellion, so that if martyrdom does sometimes grant a certain power, it does so unpredictably. More important, you will not be around to enjoy that power,
such as it is. And there is finally something selfish and arrogant about martyrs, as if they felt their followers were less important than their own glory. When power deserts you, it is best to ignore this Law’s reversal. Leave martyrdom alone: The pendulum will swing back your way eventually, and you should stay alive to see it.

Pilate's dream by msonnl

I dreamt I met a Galilean, a most amazing man. He had that look you very rarely find. The haunting, hunted kind. I asked him to say what had happened. How it all began. I asked again, he never said a word. As if he hadn't heard. And next the room was full of wild and angry men. They seemed to hate this man. They fell on him and then they disappeared again. Then I saw thousands of millions crying for this man. And then I heard them mentioning my name and leaving me the blame.

The law 18 and 19 by boommahahod

LAW 18
DO NOT BUILD FORTRESSES TO PROTECT YOURSELF— ISOLATION IS DANGEROUS
JUDGMENT
The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere—everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it Protects you from—it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people, find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.
TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW
Ch‘in Shih Huang Ti, the first emperor of China (221-210 B.C.), was the mightiest man of his day. His empire was vaster and more powerful than that of Alexander the Great. He had conquered all of the kingdoms surrounding his own kingdom of Ch’in and unified them into one massive realm called China. But in the last years of his life, few, if anyone, saw him. The emperor lived in the most magnificent palace built to that date, in the capital of Hsien-yang. The palace had 270 pavilions; all of these were connected by secret underground passageways, allowing the emperor to
move through the palace without anyone seeing him. He slept in a different room every night, and anyone who inadvertently laid eyes on him was instantly beheaded. Only a handful of men knew his whereabouts, and if they revealed it to anyone, they, too, were put to death. The first emperor had grown so terrified of human contact that when he had to leave the palace he traveled incognito, disguising himself carefully. On one such trip through the provinces, he suddenly died. His body was borne back to the capital in the emperor’s carriage, with a cart packed with salted fish trailing behind it to cover up the smell of the rotting corpse—no one was to know of his death. He died alone, far from his wives, his family, his friends, and his courtiers, accompanied only by a minister and a handful of eunuchs.
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatur and its seal—the redness and horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution.... And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour. But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half-depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knight, and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtier.s, having entered,
brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers,
there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.” It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence. It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade.... ... And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock....
And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked fzgecre which had arrested the attention of no single individual before.... The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was sprinkled with the scarlet horror ... ... A throng of the revellers
at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, EDGAR ALLAN POE, 1809 1849
Interpretation
Shih Huang Ti started off as the king of Ch’in, a fearless warrior of
unbridled ambition. Writers of the time described him as a man with “a waspish nose, eyes like slits, the voice of a jackal, and the heart of a tiger or wolf.” He could be merciful sometimes, but more often he “swallowed men up without a scruple.” It was through trickery and violence that he conquered the provinces surrounding his own and created China, forging a single nation and culture out of many. He broke up the feudal system, and to
keep an eye on the many members of the royal families that were scattered across the realm’s various kingdoms, he moved 120,000 of them to the capital, where he housed the most important courtiers in the vast palace of Hsien-yang. He consolidated the many walls on the borders and built them into the Great Wall of China. He standardized the country’s laws, its written language, even the size of its cartwheels. As part of this process of unification, however, the first emperor outlawed the writings and teachings of Confucius, the philosopher whose ideas on the moral life had already become virtually a religion in Chinese culture. On Shih Huang Ti’s order, thousands of books relating to Confucius
were burned, and anyone who quoted Confucius was to be beheaded. This made many enemies for the emperor, and he grew constantly afraid, even paranoid. The executions mounted. A contemporary, the writer Han-fei-tzu, noted that “Ch’in has been victorious for four generations, yet has lived in constant terror and apprehension of destruction.” As the emperor withdrew deeper and deeper into the palace to protect himself, he slowly lost control of the realm. Eunuchs and ministers enacted political policies without his approval or even his knowledge; they also plotted against him. By the end, he was emperor in name only, and was so isolated that barely anyone knew he had died. He had probably been poisoned by the same scheming ministers who encouraged his isolation.
That is what isolation brings: Retreat into a fortress and you lose contact with the sources of your power. You lose your ear for what is happening around you, as well as a sense of proportion. Instead of being safer, you cut yourself off from the kind of knowledge on which your life depends. Never enclose yourself so far from the streets that you cannot hear what is happening around you, including the plots against you.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
