• CHAPTER 8 • THE METHODS OF LEADERSHIP*

WHAT METHOD fits the objective of expanding freedom? This is the question to be considered.

At the outset, let it be conceded that the scope of freedom is without limit. There are, to begin with, the limitless psychological implications of freedom: man freeing himself from his own fears, superstitions, imperfections, ignorance. Then there is the sociological aspect: man freeing himself from bondage to other men—that is to say, from organizational and institutional ineptness such as governments gone berserk. Other aspects of this boundless subject: how to maximize individual freedom of choice, how to be free of violence, fraud, and predation in one’s own nature and from others, and how to grasp the miraculous configurations of unique creative energies, once they are freed of restraint.

Freedom has to do with the “becoming” of the individual human being. All that retards the development of the human potential is anti-freedom. All that advances the individual’s wholeness or completeness as a spiritual, moral, and wise human being is freedom in action.

Now, then, how is the cause of freedom to be advanced? How can one person influence another to understand freedom? What means can be used to achieve such an end? There are good and sufficient reasons for this inquiry: Energies misspent and millions wasted on methods and techniques that do not fit the objective, account in no small measure for our rapid drift toward state absolutism.

Infinite and Variable Objectives

Man’s objectives—good and bad—are endless in number and variety. Their attainment, in many instances, rests on how successfully he influences other people. But the method which is effective in attaining an objective at one level may be, and often is, entirely ineffective and inappropriate when applied to objectives of other levels. (A llama cannot carry a heavy load, but in the Andes he is the most efficient means of transportation.)

Said Emerson, “Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, the fruit in the seed.” This self-evident observation suggests that the accomplishment of any given objective waits upon a method precisely fitted to the objective. Here, then, is a hypothesis that merits serious examination: The more destructive the end in view, the more fitting are compulsive means, disintegrative methods; the more creative the end in view, the more antagonistic to a solution are compulsive methods and the more must reliance be placed on attractive, integrative forces.

Methods Also Vary

Methods, like the objectives in view, range all the way from the low grade destructive types to the highest grade creative type. For example, almost anyone—the more ignorant the better—can effectively exert compulsive influence to achieve destructive ends: murder, theft, arson, defamation, and the like. The forcible collection of funds by government to pay writers to influence a whole nation to hate another nation requires less intensive compulsion than does homicide. Similar methods can seduce a vast population away from their voluntary, integrative, individualistic ways of life into collective or herd ways consonant with state absolutism.

Higher on the scale, there is an in-between area where the ends to be achieved may be either destructive or creative and in which compulsive and attractive methods intermingle: influencing others into a state of desire, often abnormal and obsessive, for drugs, alcohol, tobacco, cosmetics, soap, autos, houses, something-for-nothing, and so on.

At the upper end of the scale is education, or advancing other people’s understanding. Such an aim falls into the creative area. Compulsive methods, while often resorted to, are wholly inappropriate and ineffective here. Only techniques of attraction fit this objective. But even here, we find that degrees and gradations exist. Creative objectives, also, are on a series of levels, each level having a technique peculiar to it: the higher the level, that is, the more creative, the more must reliance be placed on the power of attraction. For instance, advancing the understanding of another as to how to scramble eggs or master the multiplication table or repair a motor or any other skill where learning is acquired by mere repetition requires lower grade attractive power than does influencing others to paint beautiful pictures or write good poetry.

The only reason for these brief observations is to rid ourselves of that troublesome notion which leads many people to conclude that the techniques used by communists, for instance, to destroy a free society can be effectively employed to advance an understanding of freedom. Or, further up the scale, that the techniques of advertisers can be used effectively for this purpose.

A High Objective

Advancing an understanding of freedom is in a class by itself. It is far higher in the scale of objectives than those with which we daily deal, and the techniques required for its attainment are therefore of an unfamiliar order. This order, it would seem, must be discovered and applied if the status of freedom is to improve. Three decades of costly and dismal failures to advance an understanding of freedom have demonstrated that freedom will not be increased by methods beneath its majesty!

