Customers will pound on your ashram curtain or on your corporate executive suite office door if you have a well-rounded, many-faceted mystagogical Arsenal.

      Do not limit yourself needlessly to only one technique or school of thought. Dabble in as many as possible. That way you'll hit every popular market.

      Some customers want to learn about gambling on the Stock Market - so your Teaching shows them how they can beat the great Wall Street crapshoot. The same with people looking for a political conspiracy cult, UFO abduction support group, or a fire-walking workshop. No fad is too far out for the well-stocked Guru's repertoire.

      When people ask for a particular technique or concept, be absolutely sure you know one or two Big Names, theories, or pieces of jargon. Toss those off nonchalantly as if you are a master of that field, so the eager customer gets the impression you know everything about everything. But practice speaking with a insouciant air to give them the impression that you're not impressed by your own amazing all-encompassing knowledge.

      "Specialists, sure I know who the Wall Street specialists are and what they do in the great Wall Street con game. They're honest, hard-working people who handle the various stocks that you and I buy with the hope of making a killing in the stock market. And any vile rumors you've heard that they actually manipulate the prices of stocks is sheer nonsense."

      "You're interested in artificial intelligence are you, well let me tell you about some of my experiences as Chair of Artificial Intelligence at the U.S. Army War College......."

      "Rational-emotive therapy, sure. I once did a workshop on Philosotherapy at Albert Ellis's institute in New York City."

      You can make up any cockamamie story you want to impress your disciples. It's even a good idea if some of what you tell them is true. Always tell these "war stories" with a practiced air of hauteur. And clinch it with some point of criticism so the disciple makes the unwarranted assumption that you have thoughtfully studied every subject he can bring up.

            You keep a large bag of tricks, let's be clear, to keep your customers from getting bored and leaving your fold. Inform them at the outset that your Teaching Programme is not, unlike most others, confined to only one approach. Use this, as well as everything else possible, to keep them in the right frame of Reverence toward you. Impress on them how your many-sided Programme will inevitably be too much for them when they first begin.

      Since they've known only narrow, one-speed, undemanding, simple approaches, they will feel overwhelmed and inadequate to the demands placed on them. Perpetuate this illusion. "Yes, this Programme will be too much for you at first," you should say knowingly, "and your only hope is to become worthy of the challenge you're being given. But if I didn't see potential in you, I wouldn't waste my time on you."

     Never squander a disciple's feeling of inadequacy - use it. But also, keep him going by just the right amount of Encouragement. Too much encouragement and you produce a vain, self-important disciple who will soon feel she is able to leave you and seek greener pastors. Too little encouragement, the disciple feels he is getting nowhere. And just around the corner is the charlatan guru who will provide her the needed attention and the false sense of importance he covets.

      Today's essential element in a Teaching Programme is Variety. A varied repertoire gives your Programme the capacity to shift quickly from one technique or theory to another - just when you detect in your customers the first hint of disinterest, boredom, or litigation.

      At present the guru Market is shifting from the obsession with Making Millions in Real Estate to Making Millions in the Stock Market, from New Age airy-fairyness to Star Trek airy-fairyness, from Birch-style conspiracy theories to Militiamen-style conspiracy theories. Master these trends. Castigate the earlier Real Estate and New Age and Protocols of Zion faddists as having been taken in by fly-by-night theories. Tout your Teaching as achieving a Wise Balance between the animal emotions, the angelic will, and the Divine Intellect. But let your customers have some of the foolish excitement of the merely emotional fantasies and theories - only give them a new name of your own contrivance. For example, you could give Spirit Channeling the new name: Visualizing That You're Speaking With Ghosts.

      Put together a constantly Exciting Programme - which requires a profound understanding of your customers. The modern student/disciple/client must have variety - he lacks the self- discipline for sustained or disciplined study. But she is also quickly satiated and bored by an emotionally exciting phase or an intellectually challenging period. So you must learn to adapt your Teaching to his shifting moods. Always remember Magic Formula Number Seven: A False guru is always waiting to give your customers what you don't.

      But don't despair, for today's world of spiritual- financial- psychological Gimmicks contains a disarming array - sufficient to attract and keep Constantly Excited the most blasé customer/client. Your job, should you decide to accept it, is to read your customer's desires - and give them what they want. They will give you subtle clues: a passing reference to a new theory about the global economy, excitement over a new TV reality show involving live murder, mention of a friend's having attended a seminar on why the stock market will never fall, never, noway, nohow. A hint is enough for the wise guru. That very night should find you reading a paperback on the particular gimmick. When you announce that you're going to begin a new phase of study on Globalism's Promise of Equal Opportunity Unemployment, the students will think you have intuitively discerned their unexpressed desires.

      The wide range of techniques and theories necessary for a Modern guru's repertoire may seem too demanding. Never fear, Magic Formula Number Eight saves the day: Repeat periodically the techniques and theories you have mastered, but always give them a new name.

      Just when the students/disciples are beginning to guess that you have little skill in Regurgitation Therapy, quickly shift back to your forte: Palmistry! Hit your own obsessions from a new angle each time, giving the semblance of novelty and diversity. Keep the students off balance just enough to preclude any real awareness of your lack of skill or knowledge. Their short attention-span will pull them into the new activity or theory just before they can begin to ask embarrassing questions.

      Add to your repertoire as you go along, but don't be afraid to return to techniques and theories again and again and repeatedly. Remind the disciples/students that they are merely students/disciples, not consumers with a choice.

      Never identify yourself with one Tradition or technique - you never know when today's craze will pass or come into disodor. Represent your Teaching, however, as the True Essence behind all Traditions, the Unity hidden within all the diversity of religions, psychologies, social practices, philosophies, and fads. This will explain why your Programme includes such a variety of activities and ideas. And it will allow you to take any customer's monomania, say Christianity, and explain that your Teaching is actually the Reality beneath or above his sterile form. But compromise with the students' ignorance until they are firmly fixated on your System; run a session or two on Esoteric Christianity, the Jewish Kaballah, Personality Simulation in Artificial Intelligence, or the Spiritual Teaching Behind American Democracy.

      Counterbalance emotionally stimulating techniques - such as chanting and drumming - with intellectually stimulating studies - such as Why the Rich Are Offing the Poor. Never fall into the trap of succumbing to your obsession of talking about your Knowledge to the exclusion of all other techniques. First, you should teach vocally only for a short time at distant intervals because you might too soon tell your disciples everything you know. And, second, current students lack the ability to assimilate - or appreciate - large doses of Higher Wisdom (on any subject). Students today have to be constantly stimulated and entertained by some unusual - and New - technique or theory. Follow your course on The Real Truth About the Oklahoma City Bombing with The Real Truth About Microsoft's Manipulation of the Computer World with The Real Truth About Why Americans are now getting the Kind of Repressive Government They Deserve.

      Variety.