Louis XIV had the palace of Versailles built for him and his court in the 1660s, and it was like no other royal palace in the world. As in a beehive, everything revolved around the royal person. He lived surrounded by the nobility, who were allotted apartments nestled around his, their closeness to him dependent on their rank. The king’s bedroom occupied the literal center of the palace and was the focus of everyone’s attention. Every morning the king was greeted in this room by a ritual known as the lever. At eight A.M., the king’s first valet, who slept at the foot of the royal bed, would awaken His Majesty. Then pages would open the door and admit those who had a function in the lever.
The order of their entry was precise:
First came the king’s illegitimate sons and his grandchildren, then the princes and princesses of the blood, and then his physician and surgeon. There followed the grand officers of the wardrobe, the king’s official reader, and those in charge of entertaining the king. Next would arrive various government officials, in ascending order of rank. Last but not least came those attending the lever by special invitation. By the end of the ceremony, the room would be packed with well over a hundred royal attendants and visitors.
The day was organized so that all the palace’s energy was directed at and passed through the king. Louis was constantly attended by courtiers and officials, all asking for his advice and judgment.
To all their questions he usually replied, “I shall see.”
As Saint-Simon noted, “If he turned to someone, asked him a question, made an insignificant remark, the eyes of all present were turned on this person.
It was a distinction that was talked of and increased prestige.
” There was no possibility of privacy in the palace, not even for the king—every room communicated with another, and every hallway led to larger rooms where groups of nobles gathered constantly. Everyone’s actions were interdependent, and nothing and no one passed unnoticed: “The king not only saw to it that all the high nobility was present at his court,” wrote Saint-Simon, “he demanded the same of the minor nobility.
At his lever and coucher, at his meals, in his gardens of Versailles, he always looked about him, noticing everything. He was offended if the most distinguished nobles did not live permanently at court, and those who showed themselves never
or hardly ever, incurred his full displeasure.
If one of these desired something, the king would say proudly:
‘I do not know him,’ and the judgment was irrevocable.”
Interpretation
Louis XIV came to power at the end of a terrible civil war, the Fronde. A principal instigator of the war had been the nobility, which deeply resented the growing power of the throne and yearned for the days of feudalism, when the lords ruled their own fiefdoms and the king had little authority over them. The nobles had lost the civil war, but they remained a fractious, resentful lot.
The construction of Versailles, then, was far more than the decadent whim of a luxury-loving king. It served a crucial function: The king could keep an eye and an ear on everyone and everything around him. The once proud nobility was reduced to squabbling over the right to help the king put on his robes in the morning. There was no possibility here of privacy—no possibility of isolation. Louis XIV very early grasped the truth that for a king to isolate himself is gravely dangerous. In his absence, conspiracies will spring up like mushrooms after rain, animosities will crystallize into factions, and rebellion will break out before he has the time to react. To combat this, sociability and openness must not only be encouraged, they must be formally organized and channeled. These conditions at Versailles lasted for Louis’s entire reign, some fifty years of relative peace and tranquillity. Through it all, not a pin dropped without Louis hearing it. Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue.... Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious,
probably superstitious, and possibly mad.
Dr. Samuel John son, 1709-1784
KEYS TO POWER
Machiavelli makes the argument that in a strictly military sense a fortress is invariably a mistake. It becomes a symbol of power’s isolation, and is an easy target for its builders’ enemies. Designed to defend you, fortresses actually cut you off from help and cut into your flexibility. They may appear impregnable, but once you retire to one, everyone knows where you are; and a siege does not have to succeed to turn your fortress into a prison. With their small and confined spaces, fortresses are also extremely
vulnerable to the plague and contagious diseases. In a strategic sense, the isolation of a fortress provides no protection, and actually creates more problems than it solves. Because humans are social creatures by nature, power depends on social
interaction and circulation. To make yourself powerful you must place yourself at the center of things, as Louis XIV did at Versailles. All activity should revolve around you, and you should be aware of everything happening on the street, and of anyone who might be hatching plots against you. The danger for most people comes when they feel threatened. In such times they tend to retreat and close ranks, to find security in a kind of fortress. In doing so, however, they come to rely for information on a smaller and smaller circle, and lose perspective on events around them.
They lose maneuverability and become easy targets, and their isolation makes them paranoid. As in warfare and most games of strategy, isolation often precedes defeat and death.
In moments of uncertainty and danger, you need to fight this desire to turn inward. Instead, make yourself more accessible, seek out old allies and make new ones, force yourself into more and more different circles. This has been the trick of powerful people for centuries. The Roman statesman Cicero was born into the lower nobility, and had little chance of power unless he managed to make a place for himself among the aristocrats who controlled the city. He succeeded brilliantly, identifying everyone with influence and figuring out how they were connected to one another. He mingled everywhere, knew everyone, and had such a vast network of connections that an enemy here could easily be
counterbalanced by an ally there. The French statesman Talleyrand played the game the same way. Although he came from one of the oldest aristocratic families in France, he made a point of always staying in touch with what was happening in the
streets of Paris, allowing him to foresee trends and troubles. He even got a certain pleasure out of mingling with shady criminal types, who supplied him with valuable information. Every time there was a crisis, a transition of power—the end of the Directory, the fall of Napoleon, the abdication of Louis XVIII—he was able to survive and even thrive, because he never closed himself up in a small circle but always forged connections with the new order.