Who among us understands human freedom? Indeed, has anyone ever thoroughly understood its miraculous workings? I doubt it; I, at least, know of no individual, in the past or present, whose works are “the last word on freedom.” The general, taken-for-granted understanding of freedom is little more than a false sense of know-it-allness that comes from knowing nothing at all. Understanding freedom, like gaining wisdom, may well belong to the realm of the sublime and the infinite.

Freedom is as high in the hierarchy of values as is the emergence of the individual human spirit and must be so evaluated by those who would advance an understanding of it.

One of the many reasons for the decline of freedom is that most of us erroneously accept it as an objective lower in the scale than it actually is and thus susceptible to the influence of techniques appropriate only to lower-scale objectives.

A Delicate Task

Once it is conceded that advancing an understanding of freedom belongs to as high a level as suggested above, we see that the problem is nothing less than influencing others to expand their consciousness, to increase their perceptions, to enlarge their cognitive powers. In brief, it becomes a question of the method one must use if he would influence another into a state of creative thinking. This problem transcends our common experience; it bears no relationship whatsoever to marketing or selling. Flashes of insight can no more be thrust into the consciousness of another or “sold” to him than he can be stabbed with a moonbeam! The simile may be apt.

A moonbeam kindles the imagination only as it is seen. It stimulates the mind only when perceived. Similarly with wisdom or the understanding of freedom. Wisdom is available for the perceiving. It appears to be in infinite supply, which is to say, regardless of how wise one may be, there is always more wisdom in store, more for the perceiving. Whether one is increasing wisdom or the understanding of freedom, the increase must rest on the expanding or stretching of consciousness—an achievement of the utmost delicacy and at the highest level!

In order to see how we may influence others in this respect, it is useful to examine how we ourselves are influenced. My own findings may be quite dissimilar to anyone else’s but, as will be explained later, there is a sound reason for making one’s own findings available to others.

Infinite Consciousness

To begin with, I have no way of accounting for such consciousness as man now possesses except to acknowledge the existence of an Infinite Consciousness. This force—I confess to no precise knowledge of it beyond a personal awareness of its existence—appears to me to be an attractive force which persistently and everlastingly exerts a pull, a magnetic drawing of man into its infinite orbit. This is the force which explains man’s emergence, his evolution. While there is never any relaxation of its drawing power, it encounters in each of us those human elements not susceptible to magnetism: arrogance, willfulness, know-it-allness. Emergence in the direction of Infinite Consciousness is thus in spite of, not because of, man’s vaunted knowledge. This infinite force has many names in many tongues, among them God and Nature. Goethe, using the term, Nature, made a point relevant to this thesis:

Nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always serious, always severe; she is always right, and the errors and faults are always those of man. The man incapable of appreciating her she despises and only to the apt, the pure, and the true, does she resign herself and reveal her secrets.

Freedom of Choice

Man, alone among animals, has arrived at that point in evolution where freedom of choice is a possibility. He is free, therefore, to respond harmoniously or disharmoniously to the attracting force of Infinite Consciousness. Since he is fallible his choices are often in error. Yet, viewed over the millenniums, the consciousness of many individual human beings is seen to have advanced qualitatively. Man has been spiritually attracted, figuratively pulled, upward and onward.¹

Some individuals appear to be born less encrusted than the mill-run of us with obstacles to the magnetic pull of Infinite Consciousness. More susceptible to this force, they experience with relative ease such of its rewards as insights and inspiration. These persons are referred to as “intuitive” or “creative.” With little effort they far surpass the rest of us. These few, over the centuries, have written our best poetry, painted our most beautiful pictures, composed our greatest music, done our significant inventing, discovered the important physical, chemical, mathematical principles, and so on. Time and again they have been asked, “Whence come these ideas of yours?” and they reply, in effect, “I don’t know. It is as if they come out of the air.”

Overcoming Inertia

For the vast majority of us the expanding of consciousness, the increasing of perception, the developing of intuitive powers, take a lot of doing. So much of our nature is immune to the attraction of Infinite Consciousness that we experience few of its rewards. We are as sawdust to a magnet! There are, however, exercises and disciplines that can aid Nature in her normal work, the first requirement being a deep and profound desire on the part of the individual for an expanding consciousness.

