Definitions - Authorities – Experts – Officials – Laymen

Workshop-Tape 37 of old tapes DL

Let’s discuss the four possibilities we find man taking a position in the world.  We find some people are referred to as authorities.  And some are referred to as experts, and some are officials, and some are referred to as laymen. 

Now let’s see how all these work if we may for a little bit.  An authority is a person who tells us what to think, what to believe because he thinks he knows and we don’t, is that about the closest way to describe an authority. 

An expert is a man with a special skill.  A person who knows how to tie electric wires together or a man who knows how make a computer that can put a man on the moon.  They are very useful people around.

Officials are people who can tell you what to do for the well being of most of the people.  If you go down to the intersection and the traffic signal is out, there’s a man out in the middle that can say, “You go this way”, “You stop.” “You go.”  He has nothing to do with what you think, what you believe or anything else—he can only tell you (which we have elected him to that office) and others what what to do when there are groups running together. 

So we have officials which are very useful.  We have experts which are very useful.  And we have authorities which tell us what to believe and what to think because he says he knows and we don’t know.

And then we have the layman.  The layman is the person who doesn’t know the difference between the other three.  And the layman makes it possible for other people to become con men, dictators, despots, rulers, and leaders.  And how does the layman bring these “authorities” about. He’s quite a creator when you stop to think about because he wants to be safe.

And to be safe, he looks for somebody to depend on.  And then he begins to depend on this one or this one or this one up here.
(see the “picture of man” in Illustrations—those who tell us to self improve etc.) 

The expert will tell the laymen that he, the expert, can only do what he can do—it’s a specialty field.
The official sometimes does like to go ahead and be a dictator or ruler or something of this sort. 

The authority is the one who is most subject to the temptation that the layman puts him under by wanting to depend. 

The more the layman depends on him, the more the professed “authority” activates the feeling of gaining pleasure because to exercise a power is pleasurable.  And it also lets him get over his “sense of inferiority” because somebody is depending on him.

So, he gets more and more carried away, and either becomes a con man which means that he sees that he can use these people for his own profit in dollars and cents, or he can become a leader and get over his “sense of inferiority”.  And that gives him a great “sense of power”, and the poor layman is still wanting somebody to depend on so the layman saps the energy away from whoever would accept that position—is that about right?  The layman works on the professed “authority”, and the “leader” saps the layman.  

So would you say that that turns into a situation of mutual exploitation?  Now mutual exploitation is while each one is using the other to gain pleasure or escape pain in one form or another, is that correct?  If I use you to gain some kind of feeling of “worthiness or power” and you’re using me to gain some sort of a “sense of safety” are we both in the same boat?  Correct?

And then, of course, when this mutual exploitation starts we have to set a system or an organization in order to have what—the leaders and the followers, is that right?  And does each one exploit the other. 

Does a free man need an organization on which to function in?  None whatsoever.  He can be peaceful without rules and regulations.  Can you? 

But now if I’m going to be the leader and you’re going to be the followers we have to get things kind of lined don’t we?  We got to know what the rules to this little game are?  So in this exploitation,  we got to set up rules and regulations then.  Each one uses the other for their own advantages.  Are both of them unconscious?  They sure are.  This is an unconscious game, isn’t it?  You might much more call it a dream because the follower dreams he’s being safe by taking on all these little games and rules and taking everything that the leader has to say. 

Now the layman has to grant to the one he’s going to exploit (to make him feel safe) one concession.   Would you like to know what that one concession is?  He has to grant him that everything he says is true.  He’s not going to feel safe unless he gives him this one concession.   That everything the leader says is true.  If I’m going to follow you and feel safe in following, I’ve got to make you infallible.  Now would you grant, in your conscious thinking that anyone you were doing business with or had any kind of relationship with—would you grant that everything they say or do is true?  You wouldn’t do that would you?  

If you do that, have you laid temptations on the leader?  So the layman then puts tremendous temptations on the so-called leader.  He has put so horrible temptations that it would take a stronger man than most conscious people could resist the temptation to use it. 

Now all I got to do is tell you anything; and you’ve already agreed that you will do it because you’re going to follow so you’ll be safe.  In order for you to be safe, you have to say that I’m what—everything I say is true: therefore, I am infallible. 

Now have we set up a rather ferocious violence?  Because then the leader has to play the proper game or he would no longer be the leader and he could no longer get over his feeling of inferiority or his sense of power.  So he’s got to go along with the game. 

That’s the king’s clothes game we talked about one time—the story of the Emperor’s new clothes.

So the leader is a victim just as much as the follower is.  Both are victimizing each other.  Both are eating each other—literally eating each other up.  Would you put that kind of temptation on anybody that you would say that whatever someone says,  I’m going to accept as true.  That would be leading the person into temptation would it now? 

You wouldn’t grant anybody that for your own well being, and second you wouldn’t do that kind of harm to anyone, would you?  You wouldn’t do that consciously.  Unconsciously we do it all the time.  So the Roman Catholics all over the world have said that the Pope—just because he gets elected as an official in a good old big organization—is infallible.  That he can make no error—because everything he gets--all the messages come straight—and so if he issues a proclamation, then everybody has to accept that as what?--one hundred percent true, fact, straight from headquarters, or else they wouldn’t feel safe any longer would they?  And Lord knows, that’s what we gotta have.  We got to feel safe.  And so then do we exploit ourselves in the process of exploiting this poor guy. 

And does he exploit us because he accepts it—that is dog eat dog, it’s called?  And we read when Christ was on earth, he was talking to the Pharisees quite a bit.  It’s the only people he criticized because the Pharisees were what?—the leaders.  So the people the layman down here had said that everything the Pharisees said is true, and they had to live by what they said.  And He called the Pharisees some pretty dirty little words for doing that—for even accepting it.  He said they laid grievous burdens on people’s shoulders.  Did they have to?  They had to, they were caught in the trap.  They couldn’t get over their feeling of inferiority, and these people wouldn’t  feel safe.  But as long as you delude somebody that he is safe when you know that he isn’t—what kind of harm are you doing? 

Would you delude someone saying that he had gotten over all his conditioning and was in a state of purity while he is living by this conditioning--would you do that?  Could you?  Could you consciously do that?  No matter if it made him feel safe for the few minutes—could you lay that on him and tell him and say, “Look you’ve gotten all over this.”  “We did a couple little things down here—we did action #1 and #2 and now you’re all over this.”  “And now you can go on and you will evolve through all eternity because we have fixed you up.”  Would you do that to anybody?  Would you want it done to you?  But is this the game that you see?  If we look we can see it being played everywhere--every day. 

So what is the one thing you have to give as a concession before you can buy any ideology.  That the leaders of the ideology are right 100 percent of the time—you can’t even say 99 percent—because if you do the whole show is broke.  So you have to make a man into a god before you can join an organization or start being a follower, is that correct?  You’ve made him into something that could under no ways be in error, be confused, or be a con man.  It doesn’t matter which one he is as long as we say he is infallible, and that everything he says is true. 

Now if you’ll grant me that one concession that everything I say is true, I’ll win any argument  you want to place out for me—you haven’t got a chance because  I’ll win every argument you bring up.  All I got to do is go back and say “I got it straight down the line, and you better not question because if you do your whole safety is blown.” 

Now which do you want--to be safe or to be an intelligent , free living being in all of your inheritance.