This law pertains to kings and queens, and to those of the highest power: The moment you lose contact with your people, seeking security in isolation, rebellion is brewing. Never imagine yourself so elevated that you can afford to cut yourself off from even the lowest echelons. By retreating to a fortress, you make yourself an easy target for your plotting subjects, who view your isolation as an insult and a reason for rebellion. Since humans are such social creatures, it follows that the social arts that make us pleasant to be around can be practiced only by constant exposure and circulation. The more you are in contact with others, the more graceful and at ease you become. Isolation, on the other hand, engenders an awkwardness in your gestures, and leads to further isolation, as people start avoiding you.
In 1545 Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici decided that to ensure the immortality of his name he would commission frescoes for the main chapel of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. He had many great painters to choose from, and in the end he picked Jacopo da Pontormo. Getting on in years, Pontormo wanted to make these frescoes his chef d’oeuvre and legacy. His first decision was to close the chapel off with walls, partitions, and blinds. He wanted no one to witness the creation of his masterpiece, or to steal his ideas. He would outdo Michelangelo himself. When some young men broke into the chapel out of curiosity, Jacopo sealed it off even further. Pontormo filled the chapel’s ceiling with biblical scenes—the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, on and on. At the top of the middle wall he painted Christ in his majesty, raising the dead on Judgment Day. The artist worked on the chapel for eleven years, rarely leaving it, since he had developed a phobia for human contact and was afraid his ideas would be stolen. Pontormo died before completing the frescoes, and none of them has survived. But the great Renaissance writer Vasari, a friend of Pontormo’s who saw the frescoes shortly after the artist’s death, left a description of
what they looked like. There was a total lack of proportion. Scenes bumped against scenes, figures in one story being juxtaposed with those in another, in maddening numbers. Pontormo had become obsessed with detail but had lost any sense of the overall composition. Vasari left off his description of
the frescoes by writing that if he continued, “I think I would go mad and become entangled in this painting, just as I believe that in the eleven years of time Jacopo spent on it, he entangled himself and anyone else who saw it.” Instead of crowning Pontormo’s career, the work became his undoing. These frescoes were visual equivalents of the effects of isolation on the human mind: a loss of proportion, an obsession with detail combined with an inability to see the larger picture, a kind of extravagant ugliness that no longer communicates. Clearly, isolation is as deadly for the creative arts as for the social arts. Shakespeare is the most famous writer in history because, as a dramatist for the popular stage, he opened himself up to the masses, making his work accessible to people no matter what their education and
taste. Artists who hole themselves up in their fortress lose a sense of proportion, their work communicating only to their small circle. Such art remains cornered and powerless.
Finally, since power is a human creation, it is inevitably increased by contact with other people. Instead of falling into the fortress mentality, view the world in the following manner: It is like a vast Versailles, with every room communicating with another. You need to be permeable, able to float in and out of different circles and mix with different types. That kind of mobility and social contact will protect you from plotters, who will be unable to keep secrets from you, and from your enemies, who will be unable to isolate you from your allies. Always on the move, you mix and
mingle in the rooms of the palace, never sitting or settling in one place. No hunter can fix his aim on such a swift-moving creature.
Image: The Fortress. High up on the hill, the citadel be comes a symbol of all that is hateful in power and authority. The citizens of the town betray you to the first enemy that comes. Cut off from communication and in telligence, the citadel falls with ease.
Authority: A good and wise prince, desirous of maintaining that character, and to avoid giving the opportunity to his sons to become oppressive, will never build fortresses, so that they may place their reliance upon the good will of their subjects, and not upon the strength of citadels.
(Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469-1527)
REVERSAL
It is hardly ever right and propitious to choose isolation. Without keeping an ear on what is happening in the streets, you will be unable to protect yourself. About the only thing that constant human contact cannot facilitate is thought. The weight of society’s pressure to conform, and the lack of distance from other people, can make it impossible to think clearly about what is going on around you. As a temporary recourse, then, isolation can
help you to gain perspective. Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think. Machiavelli could write The Prince only once he found himself in exile and isolated on a farm far from the political intrigues of Florence. The danger is, however, that this kind of isolation will sire all kinds of strange and perverted ideas. You may gain perspective on the larger picture, but you lose a sense of your own smallness and limitations. Also, the more isolated you are, the harder it is to break out of your isolation when you choose to—it sinks you deep into its quicksand without your noticing. If
you need time to think, then, choose isolation only as a last resort, and only in small doses. Be careful to keep your way back into society open.
LAW 19
KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH—DO NOT OFFEND THE WRONG PERSON
JUDGMENT
There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs’ clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then
Never offend or deceive the wrong person.
OPPONENTS, SUCKERS, AND VICTIMS: Preliminary Typology In your rise to power you will come across many breeds of opponent, sucker, and victim. The highest form of the art of power is the ability to distinguish the wolves from the lambs, the foxes from the hares, the hawks from the vultures. If you make this distinction well, you will succeed without needing to coerce anyone too much. But if you deal blindly with whomever crosses your path, you will have a life of constant sorrow, if you even live