But, be it noted, this is an undertaking of the self-propulsive type. It is and can be set in motion only on one’s own initiative. No one on earth, by any technique whatsoever, can force another into this type of high-level activity.

Infinite Consciousness is available for the perceiving, either directly or indirectly. The former includes those ideas, insights, inspiration which come to one “from out of the blue.” The term used to describe this experience as it relates to Scripture is “revelation.” This, so far as I can discern, is not a common experience, but a person can, with the right kind of conscientious effort, increase enormously his own capacity to receive.

The Endless Pursuit of Truth

Now as to the indirect approaches: It seems self-evident that all the knowledge and wisdom available to men on this earth today is a composite or aggregate of insights so far revealed directly and accumulated over the generations.² Certainly we cannot credit the present emergent state of man to what we got from the Neanderthalers. Over the ages the sum total of revealed truth is beyond comprehension.

Infinite Consciousness is perceived by the individual uniquely. No two persons among all who have lived have intuited identically. No man has ever grasped more than a portion of Infinity. At best each person has come into possession of fragments, never the “Whole Truth.” The infinite aspect of Infinite Consciousness makes the pursuit of truth or wisdom an endless undertaking.

So Many Sources

Thus it is that all the truth so far revealed to man lies strewn over the earth in countless fragments—many of them in books, perhaps in old books more than in the new, often in languages few can read. Fragments of truth are to be found among the living, a little in each, not much in anyone. It is dispersed like a well-scrambled, poly-billioned jigsaw puzzle. Find the pieces and put as many together as possible. Look everywhere, overlook nothing and no one. “Out of the mouths of babes. . . .” The more success one has, the greater will be his awareness of the infinity of Consciousness; the greater the knowing, the more will be the certainty of not knowing.

At this level there is no completion, no ultimate. Nor need there be. The reward, the joy, is in the stretching—the stretching of the individual consciousness!

I have gone to some length to conjure up a mental picture of man when his objective is the search for truth, the gaining of wisdom. Understanding freedom is of the same order and at the same high level! First, there is The Source which the individual in the loneliness of his own soul can decide to heed and, to the extent of his ability, harmonize with. True, he can call on other individuals for guidance but it will be he and he alone who will make the decisions as to who those others shall be.

Others May Be Helpful

Second, there are all the mediating human beings, past and present, their utterances and their recorded works, not one containing more than fragments of the truth, all unique. Here we have the secondary source of guidance, and, as in the case of The Source, the seeker of truth decides himself which of the fragments he will add to his own stock.

Once we picture a person who is seeking enlightenment from The Source and from such fragments of truth as already exist in the minds and works of men, we can appreciate the futility of trying to “sell” freedom. The selling or marketing method simply does not fit the freedom objective. Conceding an Infinite Consciousness persistently exerting its attractive force on the obstinacy, arrogance, and apathy of man, and observing how slowly this greatest of all energies finds manifestation in human beings, what pomposity must we ascribe to those among us who have no more than infinitesimal fragments of this force, and yet would impose their “wisdom” on others! They would surpass God! We are instinctively repulsed by these reformers, and properly.³

The Reception Is Personal

No, the gaining of wisdom or the understanding of freedom is not imposed by man upon men, nor can it be. It is not marketed or sold. It is bought; but it is bought only in the sense that an individual seeking truth will look at whatever fragments he can bring within his purview and declare, as he alone sees fit, “I buy that!” This is the process of personally perceiving that which is in the realm of the available.

When an individual is drawn into the orbit of Infinite Consciousness and perceives a portion of truth, that truth can be said to exist in his consciousness; that is, he possesses a fragment of Infinite Consciousness. What he has made his own is distinguished by its attracting quality precisely as is its source; the latter differs from the former only in the force of its attraction. The former is infinite, the latter infinitesimal. This is to say that truth is inherently attractive, regardless of where it exists.”⁴

The Power of Attraction

The power of attraction is not outgoing but ingathering. It draws to itself whatever is susceptible to its force. This is at once its merit and its limitation. This is the given fact. In the context of the thesis of this book the power of attraction any individual exerts will bear a relationship to whatever of Infinite Consciousness he has been able to perceive, to whatever he has in store.

