Flattery and the Big Lie
By Carl Teichrib – February 2005
Please visit his website at
www.forcingchange.org
We’ve all heard the old saying, “flattery will get
you nowhere.” Sometimes I wonder; did the first person who made this statement
do it in jest? For you see, flattery works, and it works remarkably well. More
than that, in a peculiar sort of way, flattery is connected to the Big Lie.
From a strictly marketing perspective, flattery has
to be one of the most overused techniques in the arsenal of the advertising
industry. “You deserve it!” intones the radio and television ads. Really? You
think so? In the course of an average day, how many times do you hear, see, or
read an advertisement that caters to this line of thinking? It’s a subtle yet
flirtatious psychological bomb-shell, and it gets results.
On a personal level the use of flattery is all too
evident. People love to be praised, held in high-esteem, and have their egos
stroked. Face it, we’ve all succumbed to this temptation at one time or another.
But in the hands of someone who knows how to use this character flaw, its an
open door for manipulation.
Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible and founder
of the Church of Satan, openly mocked man’s gullibility through the vice of
flattery in his book, Satan Speaks.“I would have made a good PR man, because my
most flagrant lies are to other people, about themselves. If the Devil is a
flatterer, I do my job well…
“I am the worst kind of rascal, for I flatter up like nobody’s business. I
am an unwilling, habitual practitioner of what Gypsies call ‘lavengro.’ It
is the art of telling people what they most want to hear, and the fortune
teller’s stock and trade. A therapist would call it ‘supportive’ and note
that it reinforces another’s self-esteem. The lower one’s self-esteem, the
more valuable and effective it is.
“Oh, how I lie! If a fellow be a churlish lout, I tell him how sensitive and
discriminating he is. If a girl is so ugly that she must sneak up on a glass
of water, I allude to her great beauty. If one’s performance is mediocre at
best, I applaud his great talent. I praise the skinflint on his generosity
and the hysteric on his levelheaded judiciousness. And it makes them all
feel good.” (Satan Speaks, pp.101-102)While LaVey’s admission is couched in a somewhat
comical approach, the use of flattery in terms of mind manipulation is anything
but humorous. In the May-June 1997 issue of Military Review, an article
titled “The Age of the New Persuaders” detailed the geopolitical uses of
persuasion techniques. Whether it’s called “psychological operations” or
“perception management,” the ultimate aim is to modify the thinking of the
intended target by influencing “emotions, motives, and objective reasoning.”
Speaking specifically of psychological tools, the
author of the Military Review article, Timothy Thomas, explained that
this type of mind-game exploitation seeks to turn “personality weaknesses to
one’s advantage.” And flattery, as a manipulation tool, was recognized as an
effective technique. According to Thomas, “One can use an object’s vanity and
conceit to advantage. This can be done by flattery…”
The New Age Movement too uses a form of flattery as
a tool for mind manipulation. Unlike the typically understood idea of flattery –
which usually emphasizes someone’s outer qualities, talents, or expertise – this
particular type of flattery reaches deep within the soul and works to rearrange
the foundational basis of reality.
“You are God…you are a god in the making” – the Big Lie of Genesis, where the
Serpent approaches Eve and offers her the chance to “be as gods” (3:5, KJV) –
becomes the ultimate form of subtle flattery manipulation within the teachings
of the New Age Movement.
Consider the following statements as found in the
World Core Curriculum, a New Age philosophy of education produced by long-time
United Nations official Robert Muller,– “…as it is vividly described in the story of
the Tree of Knowledge, having decided to become like God through knowledge
and our attempt to understand the heavens and the Earth, we have also become
masters in deciding between good and evil…”– “…we were always meant to be: universal, total beings. The time for this
vast synthesis, for a new encyclopedia of all our knowledge and the
formulation of the agenda for our cosmic future, has struck. It is becoming
increasingly clear that in this vast evolutionary quantum change the
individual remains the alpha and the omega of all our efforts…It is to
make each child feel like a king or queen in the universe, an expanded being
aggrandized by the vastness of our knowledge. It is to make each human being
feel proud to be a member of a transformed species.”This is flattery at its highest: you are the master
in deciding good and evil…you are the alpha and omega…you are royalty – an
aggrandized member of a transformed species.
In the spring of 1997, Muller was the keynote
speaker at the Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress, a meeting of students,
teachers, and education officials from across Vancouver and the lower mainland
of British Columbia. The purpose of this event was to enlarge the World Core
Curriculum idea and thrust it into the framework of Canadian public education.