that long. Being able to recognize types of people, and to act accordingly, is critical. The following are the five most dangerous and difficult types of mark in the jungle, as identified by artists—con and otherwise—of the past. When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet.
FROM A CH’AN BUDDHIST CLASSIC, QUOTED IN THUNDER IN
THE SKY, TRANSLATED BY THOMAS CLEARY, 1993
The Arrogant and Proud Man. Although he may initially disguise it, this man’s touchy pride makes him very dangerous. Any perceived slight will lead to a vengeance of overwhelming violence.
You may say to yourself, “But I only said such-and-such at a party, where everyone was drunk....”
It does not matter. There is no sanity behind his overreaction, so do not waste time trying to figure him out. If at any point in your dealings with a person you sense an oversensitive and overactive pride, flee. Whatever you are hoping for from him isn’t worth it.
THE REVENCE OF LOPE DE AGUIRRE
[Lope de] Aguirre’s character is amply illustrated in an anecdote from the chronicle of Garcilaso de la Vega, who related that in 1548 Aguirre was a member of a platoon of soldiers escorting Indian slaves from the mines at Potosi [Bolivia] to a royal treasury depot. The Indians were illegally burdened with great quantities of silver, and a local official arrested Aguirre, sentencing him to receive two hundred lashes in lieu of a fine for oppressing the Indians.
“The soldier Aguirre, having received a notification of the sentence, besought the alcalde that, instead of flogging him, he would put him to death, for that he was a gentleman by birth.... All this had no effect on the alcalde, who ordered the executioner to bring a beast, and execute the sentence. The executioner came to the prison, and put Aguirre on the heast.... The beast was driven on, and he received the lashes. ...”
When freed, Aguirre announced his intention of killing the official who had sentenced him, the alcalde Esquivel. Esquivel’s term of office expired and he fled to Lima, three hundred twenty leagues away, but within fifteen days Aguirre had tracked him there. The frightened judge journeyed to Quito, a trip of four hundred leagues, and in twenty days Aguirre arrived.
“When Esquivel heard of his presence,” according to Garcilaso, “he made another journey of five hundred leagues to Cuzco; but in a few days Aguirre also arrived, having travelled on foot and without shoes, saying that a whipped man has no business to ride a horse, or to go where he would be seen by others. In this way, Aguirre followed his judge for three years, and four months.
” Wearying of the pursuit, Esquivel remained at Cuzco, a city so
sternly governed that he felt he would be safe from Aguirre. He took a house near the cathedral and never ventured outdoors without a sword and a dagger.
“However, on a certain Monday, at noon, Aguirre entered his
house, and having walked all over it, and having traversed a corridor, a saloon, a chamber, and an inner chamber where the judge kept his books, he at last found him asleep over one of his books, and stabbed him to death. The murderer then went out, but when he came to the door of the house, he found that he had forgotten his hat, and had the temerity to return and fetch it, and then walked down the street.”
THE GOLDEN DREAM: SEEKERS OF EL DORADO, WALKER CHAPMAN, 1967
The Hopelessly Insecure Man. This man is related to the proud and arrogant type, but is less violent and harder to spot. His ego is fragile, his sense of self insecure, and if he feels himself deceived or attacked, the hurt will simmer. He will attack you in bites that will take forever to get big enough for you to notice. If you find you have deceived or harmed such a man, disappear for a long time. Do not stay around him or he will nibble you to death.
Mr. Suspicion. Another variant on the breeds above, this is a future Joe Stalin. He sees what he wants to see—usually the worst—in other people, and imagines that everyone is after him. Mr. Suspicion is in fact the least dangerous of the three: Genuinely unbalanced, he is easy to deceive, just as Stalin himself was constantly deceived. Play on his suspicious nature to get him to turn against other people. But if you do become the target of his suspicions, watch out. The Serpent with a Long Memory. If hurt or deceived, this man will show no anger on the surface; he will calculate and wait. Then, when he is in a position to turn the tables, he will exact a revenge marked by a coldblooded shrewdness. Recognize this man by his calculation and cunning in
the different areas of his life. He is usually cold and unaffectionate. Be doubly careful of this snake, and if you have somehow injured him, either crush him completely or get him out of your sight. The Plain, Unassuming, and Often Unintelligent Man. Ah, your ears prick up when you find such a tempting victim. But this man is a lot harder to deceive than you imagine. Falling for a ruse often takes intelligence and imagination—a sense of the possible rewards. The blunt man will not take the bait because he does not recognize it. He is that unaware. The danger
with this man is not that he will harm you or seek revenge, but merely that he will waste your time, energy, resources, and even your sanity in trying to deceive him. Have a test ready for a mark—a joke, a story. If his reaction is utterly literal, this is the type you are dealing with. Continue at your own risk.
TRANSGRESSIONS OF THE LAW
Transgression I
In the early part of the thirteenth century, Muhammad, the shah of Khwarezm, managed after many wars to forge a huge empire, extending west to present-day Turkey and south to Afghanistan. The empire’s center was the great Asian capital of Samarkand. The shah had a powerful, welltrained army, and could mobilize 200,000 warriors within days.
In 1219 Muhammad received an embassy from a new tribal leader to the east, Genghis Khan. The embassy included all sorts of gifts to the great Muhammad, representing the finest goods from Khan’s small but growing Mongol empire. Genghis Khan wanted to reopen the Silk Route to Europe, and offered to share it with Muhammad, while promising peace between the two empires.
Muhammad did not know this upstart from the east, who, it seemed to him, was extremely arrogant to try to talk as an equal to one so clearly his superior. He ignored Khan’s offer. Khan tried again: This time he sent a caravan of a hundred camels filled with the rarest articles he had plundered from China. Before the caravan reached Muhammad, however, Inalchik, the governor of a region bordering on Samarkand, seized it for himself, and executed its leaders. Genghis Khan was sure that this was a mistake—that Inalchik had acted without Muhammad’s approval. He sent yet another mission to Muhammad, reiterating his offer and asking that the governor be punished. This time Muhammad himself had one of the ambassadors beheaded, and sent the other two back with shaved heads—a horrifying insult in the Mongol code of honor.