This idea is supported by daily observation. No person will knowingly seek light from one who has no light. Select any activity and ask: To whom are we drawn when seeking enlightenment? In golf, to a dub or to an Arnold Palmer? In cooking, to someone who never heard of a roux or to an Escoffier? In engineering, to one who knows nothing of stress or to an Admiral Moreell? In moral philosophy, to a bandit or to an Augustine?

St. Augustine is a case in point. Deeply contemplative and introspective, he experienced insights and understanding far surpassing those of most people. Bent on his own improvement, the expansion of his own consciousness, he became a master of exposition; that is, he learned to explain the truth which came into his possession. In numerous writings, among them his Confessions, he made available to others that which he had first made his own. Today, more than fifteen centuries later, this is among the most widely purchased of all autobiographies! Here we observe the power of attraction extending itself remarkably in time.

Perfection of Self

Nor is the case of St. Augustine an exception to the rule. His case is the rule! It is this perfection of self which explains why we were attracted to Admiral Moreell—to use a contemporary example—to head the greatest engineering and construction project ever undertaken by man. Suppose that Moreell or St. Augustine, in the years of their relative immaturity, had called it quits, that is, had given up any pursuit of perfection, and had then gone about setting the world straight. St. Augustine wrote critically of his youth:

But I wretched, most wretched, in the very beginning of my youth, had begged chastity of Thee; and said, “Give me chastity and continence, only not yet.”

It is obvious that neither of these men would have developed any attractive powers whatsoever. Indeed, they would not have acquired those qualities which are susceptible to the attraction of Infinite Consciousness. They would have remained as human sawdust—unattractable and unattracting!

There is, however, one pitfall to be avoided. Most of us, when we move slightly ahead of our contemporaries, are prone to think of ourselves as “having arrived,” as having graduated from immaturity. Thus we forego the further pursuit of truth in favor of badgering others with such fragments of truth as we have. There is no such thing as earthly completion; the term “maturity” is not in the grammar of The Infinite.

No Power of Compulsion

Man, be he St. Augustine or whosoever, can never know for certain whether his own insights—his little fragments—are in fact truth. We should be grateful, therefore, that truth can only attract but not compel. Imagine how destructive it would be to man’s emergence, to the whole process of human evolution, if the tiny fragments any of us possesses could be thrust, forced, or impregnated into the minds of others! In brief, is it not encouraging, rather than distressing, that we cannot “sell” or “market” our own idea of truth as we can peddle material things? How reluctant we would be to allow anyone the power of forcing his ideas into our own consciousness! This would transform men into robots. Logically, we cannot accept as right for ourselves that which we construe to be wrong for everyone else, without ascribing a God-like character to ourselves. Heaven forbid!

In summary: Not only is it impossible to penetrate the consciousness of another with truth; it is undesirable. Truth, wisdom, an understanding of freedom, an expanding consciousness are the highest of human aims and the methods of attaining them must be of an equally high order.

If freedom is to make any gains as a way of life, more individuals will need a better understanding of freedom than any of us now displays. This appears to be self-evident. Those who favor advancing an understanding of freedom are the only ones who can assist in such a venture. This, also, appears to be self-evident. But, how can they help? That’s the question.

Life′s Most Difficult Task

The method, not its application, is as simple as a-b-c. The solution lies in an expanding consciousness of freedom and its miraculous workings, and skillful exposition thereof by those who attain it. Consciousness—thinking, perceiving, understanding, attaining wisdom—is personal and individual. The only consciousness any individual can improve or expand is his own. Therefore, achieving the freedom objective involves nothing less than the widening of one’s own consciousness! Nothing less than life’s most difficult task.

Why is this simple solution so little recognized, as if it were a secret; or so hesitatingly accepted, as if it were something unpleasant? Why do so many regard as hopeless the broadening of the single consciousness over which the individual has some control while not even questioning their ability to stretch the consciousness of others over which they have no control at all?