As Muller explained to the gathering,“You are not children of Canada, you are really
living units of the cosmos because the Earth is a cosmic phenomena…we are
all cosmic units. This is why religions tell you, you are divine. We are
divine energy…”His words struck a visible cord, and the atmosphere
was charged with the excitement of social transformation (see Hope For The World
Update, Fall 1997, for a first-hand report on this event).
J.D. Buck, a mystic and author of repute within esoteric circles, eagerly shared
this same occult philosophy in his 1925 work, Mystic Masonry. “It is far more
important that men should strive to become Christs than that they should believe
that Jesus was Christ…Jesus is no less Divine because all men may reach the
same Divine perfection” (p.62).
Early leaders in what has become known today as the New Age Movement,
individuals such as Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant and Alice Bailey, delved
heavily into this realm of thought. And today’s New Age writers repeat this
spiritual flattery. Consider the words of John Davis and Naomi Rice, “It is time
to reveal our divine glory, summon our courage, and demonstrate our wisdom. It
is not only necessary to worship the Christ, WE MUST BECOME THE VERY CHRIST
(capitals in original – Messiah and the Second Coming, p.69.)
The flattery continues: not only are you a god in the making, but your salvation
depends on yourself. As Muller’s curriculum states, you are the “alpha and
omega” – that’s how important you are. Salvation, the New Age teaches, is a
process that you hold within you.
Anton LaVey candidly encouraged the spiritual adventurer to proclaim, “Say unto
thine own heart, ‘I am my own redeemer’.” (The Satanic Bible, p.33). Blavatsky
wrote that “mankind will become freed from its false gods, and find itself
finally – SELF-REDEEMED.” (capitals and italics in original – The Secret
Doctrine, vol. II, p.420). And Henry C. Clausen, while holding the title of
Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council 33° of Scottish Rite
Freemasonry, wrote that “We must find the answers ourselves. The path to
personal enlightenment is introspective.” (Emergence of the Mystical, p.62).
And just in case you didn’t catch the insinuating flattery found within
Clausen’s statement, he gives it to his fellow Masons in a more neatly wrapped
package; “Your are a towering example of man’s ability to burst out of an
animalistic state and go forth bravely upon the road toward freedom and
enlightened living, ascending ever upward onto a higher spiritual plane” (p.67).
Whoever said that “flattery will get you nowhere” didn’t know what he was
talking about. Flattery as a religious mind-manipulative technique works
remarkably well. Droves of men and women are rushing to embrace the esoteric
doctrines of the New Age Movement, complete with its flattering messages of
self-deification, self-redemption, and self-enlightenment.
But why would humanity embrace this obvious grand illusion of self-deification?
After all, even a casual observation of human nature – with all its corruption,
evil-intent, and degradation – completely blows the idea of self-deification out
of the water.
Anton LaVey’s earlier statement gives us a clue; “ it makes them all feel good.”
William Glasser, an internationally known psychiatrist who’s work advanced an
idea called “control theory,” reinforced this concept of “feeling good” in his
book Stations of the Mind,“To control people successfully we have to guess what it is they desire (what
their reference levels are) or in general what gives them pleasure (what causes
them pain). Then, well aware of the ancient force of reward and punishment, all
a good controller or operant conditioner has to do is to fine-tune his control
so that it focuses on specifics. What causes the most pain or the most pleasure
with the least effort to me? To be most effective, however, a good controller
must discover how to apply these forces in such a way that does not cause
conflict, that makes the controlled person happy to be controlled.” (p.144).LaVey’s “makes them feel good” statement, and Glasser’s idea of making the
controlled person “happy to be controlled” follows an age-old concept that is
found in the Bible; that sin produces pleasures – it makes you feel good – even
if it is only for a short time (Hebrews 11:25). But the Bible also tells you
something that this “controlled pleasure” line of thinking does not: that in the
end, this “feel good…happy to be controlled” condition has its conclusion in
pain, heartache, and death.
All of this brings us around to an interesting observation. Humanity, with its
ears tickled by the flattery of the Big Lie, would rather choose to follow an
illogical philosophy of self-godhood with its encumbered pride, than humbly face
the reality that we cannot redeem ourselves.
Carl Teichrib is a highly respected freelance researcher
and a wise and authoritative writer on issues pertaining to globalization.Please visit his website at
www.forcingchange.org
Some
of his earlier articles are:
The Millennium Messiah and World Change
Esoteric Christianity
| Re-Creating Eden |
A Short Guide to Occult
Symbols
Re-zoning the World: The Merging of the Americas in a New Global Order
A New
World Agenda – Canada’s Role In Sustainable Development