Khan sent a message to the shah: “You have chosen war. What
will happen will happen, and what it is to be we know not; only God knows.”
Mobilizing his forces, in 1220 he attacked Inalchik’s province,
where he seized the capital, captured the governor, and ordered him executed by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears. Over the next year, Khan led a series of guerrilla-like campaigns against the shah’s much larger army. His method was totally novel for the time—his soldiers could move very fast on horseback, and had mastered the art of firing with bow and arrow while mounted. The speed and flexibility of his forces allowed him to deceive Muhammad as to his intentions and the directions of his movements. Eventually he managed first to surround
Samarkand, then to seize it. Muhammad fled, and a year later died, his vast empire broken and destroyed.
Genghis Khan was sole master of Samarkand, the Silk Route, and most of northern Asia.
Interpretation
Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some men are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their
offer ridiculous. Never reject them with an insult until you know them better; you may be dealing with a Genghis Khan.
THE CROW AND THE SHEEP
A troublesome Crow seated herself on the back of a Sheep. The Sheep, much against his will, carried her backward and forward for a long time,
and at last said, “If you had treated a dog in this way, you would have had your deserts from his sharp teeth.”
To this the Crow replied, “I despise the weak, and yield to the strong. I know whom I may bully, and whom I must flatter;
and thus I hope to prolong my life to a good old age.
FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
Transgression II
In the late 1910s some of the best swindlers in America formed a con-artist ring based in Denver, Colorado. In the winter months they would spread across the southern states, plying their trade. In 1920 Joe Furey, a leader of the ring, was working his way through Texas, making hundreds of thousands of dollars with classic con games. In Fort Worth, he met a sucker named J. Frank Norfleet, a cattleman who owned a large ranch. Norfleet fell for the con. Convinced of the riches to come, he emptied his bank account of $45,000 and handed it over to Furey and his confederates. A few days later they gave him his “millions,” which turned out to be a few good dollars wrapped around a packet of newspaper clippings. Furey and his men had worked such cons a hundred times before, and the sucker was usually so embarrassed by his gullibility that he quietly learned his lesson and accepted the loss. But Norfleet was not like other suckers. He went to the police, who told him there was little they could do.
“Then I’ll go after those people myself,” Norfleet told the detectives.
“I’ll get them, too, if it takes the rest of my life.”
His wife took over the ranch as Norfleet scoured the country, looking for others who had been fleeced in the same game. One such sucker came forward, and the two men identified one of the
con artists in San Francisco, and managed to get him locked up. The man committed suicide rather than face a long term in prison. Norfleet kept going. He tracked down another of the con artists in Montana, roped him like a calf, and dragged him through the muddy streets to the town jail. He traveled not only across the country but to England, Canada, and Mexico in search of Joe Furey, and also of Furey’s right-hand man, W. B. Spencer. Finding Spencer in Montreal, Norfleet chased him through the streets. Spencer escaped but the rancher stayed on his trail and caught up with him in Salt Lake City. Preferring the mercy of the law to
Norfleet’s wrath, Spencer turned himself in. Norfleet found Furey in Jacksonville, Florida, and personally hauled him off to face justice in Texas. But he wouldn’t stop there: He continued on to
Denver, determined to break up the entire ring. Spending not only large sums of money but another year of his life in the pursuit, he managed to put all of the con ring’s leaders behind bars. Even some he didn’t catch had grown so terrified of him that they too turned themselves in. After five years of hunting, Norfleet had single-handedly destroyed the country’s largest confederation of con artists. The effort bankrupted him and
ruined his marriage, but he died a satisfied man.
Interpretation
Most men accept the humiliation of being conned with a sense of
resignation. They learn their lesson, recognizing that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that they have usually been brought down by their own greed for easy money. Some, however, refuse to take their medicine. Instead of reflecting on their own gullibility and avarice, they see themselves as totally innocent victims.
Men like this may seem to be crusaders for justice and honesty, but they are actually immoderately insecure. Being fooled, being conned, has activated their self-doubt, and they are desperate to repair the damage. Were the mortgage on Norfleet’s ranch, the collapse of his marriage, and the years of borrowing money and living in cheap hotels worth his revenge over his embarrassment at being fleeced? To the Norfleets of the world, overcoming
their embarrassment is worth any price. All people have insecurities, and often the best way to deceive a sucker is to play upon his insecurities. But in the realm of power, everything is a
question of degree, and the person who is decidedly more insecure than the average mortal presents great dangers. Be warned: If you practice deception or trickery of any sort, study your mark well. Some people’s insecurity and ego fragility cannot tolerate the slightest offense. To see if you are dealing with such a type, test them first—make, say, a mild joke at their expense. A
confident person will laugh; an overly insecure one will react as if
personally insulted. If you suspect you are dealing with this type, find another victim.
Transgression III
In the fifth century B.C., Ch‘ung-erh, the prince of Ch’in (in present-day China), had been forced into exile. He lived modestly—even, sometimes, in poverty—waiting for the time when he could return home and resume his princely life. Once he was passing through the state of Cheng, where the ruler, not knowing who he was, treated him rudely.