Most of the answers to these questions are as complex as the psychoanalysis of a dictator or the explanation of why so many people dote on playing God. Leaving these aside, because I do not know the answers, there stands out one stubborn but untenable reason: the widespread but desolating belief that the world or the nation or society could never be “saved” by the mere salvaging of private selves. People say, “There isn’t time for such a slow process,” and then, to speed things up, they promptly hurry in the wrong direction! They concentrate on the improvement of others, which is a hopeless task, and neglect the improvement of themselves, which is possible. Thus, the world or the nation or society remains unimproved.

Said Victor Hugo, “More powerful than armies is an idea whose time has come.” While incontestably true, this ray of hope presupposes the existence of ideas. We might as well admit it, there is a dearth of freedom ideas.

An Infinite Frontier

I find it helpful to think of Infinite Consciousness—wisdom, truth, the understanding of freedom—as an infinitely precious ore, buried deep in the human soul, the individual soul. This concept seems to square with experience, for no living person can mine any other ore than his own. But there is evidence aplenty that that spiritual ore is always available.

The object to be achieved is of the highest order: understanding freedom. The method must fit the problem. It can consist of nothing less than an increasing consciousness of freedom and the ideas appertaining thereto. Only an individual can mine this truth, this ore of awareness. This ore—Infinite Consciousness as it exists potentially in the human soul—is attractive but it cannot draw to itself disinterest, apathy, know-it-allness, these being no more than intellectual and spiritual sawdust. The first step to a “break through,” as earlier suggested, is a profound desire on the part of the individual that such should come to pass. Only by seeking, striving, can the individual find and achieve; and the higher the aim the greater must be his effort. Nothing short of a will to a greater awareness can be susceptible to this power of attraction.

A Self-Mining Operation

In a sense the method that fits the freedom objective can be thought of as an intellectual and spiritual mining operation, each individual his own miner.

No individual, however, can extract more than a fragment of this ore of awareness. No one ever has and, assuming the finiteness of earthly man, no one ever will. The most productive miner—the most advanced creative thinker—who ever lived could not exist on the fragment mined by himself alone. He and his fellow men have existed—can exist—only by the pooling of their respective fragments, their intellectual and spiritual resources. We all exist by reason of the advantage we take of the unique resources of each. This appears to be another self-evident fact.

The method to fit the objective of achieving freedom takes shape, becomes apparent. It is, in short, for each of us to mine his own ore of Infinite Consciousness, refine it, and then make available, to all who seek, the distillate—the wisdom—unique in each fragment.

Enough To Do at Home

For this process to work it is necessary that one’s eye be kept on his own mining, never on repairing the shortcomings of others, never on inflicting one’s own unique fragment on others. Indeed, it is important not only to refrain from any overt acts of this kind, but even from all covert thoughts as well. Intentions of reforming others, regardless of how skillfully disguised, are antagonistic to one’s own explorations. Further, they cause others, instinctively, to “run around the corner when they see you coming.” But it is easy enough to cleanse the soul and mind of these intentions when once the attracting power of truth is appreciated. The seeker after truth should rely on it and should trust it to attract all that is susceptible to it, for Truth seems to shy away from those who lack faith in its power.

Explanations of what is discovered should be made in speech and writing not as a means of repairing others but as the most effective way to increase personal exploratory powers, and—possibly—inspire others. Newly discovered ideas are but ore until refined with words, the tools of thought. Expositions devoid of any intention of making over others are attractive in proportion to the truth they contain. Properly, we give out ideas that we may further receive ideas. We teach: that is, we make available our discoveries, that we may learn more. Giving is a precondition to receiving.

So-called educational programs designed to repair the ignorant, when applied to the high-level freedom area, are less than useless. They only activate the existing ignorance, better left dormant.

