"The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation becomes almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure and demoralizing."

Oscar Wilde

Following assiduously Magic Formula Number Ten: Use whatever works, co-opt any and every cultural conditioning to your Scheme. Americans are already beautifully brainwashed to feel comfortable only when busily engaged in some Meaningful Task. The growing barbarity in the U.S. is due to an increasing number of people hysterically heeding the siren-call of Wanton Pleasure. Do your bit to stamp this out.

Once you've got a group of disciples hooked on your Programme, you must find something to occupy their time. You don't want to be bothered with having to teach them constantly. Work is the answer!

Include in your Programme Brochure an explanation of the profound meaning of Work. Impress on your students that everything you assign them to do is a part of their Larger Work. They must do each thing as Perfectly as possible. This discipline of Super-Effort is the keystone of your Programme. And it gets a lot of work done around the Centrum free.

Use the pleasing mystique about work being somehow worthwhile in itself. Encourage your disciples to assume that turning the compost heap or cleaning your Centrum has a deeper significance in their own development. How well they perform their tasks, you explain, directly reveals their Status. A slovenly laborer is low on the totum pole in the Spiritual Vineyards.

At the beginning of each weekend post a list of things TO DO on the Centrum bulletin board. Include on the list your cutting criticism of your disciples' shoddy workmanship and uninspired moods. Statements such as:

YOU MUST BE CONTINUALLY HORRIFIED AT YOURSELF. This Horror creates the necessary mood and force for your work.

DO THE WORK ON THIS SHEET FIRST. This is not a holiday weekend.

DON'T DO THE WORK MERELY TO GAIN YOUR GURU'S APPROVAL.

Don't take your Guru's indication of your errors and failures as personal disapproval. Your Teacher is - and must be - disinterested in you. No, that does not mean he is un-interested in you. His interest is not merely personal, not merely in terms of what you mean to him, but most important, what your work means to you and to the Higher Work.

Again it is necessary to remind you that this Work is not a part of your ordinary life. Your weekends here are not intended as a pleasant two days in the country, chatting and gamboling along the easy currents of time. There is a destructive and dangerous tendency in the whole group to pervert the weekend into the usual inane conversations that you still allow yourselves during the week. The only thing unusual about your life at this point is its extremely, deadening Ordinariness. It is Extraordinary that you are not horrified at yourselves constantly!

Wash and wax the guru's car (be sure to get all the wax out of the cracks).

As your disciples work in the garden, feed the chickens, or repair fences, suddenly Appear and stare at them with your knowing look. They'll feel self-conscious, nervous, and In Error. Point out a few trivial aspects of their work continually - and refer to these as your way of Judging them. "I can always tell how well you're doing the garden when I step into it and my feet hit hard, uncultivated dirt or fall softly into well-turned, fully-breathing soil." This gives the impression you're constantly watching and judging them, and they'd better be on guard at all times. Also they'll think you're Astute to see into the Essence of whatever they're doing.

This work angle of your Programme is a good cover - almost any ordinary person can understand work. So when some normal person asks you, you can explain that your Programme includes work and study, two universally understood words that no one comprehends.

Ordinary people who pose as gurus think that the most difficult challenge they face is getting disciples. How wrong they are! Keeping, disciples is the biggest problem a Modern guru faces. Almost any mystically-worded poster nets even the most blatant spiritual or financial charlatan a few marks. The trick is to turn the first-timer into a regular customer - in the face of their inevitable instability and lack of sustained interest in anything. Work is the magic answer. It's amazing how scrubbing a floor, say, can keep an unruly, uncivilized student occupied - and credulously convinced that he's doing something meaningful.

Work will also convince students that they're in need of your Teaching. You can use their instinctual laziness, ineptness, and squabbling to keep them in their place. Point out their sloppy work and listen with a knowing air of disdain to their complaints about each other. "The others don't listen to me when I make suggestions about how to turn the compost heap," one of the disciples will snivel to you. Say nothing then, but later that evening during your Teaching Event, condemn them all as carping, back-biting, petty, mean creatures. "Without this Teaching," you then say with unbridled kindness, "not one of you would have a chance to be anything other than a carping, back-biting, petty, mean Ordinary Person." Their need for your teaching must never be out of their mind for long.

The Ordinary Person is the Bugabear for your disciples. Frighten them periodically by describing the unthinkable horror of the Normal Life. With any luck you can produce some very un-normal people.