By all means don't hesitate to borrow any and everything you see lying around that you could use in your practice. Perhaps you can't legally quote long sections from books in your Writings, but there are no patents on religious and psychological techniques and gimmicks. Some would-be gurus are hesitant to plagiarize someone else's fantasies or tricks. Nonsense! If a smart operator comes out with a popular new gimmick - say sensitivity deprivation or mandala finger-painting - plug it into your System. (After, of course, a cursory reading about this new fad.)

      Don't worry about possible breaks or disturbed psyches if you poach a new psychological gimmick. The way this book teaches you to operate you'll never go deeply enough into your students' psyches to worry.

      The secret of Borrowing, however, is a subtle one. Some supposed gurus think that all one does is find the techniques or ideas and use them. Not at all. As you'll discover, just using the same techniques Fritz Perls did, for example, will get you nowhere. When you watch tapes of his therapy sessions you get the impression that if you asked the same questions he did, shouted at the patients the way he did, made them do the same absurd things he did, that you'd be successful. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

      The secret is finding the Secret behind the ideas or practices. Let's take some examples.

      As I learned through my studies with him at Esalen, Fritz Perls was a bewhiskered immigrant who conned everyone into believing he was some kind of Sage. His success - lots of repeat business - was certainly not because of his personality. We can dismiss that conjecture at once. It had to be some gimmick. Here's how I discovered Perls' secret.

      My practice had not been going at all well. You might say it was going horribly. My newspaper ads were losing money. I was down to my last customer - and she was getting tired of me, I could tell from the way she made love. For days I had been listening desperately to some Perls audio tapes. Each day I would think I had discovered his secret.

      "Say that again!" I'd shout at my last, lone client, having just remembered that Perls used that ploy quite often. But my client would only curse at me.

      "Re-live your dreams," I said to her next day, hoping this was the hidden essence. But my client would only talk about her dreams.

      "What are you feeling right here and now?" I would ask her with feigned indifference (as Perls did). My client threw up her hands, beat on my chest, and asked for her money back.

      Now, in the depths of despair, I re-doubled my efforts. I began listening to the same hour-long tape for twelve solid hours. Each hour dragged on and I was no closer to a solution. I knew it wasn't merely the words or techniques - I'd tried those. And then, as I was about to give up in despair, it came to me: the Hidden Secret.

      It had two essential parts: the heavy German accent (which I have touched on in the chapter on the Guru's mien) and, equally important, Perls' practice of nude bathing with his clients (in the hot tubs at Esalen gazing out at the star-lit sky overlooking the ocean).

      Feverishly I wrote a new ad for a Gestalt Workshop, paid for it with my last few dollars in all the world, and began a fast. Finally the weekend - and four customers - showed up. I took my four lone clients to the Esalen baths and spoke in a broken German accent. Lo and Behold the Secret WORKED!

      Incidentally, I feel that one secret is worth the price of the book by itself. It certainly has been the backbone of my practice ever since - though I have gone on to borrow other secrets from other gurus since then.

      One more example of successful pirating. Some of John Lilly's work was all the rage in the nineteen seventies. Lilly was smart enough to start in a foreign - and ostentatious field: dolphin research. Early on I could see that what he came up with in new gimmicks would certainly be worth stealing. With scarcely subdued excitement, then, it was that I first listened to a tape of Lilly's I was able to borrow. At first the tape put me off, because it seemed so absolutely absurd and senseless and even strange. The tape consisted of Lilly's repeating over and over a single word such as: cogitate.

      Some of my colleagues - at our regular Thursday Guru luncheon - assured me that they had studied the tape and it was worthless. However, one of them was using the tape in his practice (a disciple-spy had informed me). So I knew it might contain some hidden power (though my disciple had been unable to discern what it was - she was none too bright).

      Hence I continued my research on Lilly's tape. Over and over I listened to the word being repeated over and over. Lilly's own words of explanation were, as is usual with gurus, of no help in understanding what was going on. Then - though this time in less than twelve hours - I Discovered the Secret. The tape only seemed to contain Lilly repeating the same word--"cogitate"--over and over again. If one listened carefully one began to detect that Lilly had actually slipped in some other words and phrases: for example, "detail cut." It only seemed he was repeating the same word.

      That very weekend I tried it out on my disciples. Solemnly preparing them for what would happen - and elucidating some hidden spiritual meaning in it (which I forget at the moment), I played the tape for them.

      Here I must warn you seriously that this tape of Lilly's is dangerous. It tends, if not used carefully, to cause insubordination and the sheerest of Phantasy. I had told my disciples that the tape only seemed to be a repetition of the same word or phrase, and I gave them a list of the extra, trick words thrown in.

      As we were listening, the disciples heard the trick words I had informed them about. But then - and here is the insidious element in the tape - some of my less obedient disciples began to fantasize that they heard other trick words. They even tempted me to hear their fantasies. I stopped the tape at once, and decisively forbade any further disagreement with me.

      Since then I only use the tape with the most grave of warnings against hearing anything other than what I tell them is there to hear. My disciples now smile at me as we listen to the tape, knowing full well that only what I tell them to hear is actually on the tape. ¹

     A new scam I'm now researching is to record a message on an audio tape and then play it backward. Some gurus claim that "the spirit" speaks to one through this "Reverse Speech" ² swindle, while others are a bit more modest--like myself--and merely claim that these are "unconscious messages embedded backwards into the sounds of our speech." It is claimed by these charlatans that If human speech is recorded and played backwards, approximately once every 30 seconds very clear messages can be heard amongst the gibberish. These messages are said to communicate information from many levels of the psyche.

      As usual, I have learned how to make this shell game shell out the bucks to me. I have my students record a "stream of consciousness" bit of nonsense on an audio tape. I then tell them that I will Transform this ordinary bit of blather into a Profound "Reverse Speech" Spiritual Message in the privacy of my Inner Temple room. After the Transformation Process--which I call Transcendental Transmogrification, I play the "message" and lo and behold, there is a message from me! The students can't understand how their voice on the audio, when played backward in the "Reverse Speech" mode, suddenly contains an Esoteric Intercommunication with my voice in my usual High Wisdom mode. Actually, what I do is merely take a portion from one of my Teaching Exhortations and play it forward--or sideways.

     Here's an example of a gimmick I stole from a gynecologist who made a big stir claiming that Stonehenge is a giant Female vagina!  (Just imagine how I've been able to concoct teaching sessions based on this Newly Discovered Mystery--for example: "Sex with Stone Stalagmites," "Fooling Around in Fissures," and "Concupiscent Communion in Crannies.")

     In later chapters I will explain other gimmicks which I've stolen from teachers, therapists, NSA wiretaps, accountants, Web sites, Fox News news flashes, and con artists. The world is full of stuff to steal. The number of swindles is growing at such a break-kneck speed that it's difficult for a conscientious guru to keep up with all the knavery.


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¹ Watch out for counterfeits of this "hearing voices" methodology, such as this scam on the Internet

² The "Reverse Speech" swindle on the Internet