The ruler’s minister, Shu Chan, saw this and said, “This man is a worthy prince. May Your Highness treat him with great courtesy and thereby place him under an obligation!”
But the ruler, able to see only the prince’s lowly station, ignored this advice and insulted the prince again. Shu Chan again warned his master, saying, “If Your Highness cannot treat Ch’ung-erh with courtesy, you should put him to death, to avoid calamity in the future.”
The ruler only scoffed. Years later, the prince was finally able to return home, his circumstances greatly changed. He did not forget who had been kind to him, and who had been insolent, during his years of poverty. Least of all did he forget his treatment at the hands of the ruler of Cheng. At his first opportunity he assembled a vast army and marched on Cheng, taking eight cities, destroying the kingdom, and sending the ruler into an exile of his own.
Interpretation
You can never be sure who you are dealing with. A man who is of little importance and means today can be a person of power tomorrow. We forget a lot in our lives, but we rarely forget an insult.
How was the ruler of Cheng to know that Prince Ch’ung-erh was an ambitious, calculating, cunning type, a serpent with a long memory?
There was really no way for him to know, you may say—but since there was no way, it would have been better not to tempt the fates by finding out. There is nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. Swallow the impulse to offend, even if the other person seems weak. The satisfaction is meager compared to the danger that someday he or she will be in a position to hurt you.
Transgression IV
The year of 1920 had been a particularly bad one for American art dealers. Big buyers—the robber-baron generation of the previous century—were getting to an age where they were dying off like flies, and no new millionaires had emerged to take their place. Things were so bad that a number of the major dealers decided to pool their resources, an unheard-of event, since art dealers usually get along like cats and dogs.
Joseph Duveen, art dealer to the richest tycoons of America, was
suffering more than the others that year, so he decided to go along with this alliance. The group now consisted of the five biggest dealers in the country. Looking around for a new client, they decided that their last best hope was Henry Ford, then the wealthiest man in America. Ford had yet to venture into the art market, and he was such a big target that it made sense for them
to work together. The dealers decided to assemble a list, “The 100 Greatest Paintings in the World” (all of which they happened to have in stock), and to offer the lot of them to Ford. With one purchase he could make himself the world’s greatest collector. The consortium worked for weeks to produce a magnificent
object: a three-volume set of books containing beautiful reproductions of the paintings, as well as scholarly texts accompanying each picture. Next they made a personal visit to Ford at his home in Dearborn, Michigan. There they were surprised by the simplicity of his house: Mr. Ford was obviously an extremely unaffected man. Ford received them in his study. Looking through the book, he expressed astonishment and delight. The excited dealers began imagining the millions of dollars that would shortly flow into their coffers.
Finally, however, Ford looked up from the book and said, “Gentlemen, beautiful books like these, with beautiful colored pictures like these, must cost an awful lot!”
“But Mr. Ford!” exclaimed Duveen, “we don’t expect you to buy these books. We got them up especially for you, to show you the pictures. These books are a present to you.”
Ford seemed puzzled. “Gentlemen,” he said,
“it is extremely nice of you, but I really don’t see how I can accept a beautiful, expensive present like this from strangers.”
Duveen explained to Ford that the reproductions in the books showed paintings they had hoped to sell to him.
Ford finally understood. “But gentlemen,” he exclaimed,
“what would I want with the original pictures when the ones right here in these books are so beautiful?”
Interpretation
Joseph Duveen prided himself on studying his victims and clients in advance, figuring out their weaknesses and the peculiarities of their tastes before he ever met them. He was driven by desperation to drop this tactic just once, in his assault on Henry Ford. It took him months to recover from his misjudgment, both mentally and monetarily. Ford was the unassuming plain-man type who just isn’t worth the bother. He was the incarnation of
those literal-minded folk who do not possess enough imagination to be deceived. From then on, Duveen saved his energies for the Mellons and Morgans of the world—men crafty enough for him to entrap in his snares.
KEYS TO POWER
The ability to measure people and to know who you’re dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power.
Without it you are blind: Not only will you offend the wrong people, you will choose the wrong types to work on, and will think you are flattering people when you are actually insulting them. Before embarking on any move, take the measure of your mark or potential opponent. Otherwise you will waste time and make mistakes. Study people’s weaknesses, the chinks in their armor, their areas of both pride and insecurity. Know their ins and outs before you even decide whether or not to deal with them.
Two final words of caution: First, in judging and measuring your
opponent, never rely on your instincts. You will make the greatest mistakes of all if you rely on such inexact indicators. Nothing can substitute for gathering concrete knowledge.
Study and spy on your opponent for however long it takes ;
this will pay off in the long run.
Second, never trust appearances. Anyone with a serpent’s heart can use a show of kindness to cloak it; a person who is blustery on the outside is often really a coward. Learn to see through appearances and their contradictions.
Never trust the version that people give of themselves—it is utterly unreliable.
Image: The Hunter. He does not lay the same trap for a wolf as for a fox. He does not set bait where no one will take it. He knows his prey thoroughly, its habits and hideaways, and hunts accordingly.
Authority: Be convinced, that there are no persons so insignificant and inconsiderable, but may, some time or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which they certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it for ever. (Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773)
REVERSAL
What possible good can come from ignorance about other people?
Learn to tell the lions from the lambs or pay the price. Obey this law to its fullest extent; it has no reversal—do not bother looking for one.

