"A lean-to has two less corners for the wasps to build their nests in; and on a hot August afternoon there ain't nothin' as disconcertin' as a lot of wasps buzzin' 'round while you're settin' there doin' a little readin', figgerin', or thinkin'."

Charles Sale - The Specialist

A Guru's Centrum is his Castle. I strongly recommend the name Centrum which gives people the feeling that it means Center. But they aren't sure; they'll ask you. Explain, in your best Elucidating Tone, that it comes from an ancient Greek work meaning Point of Concentration. (That could even be true.)

You must have a Place of Operation - the Centrum is it. I heartily condemn such names as Ashram or Growth Center. "Growth" always reminds me of a hairy hickey on one's nose. And "Ashram" is at least ten years out of style.

Give your Centrum its own personal name - something like Hermetage. Intrude into the visitor's mind the unusual spelling of this name and intimate that there is thus some Deep Meaning. "Hermetage" refers to Hermes - an ancient, unknown Teacher whom no one understands.

Now, what should your Centrum include in the way of gimmicks and conveniences? Every element should be chosen for effect and focused around a Theme, such as: Plato's Academy, complete with olive trees; a Zoroastrian Fire Temple; Robinson Crusoe's Desert Island; or a Spiritual Emerald City of Oz.

The Centrum is best limited to your own place of residence where your disciples come only on weekends. It is only the rare - and bizarre - cult leader whose continual presence can sustain his disciples' interest. Nothing palls so quickly as 24-hour-a-day Brilliance. Save yourself for the rare flashes of genius - on the weekends.

Center your Edification Chamber (room where you teach) in a dimly lit, incense-impregnated nook with floor level mats and cushions of some gaudy color, and a fireplace. At the center of this center room of your Centrum, establish your Special Spot. Periodically point out to your disciples the symbolic significance of your being at the center of the Centrum.

Equally important is your Private Chambre in the Centrum. Do not, under any circumstance, allow any disciple/customer even to see inside this room. This Secret Room will become a focus of gossip, wild rumor, and enticing mystery. Spend most of your time on weekends in your Special Room - make sure you have enough popular magazines and sweets to carry you through. Then, at specially designated (or undesignated) times during the weekend, egress from your Special Room and assume your Spot at the center of the Edification Chamber. The room should be lit by only a single candle or the fire in the fireplace.

Your advanced disciples should be instructed in preparing the group for your Appearance. They should meditate or read one of the Spiritual Classics - or, better yet, something from your own corpus - as preparation for the Teaching Event. Before beginning your Teaching, always chant, with eyes closed, a few words of gibberish, which may sound, to your disciples, like Sanskrit, Arabic, or Coptic (since they know nothing of how those languages sound).

Then, equally important, as soon as the Teaching Event is concluded, egress from the Edification Chamber back to your Private Chambre. Avoid strenuously the effect-destroying practice of lingering for half-hearted questions and guru-wasting half-reverence. Keep your Teaching Events at white-hot heat. Make it clear that your Presence is not to be wasted but is to be anticipated and savored. Aloofness and Distance contribute to this feeling.

Scattered throughout the Centrum should be strange pictures, symbols, and mystifying objects such as a highway sign, GO BACK - YOU ARE GOING WRONG WAY; a collage of driftwood - with sequins; or the bumper from an Edsel. Perpetrate the illusion that there are clues to the Unknown Secret of the Teaching placed designedly throughout the Centrum for which the advanced disciples/seekers must search. Keep a varied supply of strange signs and objects in your Special Room, and put out a new set each month or two.

Music - along with an almost constant fire in the fireplace and a carefully chosen incense - helps to set the mood of the Centrum. Instruct your disciples as to what music is to be heard, when. For example, immediately before your Appearance for the Teaching Events, the disciple group should often hear the opening to the movie 2001 at ear- and dullness-piercing volume. Designate one of your advanced disciples as the High Factotum, to oversee music, atmosphere, mood, and house-cleaning.

Fill every empty space in the Centrum with books. (You can buy whole worthless libraries cheap - mostly Reader's Digest Condensed volumes.) Customers and disciples should see books at every turn. What an air of Learning and Deep Understanding this gives! It doesn't matter what kinds of books you have, ignorant students will assume that even an out-of-print volume on horse-shoeing has some Higher Meaning. Cultivate this delusion. Again, secretly spread the rumor that there is some Deeper Correlation between the Centrum books and the Teaching which disciples should try to fathom.

Impress on your disciples the central Centrum rule: no one is allowed who hasn't paid. Everyone must understand that there is something going on at the Centrum which is not given away free.

The bane of the Modern guru is the amateur free-teacher. Nothing is worse in today's Spiritual-Artistic Market-place than the ignorant, obsessive, no-charging blatherskite. He tosses off her tiresome truisms and simplistic simulacrums to any who give him even part of an ear. By her twanging twaddle he cheapens the coin of True Teaching. Customers become wary even of us Genuine gurus in a world brimming over with piddling pomposity. The Modern guru should seize every opportunity to denigrate and ridicule these Libertine Lotharios and Prattling Parvenus. They are destroying the market!

You will find the Dangerous tendency of free-teaching in your own disciples. Stamp it out mercilessly and conclusively. Use your elevated position of Authority to humiliate any of your disciples who presume to explain anything to any of the other students or their friends. Remind them that they are at a point of such ignorance that they could only misinform and destroy other people's chance of Real Understanding. Impress on them that the Way is known to only a Few and that the Deadly Byways are filled with the misguided and self-taught. And, besides, if their friends want to know the Truth, they should come to you.