Improvement Requires Humility

The method that fits an improved understanding of freedom begins with humility. The personal reasoning compatible with right method would seem to go something like this: To be honest about it, I know next to nothing about freedom myself. True, I favor freedom in a general sort of way but I cannot skillfully make the case for it nor do I know how to refute the clichés of state absolutism. I am woefully inarticulate. Attractive? Why, not even my wife or my children or my neighbors or my business friends or my employees seek my counsel. And, why should they? What have I to give? What is in me that they can draw on? Self-improvement assuredly is in order. Perhaps there are others in my circles of activities who would join with me in upgrading our individual selves. We could be of help to each other. My ideas, should I come upon any, might be useful to them; their ideas helpful to me. The more each of us improves, the more attractive will each of us become to the others. For one thing, I shall no longer attempt to insinuate my notions into the minds of others. Instead, I shall try to gain an understanding that they will desire to share.

Humility of the above brand never becomes inappropriate, regardless of how far one progresses. For progress in personal consciousness in the direction of Infinite Consciousness can never be more than a relative progress, that is, relative to where we ourselves were or where our contemporaries are. To realize one’s potentials, it is only necessary to keep the eye cast toward an ever-increasing awareness or consciousness, taking no cognizance whatever of the minor superiorities over others one may achieve. People, quite naturally, are fascinated with, interested in, attracted to those who concentrate on seeking truth.

Reasoning suggests, and observations of the past seem to confirm, the attractiveness of truth. Its power is miraculous. There was one promise that should be borne in mind and unreservedly trusted: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER 8

BENNETT, J. G. The Crisis in Human Affairs. New York: Hermitage House, 1951. (o.p.)

EDDINGTON, ARTHUR STANLEY. Science and the Unseen World. New York: MacMillan Company, 1929.

EULENBURG-WIENER, RENEE VON. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. New York: MacMillan Company, 1938. (o.p.)

GHISELIN, BREWSTER (ed.). The Creative Process. New York: The New American Library, 1952.

HARDING, ROSAMOND, E. M. The Anatomy of Inspiration. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Son, Ltd., 1948. (o.p.)

HEARD, GERALD. Training for the Life of the Spirit. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942.

HUTCHINSON, ELIOT DALE. How To Think Creatively. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951.

JOAD, C. E. M. Decadence. London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1948.

JOHNSON, RAYNOR. The Imprisoned Splendour. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953.

JUNG, C. G. The Undiscovered Self. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1957.

NOUY, LECOMTE DU. Human Destiny. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1947.

WHITE, STEWART EDWARD. The Unobstructed Universe. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1940.

WINKLER, FRANZ E. Man: The Bridge Between Two Worlds. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960.

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^* This was published by The Myrin Institute, Inc., at Adelphi College, bearing the title, Let the Method Fit the Objective.

¹ This power of attraction gives me the impression of occurring in waves—pulsating, as it were—and on countless frequencies. It is as if we were alternately drawn to or into its orbit and then left on our own. One frequency shows forth as a dark age, and the next as a renaissance. In daily life the individual experiences the rhythm of this force in shorter frequencies: as elation and depression, ambition and laziness, mental alertness and sluggishness, spiritual sensitiveness and insensitiveness, as if being led and as if alone, the perceptive apparatus turned on and then off, flashes of reason and return to habit—all in all, over the ages, man emerging from a Neanderthal state to produce occasionally a Socrates, Augustine, Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci, or Edison.

² No question about it, much has been lost from this stockpile, for man regresses as well as progresses.

³ “For as He, who has all power, denies Himself any power over us save that of love, to win us to love and obedience, so He would have us use the same power whereby He has won us to Himself. This is not sentimentality. On the contrary it is a hard saying. For, because God out of love will never coerce man, will never use any power but love to turn back to Himself; man is free to torture and torment himself until he sees that his methods are not those of his Maker.” Gerald Heard, editor, Prayers and Meditations (New York: Harper & Brothers), p. 39.

⁴ This is not to argue that truth as held by man is necessarily an attractive force. Nor is truth the only attractive force. The power of attraction, as related to man, seems to bear some relationship to extraordinary skills. Great bull fighters or, vernacularly, great bull throwers draw people to them. Men who devoutly pursue truth, with a measure of success, and who achieve extraordinary skills in its exposition, give man-held truth its magnetism.