ACOK - Tyrion 6 by poschti

Tyrion passes Ser Meryn Trant as he enters Cersei’s chambers, where he finds the recently knighted Ser Lancel Lannister singing to his sister. He complements both, which unnerves Lancel. Tyrion asks Cersei to dismiss Lancel, as there is an important matter for them to discuss. She immediately thinks it is about the begging brothers that were incarcerated after claiming the gods are punishing everyone for Jaime killing the rightful king. Cersei complains that Ser Jacelyn Bywater did nothing so she commanded Vylarr to attend to the matter; Tyrion is irritated that Vylarr dragged half a dozen scabrous prophets to the dungeon without consulting him but will not fight over it. After he asks if the bed she sits on is the one where Robert died, which she confirms, saying it gives her sweet dreams, he tells her that Stannis Baratheon has sailed from Dragonstone, and not to King's Landing, but to Storm's End to lay siege, and Renly Baratheon is riding to meet him. Tyrion, however, thinks it will end in battle rather than an agreement, since the brothers are too different, yet alike. They laugh heartily and Cersei is so happy she even hugs him. He fills two cups with wine, adding some powder to hers. As they toast, Tyrion wonders if this is the Cersei Jaime sees, and is almost sorry for poisoning her.

The next morning, Cersei is ill, so Tyrion holds audience alone. In the hall, there are both Lannister guardsmen and Gold Cloaks standing across from each other, with Bronn and Ser Preston Greenfield flanking the throne. In attendance are lovely Sansa Stark, the coughing Lord Gyles Rosby, his cousin Tyrek Lannister who recently married young Ermesande Hayford (he is teased with the nick name “wet nurse”). Ser Cleos Frey approaches, and Grand Maester Pycelle announces that they cannot accept Robb's terms. Tyrion then gives Ser Cleos their own terms:

Robb Stark must lay down his sword, swear fealty, and return to Winterfell. He must free my brother unharmed, and place his host under Jaime’s command, to march against the rebels Renly and Stannis Baratheon. Each of Stark’s bannermen must send us a son as hostage. A daughter will suffice where there is no son. They shall be treated gently and given high places here at court, so long as their fathers commit no new treasons.

When Ser Cleos states that Robb will not agree to these terms, Tyrion continues with:

Tell him that we have raised another great host at Casterly Rock, that soon it will march on him from the west while my lord father advances from the east. Tell him that he stands alone, without hope of allies. Stannis and Renly Baratheon war against each other, and the Prince of Dorne has consented to wed his son Trystane to the Princess Myrcella. As to this of my cousins, we offer Harrion Karstark and Ser Wylis Manderly for Willem Lannister, and Lord Cerwyn and Ser Donnel Locke for your brother Tion. Tell Stark that two Lannisters are worth four northmen in any season. His father’s bones he shall have, as a gesture of Joffrey’s good faith.

This raises murmurs of delight and laughter from the audience. Ser Cleos asks about the sword Ice and Robb's sisters. Tyrion states that he will have the sword when he makes peace and the sisters when Jaime is released. Tyrion then tells Vylarr that Ser Cleos is to also have a Lannister escort since he is a cousin, and that Vylarr is to take all of his guardsmen. This raises concern from Pycelle; Vylarr stands stone still. Tyrion states that the Gold Cloaks and Kingsguard are adequate to protect the king and queen. Varys smiles knowingly, Littlefinger feigns boredom, and Pycelle is looking confused.

Tyrion attempts to close the meeting, but Ser Alliser Thorne speaks up complaining about being ignored. Tyrion feigns ignorance of him being in the city, blaming Bronn for making his friend that he walked The Wall with wait. Ser Alliser wants to speak to the king, but is told he is playing with his new crossbow (which Tyrion has just given him), so Ser Alliser will have to talk with the King’s servants.

