Elaboration 14.3

Yet a more theoretical approach to applause & control is in the idea, the idea-dynamic notion of 'ascribed authority'. This is part of the (ideational) influencing process, in particular of the reality dimension of idea. In effect, it is the placebo-effect. When a 4 year old boy tells you that it is going to rain next Tuesday, you take it just as it is, a mere message with little certainty in it. When, on the other hand, an official meteo-logist tells you the same, you believe in it somewhat more (a meteoro-logist studies meteors). His authority (not 'in' him but ascribed by you) is greater. Should you know however, that the 4 year old boy has the extraordinary powers to be 'always' correct in weather predictions (history, ideation is history), you also give his message a greater likelihood. In the same manner are we not likely to go to a butcher for an appendicitis but to a doctor. Ascribed authority, is the measure of truth or likelihood we automatically link up to an idea. Often, we are superstitious in our ascriptions. We may think a man who uses difficult words to be an expert, or one who speaks 'as if' he knows what he is talking about, a mystery-based argument about planet-positions, sperrits, an aura, etc. often causes a high authority to be ascribed. There is an automatic gradation that has to do with numbers for instance. A teacher in a classroom has a higher authority than e.g. the school porter. A lector in front of a university college hall is yet higher. So is a man in front of a microphone who's voice is carried over to thousands. Higher is a television camera, a man on the film-screen, etc., they are gradations of (ascribed) control capacity. Why should a costly world radio station, at the cost of thousands of pounds per minute, blab out names of people, known only to perhaps 10 or 20 other persons in the whole of the 5 billion, in these so-called request programs? Sometimes for 10% of the total music time the absurd calling-of-names goes on. It is applause-gratifying to know that so many ears all over the world hear your name, out of the 5 billion. In show business, the trick is to act on the stage just 'as if' you are perfectly at ease, totally in control, i.e. lure the audience into ascribing a high authority-rate to you. Often, hypnodynamic techniques like 'idea-motor action' are used. This is when the man on the stage or show-master, just 'asks' for your applause, or he induces a verbal response in you, by which 'participation', your state of suggestibility is risen. Suggestibility (in you), is another word for credulity, for ascribed authority (to him, by you). Hitler and Goebbels were natural talents (fortunately not theoretically schooled) in this, and they often used subconscious or sub-liminal trickery. It is known e.g. that Goebbels, once, when speaking as introductory to the fuehrer, observed that the clouds were about to break. He then prolonged his speech so that ... when Hitler came up, the sun broke through (Fest). This is sheer art. The art of deception, of suggesting high authority, high control. It is basic for all stage praxis, all campaigning for presidencies or popes, all marketing, teaching, parentation, counseling, therapeutics, etc. In the animal world, to which we belong as behaviourists tell us, this principle of 'conditioning' is the rule and we are not free from it. See also the difference in speeches between proof which is science, and emphasis (see Dale Carnegie), which is rhetorica, control, applause, authority, suggestion. The animal too, reacts stronger to the stronger signal (barking, shouting etc.). Look at the screaming, 10 cm lettering on the front pages of newspapers. Their voices are so loud (emphasis) that, taking emphasis for proof, the message simply 'must' be true (reality dimension). Once, an anti-alcoholism movement expressed its grave concern about the thousands of times per day that on television, the drinking habit was actually propagated (apart from the commercials). They, wholly correct, supposed that it would add and add to the serious social problem of alcoholism. But then, by the same sort of subconscious and subliminal NEGATIVE education, the viewer is also constantly taught to accept and practise, violence, hatred, discrimination, stupidity, sexual perversities, etc. You are taught to be a macho-man, a stallion or breeding bull on wheels, screaming with the tyres, you are taught to accept the anti-social racing on water or motors, the mishandling of costly engines, the willful destruction of earth's resources, its plants and animals, you are taught the complete absence of rights in other people, the absence of any duty in yourself, etc. You are taught, i.e. education! In short, the media are in the hands of bastards. They are never concerned about the good of their customers but only about their own applause, their salaries, their status. The beginning student of ideation, of mind-science, should study all this ideation theory, all this genesis of stupidity, this phenomenon of ascribed authority, control, applause etc. The first digit of idea, that is the reality dimension, is not simply a binary notation in 'Yes - No', but it is in itself already a whole range of pluses and minuses, Yesses or No's, beginning with 'yes/no I', followed by 'yes/no reality (i.e. truth) ', then 'yes/no good', etc.