Ser Alliser relates how they found the corpses of two long dead rangers, and brought them back to the Wall. They rose that night and killed Ser Jaremy Rykker and attempted to murder Ser Jeor Mormont. Tyrion gets assurances that the Lord Commander survived and they killed these two dead men. Ser Alliser tells them that they were dead the first time, pale and cold with black hands and feet. As proof he had a hand, but it rotted away while he waited. Tyrion thinks of the dread he felt when he was on the Wall with Jon Snow. He orders Littlefinger to send Ser Alliser back with 100 spades to bury the dead and prevent them from walking, and also tells Ser Jacelyn that Ser Alliser will have the pick of the dungeons to use the spades. Tyrion is informed that the dungeons are near empty since Yoren has already taken all the likely men. He tells Ser Jacelyn to arrest some more, or to spread the word that there is food at the wall. Ser Alliser is not easily dismissed, trying to warn Tyrion of the danger. Ser Preston intervenes, and Ser Alliser knows better than to challenge a Kingsguard. Then, Bronn marches Ser Alliser from the hall.

Varys compliments Tyrion on how he handled the situation. Littlefinger asks if he meant to send away all his guards, to which Tyrion responds only his sister’s guards. Tryion notes that Littlefinger is not happy with him, and Littlefinger replies that he loves him as much as ever but that Myrcella Baratheon cannot wed Robert Arryn if she weds Trystane Martell, and to leave him out of the next deception. Glancing at the knife at Littlefinger’s hip, Tyrion apologizes, stating the realm needs him.

Tyrion asks Varys to walk with him. Varys tells him that Cersei will never let him send away her guard, and Tyrion replies that Varys is going to help him accomplish this by saying it is part of the plan to free Jaime. Varys is to put the thief, the poisoner, the mummer, and the murderer in crimson cloaks to join the rest of the guard escorting Ser Cleos—four among 400 Lannister men cannot be watched closely. She will not like it and be uneasy, but Tyrion likes her uneasy.

Ser Cleos leaves that afternoon, escorted by 100 Lannister guardsmen. That same afternoon, Tyrion finds Timett dicing in the barracks and tells him to meet him in his solar at midnight. He feasts with the Vale mountain clans that night, shunning wine for once. During the feast he asks Shagga what moon it is and is told black, which they call the traitor’s moon. He tells Shagga to not get too drunk and to keep his axe sharp.

Shagga uses his axe to destroy the door to Pycelle’s chambers. Tyrion has Timett pull the naked serving girl out of the bed and march/drag her into the hall. Tyrion pulls the blanket off the maester, who asks why this is being done to a loyal servant. Tyrion tells him that he sent one of his letters to Doran Martell and the other to Cersei. Pycelle tries to blame Varys, but Tyrion informs him that he was the only one he entrusted the information with. Pycelle tries to claim that something happened to the letter on the way, and that he knows things about Varys that would chill Tyrion's blood. Tyrion replies that his lady prefers his blood hot. Then, Pycelle tries to accuse Littlefinger, to which Tyrion responds that he already knows about him. Tyrion instructs Shagga to cut off Pycelle's manhood and feed it to the goats. When Shagga states there are no goats, Tyrion tells him to make do. Shagga first takes most of Pycelle’s beard with his axe as Pycelle sprays everything with urine. Pycelle tells Tyrion that he did everything for House Lannister and to ask Tywin; he says he was even responsible for convincing Aerys II Targaryen to open the gates. Tyrion, shocked, states “So the Sack of King’s Landing was your work as well?” He then asks him how many he has betrayed: Aerys, Eddard Stark, himself, King Robert, Jon Arryn, Prince Rhaegar? Pycelle pleads that Robert was a wretched king, that Renly was plotting to bring Mace Tyrell’s daughter to court and have Cersei supplanted as Queen. Tyrion asks what Lord Arryn had been plotting, and Pycelle explains that Jon Arryn knew of Cersei’s incest. Pycelle also knew that Lord Jon planned to send his wife back to the Eyrie, his son to foster on Dragonstone, and that he meant to act on his knowledge. Thanks to Shagga’s axe making closer and closer shaves of Pycelle's neck, Tyrion finally gets him to confess that he had a hand in the death of Jon Arryn by assuring he wouldn't receive effective treatment because he knew about the father of Cersei’s children. He tells them he knew that Cersei wanted Jon dead but could not say it since Varys was always listening. He sent Colemon away because he was purging Jon. Then Pycelle attempts to blame Hugh for the poisoning, telling Tyrion that Varys can tell him. Disgusted, Tyrion orders Pycelle thrown into one of the black cells.

When Pycelle is gone, Tyrion searches the quarters and collects a few more small jars, thinking how he wished Pycelle was the one he could have trusted; Varys and Littlefinger are no more loyal, just more subtle and thus more dangerous. Tyrion suspects his father's method might be best; send for Ilyn Payne, have all three of their heads mounted above the gates and be done with it.

DDGG by user108990

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